The Rolling Stones mourn Charlie Watts and speak ‘Foreign Tongues’ on first episode of new podcast
The Rolling Stones have officially launched their own podcast, Speaking in Tongues, with the first episode available to listen to now.
The six-part series, narrated by American singer-songwriter Norah Jones, consists of interviews with the band’s Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Ronnie Wood, plus producer Andrew Watt.
Across the series, which coincides with the release of The Rolling Stones’ upcoming album Foreign Tongues on July 10th, collaborators to the new record, such as Robert Smith and Steve Winwood, also appear.
In the first episode, The Stones look back on how they ended up partnering up with Watt on 2023’s Hackney Diamonds, which led to them continuing their creative relationship on Foreign Tongues.
Looking back, Wood shared of his mindset ahead of making Hackney Diamonds, “I knew we needed some young blood and we needed somebody to produce an album, it’s so difficult to get that idea past Mick and Keith, especially Keith.”
Then, a dinner with Paul McCartney, who was working with Watt on The Boys of Dungeon Lane at the time, put the producer on his radar.
Coincidentally, Jagger had also made a list of possible producers for the project, which happened to have Watt at the top, and the ball got rolling.
Elsewhere in the episode, they reflected on the loss of Charlie Watts with Wood mourning, “Sadly, when Charlie did pass, actually, we were rehearsing for a tour. Although it hit us hard, we were half like, ‘Is Charlie going to come out of this one, is it serious?’ When we got the news he passed, we just had a day off, Charlie wouldn’t want us to grieve and put on everything on hold.”
He added, “We went back in the day after we heard, and in a way we played with Charlie’s spirit. He was still with us, the shock was with us, and we just carried on with Charlie’s spirit.”
Meanwhile, Jagger looked back on making Hackney Diamonds and explained how the project bled into Foreign Tongues, sharing, “In a way, we at the end of Hackney Diamonds, we’d already started making the next record in your head.”
He then maintained that the new project “had to be of a certain quality” and “couldn’t be a throwaway thing” following the success of the Grammy-winning Hackney Diamonds, noting that “people were shocked there was even a record at all”.
The full first episode of Speaking in Tongues is available to listen to below, with the rest of the series set for release in the coming weeks.
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