Keith Richards Has No Doubt Charlie Watts Wanted Rolling Stones To Continue

Keith Richards admits that it was strange last fall to be onstage with The Rolling Stones in the U.S. and not see Charlie Watts at the drum kit, but the band is keen on moving forward in 2022.

Richards told CBS Sunday Morning in a segment that aired this weekend that Charlie's death last August came as "quite a shock." But when the drummer fell ill a few weeks earlier, he insisted that his band of 60 years continue without him. He even handpicked his replacement, drummer/producer and longtime Stones friend Steve Jordan.

"After all these years, you just expect [to see] that face," Richards said of touring without Charlie.

Now with Jordan in tow, the band has announced a new tour 'Stones Sixty' beginning in Europe in June, along with advancing plans for a new album.

Richards says Charlie was clear that he wanted the Stones to keep going, and the band has begun writing new material with Jordan.

“It’ll be interesting to find out the dynamics now that Steve’s in the band,” Richards admitted. “It’s sort of metamorphosing into something else. I was working with Mick [Jagger] last week, and Steve, and we came up with some, eight or nine new pieces of material. Which is overwhelming by our standards. Other times, [songwriting is] like a desert.”

The Rolling Stones have been circling new material for a few years now. Jagger revealed last September to Billboard that Charlie recorded a number of new songs with the band before his death, so it's possible he would appear on a new Stones album.

"It seems like only yesterday that I was in the studio with Charlie, joshing around," Jagger recalled. "And I mean, it's such a long time that you work with someone like that, and you get to know someone so well and their quirks and their idiosyncrasies and they know yours. And there's a language in communication with musicians, obviously, or anything else. ... That's very rare. I miss that so much."