Keith Richards Painful Health Bombshell Leaks

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Twisted Sister manager and guitarist Jay Jay French recently talked about the artists who rely on backing tracks during live shows. He claimed that the Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards and Ron Wood “can barely play” and occasionally employ backstage guitar players.

Jay Jay French talks about Keith Richards

Artists have been witnessed to depend on backing tracks for parts that people feel should be performed live, and Jay Jay French sums up the root of the problem neatly in a recent interview on the “Syncin’ Stanley” YouTube channel:

“We’re not 20 years old anymore. Most of your heroes are now 70 or close to 80, and they can’t do it.”

And while fans would naturally want to see bands playing everything live when attending the show, Jay Jay argues that the issue is more complex on the other end:

“As a manager, this is a more complicated answer. I can say, ‘Oh, it sucks. Everyone should just do everything for real,’ but there’s a lot of money on the table and bands are under a lot of pressure to replicate records. And I guess at the end of the day, the real answer is, do the fans care or not? And if the fans don’t care, and there’s a lot of money on the table, the band’s under a lot of pressure to replicate a record, then they get away with it and they do it. So it doesn’t really matter what I say; it just is what it is, and they do it because they feel the pressure.

According to the guitarist, not many musicians will straight out confess that they’re not able to perform specific songs in their original shape anymore, naming Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant as a rare example.

Jay Jay French added that although the issue of backing tracks mostly relates to singers, some bands will resort to backups even for other members as well, claiming that the Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood do exactly that:

“This mostly applies to singers, although in a band like The Rolling Stones, the only one in that band who’s actually good these days is Mick Jagger. His vocals, actually, are as good as ever, if not better. The rest of the band [laughs] really need help.

“Keith [Richards] and Woody [Ron Wood] have arthritis and they can barely play. I understand that they use guitar players behind the scenes on nights when they really can’t play.”

He went on:

“So it’s very much a matter of what you will tolerate. If these bands believe the fans will tolerate it, then they get away with it and they do it. It’s not for me to say whether they should or they shouldn’t. You do what you feel you can do, and you get away with it if you feel you can get away with it, and more power to you.

“Again, the pressure is on. What do you do when you’re charging a lot of money for a ticket and there’s expectations as to the performance? And what are your expectations? Are you willing to forgo, you don’t care if a singer sings flat or he can’t sing in key? Does it matter to you? Are you gonna walk out going, ‘It sucks’, or do you go, ‘Wow. He sounded really good?'”

As for Twisted Sister itself, Jay Jay said:

“We as a band, Twisted Sister performs live. We’ve never, in the 15 performing years, from 2003 to the time we retired, we never [used backing tracks]. Everything was right out there — all the guitar playing, bass playing, singing — everything was live. But I don’t begrudge bands [who use tapes].

“We’re not 20 years old anymore. Most of your heroes are now 70 or close to 80, and they can’t do it. So if you’re willing to pay, and you don’t care, and if you’re willing to forgo a certain amount of that emotion because you wanna have it like the record, then they’ll do it and you’ll pay, and that’ll be the end of it. And so be it.”