Keith Richards on reuniting the Rolling Stones and going sober: ‘The drugs are so bland these days’.

Keith Richards hasn’t had a drink since Christmas. The legendarily hard-living rock and roll icon sounds almost reluctant to admit to sobriety. “I’m not saying I’m definitely off all of this stuff,” he protests. “In six months’ time, I might be on it again. But at the moment, for a couple of months, I haven’t touched it.” When I ask how he is finding abstinence, he chuckles ruefully. “It’s novel.”

The 74-year-old Rolling Stone still smokes incessantly and speaks as if his vocal cords are coated in thick layers of fur, but he insists that cigarettes and coffee are the only real vices he has left. He is impressively disdainful of the prescription drugs rife among a younger generation, such as Xanax and Percocet. “Drugs are not interesting these days. They are very institutionalised and bland. And, anyway, I’ve done ’em all.”

His laughter is rich, throaty and infectious, constantly bubbling up to shade his remarks with mischief. Richards has always been the Stones’ most entertaining conversationalist, brutally honest and quick-witted. On the recent spate of retirements of many of his musical contemporaries, he chortles: “More room for us!” On Sir Elton John’s announcement of a three-year farewell tour, he chuckles, “After three years on the road with Elton, you would want to retire, too. I’ll take his word for it.” Richards had a long feud with Elton (who once described him as “an a–hole” who looks like “a monkey with arthritis”). However, he is in a forgiving mood. “He’s a lovable old dear,” he says of him now. “He’s softening with age.” But on the question of whether he’ll miss Elton when he’s gone, he is unmoved. “Not at all.”

Asked what it would take to bring the Rolling Stones’ long run to an end, Richards is unequivocal: “Somebody keeling over.” Drummer Charlie Watts has claimed that it wouldn’t bother him if the Stones called it a day. But Richards insists there is no thought of retirement. “There’s never ever been a word about it muttered among ourselves. I guess the day’s obviously going to come, some day. But not in the near future. We’re all looking forward to doing what we’re doing, especially back in Blighty.”

What he’s referring to is the Stones’ upcoming stadium tour of Britain in the summer, their first UK shows since Glastonbury and Hyde Park in 2013, and their first tour in more than 10 years. “We’re playing home turf, so there’s a certain extra glow. But it’s always a pleasure to get up there again, especially with this band, man. I think the boys are playing better than ever. Maybe it’s experience, we seem to be able to pace ourselves right. I’m blessed to work with some of the best players ever. That never gets old.”

There is a new Stones album in the works, to follow their fantastic 2016 covers album, Blue & Lonesome. Richards is calling from a studio in New York, where he is awaiting the arrival of Mick Jagger to work on new songs. “Mick’s great, we’re getting on very well,” says Richards. “He’ll be here in half an hour and we’ll be sitting face to face, making music, like always.”

Jagger and Richards met as schoolboys in Fifties Dartford and have been the creative leaders and songwriting heart of the Stones since 1962. They haven’t always got along, though, and there was a particularly unpleasant schism following the publication of Richards’s acclaimed autobiography Life, in 2010, with its disparaging remarks about Jagger. For a while, it seemed touch and go whether the Stones would ever play together again. But the acclaim afforded their shows since getting back on the road in 2012 seems to have helped thaw relationships.

Mick and I live off the fire between us,” says Richards, who is effusively warm about all of his band mates. “We were made for each other. It’s like putting on an old glove, man, you know.” They don’t hang out much between engagements. “We can stay away from each other, happily, for months. But it’s the gaps in between that make it more interesting. You come back fresher. When we do get together, we rehearse very hard, we soak ourselves in it.”