Rolling Stones' Keith Richards on Foreign Tongues, the new album landing this Friday
In an exclusive interview with La Presse on Canada Day, the legendary guitarist discussed the band's 25th album, recorded in London in under a month, and the absence of Charlie Watts.
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Keith Richards granted La Presse the only interview a Quebec media outlet received ahead of the Rolling Stones' new album Foreign Tongues, arriving Friday. The 82-year-old guitarist, dressed in a black tuque and grey t-shirt, spoke from a control room at New York's Hit Factory via video, while the album itself was recorded in London in less than a month.
Foreign Tongues is the Stones' 25th studio album and their second in under three years—a pace that surprised many fans, given the 18-year gap between A Bigger Bang (2005) and Hackney Diamonds (2023). Richards credited two key factors for the prolific return. First, producer Andrew Watt, whom he described as "a very energetic creature," brought fresh energy to the studio. Second, Mick Jagger arrived with substantial new material, which immediately sparked Richards's creative instinct.
"I don't search for songs. I search for songs that search for me," Richards told interviewer Dominic Arpin. He elaborated: "I don't sit down every day for my writing session." Instead, he said, "I'm sitting with my guitar, listening to Buddy Holly, and after a certain time, if there's something floating around, that something will let me know."
Richards noted that he and Jagger often wrote the second half of each other's songs without hearing the other's half first—a working method born from decades of writing together. Like Hackney Diamonds before it, Foreign Tongues features a posthumous appearance by drummer Charlie Watts.
