At 35, producer Andrew Watt has an enviable roster of clients-turned-collaborators, including the late Ozzy Osbourne, Elton John, the Rolling Stones, Pearl Jam, and Iggy Pop, just to name a select few.
But someone he never expected to reach out to use his services? Well, a Beatle – specifically, Paul McCartney.
“Just saying that sounds like a fake statement,” Watt tells The Telegraph. Or, as he aptly puts it, “I am the luckiest fucker to be in the room with people who changed my life before I ever met them.”
Indeed, right before Watt met McCartney, he instructed his assistant to do something a little bit different…
“I literally had to tell him to slap me. Paul McCartney was coming to my house in Beverly Hills to have tea… As a child, I knew every Beatles song, I studied every Beatles chord – I couldn’t really fathom that a Beatle was about to be in my kitchen.
“I needed a slap, right?” he quips.
The result of the Watt-McCartney collaboration is on full display on the Beatle’s upcoming album, The Boys of Dungeon Lane. The two worked together for around five years, slotting in sessions around McCartney’s touring schedule.
“Working with Paul was like being a student at college, every day watching him bounce around the studio like a scientist in a laboratory,” describes Watt.
“Watching him go between each instrument, arrange background vocals, and see how he layers the harmony, how he records drums – he knows not to hit the cymbals as hard because he wants to compress the overhead mic to get his kit sound… I mean, it’s mastery on another level.”
Watt recalls recording the song Home to Us, a heartfelt duet between McCartney and Ringo Starr that's part of the new album, as a particularly moving experience.
“I will never forget looking across the sound booth in the studio and seeing Paul smiling, and I’m playing guitar to Ringo’s drums. I mean, that was probably the craziest moment in my life,” he concludes.
In a recent interview, McCartney explained how John Lennon is still inspiring his songwriting six decades on.
