We officially have new music from The Rolling Stones – but not where you’d expect

Thanks to all music sleuths and music-obsessed former journalists, we had a pretty good hunch that The Rolling Stones were teasing new music under the band name The Cockroaches a couple of weeks back. Now we finally have confirmation.

Cast your minds back to last week when QR codes cropped up across the capital with a link to a 90s style digital bedsit, and the enigmatic question “who the fuck are the cockroaches” along with an email sign up. A calendar in the room also hinted that the updates would come on 11th April. Fans were quick to speculate that the enigmatic announcement was linked to the Stones, after they’d teased their latest album Hackney Diamonds in a similar fashion. Also, the moniker ‘The Cockroaches' has been previously used by the band for secret shows.

Now, when you click on the cockroaches website, the digital bedsit has some new additions, including a t-shirt (similar to the one the man wears in the teaser video), which takes you to a website where you can purchase one for £30 when clicked. Also, and perhaps most importantly, there is a white vinyl sleeve which, when flipped, shows 12 GPS coordinates.

On Friday 10th, a teaser video was shared across Instagram under the same thecockroaches2026 with the caption ‘64 & Counting’, which is presumably a reference to how long the band has been going. In the video, a man wearing a “who the fuck are the cockroaches” teeshirt (a spin on the infamous photo of Ronnie Wood wearing a “Who the fuck is Mick Jagger?” teeshirt), is putting on and listening to a 12-inch record. You can hear a snippet of the record in the video – it’s a bluesy guitar riff followed by a quick snippet of Jagger singing “Do it”.

The Stones confirmed they would be releasing a new single called Rough And Twisted via The Times earlier in the week. The track is the first single from a new Rolling Stones album called Foreign Tongues, which is set to be their 25th studio album, and will be released on 10th July.

However, you won't be able to find the new single, Rough and Twisted, on any streaming platform, nor will you find it under the Rolling Stones name. Instead, the band that put out the song is called the Cockroaches. The single was released on Saturday 11th April and is available only in vinyl form.

The coordinates relate to venues in:

• Aberdeen
• Glasgow
• Preston
• Leeds City Centre
• Coventry
• Cheltenham
• Twickenham
• Letchworth
• Soho,
• Bristol
• Whitstable
• Brighton

Presumably, this means the band will be doing gigs in these locations, perhaps championing smaller, more local venues, judging by the specific coordinates. The Stones last played in the UK in 2022 at BST Hyde Park and at Liverpool’s Anfield. They reportedly recently scrapped a UK and EU stadium tour in 2026 due to Keith Richards being unable to commit.

• Old St Records are giving away free drinks this month to celebrate old school vinyl

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