Producer/songwriter Andrew Watt went from the pop world to finding himself in the studio with his rock heroes, from the Rolling Stones to Pearl Jam — and now he’s back at the center of pop as executive producer of Lady Gaga‘s upcoming album Mayhem. His career is reaching new heights at the moment, with a Grammy win for the Stones’ Hackney Diamonds, an Oscar nomination for a track with Elton John and Brandi Carlile (who have a Watt-produced dual album on the way), and a long run at Number One for Gaga and Bruno Mars’ “Die With A Smile.”
In the new episode of Rolling Stone Music Now, Watt shares behind-the-scenes tales from his work with those superstars and much more. To hear the whole episode, go here for the podcast provider of your choice, listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or just press play above. Here are some highlights from the discussion:
Watt passionately defended the Stones’ recent Grammy win against online complaints that it slighted younger rock bands. “They are in their eighties,” says Watt. “They’re 82 and 83 years old. Tell me another band ever in history that has made a latter-day album that good in their 80s, with that level of songwriting, that level of performance. Fuck the production — I’m pressing record, you know what I mean? And making sure it sounds good. They’re playing, singing, writing, performing their asses off. You can’t tell me another band that has ever made an album in their 80s that is that good, and the reason you can’t tell me that is because rock and roll is not that old!… It gives you faith in the human race, in what a human being could be capable of.”
Watt sees the rise of AI pushing pop music back toward human performances. “It’s no coincidence that alongside all this live instrumentation is the rise of AI,” he says. “People are like, okay, computers are getting so good that they can kind of do this other stuff. What’s the realest, rawest thing that it can’t do?”
There are plenty of leftover songs from the Hackney Diamonds sessions, and Watts wants the Stones to finish them. “It was a prolific time for the band. Those sessions, they had amassed like 18 years of material,” Watt says. “There was so much to go through and there was so much to kind of choose from initially, and then there were new songs that just came because everyone was rolling and kind of flying. So we did record more than went onto the album… There’s more material left. I can’t tell you if it’s gonna happen or not. It’s up to them, but it would be great… Why not finish the material, you know?”
Gaga’s single “Abracadabra” came together spontaneously. “She just heard something immediately, and grabbed the microphone and started flowing in the room,” says Watt. “Once there’s this initial kind of thing she always runs to the piano because then it becomes a song, and then what are the chords and there’s this crazy fun synth part and then where can it go… Once you came up with the chords for the other parts then we recorded that on other synths… You keep running between the control room and the live room, the control room and the live room.”
The making of “Die With a Smile” was as old-school as it gets. “It was a really long day and night,” says Watt. “Bruno was there with [producer/songwriter] James Fauntleroy, and they just started playing together. Gaga wrote out all the chords and all the changing bass notes so she could know what she was going to play, Bruno was on the guitar, and they kind of just started breaking down the song together, really singing together and organically arranging their harmonies… Everything on that song is live. Live drums, live bass, live guitars, live vocals. Listen to them sing — it’s raw.”
The upcoming final Ozzy Osbourne concert will feature “a zillion surprises,” Watt says. “All I know is that I was asked to play in some concoction of things that they have put together. Ozzy is really excited for this concert. Anytime you give him a goal to hit or challenge, he’ll do it.”
Watt has been quietly recording with Paul McCartney between his other projects. “He’s like my professor, Professor Paul,” says Watt. “We’ve been working on stuff in little chunks of time over the past couple of years. He also helped seal the deal for me in getting the Stones gig.”
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