Mick Jagger is showing no signs of slowing down with The Rolling Stones ahead of their new album’s debut.
The rock band’s release of “Hackney Diamonds” will be their first album of original material in 18 years.
Jagger graces the cover of WSJ Magazine, and admitted he has problems with “old age” in the interview. He also said he’s made “mistakes” while being the frontman and one of the founders of The Rolling Stones for more than six decades.
Jagger shared that the issue with “old age” is that “people feel helpless, useless and irrelevant.”
He believes that the business of The Rolling Stones will outlive him.
“You can have a posthumous business now, can’t you? You can have a posthumous tour,” he remarked.
The rock legend confessed he put pressure on his bandmates to ensure they’re on track with their album release.
Jagger, 80, reflected on his adamant plan for the band after they completed their 2022 tour.
tour.
Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones perform during a concert in Amsterdam. (Sven Hoogerhuis/BSR Agency/Getty Images)
He recalled having a meeting with guitarist and co-founder Keith Richards, saying the Stones needed to step it up a notch after their tour. While Richards agreed, he had certain doubts.
“What I want to do is write some songs, go into the studio and finish the record by Valentine’s Day,” Jagger told Richards, according to WSJ Magazine. “Which was just a day I picked out of the hat — but everyone can remember it. And then we’ll go on tour with it, the way we used to.”
Richards told Jagger the new album release was never going to happen.
“I said, ‘It may never happen, Keith, but that’s the aim. We’re going to have a f–king deadline,’” Jagger said.
“Otherwise, we’re just going to go into the studio, for two weeks, and come out again, and then six weeks later, we’re going to go back in there. Like, no. Let’s make a deadline.”
Richards eventually agreed to Jagger’s deadline pressure.
“Not that you’re rushing,” Jagger noted of the project. “But you’re not, like, doing take 117. So that you don’t get bogged down in conversations about whether this song’s a good one, whether this song’s worth it.”
Jagger continued to speak on the expectations of his role in the band and confessed he faced challenges throughout the group’s 60-year tenure.
“I mean, it is kind of my role, you know? I think people expect me to do that,” he shared with the media outlet.
“I don’t think anyone’s saying, ‘Oh, I should be doing the “clarity” role.’ I don’t see Ronnie [Wood] saying to me, ‘Mick, I think you should retire from the clarity role and the vision role and I’ll do it.’ No one else wants to do it! I just got dumped with it. And I made a lot of mistakes, when I was very young. But you learn.”
Band members Jagger, Richards and Wood are gearing up for the release of their new album in October.
“Hackney Diamonds” marks the first original studio album from the group since 2005’s “A Bigger Bang.” It’s also their first album since the death of their original drummer, Charlie Watts, in 2021.