Still Roaring at 82: A Billboard Cover Interview With Mick Jagger and Keith Richards

The Rolling Stones grace Billboard's new cover: 82-year-old Mick Jagger and Keith Richards revisit rock history's longest-running partnership on the occasion of their new album, 'Foreign Tongues.' Poolside in west London, Jagger opens with a wry line to journalist Joe Lynch: "Should I be polite and British, or rude and New York?" Having spent eighteen years living in New York and been knighted in 2003, Jagger proves in a Jumpin' Jack instant that he can slip in and out of both modes at will.

The interview focuses not just on nostalgia, but on why the band is still making music. Jagger says his interests, ranging from physics to aviation, keep seeping into his lyrics; Richards explains that the duo's dynamic in the studio is built on "enriching what the other one wrote without spoiling it." Artificial intelligence is the most contentious topic on the agenda: both musicians see the technology not as an enemy poised to displace songwriting, but as an interesting tool when used sparingly and with a watchful eye.

'Foreign Tongues' reportedly features a number of special guests, chief among them Amy Winehouse. Tour plans, stage production, and who the band considers its "musical Mount Rushmore" are among the other threads the conversation branches into. As Jagger puts it, a partnership spanning more than sixty years still plays today "with the same curiosity as the beginning": "We still get nervous before we go onstage. It's strange, but it's true."