{"id":76648,"date":"2026-11-07T18:09:36","date_gmt":"2026-11-07T18:09:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2026\/11\/07\/michael-stipe-madonna-mccartney-stones-inside-their-new-music\/"},"modified":"2026-11-07T18:09:36","modified_gmt":"2026-11-07T18:09:36","slug":"michael-stipe-madonna-mccartney-stones-inside-their-new-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2026\/11\/07\/michael-stipe-madonna-mccartney-stones-inside-their-new-music\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Stipe, Madonna, McCartney, Stones: Inside Their New Music"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<span class=\"a-style-intro lrv-a-floated-left lrv-u-display-inline-block lrv-u-margin-r-050 u-margin-b-n025\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"a-font-theme-primary lrv-u-align-items-center lrv-u-flex lrv-u-height-100p lrv-u-justify-content-center lrv-u-width-100p u-font-size-150 u-font-size-104@mobile-max u-line-height-124 u-line-height-94@mobile-max\">N<\/span><br \/>\n\t\t<\/span>o one has ever produced albums by both the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/rolling-stones\/\" id=\"auto-tag_rolling-stones\" data-tag=\"rolling-stones\">Rolling Stones<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/paul-mccartney\/\" id=\"auto-tag_paul-mccartney\" data-tag=\"paul-mccartney\">Paul McCartney<\/a> in the same year before, and those were just a couple of the highlights of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/andrew-watt\/\" id=\"auto-tag_andrew-watt\" data-tag=\"andrew-watt\">Andrew Watt<\/a>\u2018s last 12 months. Watt, who\u2019s become music\u2019s leading legend-whisperer, also continued his partnership with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/lady-gaga\/\" id=\"auto-tag_lady-gaga\" data-tag=\"lady-gaga\">Lady Gaga<\/a> on several new songs, worked on two tracks on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/madonna\/\" id=\"auto-tag_madonna\" data-tag=\"madonna\">Madonna<\/a>\u2018s <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-album-reviews\/madonna-confessions-ii-album-review-1235588293\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-album-reviews\/madonna-confessions-ii-album-review-1235588293\/\">Confessions II<\/a><\/em>, and produced Brandi Carlile\u2019s <em>Returning to Myself<\/em>. His work with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/michael-stipe\/\" id=\"auto-tag_michael-stipe\" data-tag=\"michael-stipe\">Michael Stipe<\/a> on the soundtrack song \u201cI Played the Fool\u2019 led to an ongoing collaboration on Stipe\u2019s upcoming solo album.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube\">\n<p>\n<span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Andrew Watt on Madonna, Gaga, Elton John, McCartney, the Stones, &amp; Ozzy | The Rolling Stone Studio\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/o17DqX_l8EQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/span>\n<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tWatt talked about all of it and more in the latest episode of <em>The Rolling Stone Studio<\/em>. You can watch the whole conversation above, or read a lightly edited text version below.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>Tell me about \u201cDanceteria,\u201d the song you-co-produced with Madonna, and the remix with Charli XCX.<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>That song, in general, was just an amazing process to make. Talking with Madonna and hanging out with her, she has probably the coolest life of anyone. I\u2019m from New York, so we just got into fun conversations about New York and, like, the scene and all the people that were around her. We started talking about Danceteria, which was the club where it all started for her.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tAs we were talking about the story of that place, it just became apparent that this should totally be a song. She would tell us, like, you look around and there\u2019s Nile Rodgers and there\u2019s David Byrne. And, like, all of the way that she was just talking about it seemed so cool, and she obviously invented talking on a pop song, right? And so it just felt so cool the way she was just naturally talking about it, so we threw the beat on, and then she started just talking about her life. It\u2019s her origin story, and it\u2019s amazing that it\u2019s on a record, and you can listen to it whenever you want and hear all that. So I think Charli doing her [own] origin story was the cool thing for them being on it together.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>I presume they did it separately. That\u2019s how things go these days.<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>Yeah, Charli recorded her part, but then they worked on the track and the production together, like, for a long time. We all kinda did, going back and forth. They\u2019re both amazing producers. It\u2019s a completely different record than the original. And I actually put them on a text message together to kinda meet and talk before they were ever gonna do a record together, because they just needed to be friends. They\u2019re both so awesome and so cool, and really special people to me in my life. I was at a wedding with Charli, and I was like, \u201cHave you ever met Madonna?\u201d<\/p>\n<section class=\"brands-most-popular \/\/ editors-pick-module lrv-u-margin-tb-2 lrv-u-border-a-2 u-box-shadow-5-5 lrv-u-padding-lr-1 a-span1 u-padding-b-1@tablet u-overflow-hidden\">\n<h2 id=\"section-heading\" class=\"c-heading larva  lrv-u-text-align-center u-border-color-black a-font-theme-primary-xxs lrv-u-color-black lrv-u-text-transform-uppercase u-letter-spacing-0063 lrv-u-padding-t-050 u-padding-b-0375@tablet lrv-u-padding-b-050@mobile-max lrv-u-border-b-2\">\n<p>\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tAnd she\u2019s like, \u201cNo, we don\u2019t know each other.\u201d And so I thought that needed to happen. And then the song was just a natural progression.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>What synergy did you see in their production styles as they worked together on it?<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>Well, they\u2019re both extremely detailed producers. Know exactly what they wanna hear, how something makes them feel. Very technical. Like, turn this up a dB or down, or it needs to be a bit bright, the EQ needs to change here, or the compression\u2019s too strong, or we need a synth here that\u2019s like this, maybe something more of a stab instead of a bass sound.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tIt\u2019s very, very detailed. It\u2019s so much fun to work with an artist who also is a producer because they know what they want. Sometimes you can be talking about production with anyone that you\u2019re collaborating with, and you have to figure out what they mean in emotional terms, which is your job, you know?<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tOr, \u201cIt makes me feel like this,\u201d or, \u201cI want to feel like that,\u201d and what does that correlate to musically? It\u2019s so awesome when someone\u2019s like, \u201cActually, it needs to do this,\u201d and they just tell you straight up in technical terms. And the music\u2019s always gonna come out better and, I think, more personal when the artist is also the producer.<\/p>\n<section class=\"brands-most-popular \/\/ recirculation-modules lrv-u-margin-tb-2 lrv-u-border-a-2 u-box-shadow-5-5 lrv-u-padding-lr-1 a-span1 u-padding-b-1@tablet u-overflow-hidden\">\n<h2 id=\"section-heading\" class=\"c-heading larva  lrv-u-text-align-center u-border-color-black a-font-theme-primary-xxs lrv-u-color-black lrv-u-text-transform-uppercase u-letter-spacing-0063 lrv-u-padding-t-050 u-padding-b-0375@tablet lrv-u-padding-b-050@mobile-max lrv-u-border-b-2\">\n<p>\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>In general, what surprised you about Madonna\u2019s vibe in the studio?<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>I just loved sitting with her and watching her writing process. She likes to work in small spaces, which I thought was really cool. Watching her process and how detailed she gets with her lyrics and how she\u2019d go home and write and then bring in more the next day.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tProbably my favorite part of working with her, there\u2019s this song that we did on the album called \u201cLower East Side Girl,\u201d and I was just sitting with a guitar, and Stuart [Price] and Cirkut and Madonna were there. It was the four of us. But we kind of went downstairs in the studio while the guys were focused a little bit on the track and the production, and we just sat there with a guitar, and I was playing it, and we were kind of singing it back and forth and just writing lyrics back and forth.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tAnd she\u2019s such an amazing songwriter. And sometimes people like to write their lyrics alone, and she did some of that as well, but writing with her in person and going back and forth and seeing how her mind works was really beautiful. I think it started a friendship between us.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>I have a feeling there must have been way more songs with that group of collaborators than just those two songs.<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>Well, we didn\u2019t work for very long, which was what was cool. I think we had four days in the studio. And we made three songs in the four days, two of which came out. So that\u2019s pretty good. I think we\u2019ll definitely work together again. We\u2019re text buddies now and talk about art and different things, and I just absolutely loved the process of working with her, and whenever she needs me, I\u2019m there.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>You obviously have the most insane list of phone contacts. Do you keep people under code names just in case?<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>Some people get a middle name of Fucking. So Mick Jagger is not Mick Jagger. It\u2019s Mick Fucking Jagger, right? That\u2019s his name.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>Who have you butt-dialed?<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>A lot.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>What was the worst one?<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>I butt-dialed Keith Richards\u2019 house once, and he does not like the phone. I got called back and you gotta, like, prep yourself to like be on the phone with Keith. It was just calling me back, and it was like, \u201cHello, you called me.\u201d And it was just weird. It lasted only about, like, two seconds, which most phone calls with him last about 10 seconds, so.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>Now, most people love working with you. Tony Iommi said that he didn\u2019t want to make the final Black Sabbath album that you wanted to make because \u2014 strange reason \u2014 you were too excited about it.<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>Yeah. That, I think is taken out of context. You know me. I\u2019m definitely an excited musician, a person.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>That part I bought.<br \/><\/strong>Yeah, that would be a true statement. But that\u2019s not why it didn\u2019t happen. Ozzy was wanting to continue to work and make stuff. And we were making music, and he had the idea, \u2019cause we were talking about, \u201cLet\u2019s try and do something a little different than\u2026\u201d The two albums that we made, <em>Ordinary Man<\/em> and <em>Patient Number 9<\/em>, were different albums, but they were of the same DNA.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tSo we\u2019re like, \u201cWhat could we do that\u2019s different? Do you wanna make something with Tony? Should we make an Osbourne-Iommi album?\u201d We were talking about that, and then he was just like, \u201cLet\u2019s make a Sabbath album.\u201d He\u2019s like, \u201cWe didn\u2019t do an album with Bill Ward.\u201d I think looking back at all the stuff he wanted to do, making an album with Bill was really important to him, and this was before Back to the Beginning was happening and everything. I think the idea of doing something with Bill was very, very important. And so one of the first incarnations of that was a potential album. As Ozzy does, [he] gave me the marching orders, \u201cCall Tony. Then you call Geezer. Then you call Bill.\u201d Right? So called Tony. \u201cWould you wanna do it?\u201d \u201cYeah, that sounds cool, if Bill would do it, yes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tGeezer, \u201cIf Bill would do it, yes.\u201d It was all about, \u201cIf Bill would do it, yes.\u201d So then I had to have a conversation with Bill, and that was one of the strangest and funniest and coolest conversations. It was a long conversation. He was speaking in tongues.<\/p>\n<div class=\"post-content-image \/\/  \">\n<figure class=\"o-figure   aligncenter size-large aligncenter lrv-u-max-width-100p\" style=\"width:683px\">\n<div class=\"c-lazy-image  lrv-u-border-a-2\">\n<div class=\"lrv-a-crop-16x9\" style=\"padding-bottom:calc((1024\/683)*100%);\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div><figcaption class=\"c-figcaption  lrv-u-flex lrv-u-flex-direction-column lrv-u-align-items-center\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"u-border-color-black u-border-lr-2 lrv-u-padding-tb-025 lrv-u-padding-lr-075 lrv-u-border-b-2 lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-text-align-center a-font-basic-secondary-s\">Andrew Watt in New York, September 2026.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<cite class=\"lrv-u-text-transform-uppercase lrv-a-font-body-xs lrv-u-margin-t-050 lrv-u-text-align-center\">Griffin Lotz for Rolling Stone<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tWhich, now knowing him and being friends with him, makes sense. Long story short, and without going into it too deeply, he was unable to do the album for personal reasons. And there was a nice, beautiful, long e-mail sent to all of us, and I was on an e-mail with the original members of Black Sabbath, which was pretty cool.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tThen after we talked, it was like, \u201cOK, Bill can\u2019t do it, and there\u2019s no reason to do it.\u201d I\u2019m sure Tony didn\u2019t feel like going into all of that. Tony\u2019s awesome. He\u2019s a great friend to me. He\u2019s a great mentor. We made a couple songs together on Ozzy\u2019s album and had an amazing time working together.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tI was definitely excited about the fact that it was going and everything, but that wasn\u2019t the reason why we didn\u2019t make the album.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>Fair enough.<br \/><\/strong>I think he\u2019s just taking the piss. Which anyone that wants to do that with me, they absolutely should.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>I\u2019ve heard there is some unreleased Ozzy stuff. Is there anything that you can say about that?<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>There are some songs that we made for a specific reason. And yeah, that\u2019s all I can say. They\u2019re hard for me to listen to. I haven\u2019t listened to them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>I\u2019m sure. Any plans for them that you know of?<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>Kind of. Back to the Beginning, the night before the concert, I actually went in Birmingham with Sharon and a couple of people to go get a curry, and I was texting with Ozzy, who was in his hotel room, and he was like, \u201cCome to the hotel, come to the hotel.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tI was sitting with Sharon, and we were both like, \u201cHe has a big day tomorrow. Like, maybe I shouldn\u2019t go \u2019cause he\u2019ll get excited and everything.\u201d But he was like, \u201cNo, you\u2019re coming to the hotel. You are coming.\u201d So I went, I brought a curry with me, and sat with him, and he was drawing like he usually does, and we sat and we listened to the stuff that we had made, and made notes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tAnd that and the next day were the last times I got to see him. But we had a beautiful listening session and talked about a lot of stuff. It\u2019s hard to think about, but I miss him every day.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>I love what he told you about bass in rock &amp; roll.<br \/><\/strong>I take it with me all the time. It\u2019s really true. He asked me, \u201cWhat\u2019s the loudest thing in a Led Zeppelin album?\u201d I just said, John Bonham. Ozzy said it\u2019s the bass: \u201cThe most important part in a rock &amp; roll mix is the bass.\u201d He had so many things he taught me about.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tAnd if Ozzy Osbourne chose you, he gave you a career. I mean, he did it over and over and over again. I always loved rock music, but I was a pop producer before he chose to let me stand next to him and work with him, and then I got to do all these amazing things after. But he was the first one, and he chose Randy Rhoads. \u2018Cause he chose Zakk Wylde, Jake E. Lee, and then even you get to, like, now currently, Yungblud.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tLike, Yungblud was on an amazing path before the Back to the Beginning concert, but Ozzy chose \u201cChanges\u201d for him to sing and loved Dom as a person and what he was doing as an artist and brought him out there, and he sang that song, and it changed his life.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>You made a great song with Michael Stipe, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-news\/michael-stipe-andrew-watt-i-played-the-fool-kimmel-1235571519\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-news\/michael-stipe-andrew-watt-i-played-the-fool-kimmel-1235571519\/\">\u201cI Played the Fool,\u201d<\/a> and now you\u2019re working on his new album. How did you end up with Stipe in the first place?<br \/><\/strong>We met through Elton John. We actually went to go see a play that Elton had done the music for, and we sat next to each other. Talked as much as you can during an intermission where you\u2019re watching a play. We also had to be extremely attentive \u2014 we were both sitting right next to Elton, so we\u2019re listening to every piece.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tI was scoring the show <em>Rooster<\/em>, which is made by Bill Lawrence and Matt Tarses. Bill is my future father-in-law. I\u2019m engaged to his daughter, Charlotte. And so we wanted to do something fun together, so I thought, \u201cI\u2019ll score one of your shows,\u201d and this one really made sense, and it\u2019s based around Steve Carell, and his character is a writer who comes to a college campus to kinda save his daughter, who\u2019s going through some stuff, so he takes a guest-in-residence job. The sound of the show kinda became the musical sounds of bands that Steve, his character, Rooster, would\u2019ve been listening to when he went to college \u2014 because he doesn\u2019t go for this reason, but he ends up reliving his college experience.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tWhen we were talking about the great Eighties American college bands, R.E.M. was the first one that came up, and both Bill and Matt\u2019s favorite band is R.E.M., so there was a personal thing involved as well. So when that started happening, I was like, \u201cI actually just met Michael this year, and so let me see if I can get in touch with him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tSo I asked Elton to put us in touch, and Michael says he answered because Elton\u2019s never gave his phone number to anyone else ever. And so we met and hit it off and started working on this thing. And yeah, he\u2019s become an awesome friend. I\u2019m gonna see him later today, actually.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>Michael has been working on a solo album for a really long time. It seems like he hasn\u2019t wanted to get to the finish line. What is your sense of that?<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>I don\u2019t think that\u2019s the case. He, as all great artists are, he\u2019s extremely hard on himself. He works really hard at his craft, and he kinda beats himself up, I think, in a healthy way.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tI\u2019ve seen him write lyrics, throw them out, write them again, do all his own merit, you know? So I think he is wanting to make sure that he is gonna say exactly what he wants to say, and make a sound that\u2019s exactly how he wants it to sound.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>One of the things that he said is that he really misses \u2014 with R.E.M., they wrote beds of music, and he sang over them. So I think part of the challenge is to figure out what can substitute for that.<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>Yeah, the key is he\u2019s working with a bunch of different people, so\u2026 And it\u2019s exactly that. Different flavors of different beds, and then finding his way around them, but he\u2019s one of the all-time greats, great songwriter, great lyricist, great melodist. And really fun to be around.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>The McCartney album is very adventurous in a lot of its choices. It\u2019s very produced. In addition to some tight folky songs, there\u2019s some great Wings-like guitar excursions, really letting him go out there. How much of that was his idea, and how much was you nudging him a little bit?<br \/><\/strong>Well, what was really cool about that record is it was just the two of us. Like, the whole time. So we\u2019d just be bouncing off of each other. He is a hundred-percenter, which there are very few of. Can play every instrument, can mix, can produce, write every word, write every melody. Write all the chords. I mean, he does 100 percent of it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tHis choice to have a producer is not out of necessity. It\u2019s out of desire. So he likes to bounce off someone sometimes. I got the incredible honor of taking that role this time around. We would just have fun in the studio. Sometimes things would start from nowhere, which is not a common thing for him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tThe way the Beatles would work, they would have songs that they\u2019d write. They\u2019d go over them at Paul\u2019s place, which is around the corner from the studio, Abbey Road, and have a coffee and a cigarette in Paul\u2019s garden, go over the songs, go over to the studio. There\u2019d be one session in the morning for however long it was.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tThey\u2019d take a break, and then they\u2019d do the other session. I think they\u2019re two, three-hour blocks or whatever. They\u2019d take them both. They\u2019d record two songs a day, and that\u2019s how the Beatles made their music. His process is not, \u201cLet\u2019s go into the studio with nothing and see what happens\u201d a lot.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tAnd we got to do that here a little bit. So that\u2019s how we ended up actually writing a couple of things together \u2019cause the guitars would come out, and we\u2019d get on a thing. We\u2019d get on a tangent and follow it down. There was never a point until, like, the last, like, two or three months in the five years that we spent working together where we were like, \u201cOK, we\u2019re making an album.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tIt would just be like, \u201cHey, Andrew, I\u2019m coming to L.A. at this time. Do you have a couple weeks to just kinda mess around?\u201d And that\u2019s what we would do. And we\u2019d collect songs, and then we started working on some of the things that he had already started and everything, and then it kinda just turned into this natural, natural thing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tBut working with him is like going to college. You know? Every time I\u2019d get those couple weeks with him, I\u2019d be a better musician, a better producer. I\u2019d have more chord knowledge. Right after you work with Paul, you\u2019re like, \u201cOK, I\u2019m ready to get right back in the studio\u201d because, like, you\u2019re better. You know? And then that eventually goes away because you\u2019re not spending as much time with him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>When you have that incredibly rare privilege of sitting across from Paul McCartney and making a song from scratch, what do you learn about the essence of his creativity?<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>His process is amazing. Him being around a collaborator is cool. His time alone is extremely important. Tucking away, often in a small space and writing, taking stuff home and writing in the morning. He\u2019s fearless. And our whole collaboration started from, we were having tea. We were introduced by his manager, and he went to tell me, \u201cYou know, you can write a song out of anything.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tAnd he went to go grab a guitar. He\u2019s like, \u201cOh, you only have righty guitars.\u201d And I actually had some lefties brought over\u2026.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>Just in case, right?<br \/><\/strong>Yeah. I woke up in a sweat the night before thinking, \u201cWhat if he wants a guitar? What\u2019s gonna happen?\u201d I didn\u2019t have any lefties. So\u2014<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>But see, this is part of why you\u2019re where you are, because you thought of that.<br \/><\/strong>I thought of it at the last second. Barely thought of it. Gave him a lefty. He played this weird chord, and then he\u2019s kind of giggling to himself in a boyish way. It was such a weird chord that he had to resolve it. And once he resolved the chord, it was time to go to a third chord, and then the guitars came out, and we kind of\u2014<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>And that\u2019s the opening track of the album.<br \/><\/strong>That\u2019s the opening track of the album. \u201cAs You Lie There.\u201d And so that song was so much fun. Once that was there, it was kind of like, OK, let\u2019s use the studio in all these fun ways, and he was kind of, like, teaching me the way he works. That was the point. It was like, you can write a song out of anything, and then sometimes you switch it up and go to a weird thing. It changes form a million different times, that song. And then it goes to a rock section. Then it goes to a bluesy guitar section. You know? It was kind of like, let me show you how we can use the studio. That\u2019s how that song kinda came together.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>And all of a sudden you realize why he\u2019s the guy who made \u201cUncle Albert\u201d and the <\/strong><strong><em>Abbey Road<\/em><\/strong><strong> medley and all this stuff.<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>He loves playing characters, even, like, \u201cRocky Raccoon.\u201d Who\u2019s that guy? You know? He loves to play different characters and do voices, and his imagination is unlike anyone else\u2019s. Like Mozart, you know? Bouncing around the studio and playing every different instrument, watching him do that, watching him know to play the cymbals quieter than the snare drum.<\/p>\n<div class=\"post-content-image \/\/  \">\n<figure class=\"o-figure   size-full alignnone lrv-u-max-width-100p\" style=\"width:1800px\">\n<div class=\"c-lazy-image  lrv-u-border-a-2\">\n<div class=\"lrv-a-crop-16x9\" style=\"padding-bottom:calc((1200\/1800)*100%);\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"c-lazy-image__img lrv-u-background-color-grey-lightest lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-display-block lrv-u-height-auto\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/WATT-RS-Studio-FULL-EMBED-knuckles.jpg\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"\" data-lazy-sizes=\"\" height=\"1200\" width=\"1800\" decoding=\"async\"\/><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div><figcaption class=\"c-figcaption  lrv-u-flex lrv-u-flex-direction-column lrv-u-align-items-center\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"u-border-color-black u-border-lr-2 lrv-u-padding-tb-025 lrv-u-padding-lr-075 lrv-u-border-b-2 lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-text-align-center a-font-basic-secondary-s\">Andrew Watt in New York, September 2026.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<cite class=\"lrv-u-text-transform-uppercase lrv-a-font-body-xs lrv-u-margin-t-050 lrv-u-text-align-center\">Griffin Lotz for Rolling Stone<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tI asked him why he did that. He\u2019s like, \u201cSo that you could crank the overheads, and it\u2019s gonna sound great, and you\u2019re not gonna be, you know, bashing people in the head with cymbals.\u201d He\u2019s thinking about all that stuff. Watching him arrange background vocals, which he does either at the piano or with a guitar in his hand at the mic, and goes through the note and sings it, and is really choosing the notes and arranging them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tHe\u2019s incredible at coming up with the perfect part on every different instrument and not making you feel like he played any instrument worse than the other. I mean, it just sounds like someone who\u2019s a master on each instrument. Sounds like a band.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>The Stones album is also incredible, in a very different way. Paul is kind of addressing mortality and looking back, whereas Mick and Keith and Ron sound immortal \u2014 libidinous and alive, as if they\u2019re gonna go on forever. How do you even make sense of the amount of energy they bring?<br \/><\/strong>It\u2019s a trippy thing to think about, right? Because for us, rock &amp; roll\u2019s been in our life forever, but in the history of music, it\u2019s not that old of a genre. The Stones guys, they wanna rock. That\u2019s what they wanna do. They want it to be loud, and get in the studio, and have drums, and push the tempos. And as with all bands that we love, it\u2019s not about one person.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tIt\u2019s the sum of all parts. You can listen to a Keith Richards solo album, they\u2019re awesome. You listen to Mick\u2019s solo albums, they\u2019re awesome. Or Ronnie\u2019s solo albums, there\u2019s songs on there I love. When those three guys play together, the roof leaves the building.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tIt\u2019s something that doesn\u2019t sound like anything else in how they interpret each other and how they play off of each other. When I made those records, I would always be in the live room while the band tracked, kind of as far from Keith as I am from you, and Mick kinda right in front, and be in that circle so I could watch how they\u2019re interplaying with each other and what they\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tIt helped me so much to understand, like, the chords and what they\u2019re playing, and to be able to help arrange things as they were happening. And you don\u2019t want it to ever be an arduous process with a band like that. They\u2019re magic. If you\u2019ve seen a Stones show, you see what happens when they hit a magic moment. It\u2019s like, you wanna be able to help that happen as quick as possible when they\u2019re playing a song. So my job would be to have a mic like this and call sections. \u201cB section.\u201d That one\u2019s\u2014<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>The conductor.<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>Yeah, try and not get [my voice] into the overheads too much, and like, they kinda look up and switch, you know?<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tAnd, \u201cOK, let\u2019s go back to the A section. Take it out on that,\u201d you know? And like, to make codas and stuff like that. So it would just be kind of, they\u2019re playing the tune that they made and I\u2019m arranging it as it\u2019s happening in the moment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>Kind of amazing. If you had to guess, will there be another Stones album?<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>I don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t know. I didn\u2019t know if there was gonna be another one after the first one. If they call, I\u2019m there. It\u2019s the greatest honor of my life being around that band.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>You\u2019ve worked with so many great people, so many of your heroes. Where does that leave you as far as goals?<br \/><\/strong>I don\u2019t ever really think like that. I\u2019ve been so blessed to meet all these amazing people, and that turns into us working together. The artists that I\u2019ve worked with has been a natural progression of meeting them and it making sense for us to work together. So I\u2019m never really, like, going after someone or something like that. Things come into my life, and then I think about how amazing it would be to work with that person. But yeah, my antenna is open as always.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>I think a lot of what you do is cross-pollinate. You\u2019re bringing things from pop into rock, and vice versa, into K-pop, into whatever. You\u2019re planting seeds, bringing sounds and people together. That seems like your overall thing.<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>Yeah. I will say this, pop music is in a great place right now. You\u2019re seeing the rise of all of these amazing pop girls coming back. It\u2019s always been a big part of mainstream music, but there\u2019s a lot of new artists breaking, and so that\u2019s really exciting to me, too. I\u2019ve been having fun making some pop music again, which I\u2019m always doing as I\u2019m making rock records as well. A part of the fun of my job is to get to work in all these different genres, but I\u2019m really excited about what I\u2019m hearing in pop music right now.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>Your collaboration with Gaga is obviously ongoing. You did \u201cThe Dead Dance,\u201d you did all those songs for <\/strong><strong><em>The Devil Wears Prada 2<\/em><\/strong><strong>. Tell me about those ongoing sessions. What\u2019s it like to go back with her?<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>Greatest feeling in the world is, like, when you make a project with an artist, it ends, and everyone\u2019s sad, and you\u2019re gonna miss each other, and then they call you back, and they\u2019re like, \u201cLet\u2019s make more stuff.\u201d You feel so great about yourself because that means they enjoyed working with you, they enjoyed the process.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tShe and I are from the same place. We\u2019re from New York. We both grew up playing in the Bitter End, and were walking in the same streets, and in the same scenes a couple years apart. And so our foundation of music and our references are very aligned. So it feels like my sister, you know? Like my older sister, couple years older than me. When we sit, we break a song down, even when it\u2019s an electronic song, and I\u2019m on the guitar and she\u2019s on the piano, sitting head-to-head and going through the song, it\u2019s one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. It\u2019s brought me to tears multiple times. It\u2019s awesome.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>Do you have a sense of when you\u2019re working with her again?<br \/><\/strong>No. We\u2019re in touch all the time, and it\u2019s the same kinda thing. Whenever she sounds the bell, I\u2019ll be there.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>How do you work out the priority thing? What if Mick and Paul and Gaga all want you on the same day? What the hell do you do?<br \/><\/strong>It\u2019s happened. You hold on, you breathe, and you figure out a way to make it all work. I find that if you are transparent always \u2014 it\u2019s a big thing for me, transparency, especially in the music business. There\u2019s so many people that are not that way.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>And honest. You\u2019re not lying to them.<br \/><\/strong>Yeah, that\u2019s what I mean. People seem to react to that, and will follow you, and they\u2019ll tell you when they really need you. And other people will be like, \u201cYeah, it\u2019s OK. Well, let\u2019s do it tomorrow,\u201d whatever, you know? Or then there\u2019s sometimes when everyone wants you at the same time, and then it gets fucked. But there\u2019s always a way through it if you\u2019re transparent and honest and real.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>We were talking about cross-pollinating. What do you see in these veteran rock stars, and what do you see in the young pop stars you work with? What are the chief things you think they can learn from each other?<br \/><\/strong>They\u2019re all different. And everyone works differently. And so you take something from that project, then you bring it into your next project. It\u2019s just, like, natural. A great example of that for me was when I was working on the first Stones album, I had, like, a week off, and then we started the Pearl Jam album. And Keith had just showed me how to play in open G tuning and, like, gave me basically lessons and was like, \u201cThis is how you do it.\u201d<\/p>\n<section class=\"brands-most-popular \/\/ recirculation-modules trending-in-article lrv-u-margin-tb-2 lrv-u-border-a-2 u-box-shadow-5-5 lrv-u-padding-lr-1 a-span1 u-padding-b-1@tablet u-overflow-hidden\">\n<h2 id=\"section-heading\" class=\"c-heading larva  lrv-u-text-align-center u-border-color-black a-font-theme-primary-xxs lrv-u-color-black lrv-u-text-transform-uppercase u-letter-spacing-0063 lrv-u-padding-t-050 u-padding-b-0375@tablet lrv-u-padding-b-050@mobile-max lrv-u-border-b-2\">\n<p>\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tAnd I started writing like that in my own way. And then he was, like, laughing. He was like, \u201cYou\u2019re off to the races,\u201d you know? And then I was able to take being able to play like that into Pearl Jam, and then there\u2019s a song on the album that ended up in open G called \u201cWreckage,\u201d that was directly influenced from learning open G tuning from the Stones.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tAnd then that was just, like, a cool thing, you know? Learning how to record bands and capturing live energy is something that I try to bring into the pop music that I make. And the idea of performance-based music all the way through, not flying loops. That\u2019s great, too. I do that all the time. Love doing that, but music that\u2019s performed top-down does a different thing to you. So I try to incorporate that into the pop music and electronic music that I make as well.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-features\/michael-stipe-madonna-mccartney-stones-andrew-watt-1235654076\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>N o one has ever produced albums by both the Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney in the same year before, and those were just&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":76649,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pop","article","has-excerpt","has-avatar","has-author","has-date","has-comment-count","has-category-meta","has-read-more","thumbnail-"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76648\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}