No doubt you’d know that The Rolling Stones released Hackney Diamonds a few days ago – their first album of original material in 18 years.
During iHeartRadio’s exclusive IHR ICONS broadcast over the weekend, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards chatted about the album and gave fans a first-listen to many of its songs.
At the very end of the chat, Richards revealed they were planning a tour in support of the new album.
“One of the interesting things is when Mick and I conceived this record, we said that after we cut it and it’s a big hit [laughs] we’d go out on the road behind it,” the guitarist mentioned after it was pointed out that the tracks seemed like they’d translate well live.
“That is the second stage of the rocket is to take it on the road…to break these songs out on the road is sort of the next step.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Jagger spoke about the high bar The Stones set for themselves with the album.
“It can’t just be okay,” he said. “It can’t just be a record with two or three good tracks.”
They’ve seemingly succeeded, critics aren’t only calling Hackney Diamonds the best Stones album in decades, but the best rock album – full stop – in decades.
Throughout the broadcast, eight of the album’s 11 tracks were played, including lead single ‘Angry’, the tracks with all-star features, the two songs that feature Charlie Watts on drums, ‘Tell Me Straight’, which features Richards on vocals, and a cover of ‘Rolling Stones Blues’ — the Muddy Waters tune Jagger and Richards bonded over 62 years ago but never recorded together.
