Keith Richards: The state of good drugs has gone down

In an interview with Billboard Keith Richards opens up about drugs, Donald Trump, Mick Jagger, The Grateful Dead, and reveals the only contemporary artists he can tolerate (Taylor Swift is not one of them)

On drugs:
"Love my weed. Unashamedly a fan. A piece of good hashish now and again. But otherwise ..."

"You know, the state of good drugs has gone down. In the '60s and '70s, you had barbiturates, which were great downers. And Quaaludes. These drugs were fairly simple. You took them, you pissed them out. But these new ones, the Xanax? I'm not there with that. [But] I still take Dilantin"

On Donald Trump:
"I do find him refreshing. He's cut through a lot of crap, and eventually ... well, can you imagine President Trump? The worst nightmare. But we can't say that. Because it could happen. This is one of the wonders of this country. Who would've thought Ronald Reagan could be president?"

How he feels about The Grateful Dead:
"The Grateful Dead is where everybody got it wrong," he scoffs. "Just poodling about for hours and hours. Jerry Garcia, boring shit, man. Sorry, Jerry."

Mick Jagger is a...
"a control freak," says Richards. "He has admitted it to me."

On contemporary music he can tolerate, and his underhanded comment about Taylor Swift:
And though he makes exceptions for Florence Welch (whose last name escapes him at lunch) and Ed Sheeran (who opened for the Stones in June), he can't tolerate most contemporary music. When I try to draw him out on Taylor Swift, he stops himself. "Oh, I don't want to sound like an old man," he says, harrumphing loudly before dissolving in laughter.