“They still maintain these ridiculous hours. After lunch until, like, two in the morning”: Marlon Richards says that the Stones have been putting together a new album in London

It’s been a quiet year for the Rolling Stones so far. The band were to have played dates in the UK and Europe this summer but those plans were scrapped due to, allegedly, ‘scheduling issues’. But, if reports are to be believed, the Stones have been hard at work on a new album, which should see the light of day in 2026.

This intel comes from a reliable source: Marlon Richards, who in an interview with a special Stones edition of Record Collector said, when asked what the band are currently up to: “They’re in town right now, recording.”

“They’re in Chiswick or somewhere like that; I think they’re nearly done. They still maintain these ridiculous hours: after lunch until, like, two in the morning. I’d rather be somewhere else at that time of night! Unless you’re in it, it’s pretty boring.”

When asked specifically what the band were working on, Richards said: “I guess an album – they have enough left over from the last one.”

“They gave them a Grammy (for 2023's Hackney Diamonds), so now they’re all hyped up on that: ‘Oh, yeah – we can do another one like that! We’ve got more like that if you want…’ I think they’re doing the follow-up.”

Marlon had good news for fans regarding live dates: “I think they’re planning a tour of Europe.”

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This tallies with reports in The Sun over the summer regarding the Stones’ plans: “Originally, the plan was for them to bring their huge US tour to the UK and Europe this summer but promoters couldn’t get the dates to work,” a source told the paper in June. “Instead, the Stones decided to get back into the studio and put down their next album. It’s massive for their fans who didn’t get a chance to see them live this year.”

The next album would be coming, comparatively, hot on the heels of Hackney Diamonds, which came out in October 2023. At the tim,e Jagger counselled against seeing that record as ‘the last Stones album’, telling the New York Times that the band were already “three-quarters through the next one”.

And Keith Richards, back in 202,3 told SiriusXM that “There’s plenty more stuff left over from Hackney Diamonds to work on. There’ll always be another one until we drop… This is what we do. We’ve gotta see this Rolling Stones through.”