Inside Track: Andrew Watt

Photo: Adali Schell

Why choose between rock and pop — when, like Andrew Watt, you can excel at both?

When ‘Let Me Love You’ by DJ Snake and Justin Bieber became a mega‑hit in 2016, keen eyes noticed the presence of a certain Andrew Watt as a co‑writer and co‑producer. When Watt’s name subsequently appeared as a co‑writer and co‑producer on no fewer than four of 2017’s biggest hits — ‘Havana’ by Camila Cabello (featuring Young Thug), ‘It Ain’t Me’ by Kygo and Selena Gomez, ‘Lonely Together’ by Avicii (featuring Rita Ora) and ‘Wolves’ by Selena Gomez and Marshmello — the pop world took notice of the arrival of a major new talent.

The following years provided more proof of Watt’s astonishing writing and production prowess, with credits on hit songs by 5 Seconds Of Summer, Cardi B, Lana del Rey, Benny Blanco, the Chainsmokers, Ellie Goulding, Shawn Mendez, Juice Wrld, Post Malone, Charlie Puth and more. Come 2020, Watt also had a Grammy Award under his belt, for Cardi B’s Invasion Of Privacy, followed by a Producer of the Year Grammy a year later.

All this made it completely unexpected when Watt co‑wrote all tracks and produced most on Ozzy Osbourne’s 12th studio album Ordinary Man, released in February 2020 — particularly as Watt also played most of the guitars, and had credits for vocals, keyboards, bass, programming, string arrangements, and choir arrangement. For a pop producer to be so heavily involved in the making of a highly regarded heavy metal album was uncharted territory, as the producer himself remembers. “When I was working with Post [Malone] on his Hollywood’s Bleeding album [2019], we were looking for cool people for him to collaborate with. So we got Ozzy and Travis Scott on the song ‘Take What You Want’. Ozzy enjoyed the process of working on that song so much, that he afterwards asked me if I would make an album with him.

“I didn’t really feel like I was the right person, because I wasn’t making that kind of music any more. I was honoured, but I was doing pop music. However, Chad [Smith] from the Chili Peppers, and Duff [McKagen] from Guns N’ Roses, who are close friends, both said: ‘Dude, are you kidding us? You have to do it! It’ll be so much fun. We’ll come over to your studio. Let’s write some stuff and show it to Ozzy, and see if it’s any good.’ So we wrote some basic tracks with Ozzy in mind, and when we showed them to Ozzy, he loved them. We then started writing songs with him. It felt natural and came really easy.”

Andrew Watt with LA rock royalty including Eric Avery, Josh Klinghoffer, Eddie Vedder and Chad Smith.Photo: Danny Clinch

Extraordinary Man

Since Ordinary Man, Watt has continued to straddle the worlds of rock and pop. The major pop credits have continued, with Post Malone, Dua Lipa, Miley Cyrus, Sam Smith, Justin Bieber, Ed Sheeran, the Kid Laroi, Jungkook and Calvin Harris, and most recently the hit songs ‘Tough’ by Lana Del Rey and Quavo and ‘Die With A Smile’ by Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars. And Watt has also co‑written and produced an astonishing sequence of albums by rock legends: Elton John (six songs on 2021’s The Lockdown Sessions), Eddie Vedder (Earthling, 2022), Ozzy Osbourne (Patient Number 9, 2022), Iggy Pop (Every Loser, 2023), the Rolling Stones (Hackney Diamonds, 2023), and Pearl Jam (Dark Matter, 2024). It’s an extraordinary list of credits, and one wonders how Watt manages to work successfully in so many different genres, with such a wide variety of artists.

“It’s the human element,” replies Watt. “It is very important to me in every type of music that I make. Pop music doesn’t have to be computerised, with vocals that are tuned to pieces. Instead, you can make sure that you can hear breaths, or someone stretching out a note over the bar. The computer is a tool. It’s like another instrument, like a synthesizer or something. Pop music can have the human element, and I like the pop music that I make to breathe.

“Now, if I’m making a hip‑hop record, part of the charm of that music is that it’s loop‑based. It’s supposed to have a monotonous groove that you can lean into, so you’re focused on what the rapper is saying. And they’re not always perfectly in time. They’re attacking the beat and you hear them run out of breath and then take a deep breath and dive into the next section. That’s the human element. As I work between all these different genres, that’s the thing I try and make sure remains present. I’m not super interested in making music that doesn’t retain some human elements.

“You want some music to be on the grid, and some music, you don’t. Rock music cannot be gridded. There is rock music that’s gridded, and I don’t listen to it. Rock music is not supposed to be gridded. If you’re lucky enough to record a band like Pearl Jam, or the Rolling Stones, or the Chili Peppers, you want to hear them play to their own human heartbeat. With current pop music, the grid is important because the beat is something to latch onto. But you can be a little in front or behind of the grid in certain moments, so it feels a more human.”

Iggy Pop (left, with Andrew Watt and Flea of Red Hot Chili Peppers) is among the many rock stars whose careers have enjoyed a new lease of life courtesy of Andrew Watt’s production and writing.Photo: Danny Clinch

All Roads Lead To Pop

Born in 1990, Andrew Wotman grew up in Long Island, New York, learned to play bass and then guitar, and briefly attended the New York University Music Business programme. Like many musicians, he was making music “on the first version of GarageBand. Once I outgrew that, I got Pro Tools and I was recording my music. I was recording myself on a computer from age 12, 13, 14, 15. So I was self‑taught as an engineer, and a producer.

“After I dropped out of the NYU, I played every bar and every restaurant in New York. I wound up getting gigs, and playing for many different artists, including hip‑hop artists and soul artists. At one point I found myself doing a pop gig, with Cody Simpson. I wasn’t sure about that, because I wanted to do rock music. The Cody Simpson gig led to me playing in Justin Bieber’s band. I then left the Justin Bieber tour to be part of California Breed. From there, I got a record deal with Republic Records, as a solo rock artist.”

California Breed were formed in 2013 by singer and bassist Glenn Hughes, who had played with Deep Purple and Black Sabbath; drummer Jason Bonham, son of John; and Watt, in the role of guitar hero. The Los Angeles‑based power trio released one self‑titled album in 2014, which topped the UK rock and US hard rock charts, and dissolved in 2015. In that same year Republic released Watt’s debut EP, Ghost In My Head, which was produced by him and Alain Johannes, of Queens Of The Stone Age fame, and Louis Bell, about to become one of the world’s top pop producers.

The big time remained elusive for Watt until a second hook‑up with Bieber changed things. “When touring with Justin we had developed a great relationship. Early 2016, we made a couple songs together, and one of them, ‘Let Me Love You’, with DJ Snake, wound up being a number one in many countries. I was on tour at the time, travelling in a van. When I heard my song on the radio, I said to myself, ‘What the hell am I doing in this band when I can be producing records that the world will hear?’ I went back to LA and started to shift my focus to producing and writing pop.

“I come from the computer generation. I was using Napster, and I was listening to Led Zeppelin, A Tribe Call Quest and the Backstreet Boys all on the same day. I loved all different types of music. But I wanted to be a rock artist, and I was ambivalent about going into pop. For a while I was hiding my pop work from my rock friends and my rock work from my pop friends. Once the pop songs started being successful, my rock friends were like, ‘Awesome!’ and I realised that it could all work together.”

Quick, Not Fast

For Watt, an essential part of making everything work together is through speed. “I move in a way that helps the artist feel like they’re flowing, one take after another. And when they’re listening back to their vocal or listening back to the band, it needs to immediately sound good. I say this a lot, and feel like a broken record saying it, but I believe my job is results‑based. So I try not to talk too much with the artists about the kind of sound I can get them or what it should be like. I just record, and then show them. And if they like what they hear coming out of the speakers, we’re on a roll....