Producer Andrew Watt has confirmed that he’s reunited with The Rolling Stones on their upcoming new album.
Watt produced their Grammy-winning twenty fourth studio album, ‘Hackney Diamonds’, in 2023, whereas he’s additionally labored with the likes of Elton John, Girl Gaga and Ed Sheeran over the previous couple of years. His affirmation comes months after the first studies that he was once more working with the Stones.
He informed Rolling Stone of working with the rock icons once more, “I’ve stated it earlier than, nevertheless it’s like working for Batman.”
He didn’t go into too many particulars, explaining, “When the tongue is up within the air, you simply go… I can say we did some recording collectively, however that’s all I can say.”
For his half, Watt stated informed Rolling Stone February that the Stones had music leftover from their ‘Hackney Diamonds’ classes. He defined that, whereas it might be as much as the band whether or not the fabric could be completed, “it might be nice”, including, “ It was a prolific time for the band. They’d amassed, like, 18 years of fabric. There was a lot to undergo and select from initially, after which there have been new songs that simply got here as a result of everybody was rolling and sort of flying.”
It was reported a few months later that the band had been engaged on a brand new album since April, finishing 13 songs at Chiswick’s Metropolis Studios. And earlier this month, guitarist Keith Richard’s son Marlon shared that the band had been engaged on a brand new album, describing it as being “practically achieved”.
“They’re on the town proper now, recording,” he stated in an interview for the Rolling Stones version of Report Collector, performed again in Could. “They’re in Chiswick [West London] or someplace like that; I believe they’re practically achieved. They nonetheless keep these ridiculous hours: after lunch till, like, two within the morning. I’d moderately be elsewhere at the moment of evening! Except you’re in it, it’s fairly boring.”
When pressed on what the band had been engaged on, Richards stated: “I assume an album – they’ve sufficient left over from the final one,” Richards replied.
“They gave them a Grammy, so now they’re all overrated on that: ‘Oh, yeah – we are able to do one other one like that! We’ve obtained extra like that if you’d like…’. I believe they’re doing the
Comply with-up.”
He added that he thought his dad’s band had been “planning a tour of Europe”. They toured US stadiums final yr, however earlier this yr, studies got here out that The Rolling Stones had deserted plans to go on tour within the UK and Europe due to scheduling points, and there have been loads of rumours of a 2026 European tour within the works as an alternative.
They final performed the UK in 2022, when two large BST Hyde Park gigs adopted a stadium present at Liverpool’s Anfield.
As for the brand new music, when NME spoke to guitarist Ronnie Wooden in 2023, he stated that they needed to minimize “about 23 songs” and that he didn’t “assume it might be” one other 18 years till a brand new album.
Of the opposite tracks, he defined: “Effectively, Stones tracks evolve however they’ve both obtained the essence after we first hit the tune or they haven’t. A number of the songs had been a bit of hesitant. We have to take a look at them once more. That’s the way in which you make good music – to mould it like a clay mannequin. You realize, the automobile out of stone like Michelangelo.”
NME gave ‘Hackney Diamonds’ a four-star evaluate upon its launch, describing it as an “absolute barnstormer” and including, “If ‘Hackney Diamonds’ does spherical off essentially the most profitable profession in rock music ever, it wouldn’t be a foul place to go away it. A pure finish, however undoubtedly not a standard one.”