The Rolling Stones introduce new album 'Foreign Tongues' | AP interview

0:14 It's a blues fantasy really "Rough Justice".

0:17 We don't look too closely.

0:19 Keith and I call it an ancient form of weaving.

0:22 And you let it take off from there.

0:24 You know, you can't plan all of this stuff.

0:27 Is "Forty Licks" going to be the next uh Stones Is there

0:39 something about the the the journey of the band in that song?

0:43 Uh no, "Rough Justice" is really it's a fantasy about uh uh um a woman

0:50 that promises a lot of things and then in lot what happens to you in life,

0:54 you get involved in these terrible places that she takes you to.

0:59 She promises you the the world, but you get delivered,

1:03 you know, bad food, bad air, bad clubs, bad politics, bad everything.

1:11 Uh it's a it's a kind it's a blues fantasy really "Rough Justice".

1:15 Yeah, no, it's cuz I wasn't sure where you like where you were going with it,

1:19 but but it's it's highly listenable.

1:21 It's it's listenable.

1:21 It's very amorphous.

1:22 It's not a good it's not going to really central thing.

1:25 It's it's a it's very um it's very it's very

1:28 much a just my unconscious ramblings "Rough Justice" to some extent.

1:35 The thing about this record though is like it what I think it

1:38 is interesting about the Stones as band is that and what you know,

1:43 you say well, you know, you got nothing to prove really,

1:45 but but the the Stones is a rock band.

1:49 You see ah it's a rock band, but it's the Stones also has abilities to do

1:53 ballads and and country music and dance music.

1:57 And so that they run in the gamut of all these styles.

1:59 It's so it's not stuck in one particular style.

2:03 As time goes on, the music changes.

2:06 We're 70, 60-something years into it,

2:08 and the music is still has that same level of quality.

2:13 What is it that keeps you going?

2:15 I saw you 2 years ago at at, you know, at at that age,

2:19 and you were just moving on that runway like a young man.

2:22 Yeah, yeah.

2:22 Well, that's just being fit, you know.

2:25 And uh and you have to work at that whatever age you are.

2:29 And if you're my age, you have to really work at it [laughter]

2:31 to be able to get, you know, you know, it's like, you know,

2:35 so you don't get around as good as you you you have to really work at it.

2:39 And it's just discipline and a lot of uh hard work.

2:43 And otherwise, you can't do that.

2:44 And of course, I don't I can't do the things I did when I was 21,

2:47 but yeah, I can do other things, so [laughter] You have to do that.

2:51 Is Foreign Tongues going to be the next uh Stones tour?

2:55 I would love to tour them.

2:56 I absolutely would love to.

2:58 So, you know, I hope to do it as soon as that's possible.

3:15 What keeps you like going to create this this this iconic sound

3:20 that you guys have created for so long and yet sounds so original still?

3:24 Sometimes I ask myself that, but then you get in the studio,

3:29 and the guys get together, and lay out a track or an idea,

3:33 and and you let it take off from there, you know?

3:36 You you can't plan all this stuff.

3:38 Uh you kind of just got to follow it,

3:41 and uh and hope you come out the other end, you know?

3:44 I I turned up one day to do my vocals in London,

3:48 and there's this bloke standing there with his back

3:51 to me with this long gown on.

3:53 When he turned around, he was covered in lipstick.

3:56 And I said, "I never met you before,

3:59 and it's you're a Robert Smith of The Cure." And [laughter] he said, he said,

4:03 "Yeah, we've never met." And then I said, "Well, while you're here then,

4:07 you better go and do something." That's how collaborations work sometimes.

4:12 Go out and sing the backing vocal.

4:14 It It seems there were there there was a lot that went into this record,

4:18 which leads me to the next question.

4:21 Uh when it comes to support it, can we expect another world tour?

4:25 Oh, I mean we can tour next year.

4:29 Yeah, yeah.

4:30 I mean, possibly, you know.

4:32 I mean, at the moment we're we're just

4:34 sort of saying finish the record, let's do this.

4:37 And so, we're sort of basically considering what to do after,

4:42 you know, pretty soon.

4:43 But uh I don't think I not this year anyway, you know.

4:47 My last question, are you ever surprised at how

4:49 long that you've been able to keep going?

4:52 I mean, this is amazing.

4:55 That's one I can't answer for all that, you know.

4:58 We I just do it as long as we can, you know.

5:00 That is brilliant, man.

5:01 It was a pleasure.

5:02 Good seeing you.

5:12 He's acting as if he's in Madison Square Garden kicking off the show.

5:17 You move.

5:18 You move.

5:19 You You're not sitting on a stool ala Sinatra.

5:22 You really move.

5:24 True?

5:24 True.

5:25 Yeah, it's if I get carried away with it, I do, yeah.

5:28 But you can't You can't You can't really do that.

5:30 I I mean, sometimes you use a hand mic.

5:32 If you're doing like a real rocker,

5:34 you use a hand mic and you wander around the studio singing,

5:36 not sitting in the booth or anything like that.

5:39 Associated Press?

5:41 All right.

5:41 Yeah, yeah.

5:42 Oh, that's big.

5:43 That's big.

5:43 We love a bit of AP.

5:45 That's it.

5:47 [laughter] I love it.

5:48 What a change.

5:49 Such a treat.

5:50 Yeah.

5:50 Another album and I was telling Mick I listened to the first two tracks

5:55 and I Rough and Twisted as I've been listening to it over and over.

5:58 I mean but but I mean and I don't I don't want

6:00 to bring age into it but but it sounds so fresh and young.

6:04 How do you guys find How do you find that energy?

6:06 It's funny enough this the same guitar I used

6:09 on Stay With Me I used it on Rough and Twisted.

6:12 I still have the same guitar even.

6:14 Really?

6:15 it's still in open E like it always was with the Faces.

6:19 And to let rip on Rough and Twisted for instance

6:24 was uh just a fantastic release and it was so spontaneous.

6:30 We even surprised ourselves with it.

6:32 It was like, "Wow, what did we just do?" Or what are we doing?

6:36 You know, it's great.

6:38 What what what Conan brought up very early on is how you and Keith,

6:42 you know, use different tunings and and still have made it work.

6:48 What what is the secret to that cuz I didn't really understand

6:51 how far like how how that can work the way that it does.

6:55 Well, that's a good question.

6:56 We don't look too closely.

6:58 Keith and I call it an ancient form of weaving

7:01 because it's an interaction between two guitars that just happens.

7:06 I mean Steve Cropper, famous guitar player from Booker T right and Stax,

7:13 he said to me his favorite song was Beast of Burden

7:18 cuz he loved the way the guitars interacted on it.

7:21 And so that was a pure accident and pure weaving and the same

7:26 thing is happening right now and the Foreign Tongues album, you know.

7:31 When it's not working, how does that get worked out in the moment?

7:34 Do you all agree it's not working or does one of you

7:36 think it is working and two of you think it's not working?

7:39 All of None of That's why we bring in a referee, and he's sitting over there.

7:44 Andrew.

7:48 [applause] Let me mention your producer, Andrew Watt.

7:49 Yeah.

7:50 Yeah, he kicks us up the ass.

7:52 Yeah, local boy.

7:53 Local boy done good.

7:55 Local boy made good, yeah.

7:57 What's the name of the guitar that you played

7:59 on with on on this song that you also played on Stay With Me?

8:02 It's called a Zemaitis.

8:04 He was a Greek uh guitar maker.

8:07 Uh handmade guitars.

8:09 Fantastic.

8:10 I thought if you had your own name for it, like uh B.B.

8:12 King had Lucille.

8:13 Do you have a name?

8:14 I call it the Black Z, baby.

8:17 That's awesome.

8:18 Thank you, man.

8:18 Pleasure, sir.

8:19 All right, man.

8:21 Look right at me, this camera.

8:23 Smile's good.

8:25 1 2 3, we are done.