When Mick Jagger walked into a London studio to record vocals for the new Rolling Stones album, he found an unexpected guest waiting for him.
“I turned up one day to do my vocals in London, and there's this bloke standing there, with his back to me, with this long gown on,” Jagger recalled during an invitation-only event on Tuesday, May 5. “And when he turned around, he was covered in lipstick.”
The man turned out to be Robert Smith of the Cure — someone Jagger had never met before.
“And I said, ‘You are Robert Smith from the Cure!’ And he said, ‘Yeah!’” Jagger told the crowd.
What if it hadn’t been Robert Smith and he was there to fix the air conditioning?”
— Conan O’Brien
“So I said, ‘Well, while you're here, then you better go and do something.’”
The impromptu encounter led to a collaboration that will appear on the Stones’ upcoming album, Foreign Tongues, due July 10.
Jagger shared the story Tuesday during a conversation with Conan O'Brien in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where he appeared alongside the Stones’ electric guitar tandem of Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood to discuss the new record and preview a few tracks.
O’Brien quickly imagined an alternate version of the moment.
“What if it hadn’t been Robert Smith,” he said, “and you said, ‘Let’s do a track,’ and you found out later he was there to fix the air conditioning?”
Foreign Tongues arrives less than three years after the Stones’ 2023 release, Hackney Diamonds, which topped charts worldwide, won a Grammy Award and achieved multi-Platinum status.
Like that record, the new album features several collaborations and previously developed recordings. Among them is a track featuring founding Stones drummer Charlie Watts, captured during one of his final recording sessions before his death in 2021, as well as a collaboration with Paul McCartney recorded during the Hackney Diamonds sessions.
And I said, ‘What the fuck do you care how the crowd is? You’re Mick Jagger! They’re just gonna urinate when they see you come out.’ Which they did.”
— Conan O’Brien
The album will be introduced by the lead single, In the Stars, released digitally May 5 alongside the opening track, Rough and Twisted.
At the start of the Brooklyn event, O’Brien also shared an anecdote that illustrated Jagger’s enduring curiosity about audiences — even after decades of performing.
The two first met backstage at the 96th Academy Awards, where O’Brien was host and Jagger made a surprise appearance to present the Oscar for Best Original Song.
While waiting backstage, O’Brien recalled hearing someone behind him repeatedly ask, “How’s the crowd? How’s the crowd?”
“And I turned around, and it was you,” he told Jagger. “We had never met.
“And I said, ‘What the fuck do you care how the crowd is? You’re Mick Jagger! They’re just gonna urinate when they see you come out.’ Which they did.”
“But it was the Oscars,” Jagger replied with a laugh.
“Yeah, but it doesn’t matter,” O’Brien said. “I just loved that you were like, ‘How are they? How are they?’ I think you're gonna be okay. Something tells me they’re going to know you and be happy that you’re there.”
O’Brien added that the band’s attention to its audience can still be heard in the music of Foreign Tongues.
“I’m always trying to get people to understand that no one gets to the level that you guys are at. It’s an unheard-of situation,” he said. “But one of the components is — which you can hear on this record again and again and again — ‘We want to make this great.’”
