The Rolling Stones’ Touring Days May Be Over, Keith Richards Says

Keith Richards isn’t sure that he’s up to future Rolling Stones tours, but that doesn’t mean the band won’t play live again. With the band’s new album, Foreign Tongues, due July 10, the Stones guitarist raised the idea of the band playing residencies in a new interview with Uncut.

“I don’t know if tours are possible,” Richards, 82, told the magazine. “It’s the travelling that takes it out of you. But I do see the possibility of us doing residency somewhere. Wherever it is, London, New York, Paris, anywhere. I’ll play Rome! But I don’t see why they shouldn’t be able to throw some shows together in a new format.”

Is Richards still excited about the Stones? “Yeah, it’ll be exciting until something inside me says, ‘That’s that,’” he said. “I love working with the guys. I mean, what am I gonna do?”

The Stones last toured in 2024, playing North American dates behind Hackney Diamonds. In May, Richards told the Associated Press the band could “talk next year” about hitting the road. Late in 2025, after reports first surfaced in the British tabloid The Sun that Richards was unwilling to commit to a UK and European stadium run, a spokesperson confirmed that those plans had been shelved. 

Mick Jagger is more eager. “I absolutely would love to,” Jagger recently told Sunday Today, “so I hope to do it as soon as that’s possible.”

Meanwhile, the Stones are pivoting to podcasting — sort of. A six-part series on the making of their new album, Speaking in Tongues (not to be confused with the Talking Heads album), begins June 25, with new episodes posted weekly. Norah Jones narrates, and the show is built around new interviews with Jagger, Richards, and Ronnie Wood, along with studio outtakes and unreleased songs from the sessions. Producer Andrew Watt, Robert Smith of the Cure, Steve Winwood and cover artist Nathaniel Mary Quinn also take part.

The Stones recorded Foreign Tongues in under a month at Metropolis Studios in West London, a former power station. “It was a very intense few weeks,” Jagger said in a statement when the album was announced, adding that the small live room helped the players feed off one another. Wood said the band often landed a track on the first take. The album includes a performance by late drummer Charlie Watts, from one of his final studio sessions. Some songs on Hackney Diamonds came from the same dates.

Foreign Tongues runs 14 tracks, with guest appearances from Paul McCartney, Winwood, Robert Smith, and Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, along with regular Stones collaborators Darryl Jones, Matt Clifford, and Steve Jordan. The album includes a cover of Amy Winehouse’s “You Know I’m No Good.” 

The band began promoting the album in April by releasing “Rough and Twisted” as a limited vinyl single under the name the Cockroaches. “In the Stars” followed in May, with a video featuring the actress Odessa A’zion and digitally de-aged footage of the group.. A third single, “Jealous Lover,” is due June 26.