Producer Andrew Watt has worked with a head-spinning number of rock legends over the past few years – everyone from Ozzy Osbourne and Iggy Pop to the Rolling Stones, Elton John and Paul McCartney.
As such, it seems inevitable that things he did on one project would bleed into the next, and he’s confirmed as much in an interview with Mixonline.
Watt made specific reference to going straight from the Rolling Stones’ 2023 album Hackney Diamonds to producing Pearl Jam’s Dark Matter, which was released the following year.
“Keith Richards had just showed me so much about open tunings and playing different inversions, so my hands were in that mentality,” he explains. “Then there was a song that ended up being on the Pearl Jam album [believed to be Wreckage] that was in Open G tuning. I think those kinds of things can carry over.”
Having produced his well-received 2026 album, The Boys Of Dungeon Lane, Watt also discusses the influence of Paul McCartney.
“Every time I’m lucky enough to share a couch with Paul McCartney, I become ten times the musician I was before, just learning about chord movements and passing chords from him,” he admits. “If I get to go work on something else soon after I’ve been in the studio with Paul McCartney, the desire for passing chords and chords that are a little deeper, and going from major to minor and modulating, is sharp!”
Elsewhere in the interview, we learn that Watt’s Minimoog Model D once belonged to David Bowie, and was used nightly on the 1972 Ziggy Stardust tour.
Watt has also been talking to Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, describing the death of Ozzy Osbourne as “brutal," and saying that "I miss him every day.”
“The thing about Ozzy Osbourne is, if he chose you, if he chose to bring you next to him, your life changed,” he added. “And that has been true so many times in history. Look at Randy Rhoads, right? Zach Wylde? Every guitar player he ever had had a career after that.”
Lowe also addressed the fact that, despite the fact that he’s friends with the band and has played with them, Watt is yet to make an album with the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
It could only be matter of time before it happens, though: “I’m open to it,” says Watt. “They're heroes, and a foundation of how I know how to play instruments, make sound.”
