“In the middle there's this mesh we call ‘the ancient form of weaving.’ Sometimes we cross accidentally!” Ronnie Wood explains his guitar dynamic with Keith Richards at launch for surprise new Rolling Stones album

Ronnie Wood (left) and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones perform at Thunder Ridge Nature Arena in Ridgedale, Missouri on July 21, 2024.

On Tuesday (May 5), the Rolling Stones announced a new album, Foreign Tongues.

Their 25th long player in total, it – like its predecessor, 2023's impressively vital Hackney Diamonds – was produced by Andrew Watt, and (also like its predecessor) features a laundry list of special guests: Steve Winwood, the Cure frontman Robert Smith, Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, and some up-and-comer named Paul McCartney.

The Stones officially launched the album that same day with a splashy listening party and Q&A led by Conan O'Brien, held at the cavernous Weylin event space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Of course, those aforementioned guest spots were high on the list of discussion priorities, but less tabloid-friendly (and arguably more interesting) were the more nuts-and-bolts insights into how the Stones have musically kept on, well, rolling, for well over 60 years.

O'Brien at one point asked Wood – sat in between the ever-ageless Mick Jagger and the ever-wry Keith Richards – about how his own fondness for open E tuning clicks with his six-string comrade's love of Open G.

“In my Faces days I always played open E, and Keith always played in open G,” Wood explained. “Somewhere in the middle, there's this sort of mesh that we call ‘the ancient form of weaving’. Sometimes we cross accidentally!”

Indeed, if you've ever heard Richards discuss in other interviews the way his playing interacts with Wood's – or Mick Taylor's and Brian Jones' before him – you've likely also heard him use that exact term.

It's the bedrock of the Stones' sound – rhythm and lead blending into one; no showing off; blues, country, and rockabilly all blending together seamlessly. The overlapping riffs that have been played by millions of guitarists the world over.

Richards, for his part, highlighted to O'Brien that there's no need for discussing the fine matters of arranging with his guitar partner of half a century.

“[There's no] ‘Oh, this chord goes like this; this chord goes like this,’” he said. “We know [where and when to play] without thinking about it or talking about it.”