Heavy, more lead guitar from Mike and more soundgarden type drumming from Matt?!? Uh FUCK YEAH
Fuck yeah indeed!
Yeah! And I’m not a fan wanting the old PJ sound. I don’t want them to try and make another ten or vs. but the three things I mentioned sound very promising for the direction of a new album
Who references Lightning Bolt when Backspacer exists.
I had the same thought. But honestly, both are meh, for me. But that’s the thing. While I enjoyed Gigaton a lot, and am looking forward to a new album, I wouldn’t be bummed if they never put out an amazing album again as long as they keep touring. I love all their albums from Ten-Avocado. That’s plenty of amazing music for me. Most important to me now is they keep touring.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
I've never been disappointed by a Pearl Jam album, so I have no reason to believe this album will be any different. I don't need for them to "go back" to some way that they sounded in the distant past because I have really enjoyed the songs they've come up with in the recent past. I trust these artists to come up with music that excites me, because they have never failed to do so before. And I think one thing that has contributed to that is that, even though I am a different person than I was thirty years ago, one thing that hasn't changed is the attention that I give to new music from my favorite artists. When Vs. and Vitalogy came out, I listened to those albums every day for many months, but I also did the same for Lightning Bolt and Gigaton. I think, for a lot of people-- Pearl Jam fans but just music fans in general-- this is hard to do as they age. When you're 17 (and especially if you were 17 in 1992 when there were no smartphones, social media, podcasts or streaming and fewer TV channels), it's a lot easier to listen to an album incessantly (and emotions and hormones also have something to do with it) than it is in 2023 when you're 48 and have family and job responsibilities and spend a lot of your time on internet stuff that never used to occupy your time. If Pearl Jam released an album that sounded just like Ten today, there would be a lot of people who would stream it once or twice, go "meh" and rarely listen to it again, not because the music wasn't good but because they're not in the same place mentally and emotionally to discover what the music has to offer. (I think this is another downside of streaming; in the old days, to hear an album, you had to buy it, and when you bought it, you were invested in it. It had to be pretty bad for you not to give it a lot of listens. Streaming doesn't represent the same investment. If something doesn't grab people immediately, they move on to the zillion other things they can stream at minimal cost.)
perfectly put, society is so much more disposable these days
In Pearl Jam time, it only feels pretty recently we heard the teaser intro of Dance Of The Clairvoyants on some radio show and everyone was questioning whether it was really Pearl Jams single or not.
I've never been disappointed by a Pearl Jam album, so I have no reason to believe this album will be any different. I don't need for them to "go back" to some way that they sounded in the distant past because I have really enjoyed the songs they've come up with in the recent past. I trust these artists to come up with music that excites me, because they have never failed to do so before. And I think one thing that has contributed to that is that, even though I am a different person than I was thirty years ago, one thing that hasn't changed is the attention that I give to new music from my favorite artists. When Vs. and Vitalogy came out, I listened to those albums every day for many months, but I also did the same for Lightning Bolt and Gigaton. I think, for a lot of people-- Pearl Jam fans but just music fans in general-- this is hard to do as they age. When you're 17 (and especially if you were 17 in 1992 when there were no smartphones, social media, podcasts or streaming and fewer TV channels), it's a lot easier to listen to an album incessantly (and emotions and hormones also have something to do with it) than it is in 2023 when you're 48 and have family and job responsibilities and spend a lot of your time on internet stuff that never used to occupy your time. If Pearl Jam released an album that sounded just like Ten today, there would be a lot of people who would stream it once or twice, go "meh" and rarely listen to it again, not because the music wasn't good but because they're not in the same place mentally and emotionally to discover what the music has to offer. (I think this is another downside of streaming; in the old days, to hear an album, you had to buy it, and when you bought it, you were invested in it. It had to be pretty bad for you not to give it a lot of listens. Streaming doesn't represent the same investment. If something doesn't grab people immediately, they move on to the zillion other things they can stream at minimal cost.)
True, I agree 100% with you.
"I like beautiful melodies telling me terrible things" - Tom Waits pearljamonline.it
I've never been disappointed by a Pearl Jam album, so I have no reason to believe this album will be any different. I don't need for them to "go back" to some way that they sounded in the distant past because I have really enjoyed the songs they've come up with in the recent past. I trust these artists to come up with music that excites me, because they have never failed to do so before. And I think one thing that has contributed to that is that, even though I am a different person than I was thirty years ago, one thing that hasn't changed is the attention that I give to new music from my favorite artists. When Vs. and Vitalogy came out, I listened to those albums every day for many months, but I also did the same for Lightning Bolt and Gigaton. I think, for a lot of people-- Pearl Jam fans but just music fans in general-- this is hard to do as they age. When you're 17 (and especially if you were 17 in 1992 when there were no smartphones, social media, podcasts or streaming and fewer TV channels), it's a lot easier to listen to an album incessantly (and emotions and hormones also have something to do with it) than it is in 2023 when you're 48 and have family and job responsibilities and spend a lot of your time on internet stuff that never used to occupy your time. If Pearl Jam released an album that sounded just like Ten today, there would be a lot of people who would stream it once or twice, go "meh" and rarely listen to it again, not because the music wasn't good but because they're not in the same place mentally and emotionally to discover what the music has to offer. (I think this is another downside of streaming; in the old days, to hear an album, you had to buy it, and when you bought it, you were invested in it. It had to be pretty bad for you not to give it a lot of listens. Streaming doesn't represent the same investment. If something doesn't grab people immediately, they move on to the zillion other things they can stream at minimal cost.)
True, I agree 100% with you.
Me too. We are fortunate to be fans of a band that has stuck together this long, continues to write music, and continues to tour, when many of their contemporaries have passed away or broken up, etc. Keep it coming! If you would prefer that they stopped putting out albums X number of years ago that is on you, respectfully What I wouldn't give to hear what Kurt and Layne would have put out over these last couple of decades and what Cornell and Weiland would have put out these past number of years.....please keep it coming!
Rock Gods Call Him When They Need a New Thunderbolt
After producing hits for Justin Bieber, Dua Lipa and Miley Cyrus, Andrew Watt has become a go-to for new music by rock legends: Ozzy. Elton. Mick and Keith. Even Paul.
Andrew Watt outside a Los Angeles recording studio in October. This year, he’s up for a Grammy for his work with the Rolling Stones.Credit...Adali Schell for The New York Times
By Alex Pappademas
Reporting from Beverly Hills
Dec. 13, 2023, 5:01 a.m. ET
One cool night in September, Eddie Vedder stood onstage at the Ohana Festival in Dana Point, Calif., looking out at a sea of expectant faces.
Vedder and his band the Earthlings had paused their headlining set so medics could make their way to an audience member in distress. Once the situation appeared resolved, he conferred with the band; they’d start again from the top.
“Uh, this one,” Vedder began to say — and then the Earthlings launched back into the song, taking their frontman by surprise and stepping on his reintroduction.
Vedder started singing, like a man chasing a bus as it pulls away. He stopped, grinned and let fly an expletive in the direction of his lead guitar player, a 33-year-old with a bleach-blond buzz cut who happens to be the producer of Vedder’s last solo album and the next one by Vedder’s other band, Pearl Jam.
The music clattered to a halt. Vedder, smiling but stern, pointed at the guitarist and began to admonish him for jumping the gun.
“This is Andrew Watt,” Vedder told the crowd. “He produces the records. But up here, young man? I’m in charge. I’m in control. I’m the boss.”
In the studio, it’s a different story. When he’s not playing live with Vedder — or as part of some other all-star outfit, like Iggy Pop’s backup band, the Losers, featuring the Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith and the Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan — Watt, born Andrew Wotman, is one of modern rock and pop’s most in-demand producers.
His first hits were songs for generational peers like Justin Bieber, Dua Lipa and Miley Cyrus. But he’s also become a first-call producer of new music by elder-god rock stars, working with performers so legendary they’re on a first-name basis with the entire world. Ozzy. Elton. Mick and Keith. Even Paul.
(Yes, that Paul.)
Image
“If they’re showing up to do it with you, they want feedback,” Watt said of the artists he produces.Credit...Adali Schell for The New York Times
And although Watt would never put it this bluntly, sometimes a big part of that job is being unafraid to tell mythic musical icons what they should do. (Or at least — since another big part of the job is diplomacy — suggesting what might be cool to try.)
Sign up for The Amplifier newsletter, for Times subscribers only. Your alternative to the algorithm — a real, live human helps you discover songs you’ll love. Get it in your inbox.
“This artist is working with a producer because they want to be produced,” Watt said in an interview at his Beverly Hills home a few months before the Ohana show. “If they’re showing up to do it with you, they want feedback.”
They’re rock stars, after all. If they live long enough, they usually start to second-guess themselves. They fall prey to self-consciousness, complacency, the creative consequences of festering internecine beef, or all of the above, and wander away from what they’re best at. Sooner or later, they need someone to step in and guide them back onto the path.
This is not the only thing Watt is good at, of course. In interviews, his collaborators praised his alacrity, his ability to communicate musician-to-musician, and particularly his unflagging energy. (Watt compares his in-studio demeanor to Richard Simmons, the relentlessly cheery ’80s exercise guru: “It might make someone laugh, or think I’m a maniac, but I’m me, and I’m genuinely happy to be there.”)
“He’s not one of those guys that gets in awe of people,” said Paul McCartney, who presumably knows awe when he sees it. “He just gets on with it.”
Elton John said he’s never seen anything like Watt’s presence in the studio, likening him to “a live wire.” “For someone of my age, it’s really, really infectious, and it’s really important that I feed off of someone like that,” he added.
“He takes every single session as seriously as if it’s Game Seven of the World Series and everybody is going to play like it’s Game Seven,” said the songwriter Ali Tamposi, a longtime friend who’s worked with Watt on some of the biggest songs he’s produced, including hits by Bieber and Camila Cabello. “He knows what to do and say to bring that out of everyone that he’s working with.”
But the most important asset Watt offers his clients, particularly those who’ve lived in the fog of their own legend for longer than he’s been alive, may be the encyclopedic enthusiasm of a fan who knows exactly what he’d want to hear on a present-day recording by his idols — and has the self-confidence to voice those preferences to their faces.
There is, after all, a crucial difference between “what you think other people want from you, versus what your fans really love about you,” said the singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile. Carlile, who’s worked with Watt on albums like John’s “Lockdown Sessions” from 2021, said Watt has a knack for helping wayward rock legends see their own light again.
“He has that in common with Rick Rubin,” she said. “They both have that ability to big-picture understand, culturally, how an artist has impacted the world, and bring them face to face with that. It might be his greatest superpower.”
As more and more iconic artists have sought out his perspective, Watt’s life has grown more and more unreal. Creative connections have blossomed into friendships. He talks to John every day. “Elton taught me about china,” Watt said. “Not the country — porcelain. The right plates, the right tablecloth. The right napkin rings. He’s a beacon of taste.”
(“I learned it from Gianni Versace,” John said, “so I’m passing it along to Andrew.”)
And Watt has spent so much time with Mick Jagger — in late 2022 and early 2023, while producing the Rolling Stones’ latest album, “Hackney Diamonds,” and during the long professional courtship that led to that gig — that sometimes, when the photo app on his iPhone serves him a slide show of his “memories,” the memories are of Mick Jagger.
In an interview, Jagger also praised Watt’s energy, crediting him with helping the Stones overcome the inertia that had kept the band from completing an album of new material since 2005. (The Stones and Watt are up for best rock song at the Grammys in February for that album’s single “Angry.”)
“He’s very enthusiastic,” Jagger said, “to the point of being too enthusiastic, sometimes.” At one of their earliest meetings, Jagger remembered, “I said, ‘Look, I can deal with this, but when you meet Ronnie and Keith, you have to dial it down a little bit.’”
Image
The experience of walking into a room with practically nothing and coming out with a song never gets old, Watt said. Credit...Adali Schell for The New York Times
WATT GREW UP in Great Neck, Long Island, but these days he lives in a spacious steel-and-glass house, surrounded by rock memorabilia. Even his art collection has a musical bent — it includes a clown painting by Frank Sinatra, a Warhol of Mick Jagger and a self-portrait in acrylic by David Bowie.
A visitor pointed out a photograph: a 13-year-old Watt onstage, on his knees, in dress shoes and shirt sleeves, soloing on a gold-top Gibson. It was taken at Watt’s bar mitzvah at the Copacabana in New York. The party’s theme was “Andrew Rocks”; he played Weezer’s “Say It Ain’t So” and Prince’s “Purple Rain.”
Watt smiled at the picture, an image of an inner child he’d done right by. “That,” he said, “is the most valuable thing in here.” (It was propped up between two Grammys.)
As a kid, he’d wanted to do nothing but play rock music; after dropping out of N.Y.U. to pursue it full-time as a solo artist, he struggled. But when he was offered a gig backing the Australian pop singer Cody Simpson, who was set to tour as Bieber’s opening act, he balked.
“I’m like, I don’t want to do pop,” Watt recalled. “I’m a rock and roller and I play in these nightclubs. Then they told me I would get $1,500 a week, and I was like, ‘I’m there.’”
Before shows, Watt would linger onstage after sound check, jamming to empty arenas for as long as the crew would let him. One day in Dublin, he began playing “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” imagining himself as part of U2. Suddenly, he heard drums. He turned, and saw Bieber sitting behind the kit. They jammed for 45 minutes without speaking, and a friendship was born.
Bieber and Watt began working on songs together. Two of Watt’s first production credits were bonus tracks for Bieber’s 2015 album “Purpose”; his first major hit as a songwriter and co-producer was “Let Me Love You,” with Bieber singing over a track by the French EDM producer DJ Snake.
Even after he’d demonstrated a knack for pop production, Watt plugged away at a career as a solo rocker; scroll far down enough on his Facebook page, and you’ll find a photo of a longhaired Watt signing a contract with John Varvatos Records, the music-mad men's wear designer’s Universal Music imprint, which released a Watt EP called “Ghost in My Head” in 2015.
“I went back to touring in a van and sharing hotel rooms,” Watt said. “The tour was costing me money out of pocket that I didn’t have.”
In November of that year, on the way to open for the British rockers the Struts in Reno, the van carrying Watt and his band hit a deer. They hitchhiked to the nearest phone, rode on each other’s laps in a tow truck, and made it to the venue in time to get heckled by Struts fans. Watt began to wonder what would be so wrong with pursuing pop production as a career.
Within three or four years, he’d built a Rolodex and a résumé, producing songs for Cabello, Bebe Rexha, Avicii, Rita Ora, Selena Gomez, 5 Seconds of Summer and Cardi B. But he’d also struck up a working friendship with Post Malone, whose music muddles rock, pop and hip-hop. In 2019, while making his third album, “Hollywood’s Bleeding,” Malone recruited Travis Scott and Ozzy Osbourne to guest on a track called “Take What You Want,” which Watt produced.
Image
As more and more iconic artists have sought out his perspective, Watt’s life has grown more and more unreal. Credit...Adali Schell for The New York Times
When this led to an offer from Osbourne to make an entire album together, Watt — who’d come to understand himself as a pop producer — balked once again.
“I love this music,” he remembered thinking, “but I don’t make this kind of music.”
He accepted the gig anyway, and together they made the 2020 album “Ordinary Man,” on which Osbourne — still recovering from health issues, including a broken neck — sounded both newly vulnerable and invigorated, as if he’d dined on fresh bat for the first time in years.
That album led to a second Osbourne album, “Patient Number 9” the next year, and to a Grammy for best rock album — and, in a broader sense, to Watt’s current position as rock’s premier boomer-whisperer, and therefore to days like the one Watt had last year, when a certain well-known guest came over for a cup of tea and a chat and Watt ended up writing an as-yet-unreleased song with Paul McCartney.
“He’s very resourceful,” McCartney said. “I said, ‘I’d like to show you something on guitar, but I haven’t got my guitar with me. And he said, ‘I’ve got a guitar.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, but I’m left-handed.’ He said, ‘Well, I’ve got a left-handed guitar.’”
They jammed, and McCartney returned the next day with lyrics and a vocal melody. “Suddenly,” he said, “we had a song. From a cup of tea to a song. Doesn’t it sound easy?”
(In a subsequent interview, Watt — who is left-handed in all things except guitar — admitted that he’d jolted awake in a cold sweat the night before McCartney’s visit, realizing that he had no left-handed guitars on hand, and began feverishly calling around until he found a friend to loan him a clutch of lefty Hohners, Martins and Rickenbackers, just in case a cup of tea led to something more.)
Watt still enjoys making pop music; over the summer he spent some time in the studio with Jung Kook, of the Korean pop juggernaut BTS. Jung Kook speaks some English, but not fluently, and Watt speaks no Korean. So he acted out what he wanted, they sang to each other, Watt did his Richard Simmons routine, and when the song was released in late July it went straight to No. 1.
The experience of walking into a room with practically nothing and coming out with a song never gets old, Watt said. But of course it feels different to share in the creative process of an Elton, a Mick or a Paul.
“There’s people in the industry who say to me, ‘Why do you work with people that are so much older than you?’ But I don’t care what anyone thinks,” Watt said. “I want to do what makes me happy. And getting to work with the guys who wrote the book — you get to learn so much. They still have so much to offer the world.”
“For a while,” Watt added, “I always thought I was born in the wrong generation. Like, ‘Man, if I was born when my dad was born, or a little after, I would be in some rock band now. And that would’ve been great.’ And recently, within the last year or two, my perspective on that has completely changed. And I feel I’m right where I’m supposed to be.”
I wouldn’t be shocked if we heard at least a teaser during upcoming college football playoffs/bowl season… they’ve used mlb playoffs in the past to promote…. CFP has big/ audience
I'm always a bit skeptical of "classic band goes with hip young producer" because sometimes it's a really plastic forced result... Watt's work with the Stones rides that line a bit IMO, it's not bad and for the most part not forced, but the first single (Angry) is all of the bad things that can happen, it sounds like someone asked a machine to make a Stonsey sounding radio hit type song. And so it is. I think of the record Paul McCartney did with Greg Kurstin and Ryan Tedder the same way, it doesn't work at all.
But I think PJ still have more fight in them than to get turned into something they aren't by a producer. I look forward to seeing what they come up with. If he sharpened them, pushed them for better ideas when they were getting a bit lazy, so much the better.
But I think PJ still have more fight in them than to get turned into something they aren't by a producer. I look forward to seeing what they come up with. If he sharpened them, pushed them for better ideas when they were getting a bit lazy, so much the better.
But I think PJ still have more fight in them than to get turned into something they aren't by a producer. I look forward to seeing what they come up with. If he sharpened them, pushed them for better ideas when they were getting a bit lazy, so much the better.
This 100%
Why does anyone think they were getting lazy? Haha. I love all the comments from the “Fans” on here
But I think PJ still have more fight in them than to get turned into something they aren't by a producer. I look forward to seeing what they come up with. If he sharpened them, pushed them for better ideas when they were getting a bit lazy, so much the better.
This 100%
Why does anyone think they were getting lazy? Haha. I love all the comments from the “Fans” on here
I don't know what he meant by lazy, but releasing one album of new material in ten years is not exactly ambitious.
That's one of the awesome things about PJ fans, some people love backspacer and LB, some people love Riot act and avocado, some people love gigaton...that goes to show you just how versatile they are and how many tastes in music they cover.
For me I dont dislike any of their albums, but.. My favorites are Ten, Vs, Yield, Vitalogy..but that being said I actually really did like LB and backspacer alot.
I would love an old sound album if they can pull it off, which I think they definitely can, they're crazy talented.
But I think PJ still have more fight in them than to get turned into something they aren't by a producer. I look forward to seeing what they come up with. If he sharpened them, pushed them for better ideas when they were getting a bit lazy, so much the better.
This 100%
Why does anyone think they were getting lazy? Haha. I love all the comments from the “Fans” on here
I don't know what he meant by lazy, but releasing one album of new material in ten years is not exactly ambitious.
I’m gonna have to stop ya right there. There is no requirement for them to do anything, and you can’t assign terms like “lazy” based on one’s preconceived notions about timing. When the collective will is there, they make it happen and on their schedule. None of this is compulsory. Frankly, I prefer they take their time and fill the gaps with other ventures. It informs the music in all likelihood.
But I think PJ still have more fight in them than to get turned into something they aren't by a producer. I look forward to seeing what they come up with. If he sharpened them, pushed them for better ideas when they were getting a bit lazy, so much the better.
This 100%
Why does anyone think they were getting lazy? Haha. I love all the comments from the “Fans” on here
I don't know what he meant by lazy, but releasing one album of new material in ten years is not exactly ambitious.
I’m gonna have to stop ya right there. There is no requirement for them to do anything, and you can’t assign terms like “lazy” based on one’s preconceived notions about timing. When the collective will is there, they make it happen and on their schedule. None of this is compulsory. Frankly, I prefer they take their time and fill the gaps with other ventures. It informs the music in all likelihood.
The question was "why does anyone think they were getting lazy"? I replied that, while I can't speak for that poster's definition of "lazy," one reason why people might think they were getting lazy is that they have dramatically reduced their output of new material over the past ten years. I didn't assign the term "lazy"; I tried to explain why someone else might have used that term. I did imply that they seem to have a lack of ambition when it comes to producing new music. Of course, they're not under any obligation to do anything. Neither is Taylor Swift. But she seems driven to write and record songs in a way that Pearl Jam doesn't. Maybe if Pearl Jam's fans were as interested in their new music as Taylor Swift's fans are in hers, Pearl Jam would be more driven to produce more new songs. Maybe their ambition has been tamped down because they see that many of their biggest fans-- the ones who pay money to belong to their fan club-- have very little interest in anything they've done since 1998.
But I think PJ still have more fight in them than to get turned into something they aren't by a producer. I look forward to seeing what they come up with. If he sharpened them, pushed them for better ideas when they were getting a bit lazy, so much the better.
This 100%
Why does anyone think they were getting lazy? Haha. I love all the comments from the “Fans” on here
I don't know what he meant by lazy, but releasing one album of new material in ten years is not exactly ambitious.
I’m gonna have to stop ya right there. There is no requirement for them to do anything, and you can’t assign terms like “lazy” based on one’s preconceived notions about timing. When the collective will is there, they make it happen and on their schedule. None of this is compulsory. Frankly, I prefer they take their time and fill the gaps with other ventures. It informs the music in all likelihood.
The question was "why does anyone think they were getting lazy"? I replied that, while I can't speak for that poster's definition of "lazy," one reason why people might think they were getting lazy is that they have dramatically reduced their output of new material over the past ten years. I didn't assign the term "lazy"; I tried to explain why someone else might have used that term. I did imply that they seem to have a lack of ambition when it comes to producing new music. Of course, they're not under any obligation to do anything. Neither is Taylor Swift. But she seems driven to write and record songs in a way that Pearl Jam doesn't. Maybe if Pearl Jam's fans were as interested in their new music as Taylor Swift's fans are in hers, Pearl Jam would be more driven to produce more new songs. Maybe their ambition has been tamped down because they see that many of their biggest fans-- the ones who pay money to belong to their fan club-- have very little interest in anything they've done since 1998.
Yeah I just think it has a lot more to do with the fact that they’re pushing 69 w kids in high school/college, they’re involved heavily in charitable causes, side projects, etc etc. how long has TS been at this? 15 years? We’re on year 32.
I think saying it’s a lack of ambition is a massive misjudgment of the situation. To each their own though! To me, every show and every live of new music is simply icing on the cake. They’ve given me more than I could have ever hoped for.
Comments
Missoula 6/20/98
Alpine Valley 6/26/98 & 6/27/98
Alpine Valley 10/8/00
Champaign 4/23/03
Alpine Valley 6/21/03
Missoula 8/29/05
Chicago 5/16 & 17/06
Grand Rapids 5/19/06
Summerfest 6/29/06 & 6/30/06
Tampa 6/12/08
Chicago 8/23/09
Indy 5/7/10
Alpine Valley x2 2011
Wrigley 2013
Milwaukee 14
Telluride 16
Eddie Vedder Düsseldorf 06/30/2019
"The future ain't what it used to be..."
pearljamonline.it
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/13/arts/music/andrew-watt.html
Rock Gods Call Him When They Need a New Thunderbolt
After producing hits for Justin Bieber, Dua Lipa and Miley Cyrus, Andrew Watt has become a go-to for new music by rock legends: Ozzy. Elton. Mick and Keith. Even Paul.
By Alex Pappademas
Reporting from Beverly Hills
One cool night in September, Eddie Vedder stood onstage at the Ohana Festival in Dana Point, Calif., looking out at a sea of expectant faces.
Vedder and his band the Earthlings had paused their headlining set so medics could make their way to an audience member in distress. Once the situation appeared resolved, he conferred with the band; they’d start again from the top.
“Uh, this one,” Vedder began to say — and then the Earthlings launched back into the song, taking their frontman by surprise and stepping on his reintroduction.
Vedder started singing, like a man chasing a bus as it pulls away. He stopped, grinned and let fly an expletive in the direction of his lead guitar player, a 33-year-old with a bleach-blond buzz cut who happens to be the producer of Vedder’s last solo album and the next one by Vedder’s other band, Pearl Jam.
The music clattered to a halt. Vedder, smiling but stern, pointed at the guitarist and began to admonish him for jumping the gun.
“This is Andrew Watt,” Vedder told the crowd. “He produces the records. But up here, young man? I’m in charge. I’m in control. I’m the boss.”
In the studio, it’s a different story. When he’s not playing live with Vedder — or as part of some other all-star outfit, like Iggy Pop’s backup band, the Losers, featuring the Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith and the Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan — Watt, born Andrew Wotman, is one of modern rock and pop’s most in-demand producers.
His first hits were songs for generational peers like Justin Bieber, Dua Lipa and Miley Cyrus. But he’s also become a first-call producer of new music by elder-god rock stars, working with performers so legendary they’re on a first-name basis with the entire world. Ozzy. Elton. Mick and Keith. Even Paul.
(Yes, that Paul.)
And although Watt would never put it this bluntly, sometimes a big part of that job is being unafraid to tell mythic musical icons what they should do. (Or at least — since another big part of the job is diplomacy — suggesting what might be cool to try.)
“This artist is working with a producer because they want to be produced,” Watt said in an interview at his Beverly Hills home a few months before the Ohana show. “If they’re showing up to do it with you, they want feedback.”
They’re rock stars, after all. If they live long enough, they usually start to second-guess themselves. They fall prey to self-consciousness, complacency, the creative consequences of festering internecine beef, or all of the above, and wander away from what they’re best at. Sooner or later, they need someone to step in and guide them back onto the path.
This is not the only thing Watt is good at, of course. In interviews, his collaborators praised his alacrity, his ability to communicate musician-to-musician, and particularly his unflagging energy. (Watt compares his in-studio demeanor to Richard Simmons, the relentlessly cheery ’80s exercise guru: “It might make someone laugh, or think I’m a maniac, but I’m me, and I’m genuinely happy to be there.”)
“He’s not one of those guys that gets in awe of people,” said Paul McCartney, who presumably knows awe when he sees it. “He just gets on with it.”
Elton John said he’s never seen anything like Watt’s presence in the studio, likening him to “a live wire.” “For someone of my age, it’s really, really infectious, and it’s really important that I feed off of someone like that,” he added.
“He takes every single session as seriously as if it’s Game Seven of the World Series and everybody is going to play like it’s Game Seven,” said the songwriter Ali Tamposi, a longtime friend who’s worked with Watt on some of the biggest songs he’s produced, including hits by Bieber and Camila Cabello. “He knows what to do and say to bring that out of everyone that he’s working with.”
But the most important asset Watt offers his clients, particularly those who’ve lived in the fog of their own legend for longer than he’s been alive, may be the encyclopedic enthusiasm of a fan who knows exactly what he’d want to hear on a present-day recording by his idols — and has the self-confidence to voice those preferences to their faces.
There is, after all, a crucial difference between “what you think other people want from you, versus what your fans really love about you,” said the singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile. Carlile, who’s worked with Watt on albums like John’s “Lockdown Sessions” from 2021, said Watt has a knack for helping wayward rock legends see their own light again.
“He has that in common with Rick Rubin,” she said. “They both have that ability to big-picture understand, culturally, how an artist has impacted the world, and bring them face to face with that. It might be his greatest superpower.”
As more and more iconic artists have sought out his perspective, Watt’s life has grown more and more unreal. Creative connections have blossomed into friendships. He talks to John every day. “Elton taught me about china,” Watt said. “Not the country — porcelain. The right plates, the right tablecloth. The right napkin rings. He’s a beacon of taste.”
(“I learned it from Gianni Versace,” John said, “so I’m passing it along to Andrew.”)
And Watt has spent so much time with Mick Jagger — in late 2022 and early 2023, while producing the Rolling Stones’ latest album, “Hackney Diamonds,” and during the long professional courtship that led to that gig — that sometimes, when the photo app on his iPhone serves him a slide show of his “memories,” the memories are of Mick Jagger.
In an interview, Jagger also praised Watt’s energy, crediting him with helping the Stones overcome the inertia that had kept the band from completing an album of new material since 2005. (The Stones and Watt are up for best rock song at the Grammys in February for that album’s single “Angry.”)
“He’s very enthusiastic,” Jagger said, “to the point of being too enthusiastic, sometimes.” At one of their earliest meetings, Jagger remembered, “I said, ‘Look, I can deal with this, but when you meet Ronnie and Keith, you have to dial it down a little bit.’”
WATT GREW UP in Great Neck, Long Island, but these days he lives in a spacious steel-and-glass house, surrounded by rock memorabilia. Even his art collection has a musical bent — it includes a clown painting by Frank Sinatra, a Warhol of Mick Jagger and a self-portrait in acrylic by David Bowie.
A visitor pointed out a photograph: a 13-year-old Watt onstage, on his knees, in dress shoes and shirt sleeves, soloing on a gold-top Gibson. It was taken at Watt’s bar mitzvah at the Copacabana in New York. The party’s theme was “Andrew Rocks”; he played Weezer’s “Say It Ain’t So” and Prince’s “Purple Rain.”
Watt smiled at the picture, an image of an inner child he’d done right by. “That,” he said, “is the most valuable thing in here.” (It was propped up between two Grammys.)
As a kid, he’d wanted to do nothing but play rock music; after dropping out of N.Y.U. to pursue it full-time as a solo artist, he struggled. But when he was offered a gig backing the Australian pop singer Cody Simpson, who was set to tour as Bieber’s opening act, he balked.
“I’m like, I don’t want to do pop,” Watt recalled. “I’m a rock and roller and I play in these nightclubs. Then they told me I would get $1,500 a week, and I was like, ‘I’m there.’”
Before shows, Watt would linger onstage after sound check, jamming to empty arenas for as long as the crew would let him. One day in Dublin, he began playing “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” imagining himself as part of U2. Suddenly, he heard drums. He turned, and saw Bieber sitting behind the kit. They jammed for 45 minutes without speaking, and a friendship was born.
Bieber and Watt began working on songs together. Two of Watt’s first production credits were bonus tracks for Bieber’s 2015 album “Purpose”; his first major hit as a songwriter and co-producer was “Let Me Love You,” with Bieber singing over a track by the French EDM producer DJ Snake.
Even after he’d demonstrated a knack for pop production, Watt plugged away at a career as a solo rocker; scroll far down enough on his Facebook page, and you’ll find a photo of a longhaired Watt signing a contract with John Varvatos Records, the music-mad men's wear designer’s Universal Music imprint, which released a Watt EP called “Ghost in My Head” in 2015.
“I went back to touring in a van and sharing hotel rooms,” Watt said. “The tour was costing me money out of pocket that I didn’t have.”
In November of that year, on the way to open for the British rockers the Struts in Reno, the van carrying Watt and his band hit a deer. They hitchhiked to the nearest phone, rode on each other’s laps in a tow truck, and made it to the venue in time to get heckled by Struts fans. Watt began to wonder what would be so wrong with pursuing pop production as a career.
Within three or four years, he’d built a Rolodex and a résumé, producing songs for Cabello, Bebe Rexha, Avicii, Rita Ora, Selena Gomez, 5 Seconds of Summer and Cardi B. But he’d also struck up a working friendship with Post Malone, whose music muddles rock, pop and hip-hop. In 2019, while making his third album, “Hollywood’s Bleeding,” Malone recruited Travis Scott and Ozzy Osbourne to guest on a track called “Take What You Want,” which Watt produced.
When this led to an offer from Osbourne to make an entire album together, Watt — who’d come to understand himself as a pop producer — balked once again.
“I love this music,” he remembered thinking, “but I don’t make this kind of music.”
He accepted the gig anyway, and together they made the 2020 album “Ordinary Man,” on which Osbourne — still recovering from health issues, including a broken neck — sounded both newly vulnerable and invigorated, as if he’d dined on fresh bat for the first time in years.
That album led to a second Osbourne album, “Patient Number 9” the next year, and to a Grammy for best rock album — and, in a broader sense, to Watt’s current position as rock’s premier boomer-whisperer, and therefore to days like the one Watt had last year, when a certain well-known guest came over for a cup of tea and a chat and Watt ended up writing an as-yet-unreleased song with Paul McCartney.
“He’s very resourceful,” McCartney said. “I said, ‘I’d like to show you something on guitar, but I haven’t got my guitar with me. And he said, ‘I’ve got a guitar.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, but I’m left-handed.’ He said, ‘Well, I’ve got a left-handed guitar.’”
They jammed, and McCartney returned the next day with lyrics and a vocal melody. “Suddenly,” he said, “we had a song. From a cup of tea to a song. Doesn’t it sound easy?”
(In a subsequent interview, Watt — who is left-handed in all things except guitar — admitted that he’d jolted awake in a cold sweat the night before McCartney’s visit, realizing that he had no left-handed guitars on hand, and began feverishly calling around until he found a friend to loan him a clutch of lefty Hohners, Martins and Rickenbackers, just in case a cup of tea led to something more.)
Watt still enjoys making pop music; over the summer he spent some time in the studio with Jung Kook, of the Korean pop juggernaut BTS. Jung Kook speaks some English, but not fluently, and Watt speaks no Korean. So he acted out what he wanted, they sang to each other, Watt did his Richard Simmons routine, and when the song was released in late July it went straight to No. 1.
The experience of walking into a room with practically nothing and coming out with a song never gets old, Watt said. But of course it feels different to share in the creative process of an Elton, a Mick or a Paul.
“There’s people in the industry who say to me, ‘Why do you work with people that are so much older than you?’ But I don’t care what anyone thinks,” Watt said. “I want to do what makes me happy. And getting to work with the guys who wrote the book — you get to learn so much. They still have so much to offer the world.”
“For a while,” Watt added, “I always thought I was born in the wrong generation. Like, ‘Man, if I was born when my dad was born, or a little after, I would be in some rock band now. And that would’ve been great.’ And recently, within the last year or two, my perspective on that has completely changed. And I feel I’m right where I’m supposed to be.”
On a more serious note:
“He produces the records. But up here, young man? I’m in charge. I’m in control. I’m the boss.”
oof. cringe. 90s ed would be dry heaving.
But I think PJ still have more fight in them than to get turned into something they aren't by a producer. I look forward to seeing what they come up with. If he sharpened them, pushed them for better ideas when they were getting a bit lazy, so much the better.
For me I dont dislike any of their albums, but.. My favorites are Ten, Vs, Yield, Vitalogy..but that being said I actually really did like LB and backspacer alot.
I would love an old sound album if they can pull it off, which I think they definitely can, they're crazy talented.
Indeed.