Despite their long-running yet light-hearted feud, The Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney have ‘come together‘ for a new musical collaboration.
McCartney is set to lend his musical talents to the Stones’ latest album by playing bass for one of their tracks.
A representative for The Rolling Stones confirmed to CNN that McCartney will play bass “on just one RS track”.
Fellow surviving member of The Beatles, Ringo Starr is not expected to feature on the album.
As news broke of the upcoming collaboration between the two music powerhouses, fans took to social media to share their delight.
The Stones’ upcoming album will be the band’s first since the passing of drummer Charlie Watts at the age of 80 on August 24, 2021.
The news comes as a welcome change to the ongoing friendly rivalry that has existed between the two iconic bands for some time.
Never one to shy away from delivering a friendly shot at the Stones, McCartney recently reignited the debate regarding which band was the greatest following recent comments comparing The Rolling Stones and his former band.
In an interview with The New Yorker, McCartney suggested that the Stones were a mere “cover band”.
“I’m not sure I should say it, but they’re a blues cover band, that’s sort of what the Stones are,” he said.
“I think our net was cast a bit wider than theirs.”
It’s certainly not the first time McCartney has taken a friendly swipe at his former rivals, telling Howard Stern in an interview in 2000 that the Beatles were “better”.
“There’s a lot of differences, and I love the Stones, but I’m with you. The Beatles were better,” he said.
Rolling Stones lead singer Mick Jagger laughed off the comments at the time, joking that there’s “no competition” during an interview with The Zane Lowe Show for Apple Music.
“The big difference, though, is and sort of slightly seriously, is that the Rolling Stones have been a big concert band in other decades and other eras when the Beatles never even did an arena tour, Madison Square Garden with a decent sound system,” he said.
“They broke up before that business started, the touring business for real.”
The Beatles and The Rolling Stones were two of the biggest musical acts of the 1960s with music fans typically falling into either the Stones or the Beatles’ camp. While The Beatles split up in 1970, The Stones have continued touring to this day.