Hitmaker Andrew Watt Shares Secrets from Working with Greats from Elton John and the Rolling Stones to Lady Gaga (Exclusive) Ilana KaplanOctober 14, 2025 at 1:17 AM 0 Gilbert Flores/Penske Media via Getty Andrew Watt in March 2025 in Hollywood, Calif.
- - Hitmaker Andrew Watt Shares Secrets from Working with Greats from Elton John and the Rolling Stones to Lady Gaga (Exclusive)
Ilana KaplanOctober 14, 2025 at 1:17 AM
0
Gilbert Flores/Penske Media via Getty
Andrew Watt in March 2025 in Hollywood, Calif. -
Andrew Watt reveals his experience collaborating with greats like Elton John, the Rolling Stones and Lady Gaga
In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE, he also reflects on how working with Justin Bieber kickstarted his career
"I had a strong calling to music from a very young age, so once I started, I couldn't stop," Watt tells PEOPLE of his career
Over the past 12 years, Andrew Watt has cemented himself as one of the music industry's biggest power players. His resume speaks for itself: he's produced albums and written songs for everyone from Paul McCartney, Ozzy Osbourne, Elton John and the Rolling Stones to Miley Cyrus, Post Malone, Justin Bieber and Pearl Jam.
With work spanning across genres, the New York-born writer and producer's role constantly changes. "Some artists I work with are deeper musicians and play instruments and write songs on an instrument," Watt, 34, tells PEOPLE. "Other artists that I work with are more focused on being a singer, and they need to rely on me to play the instruments. [My role is] tailored to what's needed of me by the artist."
But this year has been particularly significant for Watt, who executive produced and co-wrote Lady Gaga's 2025 Mayhem album and produced John, 78, and Brandi Carlile's collaborative LP Who Believes in Angels?.
Courtesy of Andrew Watt
Lady Gaga, Ronnie Wood, Mick Jagger and Andrew Watt
"Andrew is a uniquely gifted producer and musician. Everything he does is rooted in a deep love for music and for the people who make it. You can feel how profoundly it's shaped his life. He lives and breathes it in a way that's rare even among artists," Gaga, 39, tells PEOPLE.
She adds: "Working with someone who can truly play opens up an entirely different dimension in the studio. With Andrew, the process becomes limitless, his instinct, taste, and understanding of sonic history makes him one of the most dynamic collaborators in modern music."
Watt's prolific year even included earning his first Oscar nomination for Best Original Song with the John and Carlile, 44, collaboration "Never Too Late," from the eponymous 2024 documentary on the "Rocket Man" artist. "It's not why you do it, but it's really cool," says Watt.
In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE, Watt reveals how McCartney, 83, was responsible for him working with the Rolling Stones, how he encouraged Gaga to return to dance-pop and how getting in the studio with Bieber, 31, helped launch his career.
Courtesy of Andrew Watt
Andrew Watt and Paul McCartney
PEOPLE: How have you been able to make yourself so versatile within the music industry?
ANDREW WATT: I had a strong calling to music from a very young age, so once I started, I couldn't stop. I grew up listening to [Red Hot] Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam, '90s hip-hop, Wu-Tang Clan, A Tribe Called Quest, and then George Michael, Neil Young, Stevie Wonder and the Beatles. I had it all from my dad, my mom, my brother, all that stuff going on in my house. And then I could just do a deep dive myself because we were allowed to download music.
PEOPLE: This year, you earned your first Oscar nomination for Best Original Song for Elton John and Brandi Carlile's "Never Too Late." What was your reaction to receiving the honor?
WATT: It was incredible. I've been very lucky to be nominated and win some Grammys, as well, and anytime you get recognized by your peers, it's an amazing feeling. It's not why you do it, but it's really cool. It's like you go back to being a little kid and being like, "Holy s---, I can't believe that I get this opportunity." And then the Oscars are a whole other level because that's not my world at all. So, to be thought of in that way and then look at the little piece of paper and it says Elton John, Bernie Taupin, Brandi Carlile [and] my name's there, it just felt like a dream. Going to the Oscars was so much fun, and it was a day I'll never forget.
Michael Kovac/Getty
Andrew Watt and Brandi Carlile in March 2025
PEOPLE: How did you convince the Rolling Stones to get back in the studio after an 18-year hiatus?
WATT: I didn't have to convince them at all. They wanted to make an album. I just got lucky to be the person that made it with them. I met Mick [Jagger] virtually during the pandemic through their longtime producer, Don Was. He's a legend. He wanted us to meet, and then he handed it off to me without ever really saying it like that. It was really cool and gracious and helped me a lot with guidance. But there was talk of a bunch of different producers, and I was up for it and had some conversations with Mick and then things got quiet for a little bit.
Then, I got a call from him a couple of months after that, and he was like, "Ronnie [Wood] just had dinner with Paul McCartney, and Paul recommended that you be our producer, so what do you think?" And I was like, "What?" This is some crazy dream as a kid with a guitar to have those names talking about you. Paul actually got me the gig, and the rest was history. So, it's been an honor to work with those guys and become friends with them.
PEOPLE: What's the funniest story you have of Mick Jagger in the studio?
WATT: He's such a larger-than-life character, and he's actually an unbelievable producer. He's across everything with me when we're in the studio, and is such a hard worker. He will wake up around [1 p.m.], have lunch, go to the gym, come to the studio, get to the studio at 4:30 p.m., stay in the studio until 11 p.m., then we have dinner, then we go out somewhere. It's just amazing. His energy level, it's so inspiring.
Something that I find really funny when he sings... He comes in every day and he's wearing a T-shirt, a button-down and a cashmere sweater every day, even if it's hot. As he starts singing, and it starts getting good, the layers start shedding. So, he pulls his sweater off, and he starts unbuttoning his shirt and shedding layers. By the time he's in his T-shirt, he's full-blown Mick Jagger dancing, singing his ass off. So it's my job to get him down to the T-shirt pretty much.
PEOPLE: How did you encourage Lady Gaga to return to her dance-pop roots for Mayhem?
WATT: She's the happiest she's ever been, and that's palpable. You can feel it from the way she's speaking to the world and her on stage, from talking to her personally about the shows and everything. She feels, I think, extremely grateful to her community and can feel that her community is on fire again. When we were together, all of us in the studio, it was so much fun to make dance music and laugh and smile.
Gaga and [her fiancé] Michael Polansky invited me over their house before we started the album. It was after we did the Stones [collab] together ["Sweet Sounds of Heaven."] I was sitting with them and was playing a couple tracks that I had, and things started flowing from her. We just decided to get into the studio soon after that. She has done so many different types of music throughout her career. There's nothing she can't do. So when we went to make this album, I think we were touching on all of [the genres she's covered]. As an artist, she's always learning, always evolving, always pushing herself. The work ethic is out of this world. And it just became apparent from the stuff that we started making that we were making a dance album.
The music was calling us to that. I would be on guitar and she'd be on piano and just write songs, take a song that was going to be a dance song and do it like that and make sure it worked as a song that could be played just on a guitar and a piano. She's an incredible musician, an incredible producer [and] an absolute visionary. There was so much to bounce off of with her and to go back and forth. It was the most exciting album I've ever been a part of, and we worked at it for longer than any album I've ever worked on consistently — a year straight without stopping.
Adali Schell
Andrew Watt in October 2023 in Los Angeles
PEOPLE: What's it like to work in the studio side-by-side with Gaga?
WATT: A lot of fun. A lot of laughs. We were laughing nonstop. [It was] also extremely intense but in a good way. She's there thinking about the entire world she's going to build when she does a song. There's layers to what she does. First, she has to figure out the notes and the lyrics and the vibe of what she's going to do and create that. That, for a lot of people, is where it ends. You write a song, you put your vocal on it. Boom, that's it. Not for Gaga. She then takes that song home, figures out which part of her is going to sing the narrative, how she has to sing it. Does she have to sing it harder? Does she have to sing it softer? How is she going to deliver the vocal? She learns every inflection of what she did and comes back [and] sings it for hours and hours until she finds the right character.
Then you're trying to have a conversation with her, and she's not there. She went somewhere, and then she comes back, she's like, "Sorry, I was thinking about how this is going to look on stage, how this is the world that I'm going to build for this." She sees every single detail of what her art is going to be and how grand a scale it's going to become. It's unlike anyone else I've ever worked with.
PEOPLE: What's something people don't know about the making of "Die With a Smile?"
WATT: We were in the middle of Mayhem and when the idea came for the two of them to collaborate, we drove from Malibu — Michael, Gaga, and I — to Bruno Mars' studio. We were in the studio that night making that song [until] 5 a.m. She had something at 8 a.m. the next day. And once the song was taking shape the way it is as you know today, she was in the booth singing, and Bruno really wanted to vocal produce her and be involved in the way they were going to sing together. She so graciously allowed that process to happen. Just sitting there and watching her and Bruno interact, it was like Quincy [Jones]-Michael [Jackson] s---. Watching that interaction was so special. The competition between the two of them was so healthy and great. I will never forget them going back and forth while she was recording the vocal.
PEOPLE: What was the most exciting track for you to work on Mayhem?
WATT: The whole thing, honestly. I literally love every millisecond of that album. I really, really love that song "Perfect Celebrity." I got to the studio five minutes before her. Whatever was in my head, I just started playing the synth, and the second it came out of the speakers, it was 10 seconds, 30 seconds of me playing before she had heard it, and already started writing. So it was one of those really fluid things. And the second she came up with that concept, I remember her saying, "Oh, this is the song that I always should have written." It felt instantly like a song that was already in her discography, even though it was a brand-new thing she was coming up with. She just wrote it in one fell swoop. It was one of those 20-minute songs. She's incredible. She's a force. When the inspiration is right and she hears what she needs to hear, she just flows like no one else.
PEOPLE: What did you learn from working with Justin Bieber?
WATT: He is like my little brother. I love him. He was the first huge artist to take a chance on me and believe in my songwriting before I had any hits. I really learned how to be a producer and a songwriter with him. "Let Me Love You" was my first hit song, which was him and DJ Snake, and he loved that song when it was just an acoustic guitar demo and believed in me and trusted me and put me in the position I was in to be the producer on that song. Then [he] brought me into the studio many times and just wanted to collaborate with me on what I did. Always believed in me, has always worked with me throughout the years on so many of his albums and has been a constant supporter for me. Without him, I wouldn't be talking to you.
Courtesy of Andrew Watt
Mick Jagger, Andrew Watt and Elton John
PEOPLE: What was the most thrilling part of working with Elton and Brandi on Who Believes in Angels?
WATT: Elton writes in a way that really no one else writes. Let's say it's "Tiny Dancer." He takes [a lyric], puts it up on the piano, reads it, sees a movie scene in his head, and then scores the movie. And as he's scoring the movie, he starts singing the words and fitting them into how the chords and coming up with melodies based on the words and the phonetics of the words. He can't do it without the words because [that's] what makes him feel like a story. That's a very peculiar way to write. It makes sense if you think about it, because you have lyrics on a page. For this album, he wrote some to Bernie's words and some to Brandi's words for the first time, which was so cool for Brandi to write just words and not melodies and do it. Elton is her hero, so she's in the room with her hero, knowing how much he means to her, and now he's going to write to her lyrics, which for her is everything. The reason why she writes lyrics is because of Elton and Bernie, and she gets to be Bernie for Elton.
PEOPLE: If you receive Grammy noms for Lady Gaga or Brandi and Elton's records, how do you plan to celebrate?
WATT: Similar to how I celebrated last night with tequila. My mix is great tequila, s—-- beer. Those two things go very well together to me.
on People
Source: "AOL Entertainment"
Source: Astro Blog
Full Article on Source: Astro Blog
#LALifestyle #USCelebrities