The release of The Rolling Stone’s next album Hackney Diamonds is imminent after a nearly 20 years wait for original music from the band, but the band have already begun working on a follow-up.
Frontman Mick Jagger spoke on a Canadian Podcast, ‘Q with Tom Power’ to promote the new album and he revealed that a follow-up is already being worked on as he said: “This won’t be the last album. We are two-thirds through the next one.”
This will come as a massive shock to long-time Rolling Stones fans as before Hackney Diamonds, which is due for release on October 20th, the last full-length album of original music the band had released was 2005’s A Bigger Bang.
The new album, Hackney Diamonds, will feature original drummer, Charlie Watts – who unfortunately died in August 2021 from cancer. Watts plays on 2 songs whilst his replacement Steve Jordan plays on the rest of the tracks. Jagger earlier this month confirmed this as he said: “There’s 12 tracks on the album. Most are with Steve, but two are tracks we recorded in 2019 with Charlie. We used two of the tracks that we recorded with Charlie before.”
Commenting at a special event at Hackney Empire in London earlier this month, guitarist Keith Richards commented on Watts’ absence, saying: “Ever since Charlie’s gone it’s different, of course, he’s number four, he’s missing. Of course he’s missed, incredibly. But thanks to Charlie Watts we have Steve Jordan – who was Charlie’s recommendation should anything happen to him, Steve Jordan is your man. It would have been a lot harder without Charlie’s blessing.”
It can only be assumed at this point that the follow-up album is being worked on with replacement drummer, Steve Jordan, however that is ultimately unknown.
First and foremost, the band is currently gearing up for the release of Hackney Diamonds with lead single ‘Angry’ already released.
The album features star studded collaborations including Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder.
Talking about Paul McCartney making it on the album, Jagger claims it was unexpected, as he said: “Paul was in LA when we were recording and he was supposed to work with Andy one week. Andy had said, ‘I am working on this record and I will be on it for six months if I do nothing else. Andy said, ‘Why don’t we get Paul to come in?’. We suggested he played on this tune, and he really rocked it. We were all in a room together. “It seemed so natural and Paul was so relaxed and he enjoyed it. John [Lennon] was a close friend of mine and he was so acerbic. Paul is a different kind of personality. We don’t see each other that much but we do text.”
