"People think I'm still a fucking junkie. And I left the drugs thirty years ago! The image is a very long shadow that is still seen even when the sun has set "
Keith Richards was the rocker who had more ballots to go to better life during the seventies. His addiction to heroin made it difficult for the Rolling Stones to function and the solution to get clean was to become an urban legend. Did Richards come to change all his blood for fresh blood in Switzerland?
The sword of Damocles hung over the head of Keith Richards. In the 1970s, and for a long time afterwards, the Rolling Stones guitarist had a questionable honor: according to "New Musical Express", he topped the list of the ten rock stars that were most likely to die. His dangerous addiction to heroin gave him many ballots to leave the world of the living, but Keith always took his own way to be the first on this list of possible corpses:
"I was number one on that list for ten years! That made me laugh. It's the only list I've been in for ten years at number one. In a way I was proud of my position, which I believe no one else has occupied for as many years as I have. "
In rock history, the name Keith Richards has always been associated with the drug world and this dangerous hobby has caused him multiple problems and clashes with the rest of his Rolling Stones teammates. In 1973, His Satanic Majesties released the album "Goats head soup" and in autumn of that same year, the band would take to the road to present their new work through Europe. But there was one small drawback. At that time, Keith, who lived a slave of the heroin, was not in the best conditions to be involved in the usual vortex that involves a tour. A remedy had to be found for it to be disengaged, and it had to be sought soon.
The solution was presented in Switzerland in the form of a clinic. A simple treatment and Richards would look like new. This would be the origin of the most popular urban legend related to the Stones guitarist. According to the biography published by Victor Brockis, Keith Richards and Marshall Chess, president of Rolling Stone Records and son and nephew of the founders of Chess Records, attended this clinic between the concerts of Innsbruck, Austria, and Bern, Switzerland, which took place on the 23rd and 26th of September respectively. According to Brockis, Richards and Chess would undergo a blood cleansing process that would last three days:
"The treatment required a hemodialysis process in which the patient's blood was passed through a pump where it was separated from the sterile dialysis fluid by a semi-impermeable membrane. This allowed the toxic substances contained in the blood supply, which would normally have been secreted by the kidneys, to pass from the blood to the dialysis fluid. "
Although it may seem complex, Keith recalled the process as something "simple":
"We were changing our blood little by little until, after forty-eight hours, we did not have any trace of heroin in the body. We did not suffer anything, and we spent the rest of the week resting and recovering strength. "
Richards invited Tony Sanchez "El Español", a regular member of the Rolling Stones' innermost clique, to also undergo the same treatment, but he refused. According to this character, Keith learned the lesson as soon as he left the clinic:
"I saw how he accepted a line of coke from Bobby Keys [the Rolling Stones saxophonist] and I rebuked him for his stupidity. 'Yes, well,' said Keith. 'Now it does not matter if I get hooked again. I can leave it whenever I want without problems. '"
Precisely, Tony Sanchez related his own version of the adventure of Keith in Switzerland in the book that wrote on the Stones. However, he does not use the word "hemodialysis" to define the treatment, but he calls it "blood change":
"Marshall Chess had the solution: 'There is a Florida doctor who can get you out of heroin in a few days by changing your blood 'he told Keith. 'I did it in Mexico a long time ago and it worked perfectly.' The Florida doctor would carry out Keith's blood change in a village called Le Pec Varp in Villars-sur-Ollon, Switzerland. Keith would fly directly to Switzerland after the Stones' concert in Birmingham on 19 September. He would be cured in time to play with the Stones again in Bern, Switzerland, on September 26. Marshall was going to go to Switzerland with Keith to get his blood changed at the same time. "
Between the version of Brockis and the one of Sánchez exists certain differences, contradictions and dance of dates. The version of the first one is more credible than that of the second, since "El Español" seemed to hear bells without knowing where they sounded in relation to the subject. Even so, he released jewels like this:
"I could not help wondering where all this blood came from, or being offended by the decadence of libertine millionaires who recovered their vampire-like health, with fresh, clean innocent blood."
It seems Richards did a really good job in learning about the story from Tony Sanchez's point of view:
"I could not read everything because my eyes were full of laughter."
Keith Richards himself also had his share of guilt in forging this urban myth:
"Someone asked me how I had unhooked, and I told him that I had gone to Switzerland and had completely changed my blood. It was just a joke. I opened my jacket and said, 'How do you like my change of blood?' It was nothing more than a joke. I was tired of answering that question. So I invented the story. "
In his autobiography he recalls this chapter of his life as:
"The story that I was going to Switzerland to change my blood (perhaps the only thing that everyone seems to know about me) gave a real boost to those necromancers. Of course, for Keith it's no problem, he can go to change his blood once in a while and then go back to his old habits. They say that I have made a pact with the devil under the properties of the paved ground of Zurich, the face white as paper, a kind of vampire bite in reverse, and my cheeks regain their pink color. But I've never changed my blood! The story arose because when I went to Switzerland, to the clinic to disengage, I had to land at Heathrow and change planes. And there was the press, following me as usual: "
Hey, Keith!"
"Look, close the fucking beak. I'm going to change my blood.
Bum! That was it. And I kept walking towards the plane. After that it was like it was written in the Bible or something. I was just kidding around to get rid of them. But it has remained forever. "
This was how the Human Riff became a modern Dracula and could never get rid of that label, the junkie that changed his blood as the one who changes the oil of the car:
"I think, in a way, your public character, your image (so they called the thing before), it is a prisoner ball that you have attached to the ankle with a chain. People think I'm still a fucking junkie. And I left the drugs thirty years ago! The image is a very long shadow that is still seen even when the sun has set. It seems to me that in part it is because the pressure for you to be that character is such that you may eventually become him to a moderately endurable point. It's impossible not to end up becoming a parody of the mask you once were. "
Despite remaining ten years hoping to be the first on the list, sly Richards would come down the steps:
"I got a great chill when I started down the list. Finally I fell to the ninth place. Oh, God, it's all over! "
Time puts everyone in their place and if there is a word to define Keith Richards, that is a survivor.
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