Keith Richards has had his brushes with the law – some severe ones, at that. He has faced police busts, endured house searches and razzias, and had his hotel room door broken down by keen officers of the law. He’s had to put up with constant pat-downs and questioning wherever he has travelled. He’s been arrested countless times. The constant scrutiny conditioned him to be alert at all times.
Sometimes this scrutiny has inspired a song. Or maybe even two.
Jesse Ventura is a retired professional wrestler. He was also the Governor of Minnesota from 1999 to 2003. What might be less known is that on a few occasions, he worked as a bodyguard for the Rolling Stones in the early 1980s. This was not on a permanent basis; he was in charge of the band’s security detail when they came through his home city Minneapolis in 1978 and 1981.
The following happened on the night of the show at the Civic Center Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota on 21 November 1981. Jesse Ventura was with Keith and Ronnie in the dressing room when their manager entered and told them, “The police are here.”
Richards jumped up like a confused, panicked cat. He locked eyes with Woody, and they were both immediately thinking the same thing: we need to get rid of our stash.
They grabbed what they had and started flushing it down the toilet.
30 seconds later, in walks Stewart Copeland and Sting.
Richards would share the same story in his autobiography Life later on, corroborating Ventura’s amusing eye-witness account.
Apparently, the same thing happened to many bands whenever The Police visited them backstage unannounced. Who knows if they took some joy in giving certain bands a fright.
Ventura would later reveal that one of the highlights of his time as Minnesota Governor was giving the Rolling Stones their own official state day: 15 February. He told torontosun.com: “My first proclamation as Governor was in February, 1999 and I officially declared it Rolling Stones Day in Minnesota. The Stones were there that night playing and they got the proclamation. Keith Richards walked up to me that night and said in his cockney accent, ‘So you used to bodyguard us back in ’78 and ’81, huh?’ And I said, ‘Yep,’ and he said, ‘And now you’re the Governor… f**kin’ great!’ I’ll always remember that.”
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