In some ways, the Rolling Stones’ 2026 single In The Stars sounds like it could have been made at any time in the past 50 years, but producer Andrew Watt has been explaining that, as well as making something in the band’s tradition, he also wanted to ensure that they still sounded relevant.
Speaking to Mix with the Masters about his work on In The Stars and its parent album, Foreign Tongues, Watt explains that capturing the essence of the Stones starts with understanding the importance of the way they interact when they’re playing in the room together.
“You just record ‘em,” he says. “You don’t want to ‘grid’ the Rolling Stones, so the entirety of this album was made with no click tracks. They set up very close together in the live room. They can see and feel each other at all times and they’re really just playing off of each other.”
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That means recording the sound of the room, with bleed between microphones, but Watt says that keeping this is important.
“You just leave that shit in. You don’t try and fuckin’ take it out. That’s part of the energy of the song.”
Expanding on his point about how crucial it is to maintain the Stones’ live energy in the studio, Watt says: “This is not loop-based music. It is performance-based music. You can hear in Mick’s vocal – he’s changing the phrasing constantly. He’s expressing. He’s ad-libbing. He has an unbelievable ability to kind of bring his throat into it to kind of make it grind.”
Watt also praises the control that Jagger has over his vocals, which he recorded on a Sony C800G microphone. “He sounds so good on it. It can cut through anything,” he notes.
And then, of course, there are the guitars, played by Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood. “Every song, Keith’s on the left and Ronnie’s on the right,” says Watt, referring to their positions in the mix.
Turning specifically to In The Stars, he adds: “They both play the riff slightly differently, but when they play it together, it’s got that kind of weaving thing that the Rolling Stones are known for in the way that they interact. They’re listening and feeling each other.”
Watt is also full of praise for the way that Mick Jagger interacted with Steve Jordan, who took over drumming duties in the Stones following the death of long-time sticksman Charlie Watts.
“One of Mick’s many talents is working with a drummer,” he claims. “He really gets right up against the drummer and really works to make sure the groove is making him wanna dance and feels, as he would say, ‘like a groove’. If it feels like that for him then he’s in.”
What of those attempts to modernise the Stones’ sound, though? Watt admits that he has to carefully “toe the line” of “keeping it classic but wanting it to sound like ‘now,’” and points to one specific production choice that comes as a genuine surprise.
“One of the things that we do on some of the songs, and we’re doing on [In The Stars], is the use of a sub-bass – we use Serum.”
Yep, the Stones use sub-bass: we’ll admit that learning that Xfer Records’ synth plugin is now part of the band’s sonic armoury wasn’t on our bingo card for today, but there you go.
Subscribers can check out Andrew Watt’s full In The Stars track breakdown on the Mix with the Masters website.
