- 11 minutes ago
Andrew Watt joins Brian Hiatt at The Rolling Stone Studio in our New York office to talk about his huge year, including producing Paul McCartney’s ‘The Boys of Dungeon Lane,’ the Rolling Stones’ ‘Foreign Tongues,’ and co-producing two tracks on Madonna’s ‘Confessions II,’ plus the new "Danceteria" remix with Charli XCX and new songs with Lady Gaga. He also reveals how he helped Elton John rebuild his songwriting process to accommodate his vision impairment, responds to Tony Iommi’s claim that Watt was “too excited” about making a final Black Sabbath album, and confirms unreleased songs with Ozzy Osbourne. Plus, Watt reflects on why working with McCartney is “like going to college,” conducting the Stones, why Gaga feels like his sister, how Elton John connected him with Michael Stipe, butt-dialing Keith Richards, and much more.
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00:00who have you butt dialed a lot i butt dialed keith richard's house once and he does not like the
00:08phone you gotta like prep yourself to like be on the phone with keith it's like it was just
00:12calling me back and it was like hello you called me and it was just weird
00:20i'm brian hyatt welcome to the rolling stone studio really excited to be here with andrew
00:26watt who as usual has a ton going on as one of the leading producers and songwriters in music
00:33let's see if i can even do your year i'm gonna miss some stuff but you uh you made an
00:37album with
00:38brandy carlyle yes uh you made a song with michael stipe you made more music with lady gaga yes you
00:45worked with madonna on two songs and a remix with charlie xcx you also you know by the way made
00:51another album with the rolling stones and you made an album with paul mccartney what i miss
00:56i think you covered it man well the most immediate thing is this remix of that amazing
01:02song dan satiria that you made with madonna and now charlie xcx is on it yeah that song in general
01:09was just an amazing uh process to make
01:18talking with madonna and hanging out with her she has probably the coolest life of anyone just
01:24i'm from new york so we just got into fun conversation about new york and like the scene
01:31and all the people that were around her we started talking about dan satiria which was the club where
01:37it all started for her as we were talking about the story of that place it just became apparent that
01:42this should totally be a song as we were just kind of talking about it and she would tell us
01:47like
01:47you know you look around and there's now rogers and there's david byr and and like all the way that
01:53she was just talking about it seemed so cool and she obviously invented talking on a pop song right
02:00and so it just felt so cool the way she was just naturally talking about it so we threw the
02:05beat on
02:05and then she started just talking about her life it's her origin story it's amazing it's a it's on
02:12it's on a record and you can listen to it uh whenever you want and and hear hear all that
02:19so i think charlie
02:20doing her origin story was uh the cool cool thing for them being on it together i presume they did
02:27it separately
02:28that's how things go these days they yes charlie recorded her part but then they worked on the track
02:34and the production together like for a long time we all kind of did uh going back and forth they're
02:40both amazing producers it's a completely different record than uh the original and i actually put them
02:46on a text message together wow to to kind of meet and talk before they were ever going to do
02:53a record
02:53together uh because they just needed to be friends they're both so awesome and so cool and
03:00really special people to me in my life i was at a wedding with charlie and i was like have
03:05you ever
03:06met madonna and she's like no we we actually we don't know each other and so i just i thought
03:12that
03:12needed to happen um and then the song was just a natural progression what synergy did you see in their
03:18like sort of production styles as they work together on it well they're they're both extremely
03:22detailed producers know exactly what they want to hear how something makes them feel very technical
03:28like turn this up a db or down or it needs to be a bit bright the eq needs to
03:34change here
03:35compression's too strong or we need a synth here that's like this maybe something more of a stab
03:40instead of a bass sound like it's very very detailed it's so much fun to work with an artist who
03:45also is a producer because they know what they want sometimes you can um you know be talking about
03:52production with you know anyone that you're collaborating with and you have to figure out
03:57what they mean in emotional terms which is your job you know or it makes me feel like this or
04:02i want
04:03to feel like that and what does that correlate to musically it's so awesome when someone's like
04:08actually it needs to do this and they just tell you straight up uh in in technical terms and the
04:14music's
04:14always going to come out better and i think more personal when the artist is also the producer
04:21in general what surprised you about her just five in the studio i just loved sitting with her and
04:28watching her writing process she likes to work in small spaces which i thought was really cool
04:34watching her process and how detailed she gets with her lyrics and how she'd go home and write and
04:40then bring in more the next day probably my favorite part of working with her there's this song
04:44that we did on the album called lower east side girl and i was just sitting with the guitar and
04:50steward and circuit and madonna over there it was the four of us um but we we kind of went
04:55downstairs
04:56in the studio while the guys were focused a little bit on the track and the production and we just
05:01sat
05:01there with the guitar and i was playing it and we were kind of singing it back and forth and
05:05just
05:05you know writing lyrics back and forth she's such an amazing songwriter um and sometimes people
05:11like to write their lyrics alone and she did some of that as well but writing with her in person
05:18and
05:18going back and forth and seeing how her mind works was really beautiful it i think it kind of it
05:24started
05:25a friendship between us the number of people you've done that with sitting across from them with a
05:30guitar and maybe they have a guitar is insane it's insane to think about it is i i try not
05:35to think
05:35because um yeah it's a little too much to handle sometimes i have a feeling there must have been
05:41way more songs with that group of co-workers than just those two songs well we didn't work for very
05:49long okay which was what was cool i think we had four days in the studio okay and we made
05:53three songs
05:54in the four days two of which came out so that's pretty good i think we'll definitely work together
06:00again we're text buddies now and talk about art and different things and i just absolutely loved
06:06the process of working with her and whenever she needs me i'm there you obviously have the most insane
06:11list of phone contacts do you keep people under code names just in case some some people get a middle
06:20name of fucking smart mick jagger is not mick jagger right mick fucking jagger right that's his name
06:25i butt dialed someone very famous who i won't uh disclose uh because it makes it too embarrassing
06:31have you ever butt dialed you gotta say have you ever who'd you butt dial come on no can't do
06:35it
06:35well i'll tell you afterwards i'll tell you i'll tell you i'll tell the people
06:42that's amazing did you pick up i accidentally siri called him i said his code name rather than the name
06:49and it called but i i thought i'd stopped it before it went through then i was like oh that
06:54was close
06:54then i see he fucking is calling me back and i was like i was like yeah i'm really sorry
06:59like
06:59whatever but anyway i put initials sometimes yes so what i'm wondering i said that only to say
07:04who have you butt dialed a lot what was the worst phone does phone does its own thing i butt
07:12dialed
07:12keith richards house once and he does not like the phone i got called back and i was i didn't
07:18i was
07:19very you know you gotta like prep yourself to like be on the phone with keith it's like
07:25and like it was just calling me back and it was like hello you called me and it was just
07:28weird
07:29lasted only about like two seconds which most phone calls with him last about 10 seconds so
07:34now most people love working with you tony iomi said that he didn't want to make the final black
07:43sabbath album that you wanted to make because strange reason you were too excited about it
07:48yeah that i think is taken out of context okay you know me i'm definitely an excited uh musician
07:56that part i bought yeah yeah that's that that would be a true statement but that's not why it didn't
08:00happen ozzy was wanting to continue to to work and make stuff um and we were making music and he
08:10had
08:10the idea because we were talking about let's try and do something a little different than you know
08:15the the two albums that we made ordinary man and patient number nine were different albums but they
08:20were of the same dna so we're like what can we do that's different do you want to make something
08:25with
08:25tony should we make an osborne iomi album we were talking about that and then he was just like let's
08:30make a sabbath album he's like we didn't do an album with bill ward i think looking back at all
08:35the
08:35stuff he wanted to do making an album with bill was really important to him and this was before
08:41back to the beginning was happening right and everything i think the idea of doing something
08:46with bill was very very important and so one of the first incarnations of that was a potential album
08:55as ozzy does he's gave me the marching orders call tony then he called geezer then he called bill
09:01right so called tony would you want to do it yeah that sounds cool if bill would do it yes
09:07geezer if bill would do it yes it was all about if bill would do it yes so then i
09:12had to have a
09:13conversation with bill and that was one of the strangest and funniest and coolest at the same
09:18time as we're talking to bill ward conversations um it was a long conversation it was he was speaking
09:25in tongues which now knowing him and being friends with him um makes sense long story short
09:31without going into it too deeply he was unable to do the album for personal reasons and there was a
09:37nice beautiful long email sent to all of us and i was on an email with the original members of
09:44black
09:44sabbath which was pretty cool then after we talked i was like okay bill can't do it and there's no
09:49reason
09:49to do it i'm sure tony didn't feel like going into all of that uh tony's awesome he's a great
09:56friend to
09:56me he's a great mentor we made a couple songs together on ozzy's album and had an amazing time
10:03working together i was definitely excited about the fact that it was going and everything but
10:08that wasn't the reason why we didn't make the album fair enough record clear i think he's just taking
10:13like taking the piss yeah which anyone that wants to do that with me they absolutely should
10:18i've heard there is some unreleased ozzy stuff is that anything that you can say about that um there are
10:24there are some songs that we made for a specific reason um and yeah that's all i can say fair
10:33enough
10:33they're hard for me to listen to i haven't listened i'm sure i mean any plans for them that you
10:38know or
10:39kind of back to the beginning the night before the concert actually went in birmingham with sharon
10:47a couple of people to go get a curry and i was texting with oz he was in his hotel
10:52room and he
10:53was like come to the hotel come to the hotel i was sitting with sharon and we were both like
10:57he's a big
10:58day tomorrow like maybe i shouldn't go because he'll get excited and everything but he was like
11:01no you're coming to the hotel you are coming so i went i brought a curry with me and sat
11:07with him
11:08um and he was drawing like usually does and we sat and we listened to the stuff that we had
11:15made and
11:16made notes and that and the next day were the last times i i got to see him so yeah
11:23but we had a
11:24beautiful listening session and talked about a lot of stuff it's hard uh hard to think about but i miss
11:31him every day i love what he told you about bass in rock and roll take it with me all
11:37the time it's
11:38really true bass it's like what's the loudest thing in a led zeppelin album as he said to listen to
11:43her
11:43i just said john bonham you know you think of the drums that would make sense they're harding it's the
11:48bass said that's that's the most important part in a rock and roll mix it's the bass it's so many
11:54things he taught me about and if ozzy osbourne chose you he gave you a career i mean he did
12:01it
12:02over and over and over again i always loved rock music i was a pop producer before he chose to
12:08let me stand next to him and work with him and then you know i got to do all these
12:12amazing things
12:13after but he was the first one and if you look at what he he chose randy rhodes yeah because
12:18he chose
12:18zach wilde jakey lee and then even you get to like now currently youngblood yeah right like youngblood was
12:27on an amazing path uh before the back to the beginning concert but ozzy chose changes for him
12:33to sing and loved dom as a person and what he was doing as an artist and brought him out
12:39there and
12:41he sang that song and it changed his life it was a few months ago already when i talked to
12:46dom to
12:46youngblood and he actually said that you guys have a whole project together what's going on with that
12:51i've said this to you before have this like strong thing that you know one when music that i make
12:59with somebody comes out i'm really excited to talk about it but until then i feel like it's like it
13:05belongs to him and how he wants to speak about it so i'll follow him speaking of stuff that's hard
13:12to talk about you made a great song with michael stipe like i went back and listened to that and
13:17it was
13:17even better than i remembered i was like i was like thanks man it really captured some of what
13:21we love about rem but with a kind of forward looking thing how did you end up with stipe in
13:26the first place not to drop it on the floor but uh we met through elton john we actually went
13:32to go
13:32see a play that elton had done the music for we sat next to each other and talked as much
13:37as you can
13:38during an intermission where you're watching play we also had to be extremely attentive so because
13:43as we wanted to but i was we were both sitting right next to elton so we're listening to like
13:47every um every piece i was scoring the show rooster who is which which is made by bill lawrence
13:55and matt tarsis bill is my future father-in-law i'm engaged to his daughter charlotte um and so we
14:03wanted to do something fun together so i thought i'll score one of your shows and um this one really
14:08made sense and it's based around steve carell his character is a writer who comes to a college campus
14:16to kind of save his daughter who's going through some stuff so he takes a you know a guest in
14:23residence job the sound of the show kind of became the music musical sounds of bands that steve
14:31his character rooster would have been listening to when he went to college because he doesn't go for
14:37this reason but he ends up reliving his college experience when we were talking about the great
14:4380s american college bands rem was the first uh one that came up and both bill and matt's favorite
14:51band is rem so there was a personal thing involved as well so when that started happening i was like
14:57i
14:58actually just met michael this year and so let me uh let me see if i can get in touch
15:02with him so
15:02i asked elton uh to put us in touch and michael says he answered because elton's never gave his
15:10phone number to anyone else ever and so we met and hit it off and started working on this thing
15:17and yeah he's become an awesome friend i'm gonna see him later today actually michael has been working
15:24sort of on a soul album for a really long time it's very interesting it seems like he doesn't
15:30he's hasn't wanted to get to the finish line what is your sense of that i don't think that's the
15:35case
15:35he as all great artists are are he's extremely hard on himself he works really hard at his craft
15:46and he kind of beats himself up i think in a healthy way i've seen him write lyrics throw them
15:55out
15:55write them again do all his own merit you know um so i think he is wanting to make sure
16:03that he is
16:04going to say exactly what he wants to say and make a sound that's exactly how he wants it to
16:10sound
16:10one of the things that he said is that he really misses like with rem they wrote beds of music
16:16and he sang over them yeah so i think the part of the challenge is to figure out what can
16:20substitute
16:21for that yeah the keys he's he's working with a uh a bunch of different people so and it's exactly
16:27that yeah different different flavors of different beds and then finding his way around them but
16:32it's one of the all-time greats great songwriter great lyricist for sure i mean so i'm and really fun
16:41to be around and the mccartney album the mccartney album is very adventurous in a lot of its choices
16:47it's very produced in addition to like sort of some tight focus songs there's some great sort of
16:53wings like guitar excursions and really letting him go out there how much of that was his idea and
17:00how much was you kind of like nudging him a little bit well what was really cool about that record
17:04is
17:05it was just the two of us yeah like the whole time wow so we'd just be bouncing off of
17:10each other
17:10he is a hundred percenter which there are very few of can play every instrument can mix can produce
17:19write every word write every melody write all the chords i mean he does a hundred percent of it wow
17:26his choice to have a producer is not out of necessity it's out of desire yeah so he likes to
17:33bounce off
17:34someone sometimes i got the incredible honor of taking that role this time around we would just
17:41have fun in the studio so sometimes things would start from nowhere which is not a a common thing
17:47for him um it's very detailed the way the beatles would work but they would have songs right they'd
17:52write they'd go over them at paul's place which is around the corner from the studio abbey road and
17:58have a coffee and a cigarette in paul's garden go over the songs go over to the studio there'd be
18:04one session in the morning for you know however long it was they'd take a break and then they'd do
18:09the other session i think there are two three hour blocks or whatever they'd take them both they'd record
18:13two songs a day and that's how the beatles made their music so there wasn't a lot of you know
18:20his his
18:21process is not let's go into the studio with nothing and see what happens a lot and we got to
18:26do that
18:26here a little bit so that's how we ended up you know actually writing a couple of things together
18:31because the guitars would come out and we'd get on a thing we'd get on a tangent and follow it
18:37down
18:37there was never a point until like the last like two or three months in the five years that we
18:45spent
18:45working together where we're like okay we're making an album it would just be like hey andrew i'm coming
18:50to la at this time like do you have a you know a couple weeks to just kind of mess
18:53around and that's
18:54what we would do um and we'd collect songs and we started working on some of the things that he
18:59had
18:59already started and everything and then it kind of just turned to this natural natural thing but
19:05working with him is like going to college yeah you know every time i'd get those couple weeks with
19:10him i'd be a better musician a better producer i'd have more chord knowledge right after you work
19:15with paul you're like okay i'm ready to get right back in the studio because like you're better you
19:19you know and then that eventually goes away because you're not spending as much time with
19:23that but sitting in that rare position with paul mccartney across from each other making a song
19:28from scratch what do you learn about the essence of his creativity
19:36um his process is amazing him being around a collaborator it's cool his time alone is extremely
19:48important tucking away often in the small space and you know writing um taking stuff home and writing
19:57in the morning he's fearless and our whole collaboration started um from we were having
20:05tea we were introduced by his manager and he went to tell me you know you can write a song
20:12out of
20:12anything and he went to go grab a guitar he's like oh you only have righty guitars and i actually
20:17had had some lefties brought over the just in case right yeah i woke up in a sweat the night
20:22before thinking what if he wants a guitar what's gonna happen i didn't have any lefties but see
20:26this is why this is part of why you're where you are because you thought of that i thought of
20:30it at
20:31the last second so i don't know barely thought of it barely thought of it gave him a lefty played
20:35this weird chord and then he's kind of giggling to himself in a boyish way it was such a weird
20:41chord
20:41that he had to resolve it and once he resolved the chord it was time to go to a third
20:47chord and
20:47then the guitars came out and we kind of and that's the opening track of the album that's the
20:50opening track of the album as you lie there and so that song was so much fun once was once
20:55that was
20:55there it was kind of like okay let's like use the studio in all these fun ways and he was
21:01kind of
21:01like teaching me the way he works that was the point it was like you can write a song out
21:07of anything
21:07and then sometimes you switch it up and go to a weird thing which it changes form a million
21:12different times that song and then it goes to uh you know rock section then it goes to a bluesy
21:17guitar section and then it go you know it's yeah it was kind of like let me show you how
21:23we can use
21:24the studio that's how that song kind of came together and all of a sudden you realize why he's the
21:29guy
21:29who made like uncle albert and you know the abbey road medley and all this stuff you see he loves
21:34playing characters even like rocky raccoon yeah who's that guy right he loves to play
21:40different characters and do voices and his imagination is unlike anyone else's like mozart
21:47you know bouncing around the studio and playing every different instrument watching him do that
21:53watching him know to play the symbols quieter than the snare drum i asked him why he did that he's
22:02like
22:02so that you could turn crank the overheads and it's going to sound great and you're not going to be
22:06you know bashing people in the head with symbols he's thinking about all that stuff watching him
22:10arrange background vocals which he does either at the piano or with a guitar in his hand at the mic
22:16and
22:16goes through the note and sings it and is really choosing the notes and arranging them he's
22:24incredible um act coming up with the perfect part on every different instrument and not
22:29making you feel like he played any instrument uh worse than the other i mean it just sounds like
22:37someone who's a master on each instrument sounds like a band the stones album is also incredible and
22:42in a very different way you know paul is kind of addressing mortality and looking back whereas uh making
22:50keith and ron sound immortal you know and libidness and like alive and as if they're going to go on
22:58forever
22:58how do you even make sense of the amount of energy they bring it's a trippy thing to think about
23:03right
23:03because for us rock and roll has been in our life forever but in the history of music it's not
23:08that
23:09old of the genre the stones guys they want to rock that's what they want to do they that's they
23:14want to
23:15they want to want it to be loud and get in the studio and have drums and push the tempos
23:20and
23:20as with all bands that we love it's not about one person it's the sum of all parts you can
23:27listen to
23:27a keith richard solo album they're awesome you listen to mic solo albums they're awesome
23:32when they're together and they play together you know or ronnie's solo albums there's songs on there
23:37i love when those three guys play together it's it's something the you know the roof leaves the
23:43building it's something that doesn't sound like anything else and how they interpret each other and how
23:47they play off of each other when i made those records i would always be in the live room while
23:54the band tracked kind of as far from keith as as i am from you and mick kind of right
24:00in front and
24:00be in that circle so i could watch how they're interplaying with each other and what they're doing
24:05it helped me so much to understand like the chords and what they're playing and to be able to help
24:12arrange things as they were happening and you don't want it to ever be an arduous process
24:17yeah the band like that they're magic if you've seen a stone show you see what happens when they
24:22hit a magic moment it's like you want to be able to help that happen as quick as possible when
24:27they're playing a song so my job would be to have a mic like this and call sections b section
24:33right
24:34the conductor try and not get into the the overheads too much and like they kind of look up and
24:39switch
24:39you know um and okay let's go back to the a section take it out on that you know and
24:44like to make
24:45codas and stuff like that so it would just be kind of they're playing the tune that they made
24:51and and i'm and i'm arranging it kind of as it's happening um in the moment kind of amazing if
24:57you
24:57had to guess will there be another stone diamond i don't know i i don't know i i didn't know
25:02if there
25:03was going to be another one after the first one if they call i'm there yeah it's it's the greatest
25:07honor of my life being around that band you've worked with so many great people so many of your heroes
25:13where does that leave you as far as goals i don't ever really think like that i've been so blessed
25:21um to meet all these amazing people and that turns into us working together the artists that i've
25:27worked with have has been a natural progression of meeting them and it making sense for us to work
25:32together so i know i'm never really like going after someone or something like that things come
25:39into my life and then i think about how amazing it would be to work with that person but yeah
25:43my
25:44antenna is open as always i mean i think a lot of what you do is just bring things is
25:49cross-pollinate
25:50you you're bringing things from pop into rock and vice versa into k-pop into whatever i think you're
25:56just kind of like planting seeds bringing sounds and people together that's kind of seems like your
26:01overall thing yeah i will say this pop music is in a great place right now um you're seeing the
26:07rise
26:08of all of these amazing pop girls coming back it's always been a big part of mainstream music but
26:14there's a lot of new artists breaking and so that's really exciting to me too i've been having fun
26:19making some pop music again which i'm always doing as i'm you know making rock records as well
26:25part of the fun of my job is to get to work in all these different genres but um i'm
26:30really excited
26:30about what i'm hearing in pop music right now so we talked a lot about uh your work with gaga
26:36and i
26:37really feel like there's incredible synergy there and i you know i love the mayhem this probably
26:40definitely among my absolute favorite stuff you work you were so kind about that record and that
26:45whole process it's awesome you know it's one of those things where like it lost album of the year
26:50and it would be easy to be mad if it didn't lose to bad bunny if since it lost to
26:54bad bunny it's like
26:55what are you gonna do of course yeah your collaboration with gaga is obviously ongoing
26:59you did the dead dance you did all those songs for the devil wears prada too tell me about those
27:05ongoing sessions what's it like to like go back with her greatest feeling in the world is like when
27:09you make a project with an artist it ends and everyone's sad and you're gonna miss each other and
27:14then they call you back and they're like let's make more stuff you feel so great about yourself
27:17because that means they enjoyed working with you they enjoyed the process her and i are from the
27:22same place from new york we both grew up playing in the bitter end um and we're walking in the
27:29stream
27:29same streets and in the same scenes a couple years apart um and so our foundation of music and our
27:38references are very aligned yeah um so it feels like my my sister you know yeah like my older sister
27:45a
27:45couple years older than me when we sit we break a song down even when it's an electronic song
27:50and i'm on the guitar and she's on the piano sitting head to head and going through the song it's
27:54like
27:54it's one of the most beautiful experiences of my life it's brought me to tears multiple times um it's
28:01um it's awesome soon you'll probably have like a baby in the studio i think it which is gonna be
28:06that's gonna be a new vibe do you have a sense of when you're working with her again
28:10no um we we we're in touch all the time and it's it's the same kind of thing whenever she
28:16you know sounds the bell i'll be there how do you work out the priority thing like what you know
28:23what
28:23what if like mick and paul and gaga all want you on the same day like how what the hell
28:27do you do
28:27it's happened yeah you hold on you breathe um and you figure out a way to make it all work
28:34i find that if you are transparent always it's a big thing for me transparency especially
28:42you know in the music business there's so many people that are not that way and honest like
28:48you're not lying that's what i mean people seem to react to that um and will follow you and they'll
28:53tell you when they really need you and other people will be like yeah it's okay well let's do
28:58it tomorrow whatever you know or then there's sometimes when everyone wants you at the same time
29:02and then it gets fucked um but there's there's always a way through it if you're transparent
29:08and honest and real i wanted to ask you a tough one can you name your picks for the greatest
29:14songs
29:14ever made you can preface it by saying these are your songs in this moment in this moment sitting
29:21here in the rolling stone office is just like heaven by the cure i think it's it's got everything
29:27that i love about a song also one of the coolest parts about that song is he doesn't say the
29:31title
29:32of the song to the last line it's awesome sympathy for the devil pretty great watching that song
29:38change forms in my life by the beatles blackbird by the beat i'm gonna keep going i mean just
29:44those three feel like a good starting point i also heard you're working on a elton john album and
29:51bernie taupin said that it's a whole new process just because of like where he is and that the way
29:57he's working with or without lyrics has changed i mean famously elton writes songs by reading the
30:05lyric bernie handed him tiny dancer he read the lyric he saw a movie in his head of you know
30:13a girl
30:14traveling through california um and you know entering into the scene of california and he scored that
30:22movie that's tiny dancer that's how he writes his songs elton right now this is what he sees one eye
30:28nothing the other eye is like this yeah it's like squinting your eye so he is going through life in
30:35a
30:35completely different way than ever before and my god the spirit of this man is it's unlike anything
30:44else so many people 99.9999999 percent of people would have just folded and he continues on he
30:52continues soldiering on i talk to him every day he's listening to music he's making music he's wanting
30:58to make music and so we had to adapt there wasn't going to be a way that we were going
31:03to let him not
31:04make music when he wanted to make music the way we we kind of flipped it around was he's one
31:10of the
31:10great melody writers ever the idea that he could have a vibe we could throw on some drums for him
31:19that made him feel a certain type of way and he could just play to the drums and come up
31:26with melodies
31:27first and have like a feel or i want to do a song like this or i want to do
31:32a song like that or i really
31:33like this or i really like that or let's do something that feels like a dance song or let's do
31:38something
31:38that feels you know like a great soul record or something and just kind of talk like that
31:44um and then have him put melodies on and bernie is so imaginative as well so he was able to
31:51then
31:51listen to that hear a basic rough little melody of elton and come up with ideas to what he was
32:00doing
32:00and if elton didn't have a fully fleshed out melody bernie would get inspired by what the song
32:07sounded like and that would inspire him to write lyrics and then elton is the master of putting
32:14bernie's lyrics down to the song the process of him not being able to see it while he was coming
32:21up
32:21with the thing we had to change that but once bernie would come up with the lyric after we put
32:27it on a huge screen for him and he'd scan through it and he'd figure out where he'd want to
32:32put it and
32:32he'd go little by little and it was perfect but yeah when you see someone persevering like that
32:38it's the coolest thing ever human beings are so powerful the will to keep going to survive is
32:45is stronger than anything it was similar for me when you know ozzy broke his neck and i was working
32:51with him during that time and he was like pushing through like to see someone overcome great odds
32:57and make music and then the music means even more to them and they're they're they're pulling from
33:02somewhere else it's it's quite amazing we were talking about cross-pollinating what what do you
33:08see in these veteran rock stars and what do you see in the young pop stars you work with what
33:15are the
33:16chief things you think they can learn from each other they're all different yeah and everyone works
33:20differently and so you take something from that project then you bring it into your next project it's
33:26just like natural a great example of that for me was when uh i was working on the first stones
33:33album
33:34i had like a week off and then we started the pearl jam album and keith had just showed me
33:39how to play
33:40an open g tuning and like gave me basically lessons and was like you know this is how you do
33:45it and i
33:46started writing like that in my own crazy man my own uh my own way and then he was like
33:50laughing he was
33:51like you're off to the races you know um and then i was able to take being able to play
33:57like that into
33:58pearl jam and then there's a song on the album that ended up in open g called wreckage um that
34:04was
34:04directly influenced from uh learning open g tuning from the stones and then that was just like a cool
34:11thing you know learning how to record bands and capturing live energy is something that i try to bring
34:20into the pop music that i make yeah and the idea of performance based music all the way through not
34:28flying loops that's great too i do that all the time love doing that but music that's performed top
34:35down does a different thing to you so i try to um incorporate that into the pop music and electronic
34:42music that i make as well well you've had another big year congrats not over yet thanks man
34:48andrew watt thanks so much for joining me great to see you great to see you man
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