Producer Andrew Watt talked with PEOPLE about his experience in the studio with Lady Gaga during the recording of ‘MAYHEM’. Andrew served as co-executive producer of the album, alongside Gaga and her fiancé Michael Polansky. Highlights from the interview are below.
On Gaga’s decision to return to her dance-pop roots on MAYHEM:
“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.”
On what it’s like to work in the studio with Gaga:
“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.”
On watching Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars work together in the studio:
“Just sitting there and watching her and Bruno interact, it was like Quincy Jones and Michael Jackson. 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.”
On his favorite song from MAYHEM:
“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.”
Lady Gaga praised Andrew for being “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. […] 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.”
Read the full interview with PEOPLE here.