{"id":32150,"date":"2025-09-20T04:33:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-20T04:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/32150\/"},"modified":"2025-09-20T04:33:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T04:33:08","slug":"inside-lady-gagas-the-dead-dance-and-more-with-producer-andrew-watt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/32150\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside Lady Gaga’s ‘The Dead Dance’ and More with Producer Andrew Watt"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tProducer\/songwriter Andrew Watt<\/a>\u2018s started off his wild year with Lady Gaga<\/a>\u2018s smash Mayhem, co-producing and co-writing with Gaga, Cirkut, and others, and earning an executive producer credit alongside Gaga and Michael Polansky.\u00a0 A month later came Brandi Carlile<\/a> and Elton John\u2019s first album together, Who Believes in Angels?, produced and co-written by Watt. Since then, he\u2019s worked on Katseye<\/a>\u2018s single \u201cGabriela,\u201d played at his friend Ozzy Osbourne\u2019s final concert, and co-produced Carlile\u2019s new solo album, Returning to Myself (due Oct. 24) \u2014 and those are just the projects he can talk about.<\/p>\n

\n\tEarlier this month, three different songs Watt worked on dropped in the same week \u2014\u00a0 Lady Gaga\u2019s Wednesday track \u201cThe Dead Dance\u201d (co-produced and co-written with Gaga and Cirkut), Ed Sheeran\u2019s \u201cCamera,\u201d and Carlile\u2019s single \u201cReturning to Myself.\u201d (For even more from Watt, check out his episode of our Rolling Stone Music Now podcast on Apple Podcasts<\/a> or Spotify<\/a>, or just press play below.)<\/p>\n

\n

Are you busier than you\u2019ve ever been right now?
It\u2019s been pretty much the same for a few years. Every day feels like Game Seven of the World Series. Wake up, \u201cWhat are we doing today? Oh fuck. It\u2019s time to bring it.\u201d It\u2019s not, \u201cOh, today\u2019s just gonna be a relaxing day.\u201d Every day there\u2019s something really important to me that I\u2019m working on. What more could you ask for out of life, right?<\/p>\n

\n\tGaga\u2019s \u201cThe Dead Dance\u201d for Wednesday is such a fun surprise, with a great disco-influenced feel.
She is unbelievable. Every one of these songs that we ever made together, the concepts are so effortlessly her. Lady Gaga, \u201cThe Dead Dance.\u201d It\u2019s just such a her concept. Because of the title and the way that she was singing, the production morphed and shifted a lot. We worked very hard on that production to make it sound original and also feel like something that you could really dance to.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat I really love about that song is the live instrumentation mixed with the track instrumentation. There\u2019s some really good bass in there and cool guitar inversions and stuff and great synths and the way everything works together. I remember when we were making that bridge, that\u2019s where it got really funky. \u201cDo the dead dance\u201d \u2014\u00a0that was invented from the bridge music. That was a big telltale for the song. And then everything got morphed around that.<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\tOne really different thing you did recently was the Katseye song \u201cGabriela.\u201d How did that come about?
Yeah. I\u2019ve had some great success working with the guys, [Hybe founder] Bang [Si-Hyuk] and\u00a0Jung Kook and those songs that we did [in 2023]. When he brought Katseye to me and was like, \u201cThis is my new thing,\u201d we just worked to find the right song. To make a big song, especially in pop music, it takes an army, like literally an army, everything from the group to the managers to the label. Everything has to be firing on all cylinders. It went through Interscope \u2014 I absolutely love that team there, and John Janick, and they\u2019re amazing at what they do.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tKatseye are like the new Spice Girls.I really enjoyed working with the different vocalists. Finding which singer should sing what and when it should come in \u2014 the puzzle of that was fun. It was like when I was young, I loved puzzles.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tKatseye seem like potential superstars in the making.
I mean, they\u2019re not in the making, they\u2019re superstars! Absolutely. I\u2019d love to do more with them. I think they\u2019re just great.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou did a lot of work with Aaron Dessner on Brandi Carlile\u2019s new album; how did that cross-collaboration work?
Brandi was in an unbelievable period where she did this amazing collaboration with Joni [Mitchell]. Getting Joni onstage again<\/a> and taking that on her back? Brandi is one of the strongest-willed people that I\u2019ve ever met in my life. She did that and then went straight from that into this Elton collaboration. After that, she was just feeling like, \u201cWhat am I gonna do next? It\u2019s time to turn inward.\u201d\u00a0 So she was searching, working in a way that she hasn\u2019t worked before. David Bowie always said, \u201cSwim into the deep end where your feet can\u2019t touch the ground, and then that\u2019s when you\u2019ll really start making something.\u201d\u00a0 I made a really great friend out of Aaron, which is so cool. We love each other and we had so much fun. He worked on some of the things that I had started with Brandi and I worked on some of the things that he started with Brandi and it just became this kind of really open, great thing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n

\n\tWhere did your sensibilities meet and where, if at all, do they diverge?
Aaron is a master in subtlety, where you\u2019re listening, and it\u2019s very song-focused, and some beautiful sound \u2014\u00a0maybe some muted thing \u2014\u00a0goes by, and you can\u2019t even tell what it really is. It just lifts your emotion. My music is not always very subtle. It\u2019s kind of putting those two things together and getting them to work \u2014\u00a0maybe a song starting really subtle and then maybe building to something larger at the end. We were like checks and balances for each other. But we\u2019re also, at our core,\u00a0 both guitar players. So we just had so much fun playing guitar together. We would plug in together at the same time and play live. And the Brandi Carlile band is a live band. So it was important for the songs to still be recorded like a live band.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe title track is a beautiful, low-key song.
Yeah. We were messing around a lot with open tunings. Brandi Carlile played the album Blue live at Carnegie. The confidence you have to do that!\u00a0 She really got inside those songs. She understands the chords and how they change and how they move. So once that happens, you get a new bag of tricks. Her guitar player, Tim [Hanseroth], had his guitar in this really cool Joni tuning and she just picked up the guitar and that\u2019s when \u201cReturning to Myself\u201d came out. That was the last song that got written. And it felt, as often, your last song that you make should be the first song. The song\u2019s called \u201cReturning to Myself.\u201d So what do you hear? You hear her alone. And as the song grows, you start to hear these textures that maybe you haven\u2019t heard on a Brandi song before, and they\u2019re more esoteric and dreamlike. We talked a lot about Wrecking Ball, which Daniel Lanois produced for Emmylou Harris. You let Emmylou be exactly what Emmylou is, but all the sounds around her and the production is something that she hadn\u2019t done before. It became a guiding light for us.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou also have a new song, \u201cCamera,\u201d with Ed Sheeran.
The day\u00a0we wrote \u201cCamera,\u201d we wrote three songs. Three full, finished songs. That was just one of them. One of them came out already, it was called \u201c2step\u201d [released in 2021].
Oh, so these sessions were a while ago. People have talked to me about the extraordinary speed that Ed writes songs.
The only way I can describe Ed is like Michael Jordan. It\u2019s athletic, the way in which he writes songs and the way he\u2019s working himself and the level in which he comes in. And it\u2019s that Game Seven thing that I was talking to you about before. It\u2019s like he steps in and he\u2019s there to do it and he moves so quickly and you just gotta be there to follow it and be there for him. You\u2019ve never seen anyone record harmonies the way he does. It\u2019s amazing. They\u2019re pitch-perfect, one after another.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tKeith Richards\u2019 son, Marlon Richards, let slip that the Rolling Stones are recording an album in London. And you happened to mention you were just recording something in London \u2014 and you worked with the Stones on their last album<\/a>. So is there anything you might want to say about that?
[Watt smiles and holds up the Rolling Stones soccer jersey he\u2019s wearing.] I\u2019ve said it before, it\u2019s like working for Batman.\u00a0 I\u2019m Commissioner Gordon. Or it\u2019s opposite, actually. When the bat sign goes up in the air, when the tongue is up in the air, you just go. When it\u2019s time you go. I can say we did some recording together, but that\u2019s all I can say.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So what holds all this different work together in your mind as far as your approach?
The reason why I can work a lot and stay inspired is \u2019cause I get to work with all these different artists in all these different genres. If I was just making rock music, I feel like maybe the sound would get tired at a certain point, right? But if I got to make Hackney Diamonds and then go make an album with Lady Gaga and be making dance music, I\u2019m learning different things. I\u2019m listening to different stuff. It\u2019s a different part of my brain and requires a different skillset for me. But at the end of the day, it\u2019s still listening to an artist and figuring out how to get what they want to say out into the world, into a record. Working across all different genres keeps everything exciting, and makes it refreshing when you get to go listen to a band play. And it makes it refreshing when you\u2019re like, \u201cOh, we\u2019re not recording a band now. I\u2019m working with one person and I have one boss.\u201d It\u2019s all exciting.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe last time we spoke, you said you were looking for a young rock band that could conquer the world. And the hunger for something like that seems to be out there \u2014\u00a0look at those Oasis shows<\/a>.
I was there on Sunday!<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tSo is your head still there?
Absolutely. All the time. Any young band that anyone can show me, I\u2019m the happiest person in the world. And what was so cool about Oasis is, like, they are the zeitgeist. Just seeing L.A. come together like that, and young kids are there going crazy. Those songs, those guitar tones. The amps are up to 10. They just stand there and play and everyone goes crazy. How cool is that?<\/p>\n

\n\tIs there anything else upcoming that you can hint at?
I\u2019m very busy!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Producer\/songwriter Andrew Watt\u2018s started off his wild year with Lady Gaga\u2018s smash Mayhem, co-producing and co-writing with Gaga,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32151,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[25674,25675,93,61,60,12860,6552,278],"class_list":{"0":"post-32150","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-andrew-watt","9":"tag-brandi-carlile","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-katseye","14":"tag-lady-gaga","15":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}