Keith Richards has said that the Rolling Stones’ forthcoming 2013 leg of the 50 And Counting tour was “bound to happen”.

“We kind of knew it was bound to happen,” explained Richards. “I get itchy first – Ronnie’s always itchy,” he said of which band members were keenest to tour.

“I was the first one to be very enthusiastic to do it,” added Ronnie Wood, in an interview with Radio.com.

The Rolling Stones’ tour starts on May 2 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, and will see the band playing a run of North American dates before headlining Glastonbury Festival and playing London’s Hyde Park on July 6 and 13.

“I kept hedging when people asked me, but I knew, a year before,” said Mick Jagger, admitting that the upcoming dates have been in the pipeline since 2012.

He continued: “Personally, I start preparing about two months before the tour starts. So I have to up my fitness level, I have to start singing every day, doing practices and a bit of dancing. I practice in front of mirrors if I can, in a dance studio.”

“What I do know about the Stones is that if you can get the wheel to go round, then it’s like a juggernaut. It’s unstoppable,” says Richards. “It’s the life and blood of us, to play in front of people.”