The Rolling Stones confirm details of new album
Entertainment
The band has unveiled its first album of original material since 2005
(Web Desk) - The Rolling Stones have unveiled their first album of original material since 2005, and the first since the death of drummer Charlie Watts.
Hackney Diamonds will feature 12 tracks and be released on 20 October, preceded by lead single Angry.
Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood and Sir Mick Jagger announced the album on Wednesday at an event in Hackney.
Richards said: "Ever since Charlie's gone, it's been different, he's number four. Of course he's missed."
But, he added, the new album will feature Steve Jordan in Watts' place, a drummer Richards said the band knew from "way back" and who filled Watts' seat on tour this summer.
"It would have been a lot harder without Charlie's blessing," Richards said, explaining that Watts had previously told the band Jordan should replace him if he ever was not around to record.
Watts died in 2021 aged 80, prior to the band's 60th anniversary tour, after suffering from throat cancer.
The album is preceded by a new lead single, titled Angry, which also received its premiere at the event in Hackney.
Euphoria actress Sydney Sweeney, who was sitting in the audience at the launch event where she was briefly interviewed by host Jimmy Fallon, features in the music video for the song.
In a five-star review, the Telegraph's Neil McCormick called the song "an absolute blast," describing it as the band's best single in 40 years.
Discussing the recording of the album, Wood told Fallon: "We did it pretty quickly actually.
"There were lots of ideas floating around, we gathered them together just before Christmas last year and made a go of it."
The record will feature Lady Gaga, and other rumoured guest stars include Sir Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder.
Asked about the gap since 2016's Blue & Lonesome, an album of blues covers, Sir Mick said: "We've been on the road most of the time, maybe we were a bit too lazy, but then we said, 'let's put a deadline'."
He said the band cut 23 tracks, which were mixed in February, before deciding on the final 12 to include on the album.
Sir Mick said the sound of the album was "angry", like the title of the lead single, but added there was an "eclectic" mixture of genres on the record, including love songs and ballads.
He continued: "I don't want to be big headed but we wouldn't have put this album out if we hadn't really liked it. We said we had to make a record we really love ourselves.
"We are quite pleased with it, we are not big headed about it, but we hope you all like it."
The stage is littered with fallen chandeliers, the famous lips logo is slashed to pieces. The Stones might be entering their 80s, but they're not going quietly.
Sir Mick and Ronnie bound onto the stage, vamping for the crowd and stirring up a frenzy. Keith Richards hangs back in his shades and a trilby hat, forever cool.
They're in a playful mood, teasing Jimmy Fallon for his questions ("the first track is called Angry, what's the main emotion behind that?"), and singing an impromptu version of the 1965 track Off The Hook.
"Mick and Keith, you've been together longer than me an my wife. What's the secret?" asks a fan.
"Don't talk too much," Sir Mick fires back.
The trio are obviously energised by the new album, with Keith talking up the "damn funky riffs" and Sir Mick declaring: "We wouldn't have put this album out if we hadn't really liked it."
"I'll drink to that," replies Ronnie.
They also confirm some of the big rumours - Lady Gaga will appear on a song called Sweet Sound Of Heaven, and drummer
Charlie Watts features on two of the 12 songs.
The scale of the press conference is reassuringly old school. There's an endless free bar, a rowdy phalanx of paparazzi, and broadcasters from all around the world - Australia, Brazil, China, Germany, the US - elbowing each other for prime position.
Outside, pressed against the barriers, fans have come from just as far afield - waving banners and clutching albums in the hope Sir Mick's brought a Sharpie.
As it ends, we hear one new song: The rowdy and rambunctious Angry, which finds Mick Jagger in the middle of a domestic fight, snarling like a Rottweiler, but hoping for reconciliation.
If the relationship has to end, he says, "Let's go out in a blaze."
For what could realistically be the Stones' final album, that's a solid manifesto.
