The iconic band’s frontman has addressed whether the group will be able to record new music amid current coronavirus concerns. The singer-songwriter spent most of the year in quarantine, but has suggested that new music could be on the way if the band are able to get together under ‘safe circumstances’.
Speaking to Rolling Stone magazine in a recent interview, Jagger confessed ‘I don’t know when we’re gonna get together at the moment. We don’t know when we’re going to get together and record. It’s got to be in safe circumstances and all that stuff’. He later told GQ: ‘It’s quite difficult; not impossible, but more difficult than normal. I hope we can get together this autumn and record some more material. We’ve got plenty of new songs to do, so it’s just a question of doing it and getting it finished’.
He also revealed that the band had already been working on some new material before the pandemic began, and that quarantine has given him time to finalise it: ‘I’m sure we’ll get together soon, but I’ve got to finish off the stuff we’ve already done. So that gives me an opportunity now to get that out of the way’. Jagger said the new music ‘Sounds good. It’s pretty varied. A bit of all kinds of different [genres] in there’.
Mick Jagger and Keith Richards on ‘Goats Head Soup,’ life in lockdown, and why they’ll never quit https://t.co/sk2sbv6giQ
— Rolling Stone (@RollingStone) September 5, 2020
Jagger, along with his bandmates, has largely been staying at home since the group’s No Filter world tour was put on hold at the beginning of the year; fifteen North American dates were postponed with no rescheduling yet confirmed. The star says he has used his newfound free time for relaxation as well as productivity. He told GQ that, aside from reading and ‘watching the seasons unfold’ (which he admits he rarely has time to do), he has ‘Been writing quite a lot of songs and working on that, playing the guitar and singing’. On the pressure to be creative during lockdown, he said: ‘I’ve kept myself pretty busy on that front. I haven’t felt that I’ve been lazy’.
Since first coming together in 1962, The Rolling Stones have released 30 studio albums, 23 live albums, 25 compilation albums and 120 singles. The band has survived multiple in-group conflicts and seen a total of fourteen members come and go, with four longtime bandmates forming the current line up.
Guitarist and co-founder Keith Richards recently declared that the group does not intend on retiring any time soon, explaining: ‘You might call it a habit… I mean, it’s what we do. And also there’s that thing between us, like, ‘Who’s going to be the first one to get off the bus?’ You have to be kicked off or drop off, right? So it’s like that. I really can’t imagine doing anything else’. All this considered, it is likely that The Rolling Stones will release new music some time in early 2021.
