Keith Richards Isn't Ready to Tour Again — Ronnie Wood Reveals What's Holding Back The Rolling Stones

The Rolling Stones have a new album, a proven producer, and two-thirds of a front line ready to go. What they don't have is a tour — and now we know why. Appearing on the Argentine talk show Otro Día Perdido on November 4, Ronnie Wood said the holdup is Keith Richards, who wants time away from the road.

"Mick and I have already been promoting a little bit, but we are waiting for Keith to set down what he wants to do for his future," Wood said, per Guitar Player's report of the interview. "Because he's a bit road weary at the moment. He said, 'I don't want to do any more touring – for a bit, you know?'"

That last qualifier matters. "For a bit" is not retirement, and nobody should read it that way. But it does explain why a band with a fresh record has no dates on the books while the rest of the summer 2027 calendar fills up around them.

Why Keith wants a break

Richards is 82, and he has been doing this since before most of today's arena acts were born. The Stones' touring machine is famously grueling — long runs, huge stages, two-hour sets — and Richards carries the riff load for all of it. Wood didn't cite a specific health issue, and neither should we. What Richards himself has said, publicly and on the record, is that touring is the part he wants less of right now.

It's also worth remembering what Richards has already told us about his hands. In a 2023 interview with BBC Radio 4's Today, he addressed his arthritis directly: "Funnily enough, I've no doubt it has, but I don't have any pain: it's a sort of benign version. I think if I've slowed down a little bit it's probably due more to age."

That's a guitarist describing adaptation, not surrender. Richards has spent six decades building one of the most recognizable right hands in rock — the five-string open-G chug, the riffs that are the songs. If he says he needs a minute, he's earned the minute.

A new album with nowhere to play it

The backdrop to all this is Foreign Tongues, the Stones' Andrew Watt-produced album released July 10, 2026 — a continuation of the partnership that produced Hackney Diamonds. As Wood put it on the show: "We had a great producer with Andrew Watt; he helped us with Hackney Diamonds, and then we did a continuation in a way through to the album called Foreign Tongues, and that's where we've left it at the moment."

We covered the album's guitar side in our piece on Keith Richards, Foreign Tongues and the next riff. The record exists; the tour to support it does not. Jagger and Wood have both made clear they'd play tomorrow if the call came. The call has to come from Keith.

There's precedent for patience here. We've written before about what a Rolling Stones residency or a different shape of touring could look like for a band in its eighth decade. A break now doesn't rule out a smarter format later.

Ronnie isn't waiting around

Wood, for his part, is doing the opposite of resting. He's on the road in South America right now — he played Buenos Aires' Movistar Arena on November 6 — supporting Fearless: Anthology 1965–2025, the career-spanning solo compilation released September 26 that pulls from the Birds, the Jeff Beck Group, Faces, the Stones and his solo records, plus four new tracks.

"I'm not going to sit back and wait," Wood said. "So I'm going to get out there and play!"

Good. A working Ronnie Wood is a gift, and his solo shows have a looseness the Stones' stadium machine can't replicate.

What comes next

Here's the honest read: nothing is cancelled, because nothing was announced. The Stones have no 2027 dates to postpone. What Wood's comments tell us is that the decision point is real and it belongs to Richards. If he recharges and wants one more run, the band is clearly willing. If he decides the road is done, the Stones still have a new album, a massive catalog and options — residencies, one-off shows, special events — that don't require a world tour.

For guitar fans, the stakes are simple. Keith Richards is the engine of the greatest riff band ever assembled, and whatever he decides about touring will define what live Rolling Stones looks like — or whether it exists at all — in 2027 and beyond. We'll be watching, and we'll update this story when Keith says his piece.

Sources

• Guitar Player: "Ronnie Wood says Keith Richards doesn't want the Rolling Stones to tour right now — 'he's a bit road weary at the moment'" (guitarplayer.com), November 2026.
• Guitar World, Jonathan Horsley: "Ronnie Wood says Keith Richards wants the Rolling Stones to take a break from touring" (guitarworld.com), November 6, 2026.
• Ronnie Wood interview on Otro Día Perdido (Argentina), November 4, 2026.
• BBC Radio 4 Today: Keith Richards interview on arthritis and his playing, 2023.