Mick Jagger on new Stones tour, Aretha, acting and Grammys

NEW YORK >> Mick Jagger likes a buzz. A natural buzz.

The Rolling Stones frontman, who will tour America next spring with his iconic band, says live shows give him a rush that can’t be matched and is the reason that at 75, he still loves touring.

“When you go out in front of all those people you get an enormous rush of chemicals in your body — your own chemicals, not chemicals you’ve put in,” he said laughing.

“Let’s face it, it is a huge buzz. Must be like playing football or something,” he said.

Jagger should feel like a football player — since he’ll be playing the same stadiums as NFL stars when the Stones’ No Filter tour launches in Miami on April 20, 2019.

Tickets go on sale Friday and the 13 shows will hit Florida, Texas, Arizona, California, Washington, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Illinois and Washington, D.C.

“Basically your life’s attuned to doing those few hours onstage and everything else is a build up to that. Of course, you get to enjoy yourself at other times, but really you’re thinking about the next show or the show you’re doing that night,” said Jagger, who will be joined onstage with Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood and Charlie Watts. “A lot of prep time goes into that — keeping yourself (together) so you can get through the whole thing without screwing up physically and mentally and keeping yourself really sharp. But I really enjoy it.”

In an interview Monday with The Associated Press, Jagger talked about the tour, only having three Grammys and appearing in the new-but-old Aretha Franklin concert documentary, “Amazing Grace,” filmed at a Los Angeles church in 1972.

AP: What can fans expect from the U.S. shows?

Jagger: A good night out! A good night out for all. We did a kind of similar tour in Europe this summer, so it’s got a lot of fun . ... It’s pretty high energy and it’s a good a show, I think. I’m into it.

AP: Is it different performing in the U.S. compared to other territories?

Jagger: Well, I don’t have to speak foreign languages normally, so that’s a big difference. When you tour Europe it’s a lot of languages, so I try to do them all and that takes up some time, so (in the U.S.) I can concentrate on some other things. There’s lots of regional differences, say between Houston and New York, so you’ve got to tune yourself to that a little bit. It’s slightly about adjusting your set and attitude. Its different. It’s nice that it’s different, you don’t want it to be completely homogenous. But it’s great to be going around so many different areas, different states and so on.

AP: How’s the new music you’re writing coming along?

Jagger: It’s going good. I’ve got lots of stuff. I’m doing some more writing this week. And I’m always, like, messing around. I enjoy the writing process a lot. I mean, you always think the last thing you wrote is really wonderful and sometimes they’re really not (laughs). But it’s really fun doing it and it’s really enjoyable doing new things.

AP: You don’t even need to release music because of the band’s catalog...

Jagger: Yeah, and we haven’t released that much and I think it’s a shame we haven’t released more new music. So, I would hope we’re going to release some music. We do have a huge catalog. The thing about the catalog is when we come up