Updated

Updated · The Guardian · Jun 19

Keith Richards, 82, Unveils Rolling Stones' 'Foreign Tongues' as He Becomes a Great-Grandfather

Updated

Updated · The Guardian · Jun 19

Keith Richards, 82, Unveils Rolling Stones' 'Foreign Tongues' as He Becomes a Great-Grandfather

Q: How does a posthumous Charlie Watts punk track honor the band's past while defining their future sound?

It does both by putting Charlie Watts’ unmistakable feel inside one of the album’s most forward-driving songs. “Hit Me In The Head,” described by Mick Jagger as a fast “real punk rocker,” uses parts Watts recorded before his 2021 death, turning the track into more than an archive piece: it preserves the rhythmic identity that helped define the Stones for six decades. That matters because Watts was not just a former member appearing posthumously. He was the band’s musical anchor, the drummer Keith Richards long described as the bedrock of the Stones’ groove. His presence gives the song emotional weight and ties *Foreign Tongues* directly to the group’s classic chemistry, much as the album’s Chuck Berry cover reconnects it to their blues roots. At the same time, the track points forward. Producer Andrew Watt has pushed the Stones toward a rawer, looser, more immediate sound on *Foreign Tongues*, and a punk song built around Watts’ final recordings fits that brief. It suggests the band is not retreating into heritage-rock nostalgia but using its own history as fuel for something sharper and more urgent. In that sense, the song becomes a bridge. Watts’ drumming honors the band’s past by carrying its original swing, restraint and authority. The punk framing helps define the future by showing the Stones can still sound aggressive, varied and alive, even while drawing on one of their oldest and most essential voices.

1 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Jun 19

Richards said he became a great-grandfather "a couple of weeks" ago, calling the new role another marker of life at 82 as he promotes the Rolling Stones' latest album, Foreign Tongues.
Foreign Tongues follows 2023's Hackney Diamonds by less than three years, built from older material and a month-long London recording burst that Richards said carried forward the band's momentum.
Andrew Watt, 35, helped drive the sessions, while Richards said Mick Jagger's recent prolific streak sped the album along and that their once-strained partnership now involves less "jousting."
The record mixes newer touches with the Stones' roots, including a Robert Smith guest spot, an Amy Winehouse cover and a Chuck Berry song that circles back to the band's earliest influences.
Richards, who quit cigarettes six years ago and says he has "had it up to here with technology," also voiced broad unease about AI even as he suggested he is not dwelling on whether this could be the band's final album.