Back with a Bang

The first time I answered that was in 1966. It's on film.

Are you ever tempted to say yes?

I always feel like that at the end of a tour. They never ask you at the end [laughs]. To be honest, I didn't think the Stones should do another big tour. I was thinking of just twenty shows: "There are all these festivals in the summer. Let's do ten gigs in America, then come to Europe."

I'm quite happy to do less. Because I get bored after twenty shows. It's interesting and challenging to get the thing going. But after you've done it, it becomes routine. Every night you have to make it fresh for yourself, so that when you go out there it's fresh for the audience.

Did you feel that way in, say, 1978?

Yeah. And creatively, it's rather dull. You have all these great ideas -- "I'm going to write twenty songs." You don't write anything. Keith will tell you he writes all these songs on the road. Bollocks. The most you write is a few bits, because you're so focused on this one thing -- getting the show right.

How far along were you in planning this album-tour cycle when Charlie told you he had cancer?

We had OK'd the tour. He was straight up about it: "The doctor says I have a ninety percent chance of being completely cured." I would have been in such a state. If Charlie had said, "I can't do this tour, I've faced mortality," we would have had to change our minds. No one pressured him. But the treatments couldn't have been easy. I kept worrying: Is he eating? I'm like a nanny [smiles].

Have you ever had a serious health scare?

No. I'm sure I will one day. It's going to happen: You're going to get ill. You're going to die. What can you do? Keep as healthy as you can. The physicality of touring is problematic, but it's always been the same, since I was twenty. It's December in bloody Edmonton, Canada, you get a cold, you have to miss a show. That's the worst that will happen. And you're doing it in the lap of luxury. Everyone's looking after you. Let's not exaggerate how difficult this is.

A Bigger Bang is the Stones' first studio album in eight years. What makes you sit up and say, "It's time to record"?

If we go out on tour, we gotta do a record. It shows you are an actual functioning rock band. I don't want to be one of those bands that just does hits. People say, "I much prefer to hear 'Brown Sugar' than some new song." Well, I don't give a shit what you prefer. If everyone else in the band had said, "We can't be bothered, no one listens to our new records," fair enough. We can do more repackages [rolls his eyes]. But everyone was up for it.

And we did it in a different way: less people around, concentrate on what you're doing. No fucking about and jamming for days. You know how it is with rock bands in studios. Once they get in there, they never want to leave. It's not a record anymore; it's a way of life.

When you and Keith sit together to write, what happens?

It's never the same from one song to another. I'm very different from Keith. I like everything organized. I love it when things go wonky and funny, but I want to move forward. I don't want to sit around waiting for shit to happen. "This is how it goes, these are the words. Should it be fast or slower? Do you like it or not?"

This time, I got into this thing where Keith would have an idea and I would put a drum program to it. Then I'd play drums over that, create a groove. By the time Charlie got there, I'd say, "This is the beat." I wanted to impress him [laughs].

We were in such a confined space -- some of it was in France, some of it in the Caribbean -- without loads of hangers-on. There was nowhere to hide. "Is it good?" "Is it not good? Then bung it out the window." There were no three-hour blues jams. There wasn't time.