And not just a band, but a supergroup, of sorts, as the Rolling Stones frontman has teamed up with ex-Eurythmic Dave Stewart, Joss Stone, Damian Marley and Indian film composer A.R. Rahman.
Rolling Stone magazine reports the band has quietly been recording together over the past 18 months, with their debut LP planned for sometime around September.
"It's different from anything else I've ever been involved in," Jagger tells RS. "The music is very wide-ranging – from reggae to ballads to Indian songs in Urdu."
The idea behind the group started two years ago when Stewart, inspired by the mixture of music on the streets of Jamaica, ran the idea of creating a fusion of the sounds into something new. Once the two sorted through their address books, they landed on Stone, Rahman and Marley - whose rhythm section helped flesh out the band.
"We wanted a convergence of different musical styles," says Jagger. "We were always overlapping styles, but they were nevertheless separate."
With only that idea in mind, the team hooked up in an L.A. studio about 18 months ago to see what they could create.
"We didn't know what the hell we were doing," says Stewart. "We were just jamming and making a noise. It was like when a band first starts up in your garage. Sometimes Damien would kick it off and then Joss would sing something on top of it. We might have a 22 minute jam, and it would become a six minute song."
The loose method was inspiring for Jagger.
"One of the beauties is that, just speaking as a vocalist, I did other things," Jagger says. "I played guitar and harmonica, but there's four vocalist on the album. Not everything was reliant on me.”
The band’s name came from some improvised vocals by Marley.
"He was just singing 'Heavy, heavy, heavy, heavy, super heavy,'" says Stewart. "We thought that sounded good and it sort of stuck with us."
As for his day job, Jagger was asked if the Stones are going to tour next year. "I don't have any announcement to make at the moment," he says. "I'm just, uh, ya know...just doing this right now."
The Rolling Stones Rolling Stones – Paint It Black
Shine A Light DVD
Beacon Theatre – New York, NY – 2006
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