VIDEO: Andrew Watt on Producing Pearl Jam and Lady Gaga, Getting Tattoos With Ozzy Osbourne, and Having Paul McCartney Over for Tea
VIDEO: Andrew Watt on Producing Pearl Jam and Lady Gaga, Getting Tattoos With Ozzy Osbourne, and Having Paul McCartney Over for Tea
Super producer talks his musical journey in 2-hour Stern Show debut
If there was one thing Andrew Watt learned from an early age it was to make sure there’s always a guitar nearby. In his Stern Show debut Monday morning, the award-winning super producer frequently celebrated the six string, which he revealed kept him out of trouble at a young age in addition to helping him forge his incredible career in the music industry. Long before collaborating on hits with everyone from Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga to the Rolling Stones and Pearl Jam, for example, Watt told Howard he fingerpicked his way out of detention by teaching his high school principal — who kept a guitar in his office — how to play the classics.
“I would be like, ‘Oh, that’s a cool guitar. Can I see your guitar?’ And we’d just end up jamming,” Andrew recalled from SiriusXM’s Garage in Los Angeles. “Sometimes, I’d be walking down the hall and he’d be like, ‘Andrew! In my office immediately!’ And then he’d be like, ‘So, how do you play that Bob Dylan song?’”
As a student at New York University the guitar remained close by Watt’s side, which is how he wound up backstage one day at a jam session hosted by hip-hop group the Roots. “If you show up at soundcheck time with a guitar case in your hand and you kind of look the part, they’ll just let you in,” he laughed before revealing how the encounter led to an internship with the band and, later, an opportunity to fill-in for guitarist Captain Kirk Douglas on stage.
Perhaps the most crucial example of Andrew’s guitar coming through for him, though, is the time Sir Paul McCartney came to his house for tea. Watt recalled panicking upon realizing he didn’t have any left-handed guitars for the famously left-handed Beatle, so he sent his assistant to rent a few axes the following morning. That proved to be a clutch move when McCartney gabbed one to show Watt the secret to playing his beloved Beatles tune “Blackbird.”
“Getting those little bits of information from the source, that’s like the reason why I exist — it gives me life,” the producer said with a wide smile.
In a wide-ranging two-hour conversation with Howard, the Grammy winner and Oscar nominee also opened up about his path to success, the incredible roster of musicians he’s been fortunate to work with, and when he’s going to pop the question to girlfriend Charlotte Lawrence. Check out some of the many highlights (below).