Tomorrow, the Rolling Stones's first new album in eighteen years will be released. ‘Hackney Diamonds’ is twelve tracks long and was a “party” to make, according to the band’s longtime guitarist Ronnie Wood.
Wood recently had an interview with NME where he talked about the upcoming project, as well as the bandmates and the late drummer Charlie Watts.
The album features Lady Gaga, Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder and more. Wood said it was a bunch of fun having big-name artists in the recording booth.
“The whole album was very rewarding,” he said. “We had the schoolboy, Paul McCartney. He was so happy”.
He added that the Lady Gaga feature happened somewhat spontaneously.
“We’d already cut the track with Stevie. Lady was just sitting on the floor and singing along with Mick’s rough vocal and he was going ‘Hey that sounds pretty good, would you wanna make a go of it’ and she said ‘Yeah’.”
During the interview, Wood let slip that the Stones have a load of songs from the recording process in the back pocket.
“We cut about 23 songs - we picked the best twelve, or, the first twelve. I don’t think it will be that long [until another album]. We’re all kicking inspiration and positive vibes around”.
The album is of course without Charlie Watts, the band’s drummer for nearly sixty years who passed away in 2021. Replacing him as the stickman on the album is Steve Jordan, who Watts requested take over.
“I was the last one to see Charlie in the hospital,” Wood shared. “To cut a long story short, he said: ‘I wanna get out of this bloody place, but until I do, will you please make sure Steve Jordan carries the flag for me and when I get better I’ll come and join you.
“I said ‘Don’t worry about that, we got you covered Charlie’.”
Ending on a nice note, Wood revealed Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are “more friendly than ever.”
“It’s a wonderful thing to see. All my bloody efforts have paid off”.
