- 21 hours ago
Living legend Mick Jagger, the lead singer of The Rolling Stones, looks back at 60 years of rocking and rolling with NME – from badly paid pub gigs in the '60s to hotly anticipated new album 'Foreign Tongues'
Category
🎵
MusicTranscript
00:00The enemy was famous for being very, everything was great, you know, everyone was wonderful, you know,
00:05and then you'd get either three or four star reviews, you never get one.
00:09You know what I mean? And then it became famous for being really rude to everyone, that was its big
00:14thing.
00:15I'm horrible to everyone, no one's any good.
00:18Except for very obscure people that no one had ever heard of, and probably would never hear of again.
00:32Hi, I'm Alex from Enemy, and my guest today really does need no introduction.
00:37He is, and has been for more than 60 years, the frontman of the Rolling Stones, it's Mick Jagger.
00:42Hi there. How are we doing? Alex, I'm alright, how are you?
00:45Well, Enemy interviewed you the first time in 1964.
00:49Okay. It's a long time ago. A very long time ago.
00:51And I've spent this week going through our archive. Oh God!
00:54Sort of digging through, trying to find my favourite covers and interviews.
00:59Shall we reminisce together? If we can try.
01:02I've got a couple of covers I want to sort of hand to you and see if we can sort
01:05of get a bit of a story behind the scenes.
01:07I like mostly because of the headline made me laugh.
01:10The super baddie. Yeah, Jagger the super baddie.
01:13That's me. Outrageous Campery.
01:16In a spectacular aura of sheer outrageous Campery, Jumpin' Jack Flash, that's you.
01:21That's me.
01:22Has this week been a thumping and a bumping and a humping his way through 95 minutes.
01:27Where am I doing this?
01:28I'm not sure. I think it's in the UK.
01:30Yeah, I think it is.
01:31Through 95 minutes of revived British rock, the likes of which we haven't seen since the days of the first
01:36coming.
01:38First coming is referring to what? When we first arrived?
01:41You or Jesus?
01:42Baby Jesus.
01:44Do you have any memories of those days and what it was like to do those?
01:47I mean, this is quite a long way in for The Enemy, you know?
01:51Yeah.
01:51The Enemy was famous for being very...
01:54First of all, when I was reading it when I was a kid, it was just...
01:58Everything was great. Everyone was wonderful.
02:00You know? And then you'd get either three or four star reviews, you never get one.
02:06You know what I mean? Everyone, everyone. And then it became famous for being really rude to everyone.
02:13That was its big thing.
02:14Oh, I'm horrible to everyone and no one's any good.
02:18Except for very obscure people that no one had ever heard of and probably would never hear of again.
02:23Where did you come in on that one? Did you get good or bad reviews?
02:25I came from quite a lot of bad times, I think. You know, being lazy or...
02:30I don't know what they said. You know, you weren't fashionable because you had to be new in The Enemy's
02:35eyes.
02:35I mean, I get it. But, I mean, that was their thing. So, The Enemy went through these different changes
02:42like a band does.
02:44And then the next one I've got is 28th of June, 1980, Rolling Away the Stone. This is my favourite
02:49cover.
02:50I think it's such a lovely... It's nice. But that was 1980. Stripey Shirts were the vogue.
02:55Yeah. Who else was in? Joan Armour Trading that week. ICA Rock Week. We're getting a bit intellectual now.
03:03And Paul Morley. I remember doing interviews with him.
03:06Oh, really? What was it like doing these sort of cover shoots? Were they like really quick or were they
03:09long days?
03:10Very quick. Yeah. Just a snap. Yeah.
03:13Or you'd give them a snap that you hadn't used before. You know, you'd do your own snaps.
03:19But how did you like make those fun? Because you must have done so many by that point.
03:22It's not an awfully lot different from doing them now, to be honest.
03:29But they used to come to my office. I remember them coming. I used to have an office in Maddox
03:35Street.
03:35And it sounds very glamorous from Wayfair, but it was pretty attic-y.
03:39And they used to come round and you'd be just people you knew them quite well.
03:45You know, and they would just hang out and you'd just talk for it.
03:48And there wouldn't be any clocks or anything like that.
03:51Did you... Were you more careful about what you said or did around journalists?
03:54No, you weren't very careful. You'd say all kinds of things.
03:57People would say terrible things and what they shouldn't have said.
04:00They'd say, oh, we're just rubbish. And they'd drink a lot during the interview.
04:04So they'd just come out with anything.
04:07I'm actually reading The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones.
04:10Is this the new one?
04:11No, this is the Stanley Booth.
04:13Oh yeah, but that's very fictional.
04:15Yeah, well that's what I was saying.
04:17There's a great bit in it where he's talking to one of your publicists or team or whatever.
04:20And the guy goes, you know, Mick will deny ever talking to you.
04:25And he said, he did an interview with Newsweek last week.
04:28And he said some stuff and I talked to him about it this week.
04:30And he said, I've never spoken to Newsweek.
04:33So it was better times then, no films.
04:36But I think Stanley Booth is a famous sort of auto-fiction, you know, honestly.
04:41I mean, obviously, he was on tour at The Rolling Stones, but he didn't write, you know,
04:47he just wrote, I think, out of his box most of the time.
04:50There's some great bits where he's like, and then I went back to my bed
04:53and started to make notes about what I'd seen.
04:55Oh, I bet.
04:55But I fell asleep.
04:56Yeah, exactly.
04:58Then forgot everything.
05:00I don't have the cover, but there's a great interview that I was reading.
05:03It's like eight pages.
05:04Really?
05:05Pure Q&A.
05:06It was very meaty.
05:07But February 74, and some of the stuff he said is absolutely brilliant.
05:12This was quite a good nugget, but the first time you played for Alexis Corner in Richmond,
05:15you made a pound or ten bob.
05:18Just a pound.
05:19Sometimes he wouldn't give you anything.
05:22And you'd say, so if you did, so this is before there was the Rolling Stones per se.
05:28Yeah.
05:29We were guests with him, with Alexis.
05:31But we were all guests, so Keith was a guest, I was a guest.
05:38John Baldry was a guest.
05:40Yeah.
05:40And there was another singer whose name I'm going to forget, Ronnie someone, who was a GI.
05:45Anyway, and you'd get ten bob, which is 50 pence.
05:49What would that get you?
05:50One song you'd do, if you did two songs you'd get a quid.
05:52But I mean, what would, could that buy you?
05:54What would that buy you?
05:55A pint?
05:56Two pints, I think.
05:57Two pints, okay.
05:58And you'd drink that on the night, definitely.
05:59Probably that would be gone on the night.
06:02So you'd fit in debt.
06:03But sometimes in those clubs they would give you a pint.
06:05Oh, okay, that's nice.
06:06Maybe.
06:07If you were in the band.
06:08Well, West London's a bit nice.
06:10Yeah, yeah.
06:10Very much nicer.
06:13But sometimes if the take wasn't very good, Alexis would say, sorry cock, sorry cock,
06:18there's not much in the till tonight.
06:20And you wouldn't get anything.
06:22That's why I was depending on that quid.
06:24You called your debut single, Come On, really shit.
06:26It was pretty bad.
06:28This is a sort of running theme throughout sort of the archive interviews is that you're
06:32like, oh, that was terrible, wasn't it?
06:33Yeah.
06:34Do you still think that about that stuff?
06:36I was listening to them and say, next door I've got a changing room and someone's
06:41put in a sort of horrible imitation, early 60s sort of record player with vinyl.
06:50And they've got an ancient Rolling Stones album and someone put it on and the speaker's
06:55so bad.
06:56But some of these tracks sound really appalling.
06:59What were the tracks on it?
07:00It's just the sound of them.
07:01Oh, okay.
07:02I mean, I can't really tell if they're any good.
07:04If you play them on stereo, they might better.
07:06Yeah.
07:07But on this machine, they sound like awful.
07:09And another quote, which I just thought was interesting, was you said that the Beatles
07:14were blase and big headed.
07:17That's them.
07:19Dumb for.
07:19Which, I'll be honest, reading a lot of stuff about the Beatles from the 60s was true.
07:25Sometimes I do speak the truth.
07:27I mean, they did a lot of great things and they blazed a lot of trails.
07:31I mean, you can't go and say that.
07:33They did.
07:34Because no other band had been famous in America.
07:37Yeah.
07:37It was a closed shop.
07:38America was a closed shop.
07:39And when you think about it, they blazed all those trails and showing that was possible.
07:44Before that was not possible.
07:46You talk a lot about the interviews around the time of your first tour in America, which
07:51is 65.
07:52Yeah.
07:52I just wondered if you'd ever think about 60s Mick or 60s Keith and what they would think
07:58about your career as a whole as the Stones, some of the music you played and sort of the
08:02directions you went and whether they would approve or what they would think.
08:04I mean, the thing was that the Stones, you know, was a blues band.
08:09Brian was a real purist.
08:11In that time, there were, in different musical genres, say folk music.
08:16Let's take folk music.
08:18This is very well known because of the Bob Dylan film.
08:20So there was folk music played on acoustic instruments about folky things.
08:28And some of them were protests, but not everything was.
08:31And so it was very traditional songs that were written a long time ago.
08:34Like Woody Guthrie's storytelling.
08:36But even like walking through the fair and all the English songs.
08:40Yeah.
08:40You know, a lot of them.
08:42And then those people only liked that music.
08:48You know, and they hated any other kind of music.
08:51And that's what makes...
08:52So when Bob Dylan turns on an electric guitar, they're going, like, they were shocked.
08:56They're shocked.
08:57But it's very hard now to imagine why you'd be shocked.
09:00It wasn't like playing heavy metal.
09:02I mean, it was just quite tame, really, sound-wise.
09:06I mean, volume-wise.
09:07Yeah.
09:08So they were shocked by going off this track of this particular genre.
09:16The same as before.
09:17No one will remember this.
09:19But trad jazz was a genre of music.
09:22Very popular with young people.
09:24And for those trad jazz people, music stopped in 1938.
09:27There was nothing made after that.
09:29And they just copied everything that was from that period.
09:32So that's why it was very difficult for us to play in those venues.
09:37Because they were for those people.
09:40And they hated anything electric.
09:42So anything electric was an anathema to them.
09:47So Brian was very puristic.
09:50I don't think that Keith and I were ever like that.
09:52We liked all kinds of pop music.
09:54We just liked pop music, you know.
09:56And we loved the blues, but we also loved every kind of pop music.
10:00And so it was a transition, obviously, to going to play blues mostly, to writing our own songs and then
10:08writing pop songs.
10:09And we used to still do blues, but we do pop songs and blues.
10:13So I don't really understand there was any problem.
10:16I mean, our first self-written single was The Last Time, which was just a cop of a gospel song.
10:22So it was very much in the root style of the Rolling Stones.
10:25Yeah.
10:26But of course we did other songs which were very pop.
10:29Fast forward 60 years from The Last Time to Foreign Tongues.
10:34Yeah.
10:34Which we've got to talk about now, obviously.
10:36There's some huge big name cameos on this.
10:39So let's talk about a few of them.
10:40Robert Smith of The Cure, of course.
10:43How did that happen?
10:44I think Andy just invited him to come and listen to some of the tracks because we'd almost finished.
10:50I think I'd done nearly all the vocals.
10:52We were just listening back to see if there was any little bits we wanted to add and stuff.
10:56Was he in a studio?
10:58No, he wasn't.
10:59I think Andy invited him to come and listen to some of the tracks.
11:02When I got there, he was there.
11:03So I said, well, nice to meet you and I've never met him before.
11:07And so we said, okay.
11:09So Andy and I said, let's come to do something.
11:14Go and sing on Lose You, go and sing on this sort of dancey track.
11:18He sings on that.
11:19Synths as well on Lose You as well.
11:21Yeah, he does a few synths on that.
11:23And then he played guitar on Divine Intervention.
11:26Yeah, yeah, yeah.
11:26It's a sort of indie lick.
11:28He plays on that.
11:29How does Keith react to this guy make up coming and sitting next to me?
11:32He wasn't there.
11:33Keith was well away in Greenwich, Connecticut.
11:35Safely.
11:37You've also got, obviously, Paul McCartney, bass.
11:39Yes, he did that on the same session as he did on the Hackney Diamonds.
11:42Yeah.
11:42So that we did Bite Your Head Off with a sort of punk tune on Hackney Diamonds.
11:48And the same week he came in and did that cover in You tune,
11:51which is more of a funk-based player part.
11:53And you thought we can't have two tracks on one album with Paul McCartney.
11:56No, we can't. No, no, no.
11:58That wasn't that.
11:59I think we kept certain tracks we kept back from Hackney Diamonds.
12:02We thought they were really good, but we didn't.
12:04We thought we'll put them on the next album.
12:06So we actually interviewed Paul McCartney last week.
12:08Okay.
12:09For his new album.
12:10Okay.
12:10Which I haven't heard yet.
12:11The Boys of Dungeon Lane, I think it is.
12:13Yeah.
12:13It's kind of the opposite of what the Stones are doing,
12:15which is sort of like all about his childhood and very much going back to his roots.
12:18Whereas this is more like new.
12:19That's what I heard, yeah.
12:20But he said he couldn't believe he was playing with the Stones.
12:23There he was.
12:24It was so exciting to be hearing you guys working out your songs.
12:27And he missed being in a band, he said.
12:29Yeah.
12:30Which is pretty cool to hear, isn't it?
12:31Yeah.
12:31Was he like that in the studio?
12:32Was he excitable?
12:33Yeah, it was.
12:34Well, no.
12:35It was very easy.
12:37I mean, obviously I've known Paul for ages, not a stranger.
12:41But, I mean, we never played bass with us before.
12:43It's a different thing, you know.
12:44I've sung with him before.
12:45I've done harmonies and stuff.
12:46Yeah.
12:47But we were thinking, well, it's a punching.
12:50Because I said to Andy, you know, is he into this?
12:52Because it is really a punk tune.
12:55And it's going to go really fast.
12:57And I want it to do that.
12:58And it's going to be, I want an overdriven bass.
13:01And it's going to be simple.
13:02No mucking about, you know.
13:03Yeah.
13:03But he said, no, no, no, Paul can do that.
13:05And he did it.
13:05He did exactly what was needed in like 10 minutes.
13:0910 minutes?
13:09I think so.
13:10Thank you very much.
13:12There's a few other sort of more unexpected cameos, we'll say,
13:17that I saw in the credits.
13:18Which is Bruno Mars on Cowgirls or Never Wanna Lose You.
13:22People.
13:23I said, Bruno.
13:24But we would play.
13:25So Bruno Mars came by the studio in LA.
13:27We'd kind of, I was finishing off vocals.
13:29And we played them a few tracks.
13:30And I said, okay, so what's he going to do?
13:33Everyone has to work for it, you know.
13:35Going to get a beer and a whatever and a biscuit.
13:38Go and play Cabell, Bruno.
13:40Go on.
13:41This is a Grammy award winning.
13:43Yeah.
13:43Chart topping megastar.
13:45But he wants to do that.
13:46He's a percussionist as well, you know.
13:48Everyone's, it's like me.
13:49I like playing maracas on people's records.
13:52It's like, stop singing Bruno.
13:53Play the Cabell.
13:54I should have gotten to sing Bruno.
13:56But, and Chad from the Chili Peppers.
14:01Yeah.
14:01And he plays like 10 bars of like, he's like gets a guest.
14:04But I thought, I said, Andy, I thought I was going to play the bass drum on that.
14:08Because we did it, we didn't think it was going to have any drums.
14:10Yeah.
14:11And then we just put kick drum on a little bit of it.
14:13And I said, Andy, I thought I was going to do that.
14:15You've got to have a job.
14:16I read the credits, saw Chad Smith and I was like, oh.
14:18And I was listening to it and I was like, hang on, this is an acoustic blues track.
14:20Exactly.
14:21Waiting for him to come in.
14:23It was like, is he on it?
14:23Is he on it?
14:25Yes.
14:25There he is.
14:26And then he's gone.
14:27What did he say when he heard back the track?
14:29He was like, where am I?
14:31Yeah, exactly.
14:32Well, he knew it was one of those, you know.
14:34It wasn't a big feature.
14:35And how was he?
14:36Was he ecstatic to be a...
14:37No, I don't know if he's ecstatic.
14:39He's more of a calm person.
14:41And then you've got an Amy Winehouse cover, you know I'm very good.
14:43Yes.
14:44Which you famously played together at Isle of Wight 2007.
14:48Yes, definitely.
14:48Ain't you proud to beg, I think?
14:50Yes, you're right.
14:51Good research.
14:52Yeah.
14:53That was a turbulent period in her life.
14:56Yeah.
14:56What was the decision making around putting this cover on this album?
14:59I mean, I think it's all part of the sort of slight Britishness of it,
15:02because these ten tracks were recorded in London and four weren't.
15:08But we were thinking about covers and we thought, you know what,
15:12instead of doing like a famous soul singer, we think of women.
15:17So cover, let's do an Amy cover.
15:20It hasn't been covered.
15:21I don't think anyone's covered it.
15:22I could be wrong.
15:23I haven't looked it up, actually.
15:24Well, they're nervous, aren't they?
15:25A hundred people have covered it and we're like,
15:28oh, another boring cover of that song.
15:29How original.
15:31Usually I'll let those things up on Spotify first.
15:34But I didn't, I forgot.
15:35But anyway, we did pretty much her arrangement and the same key.
15:42And I did the horn part on harmonica, which was fun.
15:46Oh, right, yeah.
15:47Because it was all in minor keys.
15:49It was fun to play harmonica in minor keys.
15:50But we kept pretty much, I mean, I did mostly her phrasing,
15:56but then I changed it a few times to make it a bit more of my own stuff.
16:00But I kept very much to her vibe.
16:02Charlie Watts isn't with us, but you've got his drumming on Hit Me In The Head.
16:05Yeah, Hit Me In The Head, which is now a punk song, kind of.
16:08So that's like, Charlie, you know, he plays really well on that.
16:12And we did that in Los Angeles, like, I think 2021.
16:17Yeah.
16:17Something like that.
16:19Yeah.
16:19And then I think it's great to have Charlie on one of these tracks.
16:24I actually did an interview with him.
16:26I think it might be his last filmed interview.
16:27Okay.
16:28It was before one of the concerts, maybe when you were doing the tour,
16:32and there was an Anfield day, a London day.
16:34Yeah, yeah, yeah.
16:34He told me some great stories about you.
16:36Okay.
16:37And my favourite one was that he said,
16:41used to get so annoyed at him because he didn't have a phone.
16:44And so when he was down in, it's Devon, isn't it?
16:46Yeah.
16:47He would say that you wanted to talk to him about the stage design
16:51or something like that, because you worked quite closely with things like that.
16:54And he was like, he'd be getting so annoyed because he couldn't contact me.
16:57He'd have to write letters or come and see me.
16:59Do you remember it being a pain?
17:00Yeah.
17:00Yeah, it was a pain.
17:01It was quite difficult.
17:03It really felt he was living.
17:05I mean, you know, come on.
17:06You know, this is why everyone had an iPhone we're talking about.
17:09You know, we're not talking about, we're not going back to the 60s here.
17:13You know, it's like...
17:14But he's like that, isn't he?
17:15Yeah.
17:15He famously had a classic car collection but didn't drive.
17:18Yes.
17:18So he said he used to sit in it and read his paper.
17:20Yeah, that's it.
17:21There's pictures of him doing that.
17:23But also, there's a great story from the interview, I remember,
17:26that happened that day.
17:28He'd been chauffeur-driven up from Devon with his wife.
17:33And they'd got there and he'd realised that he hadn't put his bags in the boot of the car.
17:38As in, Charlie hadn't.
17:39And so he turned around to the chauffeur and was like,
17:42Right, off you go back.
17:43And made him drive back to Devon to pick up the bags and then come back.
17:46It was a long way.
17:48But he was like that, wasn't he?
17:50Yeah, he was.
17:51So, yeah, I miss him a lot.
17:52But there he is on this track, you know.
17:54Bang.
17:55You've come across the Gallagher Brothers quite a lot in your career.
17:58Come across the what?
17:59The Gallagher Brothers from Oasis.
18:01Yeah, bits and pieces.
18:02They supported you in the 90s a bit.
18:05Liam, I remember watching, support you at the Stones at London Stadium.
18:10Yes.
18:10And he's always, he talks about you guys.
18:13He calls you the greatest rock and roll band in the world.
18:15But there's a great story he tells that I've always wanted to ask you about,
18:18see if it's true.
18:19Because Liam has a difficult relationship with the truth, let's say.
18:23Yeah.
18:23He says that he was invited to your house in Richmond.
18:27He didn't say when it was.
18:28But he turned up and he dropped a pill.
18:31And so he was saying he was coming up at the time.
18:34And he doesn't give us any more details.
18:35But he says he was asked to leave.
18:37And do you, is that true?
18:38Do you remember any of that?
18:39I vaguely remember coming to the house in Richmond and I remember something.
18:47I don't remember what happened.
18:48I think he was well out of it.
18:50I think.
18:51And he was making a lot of trouble.
18:52So he just, I think whoever was like, you know.
18:56I mean, it wasn't like a physical altercation.
18:58Yeah.
18:58I think he just like realised that it was time to go.
19:02But why had he been invited anyway?
19:04To work on a musical?
19:04I don't know.
19:05I think it was a get together dinner party.
19:08Yeah.
19:08Probably best he was asked to leave.
19:11The last time I spoke to Ronnie, which was for Hackney Diamonds.
19:14Yeah.
19:14He said that he really wanted to play Glastonbury again.
19:16Oh yeah.
19:17He said the Stones, but he said he'd also do it with the Faces if they wanted him.
19:21Anyone.
19:21I don't care.
19:22One of my many bands.
19:24The Jeff Beck Group.
19:26But is that something that you would like to do again?
19:28Headline Glastonbury.
19:29I think it sounds like it's churlish if I say no.
19:34And then if I say yes, you know, when are you going to do it?
19:38Yeah, yeah, yeah.
19:39I don't know.
19:40It's like, I'm so glad I did it.
19:43I love doing it.
19:44Yeah.
19:45And it was a great event and all my family, all my kids always go to Glastonbury and all
19:50the stories about the Glastonbury lost weekends and how they, I mean, everyone's got these
19:57stories, right?
19:58And I'm so glad I went and I went the day before.
20:02I had a great time, hang out with my kids.
20:04We all went all over the place.
20:05This bit, this bit, you know.
20:07I think British acts get that it's quite special and they like change their performance a bit.
20:12Yes.
20:12Some of the American acts come over and just do their tour.
20:15Yeah, exactly.
20:16We tailored our thing for it a little bit.
20:19You know, enough.
20:19Glastonbury girl, which was fun.
20:20Yeah, we did that.
20:21I mean, this is, it is a special English thing.
20:25So you have to tailor it.
20:27I mean, it's not an easy gig to do in a way because the stage is very odd.
20:33I mean, it's a very, I don't know, it's so disjointed and you're so far away from everyone.
20:38But the Stones got their special walkway added.
20:40No, we did not.
20:40We did not what we wanted.
20:42Oh, we wanted it even longer.
20:43We didn't get hardly any.
20:45You wanted to be walking through the campsite.
20:46We had a walkway normally 50 metres and we got like 10.
20:50You know, it's like, you know, it's like, and then you've got this huge crowd up here.
20:54I mean, it is great when you look up the hill.
20:56Yeah.
20:56And you see everyone.
20:57It's fantastic.
20:58I mean, it is a great vibe.
21:00I mean, there's no doubt about it.
21:02Do I want to do it again?
21:03I don't know.
21:04I'll say yes.
21:06So does that mean we haven't seen the last of the Rolling Stones at all?
21:09Hopefully not.
21:10I mean, you know, I mean, I don't know.
21:13It's, it's, I mean, I wanted to do shows.
21:15Definitely want to do shows.
21:16I don't think it'll be shows this year, but I hope to do some next year for the Stones.
21:19Yeah.
21:19Why not this year?
21:20Because the press was saying that it was because Keith couldn't commit.
21:22And he wasn't feeling so great about touring and everything.
21:28Yeah.
21:28Which leads you on to the question of residences, for instance.
21:32Very much in the news at one point.
21:34Well, like a Vegas residency.
21:35Yeah.
21:36No, but, you know, like people doing, you know, like Harry Styles doing.
21:41Oh, I see.
21:42I mean, he's still touring.
21:43But I still said to people, well, he's still touring, though.
21:45He's not just staying in one place.
21:47He's doing like, you know, Amsterdam, London, you know.
21:52Yeah.
21:52And that's still touring.
21:53We are going to get live dates next year, hopefully.
21:56Hopefully.
21:57Yeah.
21:57Like the UK or?
21:58You don't know.
21:59I don't know.
22:00I haven't got that far.
22:01I'll let you know when I know.
22:02Is there another album in the tank?
22:04Because these feel almost to me like one of a pair with Hackney Diamonds.
22:09Could be a trio, though.
22:10Exactly.
22:10Yeah.
22:11Is there any?
22:12There's pairs, trios, quadruples.
22:14I don't know.
22:15I mean, I've already started writing songs anyway.
22:17So once you get, I mean, I find it hard.
22:19I've got to get this one done, finished.
22:21And then I get on, you know, I'm writing songs for the next one or whatever it is.
22:27I mean, it could be for someone else.
22:29When you write a song, you go, oh, that's not for me.
22:31It could be for the chili peppers.
22:34Because you did that a lot, sort of, over your career.
22:37Yeah.
22:38Like John Lennon and Paul McCartney did.
22:40Yeah, yeah.
22:40Loads of other people do.
22:41Yeah.
22:41Are you doing so much of that now, sort of, selling songs to people?
22:43I'm very open-minded to it, because I've got a lot of stuff.
22:46And not all of it's suitable, really, for the Rolling Stones.
22:49Yeah.
22:50So, I mean, that shouldn't stop me writing them, you know.
22:52Yeah.
22:53I just want to, if you get an idea, just write it.
22:56And how do you write these days?
22:57Is it still sort of just with a guitar or do you, like, piano?
23:00I write a guitar, piano.
23:03Machines of various kinds.
23:06That was what was so thrilling for a Stones fan like me,
23:08to see in the teaser clips on Instagram.
23:11You guys in Metropolis Studios.
23:12Yeah.
23:12It's quite a small room.
23:14Yeah, it was not huge.
23:15And you're all in there, and it just sort of evokes all these images
23:18of you and Keith in a corner of a bar somewhere, sort of,
23:21hacking out, sort of, you know, the last time or whatever.
23:24Yeah, yeah.
23:24Was it like that?
23:25Not really.
23:26But the room is right, though, what you're saying.
23:29You own a small room, and you're having to, you know, really,
23:33you know, cooperate and get everything right, you know,
23:36and focusing, like, always put the drum in here,
23:40everyone can see the drum, so everyone knows it.
23:42You know, it's just a focus thing.
23:44And then you're very much in eye contact and close,
23:49instead of being in a huge room where you're separate.
23:51On the old days, they would put the singer in a booth, you know.
23:55They're very old-fashioned.
23:57Because I'm going to do it all again.
24:00The only one we didn't do like that was Beautiful Deliris,
24:02just me and Keith playing live and singing live.
24:05With Chad Smith sort of not playing in the corner.
24:08He did this miles away, much later date, ten bars, you're done.
24:13So you went a bit viral the other day for talking about Zara Larsson,
24:17how much you loved her.
24:18Yeah.
24:18Yeah.
24:19Unintentionally, I imagine, but still quite funny.
24:21Well, I kind of, like, semi-unintentionally,
24:24because I don't think anyone thought that was going to come out
24:27as going to be something much hipper.
24:29Well, that was what I was going to ask.
24:31Are there any young bands that you're really into at the moment
24:33that you want to talk about?
24:35Not really.
24:36I've had my Sam Fender moments lately,
24:38because I liked a lot of his stuff.
24:40That people watching out was stunning.
24:42Yeah, I thought that album was excellent.
24:45Earlier stuff I liked, you know, 17 Going Under.
24:48Yeah.
24:49There was some good stuff on that album.
24:52What is it about his music that you really like?
24:54The lyrics or...?
24:55Well, first, well, that's not what gets you first,
24:58I mean, because you don't know what is he on about, you know.
25:01It's always the same when you hear songs for the first time.
25:04It's like, it's just the general vibe.
25:06And then you go, like, I like the grooves, doing this groove.
25:09It's kind of rock music, you know, but it is rock music, you know.
25:15But it's kind of got good choruses and things,
25:19which is part of the game.
25:21And, you know, that's what I try and do.
25:23Not every song you want to write, I sing a whoa, whoa, whoa chorus.
25:27But, I mean, some of them do.
25:30And, but I think that he, he kind of, yeah.
25:34I mean, I think a lot of the lyrics are really interesting stuff,
25:38reflective of, you know, your own experiences growing up and all that.
25:43I mean, there's a point where you're going to have to move on from that.
25:45He feels like a tailor-made guest star for a Stones kick.
25:49Yeah.
25:50Which song, Tumbling Dice might be a good one.
25:52Might be really good.
25:54Might be really good for that.
25:55And, I mean, and he's obviously very pop orientated.
25:59I mean, he's not only doing working class songs.
26:02I mean, there's something he did with Olivia Dean.
26:04Yeah, yeah, yeah.
26:05He got, was very successful.
26:08And, you know, the sort of like, the other song that he did,
26:12I thought lyrically was interesting, was Crumbling Empire.
26:15Yeah, definitely.
26:16Which is really good.
26:16Yeah, yeah, yeah.
26:17You know, so, I liked him.
26:18I mean, I listen to lots of other people and I like, I mean,
26:21it was a semi-joke, the Zara Larsson.
26:24But, I mean, I do actually listen to that kind of music.
26:27I mean, you know, it's not music to take too seriously, but it's still.
26:30You should know better, it's 2026.
26:32You know what I mean?
26:32It's a joke on camera now, Nick.
26:34Take it seriously.
26:36Thank you very much for coming.
26:38All right.
26:39Next time I'll get some questions of me own.
Comments