It’s almost a tradition in rock history: great bands burn bright, then burn out—often consumed by their own egos. From The Beatles to The Smiths to Pink Floyd, legendary groups have often self-destructed just as they reach their peak. Even brotherly love wasn’t enough to keep Oasis from falling into nearly a decade of bitterness and silence.
But then there’s The Rolling Stones.
Unlike their peers, the Stones endured. Decade after decade, they’ve kept the machine rolling—even as animosity simmered just below the surface. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards may have written the soundtrack to generations, but their relationship was far from harmonious.
Their bond was built more like brothers in a bare-knuckle brawl: deep-rooted loyalty tangled with constant irritation. Richards never denied it—in fact, he made peace with it in the most Rolling Stones way imaginable. In his 2011 memoir Life, Richards admitted to giving Jagger a codename behind his back (and right to his face):
“He became Brenda or Her Majesty. We’d be talking about ‘that b**ch Brenda’ with him in the room, and he wouldn’t know.”
But the magic never came from peace. Jagger and Richards had a telepathic connection when it came to music. Richards fed off Jagger’s showmanship. Jagger knew instinctively how to match Richards’ riffs. It wasn’t chemistry—it was combat, and it made their songwriting bulletproof.
Part of that intensity was born from inconsistency in the guitar lineup. After Brian Jones’ death in 1969, Mick Taylor joined for a turbulent five years, before Ronnie Wood finally brought balance in 1976. Jones, often credited for shaping the band’s early bluesy style, didn’t exactly live up to Richards’ standards in retrospect.
“Because he’s dead, I can say, ‘Oh, Brian was a fantastic musician,’ but it wasn’t true,” Richards said. “Brian wasn’t a great musician… There was a nice bit of chemistry there for a while, which unfortunately didn’t stay.”
Jones, like many in the late ‘60s, was spiraling—brilliant and self-destructive. He partied like a rockstar but cracked under the weight of his own demons. For Richards, the signs were there long before Jones drowned in his swimming pool in 1969.
“He always had to have an enemy,” Richards remembered. “He always had an imaginary foe.”
Had he stayed with the band, maybe that tension could’ve been channeled into the fire that kept the Stones alive. But Jones’ story ended before the real fight ever began.
The Rolling Stones thrived because they didn’t try to hide the tension. They used it. And when other bands crumbled under pressure, Jagger and Richards just gave it a nickname and turned it into rock and roll history.
