How Keith Richards' The X-Pensive Winos came together and toured solo

The X-Pensive Winos started less as a band and more as a middle finger. By the mid-80s, the Rolling Stones were on ice—Mick Jagger was off making solo albums Keith publicly hated, and Keith was itching to prove he could make a killer record without Mick. So in 1987, he called up drummer Steve Jordan (who’d played on some Stones sessions) and guitarist Waddy Wachtel, and they knocked out Talk Is Cheap in a few weeks. The name “X-Pensive Winos” was a throwaway joke about their wine budget on tour, but it stuck.

What made the Winos special was how they became Keith’s road band for two full tours—1988 behind Talk Is Cheap and 1992 behind Main Offender. Unlike the Stones, where Keith is the rhythm guitar foil to Ron Wood, here he stepped up as the frontman, singing lead on every song. The shows were loose and scrappy, heavy on deep cuts like “You Don’t Move Me” and a cover of “Time Is on My Side.” Steve Jordan’s drumming gave the whole thing a funkier, punchier backbone than anything the Stones had done since the 70s.

Years later, the Winos had