Mick Jagger

It's a heavy thing, it is, and we're in an enclosed, very small space together.

Climb the fence, books and plans, I can do it when we are going to be friends. So I can do it when we are going to be friends. Hey there, welcome to Conan of Brian needs a friend. I'm not with the gang today, no sauna, no gory, no play, no Eduardo, I'm pretty much on my own. Why you ask? Because I got a phone call. Oh, just a couple of days ago.

And I'm in Los Angeles. And the question was, would you like to come to London to interview

one of the most famous people in the world? And I really thought about it. It was a tough call.

Because I have my plies class, I take a Lamaz class, even though I don't know anyone who's pregnant, I just go there and I've been asked to leave. I have my yogurt regimen, but I said, no, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it because this is the thrill of a lifetime, so I jumped on a plane and I am now in London in a very small podcast studio that's often alley and I'm excited. Because I'm talking to just a phenomenal force in my life. And I think in many people's lifetime.

And this is bucket list for me. Now I'm going to reveal who it is.

Now, if Gorly were here, a son of a laugh and say no, it's the episode is marked with the person's

name. People already know you being stupid, but I'm old fashioned. And so I'm going to pretend you don't know. Well, I'm talking about my guest today is a rock and roll legend and cultural icon who has spent six decades as the front man of one of the greatest rock bands of all time, the rolling stones. Their new album, foreign tongues is out now. I love this album.

“And I think you have to check it out. It's amazing. This guy's amazing. I'm absolutely honored”

that he is joining me today. Nick Jagger. Welcome. A couple of weeks ago, I was traveling around the world shooting my travel show and I heard you're going to get a phone call from Mick Jagger. Now, we had met briefly backstage at the Oscars, but we didn't really know each other. No, the next thing I know you're calling me and we're having

a chat about this event. You asked me to do in in Brooklyn to help launch the press launch of the new album, Foreign Tongs. And it was a great day for me because I'm a massive fan. Of course I said yes. I asked for money. They said there's no money. They said there's no money. There was nothing. There was no money. That's terrible. Yeah. And I said, I'm just an anti-apologizer. I thought I was paying hundreds of thousands

“from doing this. Yeah, yeah. It's like going right. Yeah, yeah, exactly. How would it say?”

Like, you're going right is. I was, I was like Chuck Berry. I wanted $100,000 in a big case before I went on. And so it was a fantastic experience. And I got to be with you Keith Ronnie. Yes. Now, I don't think I had met Ronnie before. He's a lovely guy. Yes, it is. Tell us a lot of very bad jokes. Terrible jokes. Tell. The only worse joke, Taylor is Bill Wyman, but who's not in the band anymore. But he could be co-opted to tell his terrible jokes versus Ronnie. Ronnie versus

Bill, their terrible jokes. Just awful. And I, at one point, and I don't, and it's, it's, you know, Ronnie Wood, he's a legend and a legendary comedian. A legendary comedian. But at one point, I said, Ronnie, you have got to stop. And I had known him an hour at that point. But we had a lovely time. And I had some observations about that day, which is leading up to it. You and I had several phone calls. You were really going over all the details. And then when we got to the event at one

point, you were looking out at the audience to check them. And I looked back, I looked back at Keith. And I said, was this Mick in 1962? And he said, yes. And this, I get the sense that, in a way, you've

“always been the organizer, the manager, the guy who's keeping it together. Is that a fair thing to say?”

I guess so. I mean, sometimes I was called a control freak, but I'm not a control freak at all.

these big jobs. You know, I never organized that thing that we did not really. But what did I do?

“I approved the place, you know, I thought that you would be a great person to do it. And where you”

disappointed it. I was so happy. It went off pretty well. It was great. It was really fun. You had Keith's microphone technique. I was worried the minute they gave you guys handheld microphones at this event in Brooklyn, you think, well, that can get dodgy. Yeah. And then Keith did a thing where the microphone was by his mouth. And when I'd ask him a question, he would start to answer and the microphone would drift away from his mouth until the point where I was saying, I still hold it.

This is not drifting away in the air on his own. No, no, no, he's holding it. But it's drifting his arm is drifting away from his body. But we got a laugh out of it. It was fun. He was lovely. But I did get the sense that not that I didn't see control freak when I saw you, but I saw someone who is very interested in the details. Yeah. And when something is just, I mean, this looking through to see, well, you know, I'd seen the room empty, but you, you've got to see the room full. You know,

what's what kind of people are there? What, you know, how many people are there? What are they?

“What does the room feel like? I think that's important. I'm sure you,”

if you, when you go on and do things with the live audience, you know, you, you want to feel the room. You know, a little bit, you do want to feel the room because how your behavior would be, you know, how, how the audience is going to react. I mean, so I think all that sort of stuff's really important.

What surprised me? For a very first time at you, you mentioned the Oscars.

I don't know if you remember, but you came up behind me, and I'm looking at my notes. What do I have to do next? We're halfway through the show. And I feel someone jabbing me in the back saying, How's the crowd? How's the crowd? How's the crowd? In kind of a funny American accent. How's the crowd? How's the crowd? And I turned around. It's you. And I said, make, you don't care how the crowd is. You're Mick Jagger. And you said, oh, I do. Yeah. Because anyone else in the world who's not you would say,

what's he worried about? People are delighted to see you. You're this, yeah. You don't worry about it, but you want information. Because you're only on that. You're on the whole show.

“Good luck. Good luck. Yeah. I mean, you know, that's a difficult job. Yeah. And you have to”

roll with a punch. And there's all kinds of weird things happening at the Oscars. People jump on stage

and punch people. You know, who knows? Who knows what's going to happen? I mean, I'm a presenter, you know, which is the lowest category of people appearing on the Oscars. And usually they read something off the teleprompter, which is just not funny. Yeah. And it's not interesting. And they're obviously reading it. And then, you know, it just isn't. So I just rewrote all the stuff they asked me to say. And I wanted to make it into something. It was, well, my work. Organic to you.

Yeah, it's a person on to me, you know. Yeah. So all these little things you do, you know, because the good thing about it was I done a rehearsal. So you walk on to the stage and they hit the weird, also weird. They have the very famous people in cardboard cutouts. Yeah. And they're awesome. Yes. So there's the Timothy's channel made cutout. He's just in front of you. So I was going to make a Bob Dylan reference on it. I knew that he was there because he's, I'm staring at

the cardboard cut out of him. Scarlett Johansson's there, whatever, whatever. So so that was good to do rehearsal, which was about five minutes. Yeah. And then, and then, then I shared what was not addressing room was an office. Didn't have any addressing room things with Neil Young. Yeah. Who wasn't on the show. And then he just hangs out and dressing room. And I said, yeah, it's just hanging out in the garden. That's no young. Over in this office. Hi, Neil. And I realized Darrell Hannah was also

a presenter. Oh, there you go. There you go. There you go. That was the deal. So Darrell Hannah, Neil Young and I shared an office. It's so funny how you've achieved this level that's hard to comprehend where I would think you can be very much in control of what you want to do and how you want to do it. Whenever I see footage of the early stone shows when you've really guys have hit and you're in Denmark, you're trying to perform kids are running up on stage and you're singing

and people are jumping on your back. Girls are jumping on you. And so half of your time is spent getting out of a headlock by some singing. Yeah, while singing and dancing and dancing all the same time. Yeah. Those are the days. Do those moments occur to you now every now and then? You're because things are so locked down now in a great way. Yeah. But those early days were just so okay. There was no see a thing wasn't in those days. There wasn't any

organisation for these concerts. Right. And the organisation was minimal. There was no really security. So if there was security, it was the local police and the local police had no experience

we used to play the west coast in little places and the police would come out and there would be like

“14-year-old girls and they'd bang them on the hands with their night sticks. That was their solution.”

And it's like, we took care of it. This could be your daughter's. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe they are. Bar. And it was the same in Europe. Yeah. I mean they would just throw them out of the door bodily. I mean it was just chaotic. Yeah. The other thing that strikes me which has changed so much not to embarrass you, but you reached this iconic level where if someone were to make a short list of who are the greatest entertainers of the 20th, early 21st century, you know, and I'm

including everybody, you're an Al Jolson, you know, Michael Jackson, you're on the very, very short

list of this iconic performer. I want to see Al Jolson and Michael Jackson's a duo.

Al Jolson like, oh, let's go. And then moonwalks right past him. Exactly. That's a good one. But you know, you're in this position and the press, I don't think people today understand how hostile the media was towards all pop groups. Yeah. But then specifically, they just decided and it was kind of a press creation. Rolling stone. They're bad. They're punks before punks. They were bad. They were Rolling Stones, bad Dirty, Rolling Stones, you know, scary, shouldn't be allowed. And yeah,

and that's just some press stuff. But people were actually, obviously, people were really welcoming in in most places. But there was, there was a group that were really not welcoming, but they maybe didn't know even, no, you were, but they were just shouting names of you, they didn't know you were. They, they, they were just shouting names. So it was very polarized in, you know, in a kind of molten way. Just the look of you, which when you look at the pictures,

it's pretty normal. It's very tame. But in those days, it wasn't. So it's hard. It's,

“that's why it's so hard to imagine, because we look pretty normal. And, you know, but not for those”

people that, you know, especially in the US, when we first went there, I'd say '64 in the, in the outside of New York and LA, that, that was, that was, they, we were like, uh, freaks for them.

Yeah. It was also, I was always careful in my comedy career. A new band would come up,

or new performer, who looked strange, and my writers would say, 'Let's make fun.' Yeah. That person, I would say, 'I do not want to be,' because this footage doesn't age well. No. If this person goes on to be iconic. Yeah. And this is when, you know, bands were coming on my show for the first time, they'll be their first TV experience, would be a no doubt, or a green day. Yeah. And I'm glad that I was welcoming and didn't make any jokes because they

would look so stupid now. Yeah. In the 1960s, all performers decided that these long-haired freaks from England were a passing fad. Yeah. They had no conception that this was going to be the music that dominated people's lives for the next 60 years. They didn't know. Well, so they make that. No a new that. And so it was easy for them to be patronising and to make a joke of it, because it's an easy cheap gag, you know. Yeah. I mean, they're Dean Martin, did it, you know, like at the

famously, Ed Salomon. Ed Salomon, we went on a lot. He didn't do it. Ed Salomon didn't do anything, really. He just, that was a different kind of person, but he didn't, I don't think Ed Salomon knew that he got good ratings, because when the Beatles went on Ed Salomon, whatever Ed Salomon thought of the Beatles, he got great ratings when they went on. So he knew what you're saying, that it's not quite me making fun of them, because who knows what's going to happen, you know. But I mean,

there were a lot of exceptions. There were talk show people say maybe local, I can't remember all their names now, like Mike Wallace and all the, they were willing to have serious conversations with you. They respected you a bit more. There were others that did not. And you didn't do that show,

“so. Yeah. It's just interesting now, I think. I don't think people today understand”

nothing they should, but the environment that you guys were in in 64 or 65, 66, actually all through most of the six years. Yeah. It was a hostile environment, particularly in America. I'm not only America, I mean, we can't, we're not, I'm not blaming America for being their own, they were hostile in England, there was a hostileity. But America was not really really for this stuff. Really, they weren't. You know, and obviously things changed. I mean, it didn't take long

so to three years. Yeah. There are a lot of singers or entertainers that get to this point

in their career, and they get very nostalgic. And they start singing or writing a lot about their childhood or looking back. And what I find interesting is you do not strike me as an nostalgic writer. You're very interested in what's happening right now. I think that's a, and I say that in a very positive way. When I listen to foreign tongues, there's no really looking back. This is music that you made for someone to listen to in 2027. And there's no leaning on this vast history

that you have. Is that fair to say? Yeah, it's true. That's not really, I don't really do that. I mean, I'm quite happy to talk about like we just talked about, you know, the early days of

going to the United States or going to Holland or Denmark or where we talked about. I'm quite happy

“to remember that if I can, it's hard to, it's so long ago. It's hard to really remember. But”

no, I mean, I'm not drawing in this foreign tongues album. Locally, I'm not drawing on nostalgia, or I mean, obviously you're drawing on past experiences, but they might be recent past experiences. There could be any, but they're not referred back. And musically speaking, every time Andy what the producer would make a producer's or like references. So yeah, which is our stab at because you, you go like, this is a bit like the song you did previously. It's to explain to

the musicians that relate ability to the song. Yeah, it's a bit, think of it a bit like this,

you know, and then that's fine. But then I said to add a bit, yeah, but don't, don't make

references musically. There was one track, I think, Mr. Chan. And at the end of it, he said, would he, he could be a bit more like jumping jack fashion in the end. I said, no, I just not anything like that. And I don't want you to refer to it. And I mean, we didn't have an argument about. So I said, just don't make it like that. We're not going to encourage anyone to overdub guitars like that. And so I didn't want any references to that, if you know me. Yeah. So,

so I'm, I've heard that Paul McCartney's record has some of this that you're talking about. I haven't yet got round to listening to it. I'm a, I apologise, Paul. But I will, I will do because Ben talks about a lot. And I've heard it's very good. But I haven't listened to it yet. So now, in the old days, would you have gotten a track by the Beatles or a competitor right away and listen to it? Listen to that record maybe could? Yeah, I probably. You're beyond all that.

Well, I mean, I just don't be on the, I just keep forgetting. I'm being so busy. I just keep forgetting to listen to it. Yeah. I'm, I'm, I've been running around doing promotion and sure. And, and I just haven't been listening to current music very much. I could sing it to you.

“Like, okay, I'm ready. How's it going? What's the lead track? What's it called? What's it called?”

Do you remember what it's called? What's the lead track? I don't remember. Oh, come on. No, he's, what is it? Dungeon Alley Dungeon? I've heard this. This is, I've heard the title. Yeah. What is that referred to? I think it's a street in Liverpool that was like an Alley that heard down to. So he's singing about Liverpool. Well, he's looking back. So on Hanye Diamonds on the track called Whole White World. I did refer back a little bit to student digs days and everything. But there was a pretty oblique reference.

But it was there. There was two lines about it. Listen to the album. You mentioned Mr. Charm. So I'm going to bring this up. I don't think any singer does attitude better than you. It's so interesting because I will do another reference. But in Mr. Charm, I get some of the, it's, there's not a reference. But some of the delicious, kind of almost oily to stain that you can hear in like, simply leave it to the devil.

There's a little bit of, there's this great attitude and you do it in. I'm a big fan of the show slow horses. You do the theme song. Yeah. I love the attitude that you possess and inhabit when you're singing that song. We're trying to, to Mr. Charm. Well, Mr. Charm, but also the slow, slow, slow horses theme. Yeah. Which is, you know, it, it, it's very kind of almost burlesque, but it's called Strange Game.

“Strange Game. Yeah. I think I saw, you once said in an interview that yes, the lyrics are”

important. But really, it's the sound. Yeah. And you have this, I can tell you think a lot about what is this going to sound like because some very strange things in like, do pop music sounded great.

And I think if so many stones record and so many of your vocalizations as it's a great

shattered or, you know, and, and on this record, there's a great attitude and a sound to what you

“are singing that I think adds a lot to the lyrics. I think, and as you choose, though, you know,”

it's like, it's acting really, because you, you're, you're taking on the character of the, of the song, you know, and when you do a love song, say like, back in your life or the, the jolted lover, you're playing the jolted lover. So obviously, that's happened to you before, but I mean, so, but that's a whole different attitude. It's a different person. You, you know, you, so when you come to do, I mean, it's easier in the recording studio, because you, you don't have to do them one

after another. Yeah. Yeah. And on stage, it's, you know, I've just switched personas, you know, quickly, you know, you go from simply the devil to a babbard, you know, whatever, be don't do that.

You almost want to screen to come down for a second so you can inhabit and you want to inhabit

another space, you know. So when you get into a song in the studios, but remember, you haven't done that song that many times. Yeah. You know, you've might have done a demo of it. In that case, in this case, Mr. Charm, I did a demo. So I wasn't like walking into doing a song that I didn't know. I knew it, but I had to make it much better than the demo, you know, and a rewrote the lyrics, everything. And then you, you start to get into the character of this, and, and lucky in that song,

there's two attitudes. So there's the verse attitude where you're kind of trying to be guiling. And then there's the chorus attitude where you're kind of throwing something else or way, you know, saying life's too short, just make money and all that. So it's a slightly different different attitude. Then you come back to the verse where you're then, you know, throwing sort of these kind of scattered gun images out. You know, in what you hope is a kind of interesting way.

I listen to this album. I listen to it a bunch because I really like it. And I noticed that, yes, I can see, obviously, you guys famously started as a blues band, but there's blues in here,

“there's rock and roll, there's also country. Again, I think you've always been interested in many”

different genres of, of kind of music. And I was very interested in the country aspect of the album, because I know that if I didn't know any better, I think, or country couldn't have been an influence, but it wasn't influence. The country was a huge influence for them. Well, I think on every most English musicians of that period, don't forget these songs will also be a lot of these kind of songs were big hits. They were like top 10 hits. Like as they were in the US, you know,

but, you know, people like Eddie Arnold and all these people, they had huge hits. They were pop hits, even though there were country songs. And then you got on to people like George Jones, and then they were played on the radio. So this wasn't obscure, you know, the blues was more obscure. These were hits. The everybody brothers were country. I mean, really. That, I mean, they were pop, but they were still country and Johnny Cash. Johnny Cash had a number one record with

Ball over teenage queen. So as soon as you heard that, and you liked Johnny Cash, you would explore more Johnny Cash, and you'd realize that he was a country singer. This was when you listened to 1954 Elvis Sun Session. It's a click-and-a-half away from country. It's rockability. But if you slow it down a little bit, the instrumentation, it's so close to country. So close, but he was covering rhythm and blues songs a lot of times. I mean, of course he did

stand as like blue moon in those kinds in the same period we're talking about. Obviously these songs

“like that's all right, Mama, which is I think the first one he did. He did first one. Yeah.”

And that was a R&B song, and then he did Houndell, that was an R&B song. They're all, these are all R&B songs. So even though we say, yeah, he's so country, he was covering R&B in a kind of slightly different country way. Yeah. I'm not sure. I'm not a great Elvis student, but I mean, I love Elvis and what, but did he really do country music as we know it? No, probably more we'll gospel. He love gospel. Yes, gospel he did. Love gospel, but you can see that you're right.

Those early influences, I think it's a, it's a gumbo. There's country is, is part of his make-up, but much more so gospel rhythm and blues. Yes. I'm just, you never met him. Did you meet Elvis?

No, I never met Elvis. That's incredible to me. You know why? I tell you why. The daily mirror,

an English tabloid, the still exists, you always did publicity with the daily mirror. And the Beatles did it. There was a Chobus journalist, I come memories, laying very famous at the time.

Yeah. So they were up to Elvis's house and his pool. And they walked in and he was playing the bass. Was he watching TV, playing bass? Okay. But they were all high. The Beatles were high.

“And they none of them have their story straight. None of them can remember it. They don't remember anything.”

Yeah. I remember John telling me, yeah, you know, she'd never made your heroes. I would never

meet Elvis, make a value. That's fascinating. Yeah. And so I didn't, I took John's advice. Yeah. It was really stupid of me, really. But I loved him. I always wanted John's advice. But I mean at the time, yeah, it seemed to ring, what did that mean? So, you know, he, he famously in the 64 tour, he kept saying, the minute they got to America, John kept saying, where's Elvis? Where's Elvis? Where's Elvis? That's all the only person he wanted to meet. Then they met Elvis.

And in Bel Air, it is house. John walked down and said, where's Elvis? Because that was not the guy he wanted to meet. Yeah. He disappointed him. Yeah. And he told me that, oh, this story, yeah, more than once. Yeah. And, and so, sort of put me off. So, I wanted to keep my Elvis to myself, my version of yours. Yeah. And so, I didn't want my version of Elvis, shattered like John's woes. But maybe my

Elvis version would have been different. Well, I have to tell you, I've always wanted to

sit and talk with you, and this is a massive disappointment. Yeah. I can imagine this. Here we are. Stalking in his lonely, tiny room in West London. I'm going to leave and go, where is Mick Wager? And, and yeah, and I was enjoying being in Casa Blanca. This is crap. I did have a good time in Casa Blanca. And, you know, there's something about this album, Foreign Tongues. I was thinking, you're not nostalgic. I can feel an urgency. There's a sense that you guys got into the studio.

I know you made it very quickly. And what I'm very impressed by is it almost feels like you've

“got something to prove, which you don't. But that's how it feels. A lot of these songs really”

feel like you're having a great time. But let's get this shit and get it right. Is that, is that fair? Yeah, that's fair. I mean, but that's, that's how most operandi I've for when we did Hackney Diamonds. Yeah. You know, it was a way of working. So the previous way with the bands, obviously, had a lot of ways of working in a studio. And, and when we did Hackney Diamonds, that was a different way of doing it. It's like, okay, we've got this songs. We've got them prepped a bit. At least,

they're done. We're not writing songs in the studio, which love bands do. We used to do. If something comes up in the studio, fantastic. And this might change this song may change completely and utterly. But you have an idea. And we're going to plow through them. We're not going to hang around. We're not going to wait. We're not going to play them all day. We're going to do them for a couple of hours. And we'll move on to the next one. And if we'll come back the next day,

might do it again. Or might leave a comment next week. So we're always moving ahead. It was

playing ahead. So there's no time for too much self analysis of whether it's the songs any good, whether performance is any good. We'll find out, because when it's all finished,

“we'll listen to them all. You know, and see, what have we got after we've done four weeks?”

What have we got left? Well, it was good. Would you your favorites? Which ones? Do you know, and you don't like it? Is this, does this all stand up? Because we want to set the bar higher? Sure. Because we don't want to have, you know, we're saying, how long is this? We don't want to any filler. We want to set the bar high. So every track has to have something special about it. Okay. Some might be, you might be your favorites. But that means say that the other ones

don't have something to say. Well, rough and twisted. I love, in the stars. Obviously, you guys knew we've got something really great here. Yeah. Love the video. Yeah. That's interesting. Fantastic. You guys sort of reimagined as your younger cells, and it's great. It's fantastic. It was only AI or the faces. Yeah. Everything else is real. And you told me that at one point, they got a little screwed up, because you thought Ronnie would doesn't look right. They're young,

young, you look great. Young Keith looks great. They, they made sort of, they tried to make a faces error. Ronnie worked. No, I said to, I said to, we were talking with the lady that I'm working with on the video. So they're doing this AI and I said, stop at at 318. I said, I still chose just we're on that we're on a zoom. I said, stop at at 318. I said, that's Jeff Beck. Ronnie, that's not your guy. Your guy is he's referring to Joe. He's got the run. Because

the thing was, the thing was that Ronnie was in a band with Jeff Beck. Yeah. So they might've gone back to this footage and said, I don't, I don't, please don't bother me about it. So I

we had Jeff Beck in the band for a minute there. That was interesting. So I said, now you've got changed Ronnie because the Keith and I images were taken from sympathy for the devil. Yeah. Most mostly. No, it's not quite that simple. But a goodard who made it. Yeah, he made a movie. Of course, someone famous, a famous French film director. Yeah, I know at the time he were thinking, why is he shooting us, creating, and now it's a great document. Yeah, he's the only one like that.

“It's the only one that exists from the 60s. You know what's another great piece of footage is?”

There's this great footage of you and Keith, you've just come back from recording and muscle shows. You go into a room. Sure, you've seen this. You walk into a room and you've got the demo for I think it's brown sugar. Yeah. You put it on and you're listening to it. It's not out yet, but you're listening to it. And you see you start to both of you start to groove to this thing and you start strutting around the room. And you have the same reaction that later on,

everybody's going to have, which is this is a great track. But it's you guys hearing it for the

first time. Yeah, you're hearing the rough mix or something. Yeah, and is that in giving me shelter

by the manager brothers? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's great. It's just a great moment. You as a fan of the Rolling Stones. Yeah, I can be that. Yeah. I can also be there. So various critic. Is that true? Well, you kind of have to be sometimes, you know, I mean, and sometimes you're wrong, you know, you can be very wrong, because you're not a very good critic of you. One is not a good critic of one's own work, really. But you know, you are the first person that is it after rolling in reality.

I have to ask you, I mentioned this. We talked in Brooklyn, but I have to bring it up. Your voice

“sounds as good as ever. There are times where I think it's better than ever. It's”

defies logic. But I know that you are an extremely disciplined guy about your health and taking care of yourself. But you listen to this album. And I think this is a 28 year old singer.

It's really amazing. Oh, that's really kind of you say that. Oh, and you're doing full set of stuff.

Oh, that sounds fantastic. That sounds pretty easy. I find that kind easy. That's not. I mean, people have given me lots of confidence about that. And to be honest, that's that I appreciate the kindness. But that that some of the other songs are much more difficult than that. That one's relatively easy to do. I learnt I learnt for Satoshi and very early on in the stones career. When I listened to Don Kovey, he was a soul singer and he was singing a song called Have Mercy.

And Don Kovey also wrote chain of fools for a little frankly. He was a songwriter as well.

“And I met her a few occasions. Anyway, but on his song Have Mercy, he sings only in full set of.”

So then I copied that and we covered that song. I mean, I'm sure my version is useless compared

to her. I was practicing. But that kind of full set of singers wrote it to the easy, but you never

change from full set of back into your regular voice. That's the difficult thing to do. To do the thing is going in and out of full set. Yes. Yes. So I can't really do that very well. Like the person that does that really needs Al Green. Yeah. So if you listen to Al Green, and I was, you know, last month I was putting it to Al Green record. And I hadn't heard for while and I said, I was analyzing what he was doing with his vocal. And he was he. So he's going for

Satoshi and then he's going back in the same line. He's going back to his regular voice. And then he's going back for Satoshi. Okay. I see. So I've got to do that too. I've to learn how to do that. And so I just sang along with Al Green trying to do it. I mean, it's not easy, but it's possible. I learned this a long time ago, which is like very few people sort of in your caliber. But I remembered once getting to see Bruce Springsteen, the Eustry band perform. And then I got taken

back stage because my drummer for years, Max Weinberg, his Bruce's drummer. He took me back stage and I got to hang out with Bruce a little bit just after the show. And he at one point had been trying to have been singing this falsetto. And I said, that was, that was great. I love that part. And I didn't realize you could do that. And he said, yeah, I'm really working on it. And I'm trying, I'm trying, I'm trying, and I thought, this is fascinating. I see the same thing with you.

Everyone else would assume that you've got nothing less left to try. But of course you do. No, because that was the things you can do. And you are still thinking, yeah, I'm going to listen to this out, green record. And okay, what's he doing here? And I want to work on that. Yeah, because I haven't mastered that. So in the studio, so I do like a song like jealous lover. Yeah, yeah. So I can sing the falsetto part in the verse first. And then

set of and full voice. But then I'm not really doing now. Green thing. I'm doing one set in full set. I'm a one set in full voice. You know, so I'm just not cheating. That's just the way I laid it. But I do think there's something about we all have our heroes. It's your attempt to be your hero that fails. But in the failing of being exactly like the person you idolize, you create something.

“And so you sound new comes out. Yeah, and I think be that. I mean, you guys were listening to”

blues and saying we want to do that. And it's of course it's different. You're from Dirtford. Yeah, it's going to be different. I can't be handling wolf, you know. I mean,

but what you do have, I'm never tried to sound like, I don't know. Nobody can, nobody sounds like

hell. Yeah, not even. I've never said heard anyone. But yeah, you're absolutely right. You, you, you, while you're copying people, you create something new. You know, we're talking about how so much has changed. One of the things that this first wave of pop stars in the 60s faced was what you can't be doing this when you're not in your 20s. Once you're, you know, once you're 28, 29, this is for young kids to do. You can't be doing this. There's a great clip I saw.

It's backstage. It might be Madison Square Garden. I think it's late 60s. Dick Cavitt's talking to you. When he said, "Do you think you'll be doing this when you're 60?" And he said, "And you have a cane?"

And you said, "Sure." You said, "A lot of, you said, Marlene Dietrich is still out there."

“And she's amazing. And I thought that's such a great answer because I think the standard answer”

then was wolf course not, of course not. But you said, "Why not?" Why not? Well, yeah, that had been. I mean, see, the thing about rock music is associated with youth. It was the music of rebellious youth, so to speak. And I mean, most rock bands are young. And you want there to be young rock bands and, you know, sort of comes and goes and there's been a slight revival of it now. But you thought that that, once you're out of the flush of youth, you wouldn't continue. But

rock music kind of evolved, I suppose, in a way as well. And it also remained the popular music with the same group, with the same age group, they still liked it. So they didn't move on to some other music, as they might have moved on, but they still kept a thing for their youth, you know, those. Yeah. So, and you want, obviously. So, but yeah, I don't know. I mean, there were people, I mean, Frank Sinatra was still a big star, and he was when he was

old, but it's a different kind of music. You don't need quite so much energy to do Frank Sinatra,

“as you need to do the sex pistols. I mean, you know, all the remains, all to do hit me in the head.”

What I think, I mean, I can't, I'm a hard person to think of anybody who expands more energy on stage. Still, as you, you're in constant motion, I couldn't do that. I couldn't do that for 15 minutes, let alone a two hour plus show. So, you know, I, I, the stamina that you have, I know you work at it. And one of, does any of that come from the fact that your dad was a gymnast and a physical fitness guy, did you think that you grew up a little bit with that? Like, I got to take care of myself.

Yeah, you kept telling me I've to take care of yourself. You know, if you don't, okay, so if you're going to be, any point at someone like who is 55 of fat and smoking in a bunch. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You, but you're on court son, so. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, you don't want to be like that. Also, no, no, I don't. Yeah, but it goes in, you know, when you're on that code that sticks with you. So, yeah,

I would have been, I don't know, 12 years old, I think, when Elvis turned 40, and the National Enquirer was just vicious about Elvis turning 40 because he was the real first way of rock roll. Yeah, absolutely. So, he's, you know, he's another generation older than you guys, and he was the first one to get, isn't this absurd that this man is still doing this? At 40. Yeah, which now. Well, he wasn't in very good shape now. He was the thing.

I mean, and then he got back in shape. He, he, he can't, he did a great comeback thing. He looked amazing,

but for a while, he, why was such a figure of fun? I'm not saying the National Enquirer is, is the paper of record, but why he was, everyone used to take the make out of him was because he did get overweight, and he did, and he obviously wasn't in a very fit. And, and he wasn't very old. I mean, this is all, and how old was he when he died? He was 42. Yeah, you know, which we now, we can say, quite young for him. Well, this is how screwed up things are. I was

and it opened the door. It was in the morning in 1980, and she told me John Lennon was shot and died. And I was lying in bed, and I said, what? And she said, yes, and I said, how old was he? And she said,

“40. And I said, well, at least he had a long life. That's what I said. Now, I am 63 now.”

I don't think 40 is a long life. I don't 63 is a long life, but that was my perspective then. Yeah, of course. It's insane. Yeah, well, today, I know this is not going out until later, but David Huntney just died. Yeah. And he was creating experimental art, and he was 87 years old.

And he never stopped. He never stopped. He never stopped. He never stopped. Not just repeating himself.

He didn't repeat himself. That was the great thing. He, he, he, he just carried on, you know, trying different things and trying different ways of expressing himself. And for him, tongues album is that you? I mean, he was amazing. And 87. I mean, he was still fighting this year. I have to ask you, is the harmonica that I hear on the foreign tongues album is that you? Yeah, it's okay. Ronnie plays the harmonica, but he does not own this album.

Well, also there's a, there's a great quote, a Keith quote, Keith is a huge admirer of your harmonica playing. And he said that is that's the, that's the, you know, there are many,

make can assume many forms. That is he always felt your harmonica playing was the key into that's

the core. Yeah, that's the apple logo that comes up when you've turned on the computer for the first time. Yeah, you weren't harmonica. Do you think that's plays to something true? It's kind of true, but the thing is, in a, I think in a funny way, the harmonica is an extension of the voice, you know, because it's a blown instrument and you're, you're making a wall wall, you know, it's a voice extension thing. So I think it's a, for a vocalist, it's a good extension of a voice,

you know, so a natural instrument of a voice. Well, because what I like doing is playing punk guitar.

“So that's what I really like doing. So do you ever do open tuning, or do you just do,”

I do both. Yeah. Yeah. But when I do the slashing indie guitars, it's all six strings, and that and Ronnie and Keith was sort of looking me, but I, but I do it anyway. I do it. They don't watch you on the guitar every, I don't think so. But they've sort of learned to put up with it. Yeah. They've learned to put up with it. And you know, I love doing it because I know it's harder than that. You know, it's like this. You know, because on some of these

fast songs, it's like, you know, like, hit me in the head and all that. That's, it's really slamming, you know, you have to really slam it. Now, I'm not saying Ronnie and Keith don't slam

it because they do. But when I've written something like that, I think I, I always want to be on it.

You know, I always want to be paying guitar on it. So that's why I gave, I mean, I'll play harmonica too. The harmonica thing was great on the Amy Winehouse song because I played the harmonica, the home parts on the Amy original. I played it on harmonica. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Bridges a home part. So I played that harmonica. That was a good opportunity. Do you write exclusively on guitar or do you also sit at the piano or a piano or a piano guitar? piano guitar. piano guitar sounds like just sing to drum machines, just anything. No instrument, just me singing. You find it like you've got to do it early in the morning because I know there are not a height to do things early in the morning. I don't think

all the morning is breakfast and read the newspaper. Uh-huh. That's it. Many people have been asking is there going to be a tour for foreign tongues and I selfishly would want that because I want to hear these songs live and I know you're going to get me a ticket. Yeah, you guys are saying probably not right away, but what do you think? Do you think it would be maybe any year as it was possible or it's hard to say? It's possible. I think I'd love to do it too, so I think there's

a lot of songs on this album that would translate into live really good. But I mean, said that, you can't really do that many new songs if you do a stadium shows, the audience is not that accepting accepting of them. You know, they want to hear what they're familiar with. Can you clock that when you're trying something new and you see people head for the bathroom?

“Yeah, you do. Oh, you'll get used to it. Yeah. You must have felt that when you were singing”

some, I mean, there were many times in your life where you were singing new tracks. Of course.

one point on Long Island and people were like, what is this shit? Yeah, right. It's always the first

time. But then yeah, the more confident you get, the more you just, we're doing it, you know, but there's still a limit to how many you can do out percentage wise. So you can see someone headed to the bathroom and sometimes like, I don't concentrate on that. I would only concentrate on it. When someone, I'm talking and people are heading to the bathroom, it's all I can think about. And it's, they often, that's when they use the bathroom. It's when I start talking.

“I heard you talk about David Bowie once. I think it was when we were having dinner and you”

were talking about a David Bowie at one point. And you said interesting thing, which is we were competitive, but we were also good friends. That's a very hard thing to maintain, but I think you did, you guys did that beautifully. Yeah, we were competitive. David was so competitive. I, much more competitive. I was made competitive by David. I mean, how's it? How's it? How's it? How's it? Well, he was just so competitive. I had to be competitive back, you know,

but he, but he would do, I mean, he, he went through a period, this, David went through all these different, yes, you know, iterations of David. There isn't one David Bowie, there's kind of like an, it slowly evolving David Bowie. There's, there's jump cuts of, you know, to another David Bowie. Yeah. Another style. Then he's the thin white dude. Yeah, he's not. No, when he was doing like Gene Genie, he was very stonezy, you know? Yes. That was very stonezy period. And so he

would come over and play me. Gene Genie, you know. I've got a, one listen. I was like, yeah, of course. I said, oh, you knicked all my things. Yeah, I know, man. I know. It's like, oh, my, oh, my, oh, my, oh, my, oh, my, oh, my, oh, my, oh, my, oh, my, yeah, sure. Oh, my, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, um, but yeah, um, they're a week of birth. I think John and I were very competitive too, John Lennon. But we're more competitive in being sarcastic. Yes.

You see verbal competitiveness. There. You've ever seen the video of him in Bob Dylan in the back of the limouser. I love that. I love that. Cause my, Dylan is not in good shape. They're in the back of the Rolls Royce. You started driving around London. I think in 65. John's got that acid wit racing. Yeah, come, come, boy, come, come. You do suffer from scraggly forehead and, you know, what, he's, he turns it into an aspirin ad because Dylan can't pull it together. No. That was,

“that's what that's very much like done. That, that, that you guys get along. Yeah, we've got”

really got along. But, I mean, that was John at his most, you know, he's been very sarcastic with Bob, you know, Bob's not really coming back with a, with a dinghy answer. No, no, he's impaired and he's, he's, he's not, yeah, he's not. But it was, that it does give you a good illustration in, because most of the other things you see of John are kind of like short and that's kind of an extended song. Yes. So that was him all the time? No, not all the time. He could be sweet.

Of course. He could be lovely. Yeah. And, um, but, you know, he's run these people that if you says things stupidly, pick you up, you know, you, you see it, right, he clocked it right away, right away, you know, yeah, but he, he was very competitive about, he wasn't competitive about anything else. You mean, just, you think he was most competitive about being funny. Yeah. Being funny in

“sarcastic. Yes. More so than music. It's, it's, it's a kind of Liverpool thing, I think. Sure.”

I think maybe I'm stereotyping, but I think it is. You've always been, you guys have been

great at tour promotion. I don't know what you might do for the next tour. One of the greatest things you ever did was all get on the back of a flatbed truck, drive down fifth Avenue, singing, I believe Brown Sugar. So yeah. And I'm thinking, that takes nerve to drive through New York in traffic. And, and, and all the press was told you were going to be in this restaurant. And then they hear music and they come running out of the restaurant with their

pads and their cameras. And you guys are on the back of a truck going by. That's it. Which was fantastic. Yeah. Lovely. I don't know if people do things like that anyway. I don't really. Apparently Charlie told me that was the thing that Jazz bands did in New York to promote their gigs. I think. It Harlem, I think, get on the back of a truck. I think that's where we got it from. I think it might have been Charlie's idea. Yeah. Because that was the thing that happened in home.

You mentioned Charlie, Charlie's, you use a track of Charlie's in foreign towns. Yes. It's amazing. I know you guys are also readily identifiable by your sounds. It's very hard to do

one drums. But you always know it's Charlie. Yeah. It's really incredible. Yeah.

He's got a standard kit. You always know it's him. Yeah. And the funny thing is on this track,

where it's really false. Rock track. You're always punk. You might say. And everyone says, you know, Charlie's such a sensitive jazz drummer. You know, that was so different about him. We're not on this track. No. No. He's banging it. Yeah. The, I have to ask you

“Oxfordshire pub. As we record this, I think days ago, you walked into an Oxfordshire pub.”

It started singing to people. How did that happen? Well, I was, were you off your meds? What happened? Yes. I was, didn't know where I was. I didn't know Oxford College. I went to an Oxford College. I was invited to a dinner. And it was very interesting people who were very pleasant. Lots of nice students. And then one of the students that I was talking with said, I play mandolin. I said, nice. I said, not these. It's, it's, I play mandolin.

I'm, I'm going down the road to play with an Irish band. So, do you want to come? So, I said, chore. And so I took a couple of people that was with and the provost of the college. And he took his gown off and got into a pub. And it was a very small pub, very friendly people. And the, the band was, don't fiddle pieces. And the guy joined him with his mandolin. And, but no, I was singing. Right. So, I thought, wow, well, here's his opening. I'm going to sing. This is my big chance.

This is my chance of pub crawling, singing. So, I did, I saw not, I'd actually recorded. And then, but I had to rehearse it just mentally because I hadn't sung it in years. And I remember the

least three verses. Second old standard, right? It's an everyone's done it. I think even Bob Dylan's

done it, I found out. Right. But not by heard it. But I had to remember at least three verses in

“my head before I started. I didn't just launch into it. Because the worst thing you can do is launch”

it just song. And then you've got one verse. And that. So, I really paid to see that happen with you. I'm sorry. I would just love to see it. But it was fine. It was two minutes long. Well, that's I mean, that keys into, I think, the main point that I wanted to get across in this interview, which is something that really strikes me in the short time that I've been able to hang out with you, is that you are very much living in the moment, making things in the moment, this album foreign

tongues is of this moment. And you, I mean, sitting at a dinner with you and watching you trying everyone else's food, stealing some of Ronnie's dessert. And I thought, you're, you can converse about anything. You're, you know, crazily, deeply red. And you're just fascinating in all, fascinated in all kinds of stuff. And I thought, I left my time with you and I thought, I need, this is my new spirit animal. His is Mick Jagger. I want to, I aspire not to be

you because that's not going to happen. But to kind of adopt that philosophy about life, which is just bite into it, stay interested. Yeah. I think that's like, you know, I don't think that attitude suits everyone. Because some people, some, was, you know, some of your creativity, if you're a creative person, let's imagine, you will draw on your past. You might draw on something that you had an idea for when you were 25. You might have written a short story when you were in 25.

And you didn't publish it. And then you realized that that would make a great film script, or that would make a novel. I could now write. Now I'm 65. Let's say. Let's say. So that's, it's not true that that you, you can't, you can't draw upon this, this whole well of your past and make it into something. It's, and so you, you're not, you, you've got have to be aware of of your past. But that doesn't

mean you live in it. And you know, you feel, of course, I'm always asked, you know, what happened

when you did this and it was so long ago. And you could, and you, if I just, like, just repeating these

“stories, you know, if you need to be truly more, you know, it's just like a, you know, footballer”

and a pub talking about his goal in 1972. You know, it's, you don't want to become that, in that's a danger. So yeah, so everyone says living in the moment, you know, it's just a kind of,

I think also when you're writing, like, these kind of, a family or pop songs, which, this, this is

“what this business is, you, you got to stay in the present days. So I was writing something like”

ringing, hollow, you're, you're thinking about the now of what, what you're living through now,

which, of course, you know, you never know, it could change by the time the record comes out,

sure. But you know, but you can only write that you can't really look into the future of the heart. So you're just right of the writing of the now, you know, in a similar divine intervention, you're writing of the now of what your feelings are. You know, so there's, there's a, there's a, there's a thing that runs through these, there are acts of these songs that is definitely of the now and the kind of where period and we're kind of like it's difficult for some people living in this

period. And, and, and, and, you know, there's possibly dangers that, you know, that we're all in

in somewhere or other, but we're geopolitical dangers or economic dangers, and who knows what else.

And, and we're all a bit, we're a little bit, um, sensitive to the, I think people are sensitive to the, to these things. And so when I'm writing stuff, you know, I can't help myself, but I'm not, I'm not setting out to even write. It just comes out. Yeah. It's what's happening right now. And, uh, these are scary times, but I have to thank you because you've given me you and the other lads have given me an enormous amount of joy in my life. Thank you. I'm glad.

“I, that's what I am for. Before I became a bad guitarist, I was a bad drummer and when I was a kid,”

I would set up a, my drum kit in the living room and put on stones records and try and do what Charlie was

doing. And my parents let me do that. That's what our neighbors, they were lovely. Yeah, I can't believe I would not let my kids do that. I would smash the kit, but you've given me an enormous joy, lovely getting to know you and talk to you and you're one of my favorite conversations. I've been talking to people nonstop for 32 years and you're one of my favorite people. That's right. I know how the conversation is, though, we, we covered a few of them. We got, we got so much. I didn't talk about

your hillbilly guitar play much and your guitar collection. Yeah. We might have mentioned that on these.

“I think we cost before. No, we, we, we talked about it at dinner. You did. We got into my”

fascination with rockabilly. Yes. And wanting to sing. And funny, Keith heard me do Ronnie Hawkins a version of Ronnie Hawkins 40 days where I do it twice as fast as Ronnie Hawkins. And Keith said, you sound like a fucking auctioneer. But yeah, this is one of the joys of my life. And I'm so delighted that we were able to get together. Yeah. Really. And foreign tongues, please, when you get a moment tour with this because I really want to hear this song's live. Yeah, me too. All right.

I want to do it by some of you. Yeah, it's a song too. Conan O'Brien needs a friend with Conan O'Brien, Sonom of Sessian and Mac poorly, produced by me, Mac poorly, executive produced by Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross and Nick Lyau, theme song by the White Stripes, incidental music by Jimmy Vivina. Take it away, Jimmy. Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair and our associate talent producer is Jennifer Samples,

engineering and mixing by Eduardo Perez and Brendan Burns, additional production support by Mars Melnick, talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista and Britcon. You can rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts and you might find your review read on a future episode. Got a question for Conan? Call the team Coco Hotline at 6669-587-2847 and leave a message. It too could be featured on a future episode. You can also get three free months of

serious XM when you sign up at SiriusXM.com/Cona. And if you haven't already, please subscribe to Conan O'Brien needs a friend wherever fine podcasts are down with you.