Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - Mick Jagger

Episode Date: July 13, 2026

Rolling Stones lead singer Mick Jagger feels rather anxious about being Conan O’Brien’s friend. Mick sits down with Conan to discuss the Stones’ 25th studio album Foreign Tongues, his six-decade (and counting) career at the forefront of rock music history, friendly competition with the likes of David Bowie and John Lennon, and finding ways to live in the moment while continuing to draw from the past.   For Conan videos, tour dates and more visit TeamCoco.com. Got a question for Conan? Call our voicemail: [phone]. Get access to all the podcasts you love, music channels and radio shows with the SiriusXM App! Get 3 months free using this show link: https://siriusxm.com/conan. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hi, I'm Mick Jagger, and I've been rather anxious about being Conan of Brian's friend. It's a heavy thing. It is, and we're in an enclosed, very small space together. Fall is here, hear the yell, back to school, ring the bell, brandy shoes, walking loose, Climb the fence, books and pens I can tell that we are going to be friends I can tell that we are going to be friends Hey there, welcome to Conan O'Brien needs a friend

I'm not with the gang today No Sona, no Gorley, no Blay, no Eduardo I'm pretty much on my own. Why you ask? Because I got a phone call Oh, just a couple of days ago And I'm in Los Angeles. And the question was, would you like to come to London to interview one of the most famous people in the world? And I really thought about it.

It was a tough call because I have my Pilates class. I take a Lamas class, even though I don't know anyone who's pregnant. I just go there and I've been asked to leave. I have my yogurt regimen. But I said, no, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it because this is the thrill of a lifetime. so I jumped on a plane, and I am now in London, in a very small podcast studio that's off an alley,

and I'm excited because I'm talking to just a phenomenal force in my life, and I think in many people's lifetime, and this is bucket list for me. Now I'm going to reveal who it is. Now, if goarly were here, or sona did laugh and say, no, it's, the episode is marked with the person's name. People already know you're being stupid.

But I'm old-fashioned. And so I'm going to pretend you don't know who I'm talking about. My guest today is a rock and roll legend and cultural icon who has spent six decades as the frontman of one of the greatest rock bands of all time, the Rolling Stones. Their new album, Four in Tongues, is out now.

I love this album. And I think you have to check it out. It's amazing. This guy's amazing. I'm absolutely honored that he is joining me today. Mick Jagger, welcome. A couple of weeks ago, I was traveling around the world, shooting my travel show,

and I heard you're going to get a phone call from Mick Jagger. Now, we had met briefly backstage at the Oscars, but we didn't really know each other. No, no. The next thing I know, you're calling me, and we're having a chat about this event you asked me to do in Brooklyn to help launch. It's the press launch of the new album, Foreign Tongues.

And it was a great day for me because I'm a massive fan. Of course I said yes. I asked for money. They said there's no money. There's no money. There was nothing. There was no money. That's terrible.

Yeah. And I said, I'm just... I do apologize. I thought they were paying hundreds of thousands of doing this. Yeah, yeah. It's my going rate. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I would have said, my going rate is...

I was like Chuck Berry. I wanted $100,000 in a brief face before I went on. And so it was a fantastic experience, and I got to be with you, Keith, Ronnie. Yes. Now, I don't think I had met Ronnie before. He's a lovely guy. Yes, he is. Tells a lot of very bad jokes.

Terrible jokes. The only worst joke teller is Bill Wyman, who's not in the band anymore, but he could be co-opted. to tell his terrible jokes versus Ronnie. Ronnie versus Bill, they're terrible jokes. Just awful. And at one point, and it's, you know, it's Ronnie Wood. He's a legend and a lovely guy. A legendary comedian.

A legendary comedian. But at one point I said, Ronnie, you've got to stop. And I had known him an hour at that point. But we had a lovely time. And I had some observations about that day, which is leading up to it, you and I had several phone calls. you were really going over all the details. And then when we got to the event, at one point, you were looking out at the audience to check

them. And I looked back, I looked back at Keith and I said, was this Mick in 1962? And he said, yes. And this, I get the sense that in a way you've always been the organizer, the manager, the guy who's keeping it together. Is that a fair thing to say? I guess so. I mean, sometimes I was called a control free.

But I'm not on control free at all. I like to delegate, you know, the thing about doing this kind of thing is you, you delegate these big jobs, you know. I never organized that thing that we did, not really. But what did I do? I approved the place, you know, I thought that you would be a great person to do it. And were you disappointed. I was so happy.

It went off really well. It was great. It was funny. You handled Keith's microphone technique perfectly. I was worried the minute they gave you guys. handheld microphones at this event in Brooklyn, you think, well, that can get dodgy. Yeah. And then Keith did a thing where the microphone was by his mouth.

And when I'd ask him a question, he would start to answer. And the, the microphone would drift away from his mouth until the point where I was quite... He's still holding it. This is not drifting away in the air on its own. No, no, no. He's holding it, but his arm is drifting away from his body. But we got a laugh out of it. It was fun.

He was lovely. but I did get the sense that, not that I didn't see control freak when I saw you, but I saw someone who is very interested in the details. Yeah. Well, sometimes just, I mean, this looking through to see, well, you know, I'd seen the room empty, but you've got to see the room full, you know, and what kind of people are there? What, you know, how many people are there?

What does the room feel like? I think that's important. I'm sure you, if you, when you go on and do things with a live audience, you know, you want to fill the room, you know, a little bit. You do want to fill the room because how your behavior would be, you know, how the audience is going to react. I mean, so I think all that sort of stuff's really important. What surprised me, very first time I met you, you mentioned the Oscars.

I don't know if you remember, but you came up behind me and I'm looking at my notes. What do I have to do next? We're halfway through the show. And I feel someone jabbing me in the back saying, how's the crowd? How's a crowd? How's a crowd? In kind of a funny American accent. How's a crowd?

And I turn around, it's you. And I said, Mick, you don't care how the crowd is. You're Mick Jagger. And you said, oh, I do. Yeah. Because anyone else in the world who's not you would say, what's he worried about? People are delighted to see you. You're this.

Yeah. You're not worried about it, but you want information. Because you're only on that. You're on the whole show. Good luck. Good luck with that. I mean, you know, that's a difficult job. Yeah.

And you have to roll with the punches and there's all kinds of weird things happening in the Oscars. People jump on stage and punch people. You know, who knows, who knows what's going to happen? I mean, I'm a presenter, you know, which is the lowest category of people appearing on the Oscars. And usually they read something off the teleprompter, which is just not funny. And it's not interesting. And they're obviously reading it. And then they're, you know, it just isn't. So I just rewrote all the stuff they asked me to say. And I made, I wanted to tell you. make it into something. It was, well, my words. Organic to you. Yeah, it's personal to me, you know.

Yeah. So all these little things you do, you know, because the good thing about it was I'd done a rehearsal. So you walk onto the stage. And they hit the weird, also weird, they have the very famous people in Kabul cutouts. You remember that in the rehearsal? Yes. Yes. So there's the Timothy Chamonay cutout. He's just in front of you. So I was going to make a Bob Dylan reference. So I knew I knew that he was there because I'm staring at the Carball cut. of him, Scarlett, Jackson's there, whatever, whatever. Yeah, yeah. Whatever.

So, so that, it was good to do the rehearsal, which was about five minutes. Yeah. And then, and then, then I shared what was not a dressing room was an office. Didn't have any dressing room things with Neil Young. Yeah. Who, who wasn't on the show. And then. He just hangs out in dressing rooms.

And I said, yeah, it's just hanging out. And I'm going, that's Neil Young over in this office. So hi, hi, Neil. And I realized Darrell Hannah was also. are presenters. Oh, there you go. There you go. That was the theory.

So Darrell Hanna, Neil Young and I shared an office. It's so funny how you've achieved this level that's hard to comprehend where I would think you can be very much in control of what you want to do and how you want to do it. Whenever I see footage of the early Stone shows when you've really guys have hit and you're in Denmark, you're trying to perform kids are running up on stage. and you're singing and people are jumping on your back. Yeah. Girls are jumping on you.

And so half of your time is spent getting out of a headlock. Yeah. While singing. Yeah, while singing. And dancing. And dancing. All at the same time. Yeah.

As the days. Do those moments occur to you now, every now and then? Because things are so locked down now in a great way. Yeah. But those early days were just so chaotic. There was no, see, the thing was in those days, there wasn't any. organization for these concerts. And the organization was minimal.

There was no really security. So if there was security, it was the local police. And the local police had no experience of a concert audience. They probably never done it before. And in some places, like, we used to play in the West Coast in little places. And the police would come out and there would be like 14-year-old girls and they bang them on the heads with their night sticks. That was their solution.

And it's like, huh? We took care of it. These could be your daughters. Yeah. You know what I mean? Maybe they are. Bang, you know. And it was the same in Europe, you know.

I mean, they would just throw them, you know, out of the door bodily. I mean, it was just chaotic. Yeah, the thing that strikes me which has changed so much, not to embarrass you, but you reached this iconic level where if someone were to make a short list of who are the greatest entertainers of the Twitter, early 21st century, you know, and I'm including everybody. You're in Al Jolson, you know, Michael Jackson, you're on the very, very short list of this iconic performer. I want to see Al Jolson and Michael Jackson as a duo. Al Jolson, like, oh, let me, myself, and then moon walks right past him.

Exactly. That's a good one. But, you know, you're in this position. And the press, I don't think people today understand how hostile the media was towards all pop groups. But then specifically they just decided, and it was kind of a press creation. Rolling Stone, they're bad, punks before puns. They were bad. Rolling Stones bad, dirty. Rolling Stones, you know, scary, shouldn't be allowed. And yeah, that's just sort of press stuff. But people were actually, obviously,

people were really welcoming in most places. But there was a group that were really not welcoming. But maybe they didn't know who even know where you were. But they would just shout names at you. They didn't know who you were. They would just shout names. So it was very polarized in a kind of modern way. Just the look of you, which when you look at the pictures,

is pretty normal. It's tame now. It's very tame. But in those days it wasn't. So it's hard to, that's why it's so. hard to imagine because we look pretty normal and, you know, but not for those people, especially in the U.S., when we first went there, I'd say 64, in the outside of New York and L.A., that was, that was, we were like freaks for them. Yeah. It was also, I was always careful

in my comedy career, a new band would come up or a new performer who looked strange and my writers would say, let's make fun of that person. I would say, I do not want to be, because this footage doesn't age well. No. If this person goes on to be iconic. Yeah. And this is when, you know, bands were coming on my show for the first time. They'd be their first TV experience would be a no doubt or a green day.

Yeah. And I'm glad that I was welcoming and didn't make any jokes because they would look so stupid now. Yeah. In the 1960s, all performers decided that these long-haired freaks from England were a passing fad. They had no conception that this was going to be the music that dominated people's lives for the next 60 years. They didn't know. Well, no one knew that. No one knew that. And so it was easy for them to be to be patronizing and to make a joke of it because it's an easy, cheap gag, you know? Yeah. I mean, Dean Martin did it, you know, like famously. Ed Sullivan, we went on a lot.

He didn't do it. Ed Sullivan didn't do anything, really. He just, he was, that was a different kind of person, but he didn't, I don't think Ed Salomon knew that he got good ratings. Because when the Beatles went on, Ed Sullivan, whatever Ed Sullivan thought of the Beatles, that he got great ratings when they went on. So he knew what you're saying that, I bet, it's no point in me making fun of them, because who knows what's going to happen, you know?

But, I mean, there were a lot of exceptions. There were talk show people say maybe local, I can't remember all their names now, like Mike Wallace and all that had, they were willing to have serious conversations with you. They respected you a bit more. There were others that did not. And you didn't do their shows. Yeah. It's just interesting now. I think, I don't think people today understand, not that they should, but the environment that you guys were in in 64, 65, 66, actually all through most the 60s. It was a hostile environment, particularly in America. I'm not only America. I mean, we can't, we're not, I'm not blaming America for being that only. There were hostile in England. There was a lot of hostility. But America was not really ready for this stuff, really.

They weren't, you know, and, and obviously things change. I mean, it didn't take long when you think about it in, in years, like you said, 64, by 66, it was changed a lot. You know, so two or three years, it's a chance. Yeah, there are a lot of singers or entertainers that get to this point in their career, and they get very nostalgic. And they start singing or writing a lot about their childhood or looking back. And what I find interesting is you do not strike me as a nostalgic writer. You're very interested in what's happening right now.

I think that's a, and I say that in a very positive way, when I listen to foreign tongues, there's no really looking back, this is music that you made for someone to listen to in 2006-27, and there's no leaning on this vast history that you have. Is that fair to say? Yeah, it's true. That's not really, I don't really do that. I mean, I'm quite happy to talk about, like we just talked about.

Yep, yep, you know. The early days. The early days of going to the United States or going to Holland or Denham. Mark or what we talked about. I'm quite happy to remember that if I can. It's so long ago. It's hard to really remember. But no, I mean, I'm not drawing, in this foreign tongue's album,

lyrically, I'm not drawing on nostalgia at all. I mean, obviously you're drawing it on past experiences, but though it might be recent past experiences. There could be any, but they're not referred back. And musically speaking, every time Andy Watt, the producer would make a, producer's always like reference. So, which is our stabber because you go like, this is a bit like this song you did previously. It's to explain to the musicians to their relatability to the song.

Yeah. It's a bit, think of it a bit like this, you know. And then that's fine. But then I said to add a bit, yeah, but don't make references musically. There was one track, I think Mr. Charm. And at the end of it, he said, it could be a bit more like jumping track flash at the end. I said, no, I just not anything like that. And I don't want you to refer to it.

And we didn't have an argument about it. I said, just don't make it like that. We're not going to encourage anyone to overdub guitars like that. And so I didn't want any references to that, if you know what I mean. So, and I've heard that Paul McCartney's record has some of this that you're talking about. I haven't yet got round to listening to it. I apologize, Paul. I will do because it's been talking to.

about a lot and I've heard it's very good, but I haven't listened to it yet. Now, in the old days, would you have gotten a track by the Beatles or a competitor right away and listen to it? Listen to that record to make you could? Yeah, probably. You're beyond all that now. Well, I mean, I just, I'm not beyond it. I just keep forgetting. I'm being so busy. I just keep forgetting to listen to it. Yeah. I've been running around doing promotion and I just haven't been listening to current music very much. I could sing it. to you. Yeah, okay. I'm ready. How's it going? What's the lead track? What's it called? What's it called? What's it called? What's the lead track? I don't remember. Oh, God. Come on. No, he's, what is it,

Dungeon Alley? Dungeon. I've heard this. This is, this, I've heard the title. Yeah. What does that refer to? I think it's a street in Liverpool that was like an alley that led down to. So he's singing about Liverpool. He's looking back. Um, so on Hany Diamonds on the, on the track called Whole Wide World. I did refer back. Right. A little bit. to student digs days and everything. But it was a pretty oblique reference. But it was there. There was two lines about it.

Listening to the album, you mentioned Mr. Charm, so I'm going to bring this up. I don't think any singer does attitude better than you. It's so interesting, because I will do another reference, but in Mr. Charm, I get some of the, it's not a reference, but some of the delicious kind of almost, oily disdain that you can hear in, like, simply for the devil.

There's a little bit of, there's this great attitude, and you do it in, I'm a big fan of the show Slow Horses, you do the theme song. I love the attitude that you possess and inhabit when you're singing that song. Which one, to Mr. Charm. Well, Mr. Charm, but also. The Slow Horses theme, yeah, which is, you know, it's very kind of almost burlesque. It's called Strange Game. Strange game, yeah.

I think I saw you once said in an interview that, yes, the lyrics are important, but really it's the sound. Yeah. And you have this, I can tell you think a lot about what is this going to sound like because some very strange things in like doo-wop music sounded great, but when you look at what it says, it's rubbish. It's just absolute rubbish, and it's the sound. And I think of so many Stones records and so many of your vocalizations

as it's a great shattered or, you know, and on this record, there's a great attitude and a sound to what you are singing that I think adds a lot to the lyrics. I think in attitudes, though, you know, it's like, it's acting really because you're, you're, taking on the character of the song, you know, and when you do a love song, say like, back in your life, or the jilted lover, you're playing the jilted lover, you're playing the jolted, lover. So obviously that's happened to you before, but I mean, so, but that's a whole different attitude. It's a different person. You know, you, so when you come to do, I mean, it's easier in the recording studio because you, you know, I have to do them one after another. Yeah. Yeah. And on stage,

it's, you know, you have to switch personas, you know, quickly, you know, you go from simply the Daryl to a ballad, you know, whatever, but you don't do that. You almost want a screen to come down for a second so you can inhabit a new person. Yeah, you want to inhabit another space. you know, so when you get into a song in the studios, but remember you haven't done that song that many times. Yeah. You know, you might have done a demo of it. In this case, Mr. Chalm, I did a demo.

So I wasn't like walking into doing a song that I didn't know. I knew it, but I had to make it much better than the demo, you know. Right. And I rewrote the lyrics and everything. And then you start to get into the character of this. And in that song, there's two attitudes. So there's the verse attitude. where you're kind of trying to be beguiling.

And then there's the chorus attitude where you're kind of throwing something else away, you know, saying life's too short, just make money and what. So it's a slightly different attitude. Then you come back to the verse where you're then, you know, throwing sort of these kind of scattered gun images out, you know, in what you hope is a kind of interesting way.

I listened to this album. to it a bunch because I really like it. And I noticed that, yes, I can see, obviously, you guys famously start as a blues band, but there's blues in here, there's rock and roll, there's also country. Again, I think you've always been interested in many different genres of kind of music. And I was very interested in the country aspect of the album because I know that if I didn't know any by there, I think, well, country couldn't have been an influence, but it was. an influence.

The country was a huge influence from, well, I think on every most English musicians of that period, don't forget these songs were also big, a lot of these country songs were big hits. They were like top ten hits, like as they were in the US, you know. But, you know, people like Eddie Arnold and all these people, they had huge hits. They were pop hits, even though they were country songs. And then you got onto people like George Jones and they were played on the radio. So this wasn't obscure, you know.

The blues was more obscure. These were hits. The Everly brothers were country. Yeah. I mean, really? Yeah. I mean, they were pop, but there's still country. And Johnny Cash.

Johnny Cash had a number one record with Ballad of a Teenage Queen. So as soon as you heard that and you liked Johnny Cash, you would explore more Johnny Cash and you'd realize that he was a country singer. And so you realize when you listen to 1954 Elvis Sun Session, it's a click and a half away from country. It's Rockabilly. Yeah. But if you slowed it down a little bit, the instrumentation, it's so close to country.

So close, but he was covering rhythm and blues songs a lot of times. I mean, of course, he did standards like Blue Moon in the same period we're talking about. Obviously, these songs like That's a Right Mama, which is, I think, the first one he did. He did first one, yeah. And that was a R&B song, and then he did, Hound Dogg, that was on R&B. song. These are all R&B songs. So even though we say, yeah, he's so country, he was covering R&B in a kind of slightly different country way. Yeah. I'm not sure. I'm not a great Elvis student, but I mean, I love Elvis and all that, but did he really do country music as we know it?

No, probably more, well, gospel. He loved gospel. Yes, gospel he did. Love gospel, but you can see that, You're right, those early influences, I think it's a gumbo. Yeah, country is part of his makeup, but much more so gospel, rhythm and blues. You never met, did you meet Elvis? No, I never met Elvis. That's incredible to me. You know why? I tell you why.

The Daily Mirror, an English tabloid that still exists, you always did publicity with the Daily Mirror, and the Beatles did it. There was a Chobos journalist, I can't remember his name, very famous at the time. And he took the Beatles in Los Angeles. to visit with Elvis. Yeah. And there's pictures of this. Yeah.

So they went up to Elvis's house and his pool. Mm-hmm. And they walked in and he was playing bass. Was he? Watching TV playing bass. Okay. But they were all high. The Beatles were high.

And none of them have their story straight. None of them can remember. They don't remember anything. I remember John telling me, you know, you should never meet your heroes. I would never meet Elvis Mick if I were you. That's fascinating. Yeah. And so I didn't.

I took John's advice. Yeah. It was really stupid of me, really. But I mean, I would love to admit Elvis. Why I take John's advice? But I mean, at the time, it seemed to ring. Well, that means. No, no, he famously, in the 64 tour, he kept saying, the minute they got to America,

John kept saying, where's Elvis, where's Elvis, where's Elvis? That's the only person he wanted to meet. Then they met Elvis. And in Bel Air at his house. John walked out and said, where's Elvis? Because that was not the guy he wanted to meet. Yeah. He disappointed him.

Yeah. And he told me that all this story more than once. Yeah. And so it sort of put me off. So I wanted to keep my Elvis to myself, my version of Elvis. Sure. Yeah. And so I didn't want my version of Elvis shattered like John's was. But maybe my Elvis version would have been different.

Well, I have to tell you, I've always wanted to sit and talk with you, and this is a massive disappointment. Yeah. I can imagine is here we are stuck in this little tiny room in West London. I'm going to leave and go, where's Mick Jagger? And yeah, and I was enjoying being in Casablanca. This is crap. I did have a good time in Casablanca. And, you know, there's something about this album, Foreign Tongues.

I was thinking, you're not nostalgic. I can feel an urgency. There's a sense that you guys got into the studio. I know you made it very quick. and what I'm very impressed by is it almost feels like you've got something to prove, which you don't, but that's how it feels. A lot of these songs really feel like you're having a great time, but let's get this shit and get it right. Is that fair? Yeah, that's fair. I mean, but that's that's that motorist operandi for when we did Hackney Diamonds. Yeah. It was a way of working.

So the previous way, the bands obviously had a lot of ways of working in a studio. And when we did Hany Diamonds, that was a different way of doing it. It's like, okay, we got these songs, we got them prepped a bit, at least. They're done. We're not writing songs in the studio, which a lot of bands do. We used to do. If something comes up in the studio, fantastic. And this might change, this song may change completely and utterly, but you have an idea.

year and we're going to plow through them. We're not going to hang around. We're not going to wait. We're not going to play them all day. We're going to do them for a couple of hours and we'll move on to the next one. And if we'll come back the next day, we might do it again or might come back next week and do it again. So we're always moving ahead, always plowing ahead. So there's no time for too much self-analysis of whether it's the songs any good,

whether the performances are anything. We'll find out because when it's all finished, we'll listen to them all, you know, and see, what have we got after we've done four weeks? what have we got left? Well, what's good? Which are your favorites? Which ones? Is there anyone you don't like? Is this, does this all stand up? Because we want to set the bar high. Sure. Because we don't want to have, you said in Hatton's Armies and this, we don't want to, any filler. We want to set the bar high. So every track has to have something special about it. Okay, some might be, you might be your favorites, but doesn't mean to say that the other ones don't have something to say.

Well, we're rough and twisted. I love in the stars. Obviously, you guys knew we've got some something really great here. Yeah. Love the video. Yeah, that's crazy. It's fantastic. You guys sort of reimagined as your younger selves and it's, it's great. It's fantastic. It was only AI with the faces. Yeah. Everything else is real. And you told me that at one point, they got a little screwed up because you thought Ronnie Wood doesn't look right. Their young, young you looks great. Young Keith looks great. They made sort of, they tried to make a faces, era, Ronnie Wood. I said to, I said to, we were talking with

the lady that I'm working with on the video. So they're doing this AI and I said, stop it at 318. I talked to us. Just, we're on the, we're on a Zoom. I said, stop it at 318. I said, that's Jeff Beck. Ronnie, that's not, your guy,

your guy is, he's referring to Joe, he's got the wrong. Because the thing was, the thing was, the thing was that Ronnie was in a band with Jeff Beck. So they might have gone back to this footage and said, please don't bother me about this. I know exactly who these people are. And he got,

and it looked exactly like Jeff Beck. So we had Jeff Beck in the band for a minute there. That was interesting. So I said, now you've got to change you to Ronnie, because the Keith and I images were taken from sympathy for the devil. Yeah. Most, mostly.

It's not quite that simple. Was it Goddard who made the movie? Of course, someone famous, a famous French film director. Yeah, a French film like her. And I know at the time you were thinking, why is he shooting us creating? And now it's a great document. Yeah, it's the only one like that.

It's the only one that exists from the 60s. You know what's another great piece of footage is there's this great footage of you and Keith. You've just come back from recording in Muscle Shoals. You go into a room. I'm sure you've seen this. You walk into a room and you've got the demo for, I think it's brown sugar. Yeah. You put it on and you're listening to it.

It's not out yet. but you're listening to it. And you see you start to, both of you start to groove to this thing and you start strutting around the room and you have the same reaction that later on everybody's going to have, which is this is a great track, but it's you guys hearing it for the first time. Yeah, you're hearing the rough mix or something.

Yeah, and it's... Is that in giving me shelter by the Mazel brothers? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's just a great moment. You as a fan of the Rolling Stone. Yeah, I can be that. Yeah.

I can also be their severest critic. Is that true? Well, you kind of have to be sometimes, you know. I mean, and sometimes you're wrong. You know, you can be very wrong because you're not a very good critic of your own work. One is not a good critic of one's own work, really. But, you know, you are the first person that hears it, after all, in reality. I have to ask you, I mentioned this when we talked in Brooklyn, but I have to bring it up.

Your voice sounds as good as ever. There are times where I think it's better than ever. It defies logic, but I know that you are an extremely disciplined guy about your health and taking care of yourself. But you listen to this album, and I think this is a 28-year-old singer. It's really amazing. Well, that's funny kind of you to say that. And you're doing falsetto stuff on foreign tongues?

That's pretty easy. I find that cut easy. I mean, people have given me lots of confidence about that. And to be honest, that's that, and I appreciate the kindness, but some of the other songs are much more difficult. That one's relatively easy to do. I learned for Sato singing very early on in Stone's career when I listened to Don Caveve, he was a soul singer,

and he was singing this song called Have Mercy. Don Quay also wrote Chain of Fools for Aretha Franklin. He was a songwriter as well. And I met him a few occasions. Anyway, but on his song, Have Mercy, he sings only in falsetto. So then I copied that and we covered that song. I mean, I'm sure my version is useless compared to her. I was practicing.

But that kind of falsetto singing is relatively easy because you never change from falsetto back into your regular voice. That's the difficult thing to do. The difficult thing is going in and out of foresett. Yes, yes. So I can't really do that very well. Like, the person that does that brilliantly is Algreen. Yeah.

So if you listen to Al Green, and I was, last month, I was, I put on this Al Green record, and I hadn't heard it for a while. And I said, I was analyzing what he was doing with his focal. And he was, so he's going for Sadow and then he's going back in the same line. He's going back to his regular voice and then he's going back for Sered. I said, okay, I see. So I've got to do that too. I have to learn how to do that.

And so I just sang along with Al Green trying to do it. I mean, it's not easy, but it's possible. I learned this a long time ago, which is very few people sort of in your caliber, but I remembered once getting to see Bruce Springsteen in the East Street band perform. And then I got taken backstage because my drummer for years, Max Weinberg is Bruce's drummer. He took me backstage and I got to hang out with Bruce a little bit just after the show. And he at one point had been trying to have been singing in this full. Setto and I said, that was, that was great.

I love that part. And I didn't realize you could do that. And he said, yeah, I'm really working on it. And I'm trying. I'm trying. I'm trying. And I thought, this is fascinating. I see the same thing with you. Everyone else would assume that you've got nothing left to try. But of course you do. Those are things you can do. And you are still thinking, yeah, I'm going to listen to this Al Green record. And, okay, what's he doing here? And I want to work on that. Yeah, because I haven't mastered that.

So in the studio, so I do it like a song like, Jealous Lover. Yeah, yeah. So I can sing the falsetto part in the verse first, and then the chorus is in full voice, and then you layer it with lots of harmonies that I did in foseto and full voice, but then I'm not really doing the old green thing. I'm doing one set in foseto and one set in full voice, you know, So, I mean, it's not cheating. That's just the way I laid it.

But I do think there's something about, we all have our heroes. It's your attempt to be your hero that fails. And in the failing of being exactly like the person you idolize, you create something. Yeah, something new comes out. Yeah, and you can't be that. I mean, you guys were listening to blues and saying, we want to do that. And it's, of course, it's different. You're from Dartford.

Yeah, exactly. It's going to be different. I can't be Halloween wolf, you know. I mean, but you do have, I'm never tried to sound like, I don't know, nobody, nobody sounds like how old, not even, I've never heard anyone. But yeah, you're absolutely right. You, you, you, you, while you're copying people, you create something new. You know, we were talking about how so much has changed. One of the things that this first wave of pop stars in the 60s faced was, well, you can't be doing this when you're not in your 20s. Once you're, you know, once you're 28, 29, this is for young kids to do. You can't be doing this. There's a great clip I saw.

It's backstage. It might be Madison Square Garden. I think it's late 60s. Dick Cavett's talking to you. And he said, do you think you'll be doing this when you're 60? And he said, and you have a cane? And you said, sure. You said, a lot of, you said, Marlene Dietrich is still out there.

And she's amazing. And I thought that's such a great answer. because I think the standard answer then was, well, of course not, of course not. But you said, why not? Yeah. Why not? Well, yeah, there had been, I mean, see,

the thing about rock music is it's associated with, always associated with youth. It was the music of rebellious youth, so to speak. And, I mean, most rock bands are young, and you want there to be young rock bands, and, you know, it sort of comes and goes, and there's been a slight revival of it now. but you thought that once you're out of the flush of youth, you wouldn't continue.

But rock music kind of evolved, I suppose, in a way as well. And it also remained the popular music with the same group of people that were in your same age group. They still liked it. So they didn't move on to some other music. They might have moved on, but they still kept a thing for their youth. You know, though. So, and you obviously. But, yeah, I don't know.

I mean, there were people, I mean, Frank Sinatra was still a big star, and he was, when he was old. But it's a different kind of music. You don't need quite so much energy to do Frank Sinatra as you need to do the sex pistols. I mean, or the Ramones or to do hit me in the head. What I think, I mean, I can't, I'm a hard pressed to think of anybody who expends more energy on stage. Still, as you, you're in constant motion. I couldn't do that. I couldn't do that for 15 minutes.

let alone a two-hour-plus show. So, you know, the stamina that you have, I know your work at it. I'm wondering, does any of that come from the fact that your dad was a gymnast and a physical fitness guy? Did you think that you grew up a little bit with that? Like, I got to take care of myself. Yeah, you kept telling me you have to take care of yourself.

You know, if you don't take care yourself, you're going to be any point at someone like who was 55 who was fat and smoking in an armchair. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You'd be like your uncle, so-and-so. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, you don't want to be like that. I'm saying, no, no, I don't.

But it goes in, you know, when you're young. That coat, that sticks with you. So, yeah. I would have been, I don't know, 12 years old, I think, when Elvis turned 40. And the National Enquirer was just vicious about Elvis turning 40 because he was the real first wave of rock and roll. Yeah, absolutely. So he's, you know, he's another generation older than you guys. and he was the first one to get, isn't this absurd that this man is still doing this at 40?

Yeah. Which now, nobody thinks about. But he wasn't in very good shape. No, he wasn't. That was the thing. I mean, and then he got back in shape. He did a great comeback thing where he looked amazing. But for a while, why he was such a figure of fun,

I'm not saying the National Enquirer is the paper of record. But why he was, everyone used to take the Mick out of him was because he did get overweight and he obviously wasn't in a very fit. And he wasn't very old. I mean, this is all, and how old was he when he died? He was 42. Yeah, you know, which now we were considered quite young.

Well, this is how screwed up things are. I was in high school when I would have been 17, 16 or 17. when my sister Kate knocked on the door and opened the door, it was in the morning in 1980 and she told me John Lennon was shot and died. And I was lying in bed and I said, what? And she said, yes. And I said, how old was he?

And she said, 40. And I said, well, at least he had a long life. That's what I said. Now, I am 63 now. I don't think 40 is a long life. I don't think 63 is a long life, but that was my perspective then. Yeah, of course.

Just insane. Yeah, well, today, I know this is not going out until later, but David Hockney just died. Yeah. And he was creating experimental art. He was 87 years old, and he never stopped. Never stopped. He never stopped not just repeating himself.

He didn't repeat himself. That was the great thing. He just carried on, you know, trying different things and trying different ways of expressing himself. And... Foreign Tongues album, is that? I mean, he was amazing. And 87, I mean, he was still painting this year.

I have to ask you, is the harmonica that I hear on the Foreign Tongues album, is that you? Yeah. It's, okay. Ronnie plays the harmonica, but he doesn't play on this album. Well, also, there's a great quote, a Keith quote. Keith is a huge admirer of your harmonica playing, and he said that is, that's the, that's the, you know, there are many, Mick can assume. many forms. That is, he always felt your harmonica playing was the key into that's the core Mick Jagger. That's the Apple logo that comes up when you've turned on the computer for the

first time as you want harmonic. Do you think that's close to something true? It's kind of true, but the thing is, I think in a funny way, the harmonica is an extension of the voice, you know, because it's a blown instrument and you're making it, you know, it's a voice extension thing. So I think So for a vocalist, it's a good extension of a voice, you know, so a natural instrument of a voice. Of course, what I like doing is playing punk guitar. So that's what I really like doing. Do you ever do open tunings or do you just, do you? I do both, yeah. But when I do the slashy indie guitars, it's sort of six strings and Ronnie and Keith always sort of look at me. But I do it anyway. They don't want you on the guitar. I don't think so. But they're. But they're.

They've sort of learned to put up with it. Yeah. They've learned to put up with it. And, you know, I love doing it because, I don't know. It's harder than that, you know? Yeah. It's like this. You know, because on some of these fast songs, it's like, you know, like hit me in the head and all that.

That's, it's really slamming, you know. You have to really slam it. I'm not saying Ron and Keith don't slam it because I do. But when I've written something like that, I think I always want to be on it, you know. I always want to be playing guitar on it. So that's why I get my. I love playing harmonica too. The harmonica thing was great on the Amy Winehouse song

because I played the harmonica. The horn parts on the Amy original I played on harmonica. So da da da da da da da da da da, which is a horn part. So I played that on harmonica. That was a good opportunity. Do you write exclusively on guitar or do you also sit at the piano and write? I do piano and guitar. Piano and guitar.

Piano guitar. At times I just sing to drum machines, just anything. with no instrument, just me singing. Do you find that like you've got to do it early in the morning? No, I hate doing things early in the morning. I think only morning is breakfast and read the newspaper. Uh-huh. That's it.

Many people have been asking, is there going to be a tour for foreign tongues? And I selfishly would want that because I want to hear these songs live, and I know you're going to get me a ticket. Yeah. You guys are saying probably not right away, but what do you think? Do you think it would be maybe in a year? Is it possible?

Or it's hard to say? It's possible. I think I'd love to do it too, because I think there's a lot of songs on this album that would translate into live really good. But having said that, you can't really do that many new songs if you do a stadium shows.

The audience is not that accepting of them. You know, they want to hear what they're familiar with. Can you clock that when you're trying something new? Absolutely. You see people head for the bathroom? You kind of, yeah. You do. You'll get used to it.

You'll like it, honestly, you'll like it. Yeah. But you must have felt that when you were singing some of, I mean, there were many times in your life where you were singing new tracks. Of course. But no one, you know, Led Zeppelin had to play Stairway to the Heaven for the first time at one point on Long Island. And people were like, what is this shit? Yeah, right.

It's always the first time. Then, yeah, the more confident you get, the more you just, we're doing it, you know, but there's still a limit to how many you can do out percentage-wise. So you can see someone headed to the bathroom. Sometimes I can. I don't concentrate on that. I would only concentrate on it. When someone I'm talking and people are heading to the bathroom, it's all I can think about.

And it's, they often, that's when they use the bathroom is when I start talking. I heard you talk about David Bowie once. I think it was when we were having dinner, and you were talking about a David Bowie at one point, and you said an interesting thing, which is we were competitive, but we were also good friends. That's a very hard thing to maintain, but I think you did, you guys did that beautifully. Yeah, we were competitive. David was so competitive, much more competitive. I was made competitive by David. I mean, how so.

Well, he was just so competitive that I had to be competitive back, you know. But he would do, I mean, I mean, he, he, he was. I went through a period, David went through all these different, yes, iterations. iterations of David. There isn't one David Bowie. There's kind of like a slowly evolving David Bowie. There's jump cuts of, you know, to another David Bowie. Yeah. Another style. Then he's the thin white Duke. Yeah. You know, he's not, you know, when he was doing like Gene Jeannie, he was very stonesy, you know. Yes. That was very stonesy period. And so he would come over and play me, Gene Jeanne. You know, I've got to want to listen? I said, yeah, of course. I said, God, you knicked all my things. Yeah, I know, man.

I know. But it's like a homage to you. It's homage, yeah, sure. It's a homage. Yeah, yeah. But, yeah, we're compared to. I think John and I were very competitive too, John Lennon. But we're more competitive in being sarcastic.

Yes. Just verbal competitiveness. Have you ever seen the video? of him and Bob Dylan in the back of the limock. Yes. I love that. I love that because Bob Dylan is not in good shape. They're in the back of the Rolls-Royce.

They're driving around London, I think in 65. John's got that acid wit. Where he's saying, come, come, boy, come, come. Do you suffer from scraggly forehead? He turns it into an aspirinad because Bob Dylan can't pull it together. No. That's what, that's very much like John. Did you guys get along?

Yeah, we got really got along. But, I mean, That was John at his most, you know, he's being very sarcastic with Bob, you know, Bob's not really coming back with the zingy answers. No, no, he's impaired and he's, he's not, yeah, he's not. But it does give you a good illustration in, because most of the other things you see of John are kind of like short, and that's kind of extended sarcasm. Yes.

So that was him all the time? Not all the time He could be sweet Of course It could be lovely Yeah But you know It's one of these people

That if you Say something stupid He'd pick you up You know You'd see it right He'd clock it right away You know Yeah but he

He was very competitive about He wasn't competitive About anything else Mm-hmm You mean just You think he was most competitive About being funny Yeah

Being funny and sarcastic Yes More so than music It's a kind of Liverpool thing I think Sure. I think. Maybe I'm stereotyping, but I think it is. You've always been, you guys have been great at tour promotion. I don't know what you might do for the next tour. One of the greatest things you ever did was all get on the back of a flatbed truck, drive down Fifth Avenue singing, I believe, Brown Sugar.

Yeah, and I'm thinking, that takes nerve to drive through New York in traffic. and all the press was told you were going to be in this restaurant and then they hear music and they come running out of the restaurant with their pads and their cameras and you guys are on the back of a truck going by. That's it. Which was fantastic. I don't know if people do things like that anymore.

They don't really. Apparently, Charlie told me that was a thing that jazz bands did in New York to promote their gigs, I think. In Harlem, I think. They would get on the back of a truck. I think that's where we got it from. I think it might have been Charlie's idea. Yeah.

Because that was the thing that happened in Harlem. And I know. You mentioned Charlie. Charlie's, you use a track of Charlie's in foreign tongues. It's amazing. I know you guys are also readily identifiable by your sounds. It's very hard to do on drums. But you always know it's Charlie.

Yeah. It's really incredible. Yeah. He's got two sticks and a drum kit. that he doesn't have some Keith Moon crazy kit with a thousand. He's got a standard kit. You always know it's him. Yeah.

And the funny thing is on this track, which is really fast, rock track. You're almost punk, you might say. And everyone says, oh, such a sensitive jazz drama. You know, that was so different about him. Well, not on this track. No. He's banging it. Yeah.

I have to ask you, Oxfordshire Pub. as we record this, I think, days ago, you walked into an Oxford should pub and started singing to people. How did that happen? Were you off your meds? What happened? Yes, I didn't know where I was.

I had dinner and an Oxford college. I went to an Oxford college. I was invited to a dinner. And very interesting people, very pleasant. Lots of nice students. And then one of the students that I was talking with, said, I play mandolin. I said, that's nice. I said, not the easiest instrument. It's,

I play mandolin. I'm going down the road to play with an Irish band. So do you want to come? So I said, sure. And so I took a couple of people that I was with and the provost of the college. And he took his gown off and going to the pub. And it was a very small pub and very friendly people and the band was doing fiddle pieces and the guy joined in with his mandolin and but no one was singing right so I thought oh well

here's an opening you want to sing it this is my big chance this is my chance for pub crawling scene so I did a song that I'd actually recorded and then but I had to rehearse it just mentally because I hadn't sung it in years and I remember the least three verses

it's like an old standard right everyone's done it. I think even Bob Dylan's done it, I found out. But not that I've heard it. But I had to remember at least three verses in my head before I started. I didn't just launch into it. Because the worst thing you can do is launch into a song and then you've got one verse. And that, hmm. So I would pay to see that happen with you. I'm sorry. I would just love to see it. But it was fine. It was two minutes long. Yeah. Well, that's, I mean, that keys into, I think, the main point that I wanted to get across in this interview,

which is something that really strikes me in the short time that I've been able to hang out with you, is that you were very much living in the moment, making things in the moment. This album, Foreign Tongues, is of this moment. And you, I mean, sitting at a dinner with you and watching you trying everyone else's food, stealing some of Ronnie's dessert.

And I thought you can converse about, anything you're you know crazily deeply red and you're just fascinating in all fascinated in all kinds of stuff and I thought I left my time with you and I thought I need this is my new spirit animal is is Mick Jagger I want to I aspire not to be you because that's not going to happen but to kind of adopt that philosophy about life, which is just bite into it, stay interested, delight yourself. I think that's like, you know,

I don't think that attitude suits everyone. Right. Because some people, some, well, you know, some of your creativity, if you're a creative person, let's imagine, you will draw on your past. You might draw on something that you had an idea, dear for when you were 25, you might have written a short story when you were in 25 and you didn't publish it and then you realized that that will make a great film script or that would make a

novel that I could now write, now I'm 65, let's say. So it's not true that you can't, you can't draw upon this whole well of your past and make it into something. It's, And so you're not, you have to be aware of your past. And, but that doesn't mean you live in it. And, you know, you feel, of course, I'm always asked, you know, what happened when you did this. And it was so long ago. And you find yourself like just repeating these stories,

you know, if you're even true anymore. Yeah. You know, it's just like a, you know, footballer in a pub talking about his goal in in 1972, you know, it's a, you don't want to become that. And that's a danger. So, yeah, so everyone says live in the moment, you know, it's just a kind of, like a, like a kind of fashionable mantra. But, I mean, to a certain extent it's true.

And I mean, I think also when you're writing like these kind of ephemeral pop songs, which these, this is what this business is, you, you've got to stay in the present day. So I was writing a song like ringing hollow, you're thinking about the now of what you're living through now, which of course, you never know could change by the time the record comes out. But you can only write

that you can't really look into the future. It's hard. So you just write of the writing of the now, you know, in a song like divine intervention, you're writing of the now of what your feelings are. You know, so there's there's a thing that runs through these

lyrics of these songs that is definitely of the now and the kind of weird period and we're kind of like it's it's difficult for some people living in this period and and and you know there's possibly dangers that you know that we're all in in somewhere or other but were geopolitical dangers or economic dangers and who knows what else and and we're all a bit we're bit a little bit sensitive to them. I think people are sensitive to these things. And so when I'm writing this stuff, you know, I can't help myself, but I'm not setting out to even write. It just comes out. Yeah. It's what's happening right now. And these are scary times, but I have to thank you because you've given me, you and the other lads have given me an enormous amount of joy in my life.

Thank you. I'm glad. I, that's what I hear for. Before I became a bad guitarist, I was a bad drummer. And when I was a kid, I would set up my drum kit in the living room and put on Stone's records and try and do what Charlie was doing. And my parents let me do that. That's right of them. And we had neighbors, they were lovely. I can't believe.

I would not let my kids do that. I would smash the kit. But you've given me enormous joy. Lovely getting to know you and talk to you. and you're one of my favorite conversations. I've been talking to people nonstop for 32 years, and you're one of my favorite people that talk to. I hope the conversations today, we covered a few of the things we got so much.

We didn't talk about your hillbilly guitar playing much and your guitar collection. You may have mentioned that on these podcasts before. No, we talked about it at dinner. We did. And we got into my fascination with rockabilly and wanting to sing. And funny, Keith heard me do Ronnie Hawkins, a version of Ronnie Hawkins 40 days where I do it twice as fast as Ronnie Hawkins.

And Keith said, you sound like a fucking auctioneer. But yeah, this is one of the joys in my life. And I'm so delighted that we were able to get together today. Me too. And foreign tongues, please, when you get a moment, tour with this. because I really want to hear these songs live. Yeah, me too.

All right. I want to do it. Thanks so much. Nice to talk to you. Conan O'Brien needs a friend with Conan O'Brien, Sonam of Sessian and Matt Goorley. Produced by me, Matt Goorley. Executive produced by Adam Sacks, Jeff Ross, and Nick Leow. Theme song by The White Stripes.

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