Producer Andrew Watt made Paul McCartney slap him to prove he wasn’t dreaming: “I needed a slap, right?”
Producer Andrew Watt has lifted the lid on working with his hero, Paul McCartney, on the new album, The Boys of Dungeon Line.
The Grammy-winner Watt has played a pivotal hand in two of this summer’s biggest releases, also producing The Rolling Stones’ upcoming album, Foreign Tongues, in addition to his work with McCartney.
While Watt has worked with everyone from Elton John to Ozzy Osbourne, he still couldn’t quite believe that he was in a room with McCartney.
In a new interview with The Telegraph, Watt explained of working with Macca and The Stones, “Just saying that sounds like a fake statement. I am the luckiest f*cker to be in the room with people who changed my life before I ever met them.”
Speaking about McCartney specifically, he added, “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 then likened the experience of working with McCartney to “being a student at college”, which he described as “mastery on another level” in the studio.
Nevertheless, despite being in complete awe, Watt insisted he “was not shy”, stating, “I had to get up in the morning, look in the mirror, say, ‘OK, I am going to let go of the fear even if I feel like an absolute moron telling Paul McCartney what I think about making records,’ because otherwise he could just do it all himself.”
While speaking about the record, Watt revealed the reflective single ‘Days We Left Behind’, which finds McCartney reminiscing upon his youth, “has brought me to tears multiple times”, noting, “It is reminiscent in concept to what it was like listening to Johnny Cash sing on those later American Recordings. You can hear a change in his voice, but the change is f*cking awesome, and that’s what creates the gravitas.”
McCartney has been full of praise for Watt, who he has spent five years working with on this record, but did admit of his first impression of the producer, “I came away from the first session thinking, Well, I like him, but he’s a bit pushy.”
However, he did concede, “But pushy’s not a bad thing in a producer. It’s just enthusiasm from someone who wants to keep making this record. It’s infectious.”
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