Keith Richards Talks About Productive New Songwriting With Mick Jagger

With the Rolling Stones today announcing their European touring plans for this summer, Keith Richards has revealed that he and Mick Jagger have been writing new material together, and talked about life after Charlie Watts in the hallowed band, who mark their 60th anniversary this year.

In a new interview broadcast on CBS Sunday Morning yesterday (13), Richards said: “I was working with Mick last week, and Steve [Jordan] and we came up with some eight or nine new pieces of material, which is overwhelming by our standards. Other times, it’s like a desert,” he laughed. “It’s the muse thing, y’know. If I could find her address…it’ll be interesting to to find out the dynamics now that Steve’s in the band as we’re metamorphosing into something else, still.”

Talking candidly about playing live without Watts for the first time on the Stones’ No Filter shows in America last fall, on which the drum seat was filled by Jordan, he said: “I think Charlie wanted us to go on the road, he wanted the tour to happen. That’s my feeling, the last time I spoke to him.” Of turning around and not seeing Watts, he added: “Yeah, that is strange, to turn suddenly and after all these years, you just expect that face.”

Last Thursday (10), Richards reunited with his own band, the X-Pensive Winos (featuring Jordan, Ivan Neville, Waddy Wachtel, and Will Lee, standing in for Charley Drayton) to play at the Love Rocks benefit at the Manhattan Theater in New York. Their three-song set featured “999,” “You Got The Silver,” and “Before They Make Me Run.”

Richards also told CBS Sunday Morning that, in spite of the recent wave of major artists selling their publishing catalogs, he and Jagger have had no such serious conversation. “I don’t know if we’re ready to sell our catalog,” he said. “Might drag it out a bit, put some more stuff in it. [Selling it is] a sign of getting old.”

Buy or stream the 40th anniversary edition of the Rolling Stones’ 1981 album Tattoo You.