Legendary rock god Keith Richards opened up about how he really feels about the Beatles in a new interview with Esquire. The iconic Rolling Stones guitarist took a break from discussing his upcoming solo album "Crosseyed Heart" (set for a Sept. 18 release) to dish about why he thinks the Beatles' famous album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" doesn't hold up today.
"The Beatles sounded great when they were the Beatles. But there's not a lot of roots in that music. I think they got carried away," Richards told Esquire. "Why not? If you're the Beatles in the '60s, you just get carried away - you forget what it is you wanted to do. You're starting to do 'Sgt. Pepper.' Some people think it's a genius album, but I think it's a mishmash of rubbish, kind of like 'Satanic Majesties' -'Oh, if you can make a load of shit, so can we.'"
Richards referenced his band's 1967 album, "Their Satanic Majesties Request," the Rolling Stones' eighth American studio recording that wasn't as warmly received as the group's other releases.
"They have been far too influenced by their musical inferiors and the result is an insecure album in which they try too hard to prove that they too are innovators, and that they too can say something new," rock critic Jon Landau wrote in a 1967 Rolling Stone review for "Satanic Majesties."
The guitar legend also went on to explain that the Beatlemania of the early 1960s may have also had a hand in why the Beatles decided to retreat and focus on writing music with a less-mainstream sound.
"The Beatles, those chicks wore those guys out," Richards said of the thousands of screaming fans. "They stopped touring in 1966 - they were done already. They were ready to go to India and shit."
Read the full interview here.
