Mick Jagger interview: Rolling Stones vs. the Beatles and how it feels to tour at his age

Mick Jagger is speaking by phone from New Orleans.

Two days earlier, on Thursday, May 2, the Rolling Stones did “Time Is On My Side” with local soul queen Irma Thomas, whose 1964 recording of that classic inspired the British Invaders to cut their own rendition that same year, resulting in the Stones’ first Top 10 entry on the Billboard Hot 100.

Jagger and Thomas revisiting the song together as a deeply soulful duet turned out to be an aptly titled highlight of a set that was, remarkably enough, the Stones’ first time to take the stage at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.

Two days later, Jagger says he may go out and catch more music while he’s there — which he does, popping in on the festival’s Gospel Tent on Saturday afternoon — before he makes his way to Arizona for the Stones’ first metro Phoenix concert since the death of founding member Charlie Watts in 2021.

The Stones turned in a brilliant set at State Farm Stadium on Tuesday, May 7, the third date on the Hackney Diamonds Tour, named for the Stones’ first album of original material in nearly 20 years.

Boasting guest appearances by Paul McCartney, Lady Gaga, Stevie Wonder, Elton John and founding bassist Bill Wyman, who left the group in 1993, "Hackney Diamonds" has been hailed as their best work since “Tattoo You” or “Some Girls,” depending on the individual music critic’s level of enthusiasm.

Before the interview gets underway, the singer has a question for the interviewer.

“How hot is it there?” he asks. “I remember the last time, it was warning you not to go out. Of course we did.”

Jagger laughs, as he does easily and often in the course of a 15-minute conversation that despite the actual presence of a phone never feels like he's phoning it in.

The man is unerringly affable, endearingly self-aware, impressively candid and refreshingly down-to-earth for one of rock and roll’s defining icons, widely held to be its greatest front man, a master of phrasing and a criminally underrated lyricist to boot, all while still doing stadium tours at 80.

Here’s what else he had to say.

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Mick Jagger on touring as an 80-year-old legend with new music

The videos I've seen on social media from Jazz Fest and opening night have been amazing. Is the feeling you get from doing what you do on stage any different today than it was in the ‘60s or ‘70s?

Well, yeah, I mean, of course (laughs). You were younger and more crazy, more excited. And you were new. You weren't like treated like legends and all this. But you're the same person doing the same thing, even doing some of the same songs, so in some ways, it's the same. But it's a different time in the world, so there's a different vibe. It's the same, but only different, yeah.

How does it feel to have new music in the set?

Actually, really great. I love playing the old songs and all that. But it's great to be able to have something new, because you haven't done it before. It's a challenge to you to get it over to the audience and see if they like it, to see if they want to hear it.

It’s easier in a smaller place to play new songs. It's more difficult with a stadium crowd because they want to hear you know…. "Oh, I've come here to hear 'Paint It, Black'” “When are they gonna play 'Honky Tonk Women'?"

Are they gonna really like these songs? Are we gonna play them well enough? We haven’t played them that many times. We've only done “Angry,” like, three times, compared to “Paint It, Black.” (laughs) You go, 'Ugh, I made a mistake! Oh God.’ So yeah, it's challenging, but I enjoy it.

I would love to do more. We're doing three. I'm sort of changing them around, playing the three or four that are the most well-known. I'd love to put some others in, but there's only so much you can do, as I said, in a stadium. Red Hot Chili Peppers have got a new album. They're on tour and they're doing four songs. And I think we're on the same page here, when you're playing a big show. It's about all the audience can really take. (laughs)

Concert review: Time is still on Mick Jagger's side as the Rolling Stones thrash State Farm Stadium

Mick Jagger on being back in the studio with the Rolling Stones

How did it feel to get back in the studio and work on new material?

Oh, I loved it. It was great. I mean, I had a lot of songs I'd done during lockdown. I had a lot of time to write. So I had a lot of different kinds of songs and was glad to get them finally down. I thought, “When are we gonna get these songs down?” And it actually was really quick and fun and quite enjoyable. I like being back in the studio doing new things.

How do you decide “All right, it's time. Let's get in there and make an album”?

I told this story when the album came out so I don't want to repeat myself too much. But I said to Keith, you know, “We've just gotta go make an album.” I didn't say, “I don't want to tour unless we have a new album.” But I said, “It would be better to go out with a new album when we next go on tour. So let's go do an album.” Keith said “Yeah, absolutely.”

We always used to have a deadline, you know? Like you guys at newspapers. You gotta write that story. And it's gotta be in here by this time. So I said, “We have to have a deadline.” Because otherwise we just keep going in the studio but we don’t finish anything. So everyone was down for that. And then we did it and we made the deadline. It all happened according to plan.

That's great. Were there specific goals you wanted to achieve artistically with this record?

Well, I wanted it to sound like a record made in 2024. The temptation with an old band is to go in and rehash something you've done before. And of course, the band is still the band. That's why I always say, “It's still gonna sound like the Rolling Stones, no matter what happens.”

But I said, “When you hear it, it's gotta sound like a record that's made by a rock band in this era,” you know? That crispness. If you listen to, say, a 1970s Rolling Stones record compared to this, you might love it because you've listened to it hundreds of times and that's the sound you like. But it's different, you know what I mean? It's a different period of sound.

It's much crisper and you can hear everything more clearly. But it's still got the energy level. To me, the energy level in a rock band is the most important thing. You've got to have that. You've got to feel the energy. That's a big part of it. And you've got to hear what everyone's playing.

Rolling Stones setlist: Every song they sang in Phoenix on the 2024 Hackney Diamonds Tour

Mick Jagger on working with Paul McCartney on 'Hackney Diamonds'

It's definitely got that energy. What was it like to work with Paul McCartney on this record?

Oh, it was great fun. We've all known Paul a long time. We worked in the '60s a little bit. He sang vocals with us and stuff. I've played with him in his house. Ronnie (Wood) has played with him a lot. And Andy Watt, the producer, was doing some work with him. So it was very fortuitous.

That's LA, you know. Next door there's Lady Gaga, Dolly Parton, Paul McCartney. It was great having him come by and he played great on "Bite Your Head Off."

Mick Jagger on losing Charlie Watts and recording with Bill Wyman

This is your first time in Phoenix since Charlie died. What was it like to sort of dust yourself off and get back to the music after losing someone that much at the core of who the Stones are?

Well it's very hard, you know, having Charlie since we first really started. I played with Charlie before the Rolling Stones existed. I played with Charlie as a singer in the Alexis Korner Band. He was playing the drums and I was the singer. Keith was sometimes playing with me. Sometimes he wasn't. So it was a difficult period to be without him.

But, you know, we decided to carry on. We had a tour planned. And Charlie said, 'You should go and do the tour,' you know? 'Go and do it.' So we did. That was tough, you know, doing it. Now, having done a tour with Steve (Jordan), we're kind of into that. But I miss Charlie. I look around and he's not there. But he is on the record. And we've got some other tracks he's on as well that we haven't released yet. So, you know, he's here.

One of the Charlie tracks has Bill Wyman on it. How did it feel to have him come in and kind of complete the circle?

That was fun because we had this track with Charlie, and Andy and I said, “Well, let's marry up the old rhythm section.” It does sound a bit more like the old Stones, that particular track, “Live By the Sword.” It sounds slightly different from some of the others. But it's great. It's a different feeling.

Mick Jagger on building the ultimate Rolling Stones 2024 tour setlist

I love that you guys started doing “Out of Time” recently. I've always loved that song. What brought you back around to that?

I've always loved it. But the audience in America doesn't seem to know it as well as the European audience. So I think I'm going to give it a miss.

Uh oh. So we're not gonna hear that one in Phoenix?!

Maybe not.

Aw man....

In Europe, they all sang along and everything. Here, they don't seem to know the song, you know? I mean, it's not a particularly well-known Stones song. It got a bit of popularity because it was in that (Quentin) Tarantino movie as a playout song. But they don't seem to know it. I put it in the front of the set, or near the front. And everyone's looking around like, “Ehh, what's this?” I don't know. I like to switch the set around. We've only done two shows. And I don't like doing the same set every night.

How do you go about putting a setlist together at this point?

Well, I have a list of all the numbers we rehearsed, right? We rehearsed for four weeks. So then, I go through all the ones I think we have to do, that people expect, that if we didn't do them, people would go, “Well, I came here to see ‘Honky Tonk Women' and they didn't do it.” And of course, I enjoy doing it. It's not a problem.

But then, the front half of the show, I kind of switch around a bit, just to keep everyone on their toes and interested with different ones on different nights. And now I've got to incorporate songs from the new album, which we rehearsed quite a few of them. And as I said before, we're only doing three so I'm switching it around a bit.

Are there other older songs you've never done live that you'd like to get around to someday?

I've tried to hit everything (laughs). I mean, I've been through the whole thing. And we do really weird ones. I mean, we did “I Wanna Be Your Man” (an early Stones single written by Lennon-McCartney) in Liverpool. That was really funny. We do that kind of thing from time to time out of the blue.

Mick Jagger on the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and rock & roll vs. pop

Speaking of "I Wanna Be Your Man" and Paul being on this record, there's been this ongoing debate for decades where Stones fans argue that the Stones are proper rock and roll and the Beatles are a pop band. What's your take on that?

Well, we're both pop bands, really. In the ‘60s, if you listen to the Rolling Stones, of course we played more blues than the Beatles. And The Beatles used to play more Tamla/Motown covers. We were all cover bands. But we both play pop music. We play blues. The stuff we played in early '60s, it's all influenced. But it's pop music.

“Time Is on my Side,” that we did here, that’s a pop song, you know what I mean? "Let's Spend the Night Together" is a pop song. "Ruby Tuesday" is a pop song. "Angie" is a pop song. Of course, we play rock. The thing about the Rolling Stones, though, and the Beatles, is there are very wide musical influences. Both bands incorporated a lot of styles into their music. Country music, blues, R&B, English music. So we had a very broad range, both of us.

It's difficult to pigeonhole either band, in my opinion. But obviously, the Rolling Stones are the more blues band, right? But we always were a pop band.

You know, one of the things that was so great about the era you guys came up in and defined was that being in a rock and roll band could mean playing any of those types of songs that are on any of those albums either of your groups recorded in the '60s. It seemed as though the possibilities were limitless.

We played Elizabethan songs like "Lady Jane" and "She's a Rainbow." "Paint It, Black" is not really a rock song. It's our most popular streamed song and it's like a Middle East-influenced pop song.

At this point, Jagger is reminded that the interview was scheduled to conclude five minutes earlier.

"Hey listen, I've got to leave you; thank you so much," he says.

And with that, he's off to hear some gospel in New Orleans, time still very much on his side.

Rolling Stones Phoenix 2024 concert: State Farm Stadium in Glendale AZ

When: 8 p.m. Tuesday, May 7.

Where: State Farm Stadium, 1 Cardinals Way, Glendale.

Admission: $63 and up.

Details: 800-745-3000, SeatGeek.com.

Reach the reporter at [email protected] or 602-444-4495. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @EdMasley.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Mick Jagger talks Rolling Stones 2024 tour, the Beatles, Charlie Watts