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Rolling Stones Quotes: Charlie Watts about his 1985 junkie period (2001)
CHARLIE WATTS ON HIS WILD 1985 PHASE In 2001, Charlie Watts looked back on his mid-80s meltdown with raw honesty. He admitted he was a wreck—booze, drugs, the works—totally reckless and way out of character for him. He joked that Keith thought he’d started too late, but for Charlie it felt like a weird mid-life crisis. Having skipped the heavy stuff in his youth, he suddenly dove in, saying “sod it” and spiraled into one of his darkest personal periods.
“During this period I was personally in a hell of a mess and as a result I wasn’t really aware of the problems between Mick and Keith and the danger these posed to the band’s existence. I was in pretty bad shape, taking drugs and drinking a lot. I don’t know what made me do it that late in life – well, to Keith, it wasn’t late enough! – although in retrospect I think I must have been going through some kind of mid-life crisis. I had never done any serious drugs when I was younger, but at this point in my life I went, Sod it, I’ll do it now – and I was totally reckless...
...What scared me was that I became a completely different person by going down that path, a totally different person to the one that everybody had known for over 20 years… This phase lasted for a couple of years, but it took a long time for me, and my family, to get over it. I was another person, I was Dracula in the mid-’80s. I used to go out at night, it was ridiculous… It was the life of a junkie, without being really down there. I saw it before I really got down there. And it’s a thing that frightens me, actually… I can’t explain it, I don’t know why I did it.”
Keith Richards’ Warning and Charlie’s Wake-Up Call
Charlie Watts, the typically reserved and refined drummer of The Rolling Stones, once flirted with a darker lifestyle during the late ’70s. During the recording sessions for the band’s 1978 album Some Girls, Watts admitted he experimented with heroin but, thankfully, never fell into full addiction. In a candid interview with BBC 6 Music, he recalled a pivotal moment when he passed out on the studio floor—only to be woken by none other than Keith Richards. “Keith told me, ‘You should do this when you’re older.’ Keith telling me this!” Watts laughed, noting how surreal it was to be warned by the famously hard-living guitarist. “But it stuck,” he added, “and I just stopped, along with everything else.” That bizarrely grounded advice from a man who embodied rock ‘n’ roll excess turned out to be the turning point that pulled Watts away from potential addiction. (Ref. Charlie Watts junkie period)
Reputation, Redemption and Reunions
Ironically, Richards, the very person who helped Watts clean up, had long been associated with drugs and debauchery himself. In 1973, he faced 25 drug charges after police found heroin, marijuana, Mandrax, and paraphernalia at his home—though Richards always maintained the authorities framed him. Despite such controversies, the Stones pushed on. Decades later, it was announced that Mick Jagger and Richards planned to meet in December to talk about the band’s upcoming 50th anniversary. The meeting hinted at reconciliation between the two, who had been publicly feuding ever since Richards mocked Jagger’s manhood in his autobiography Life. But grudges aside, the band seemed poised to reunite and commemorate their legendary debut gig on July 12, 1962—proof that even in rock’s wildest stories, there’s room for redemption and reflection. (Ref. Charlie Watts junkie period)
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