There's an article circulating called "17 Ways To Kill Your Music Career" that I found to be well-written and entirely true, if not a tad misleading. From what I recall, some of the "ways" had to do with drinking too much, taking a half-assed approach to social media, and so on, and while those were all good examples of what not to do to get ahead in the music business, it left out one key qualifier.
See, for it to have been completely factual, the title should have been "17 Ways To Kill Your Music Career - If You're Mediocre."
They never mention that part, do they?
See, the more mediocre you are, the more you find yourself watching your P's and Q's, being on your best behavior, and, by and large, acting the complete OPPOSITE of most great bands.
But if you can sing the phone book or write timeless pop culture touchstones in your sleep, then such rules no longer apply to you.
In fact, you can get away with bloody murder.
Let us not forget that Keith Richards was gacked out of his gourd for much of the '70s and that, at one point, Richards was completely incapable of functioning straight, yet almost bed-ridden by the throes of crippling addiction and, therefore, virtually impossible to lure into the studio.
Something had to give, but, until it did, the Stones were going to do what any great band held prisoner by an addict would do in that situation: If Keith wouldn't come to the studio, the studio would come to Keith.
Famously, the end result was Exile On Main Street, which succeeded not only in romanticizing 'heroin chic', but also unwittingly furthering the already-sizable reputation of the Rolling Stones Mobile Recording Unit, which went on to have quite the "career" of its own, being central to the recording of classic albums by The Who, Deep Purple, Fleetwood Mac, and Led Zeppelin, to name but a few.
Would they have done that for a mediocre guitarist or a middling songwriter?
Perhaps we should ask Brian Jones.
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what would keef do