Rolling Stones’ new album channels spirit of early Toronto gigs, says Ronnie Wood

Ronnie Wood says Toronto helped start him up.

Nearly 50 years after the Rolling Stones slipped into the El Mocambo under the pseudonym the Cockroaches, the guitarist still considers those legendary 1977 club gigs his “initiation” into the band.

Having recently joined the Stones, he recalls falling sick around that period and going to bed, only for guitarist Keith Richards and frontman Mick Jagger to raid his hotel room.

“Mick and Keith unscrewed the screws on my door, took the door off its hinges and stole all my champagne,” the 79-year-old Wood says on a virtual call from London.

“They went, ‘Oh, bless you, Ronnie. You really are ill. We’ll have to drink your champagne for you.’ So that’s how they treated me.”

Now, as the Stones prepare to drop their 25th studio album “Foreign Tongues” on July 10, the axeman says the famed British rockers are trying to tap into the loose, ragged spirit that defined those early years.

“Or as I call it, ‘more solos,’ because I’m playing up a storm,” says Wood.

“I said, ‘Mick, I want more solos. He said, ‘Ronnie, you’ve got a solo on every bloody song!'”

The band released the scrappy single “Rough and Twisted” earlier this year as a limited vinyl under the Cockroaches, reviving a moniker they used for secret club appearances in the 1970s.

“That started in Canada,” Wood notes.

“The Cockroaches and the El Mocambo was a great initiation time for me. Great fun.”

The two March 1977 shows became the stuff of rock legend. Fans packed into the 300-capacity club expecting an obscure opening act for Canadian band April Wine, only to discover they were actually watching the Rolling Stones.

The surrounding drama added to the lore. During the trip, Richards and then-partner Anita Pallenberg were arrested and charged with heroin possession after an RCMP raid on their room at Toronto’s Harbour Castle Hotel.

“You throw in the odd bust on Keith and Anita, and oh my God, that was a heavy time in that hotel. There was a lot going on,” recalls Wood.

Richards was released on bail and eventually avoided serving time on the condition he perform a concert for the blind and continue addiction treatment.

Asked whether the controversy affected the band’s performances, Wood laughs.

“No, it only spiced it up. It made it better.”

NEW ALBUM TACKLES THE TIMES — AND TIME’S PASSAGE

Wood says “Foreign Tongues” crackles with some of that same combustible energy, intent on keeping the party going.

After their Grammy-winning 2023 effort “Hackney Diamonds” — their first original album in two decades — Wood notes the band wanted to ride the wave of momentum with producer Andrew Watt.

“We’ve got that energy back and that drive,” he says, adding the band pumped out albums every couple years in the “old days.”

The result is a cranked-up, riff-slinging set that feels both conscious of the times and mindful of time’s passage.

Jagger takes a shot at “mad mogul Mr. Musk” on the otherwise lascivious dance number “Mr. Charm,” while lamenting the United States’ fraying ideals on country swinger “Ringing Hollow” — “Lady Liberty don’t look so good when she’s wearing a frown,” he sings.

“Back in Your Life,” meanwhile, is a lighter-raising ballad about friends lost. Wood says he channelled his grief over the late Brian Wilson and Sly Stone, who died within days of each other last year, while recording the song’s soaring guitar solo.

“I’ve lost a lot of good friends lately, as well as famous people,” he says.

“I am blessed to still be here myself. It makes me realize that being a survivor is mind-blowing, really. And you don’t know how long it’s going to last.”

He slumps his head, pretending to croak, then bursts into laughter.

“We feel lucky because most people have got bits falling off, bits dropping off of their body.”

The album features one of the final recording sessions by late Stones drummer Charlie Watts, who died in 2021 but appears on the track “Hit Me in the Head.”

Another tribute arrives on “You Know I’m No Good,” a harmonica-laced cover of the Amy Winehouse hit.

Wood was close with the late British soul singer, who died of alcohol poisoning in 2011, and remembers being called on more than once by her band to coax her out of her hotel room and onto the stage.

“She was always like, ‘Oh, what am I gonna do?’ And I’d say, ‘Everyone knows you’ve got vodka in your water bottle. Come on, just make yourself available to do the show tonight,’” he says.

“But she was her own worst enemy…. The drugs always get in the way.”

KEEPING THE STONES ROLLING

After surviving decades of rock-star excess, Wood says he has a renewed outlook.

“I’m 16 years clean and serene, man. And life is new for me now. I’ve got two little lovely girls, Gracie and Alice,” he says of 10-year-old twin daughters with his wife, Sally.

“They’re bringing a new life to me and Sally. It’s great.”

Wood says he’s also helped the Stones survive themselves. During some of the band’s roughest years, particularly in the 1980s, he found himself mediating between Jagger and Richards when tensions threatened to split the group.

“There have been a few historic moments over the years where they’ve nearly separated for good,” he says. “I’ve said, ‘That can’t happen. You’ve got to stay together. I’m going to put you on the phone with each other.”

He says Jagger and Richards are now “closer than ever.”

“It’s taken a lot of years and a lot of hard work.”

More than six decades after starting up, the Stones apparently have no plans to stop. While there isn’t a tour slated for 2026, Wood says the band is eyeing the road.

“We really want to promote the album. We want a tour. We just love to play.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 19, 2026.

Alex Nino Gheciu, The Canadian Press