How Producer Andrew Watt Stood Up to Keith Richards

Ron Wood is praising Andrew Watt for giving the Rolling Stones a new lease of life with his youthful energy and strong character.

Watt, 35, oversaw the Rolling Stones’ 2023 album Hackney Diamonds and returned for this year’s Foreign Tongues. He previously worked with Ozzy Osbourne, Paul McCartney, Pearl Jam and others.

“He’s a young guy with a passion,” Wood told Classic Rock, offering a hint of Watt’s influence on the veteran band. “He’s a fan. He can back up what he says because he can play. So we listened to him.”

Recalling a Classic Era From the Rolling Stones

Wood compared their working relationship to an earlier era when late producer Jimmy Miller oversaw a series of classic Rolling Stones albums, including 1968's Beggars Banquet, 1969's Let It Bleed, 1971's Sticky Fingers and 1972's Exile on Main St.

This is a “bit like in the Jimmy Miller days when the Stones were creating an album every couple of years,” Wood argued. “We were back on that kind of schedule, which is great. People don’t have to wait 10, 12 years between albums now.”

'Foreign Tongues' is the second consecutive Rolling Stones album produced by Andrew Watt. (Instagram / @Mick Jagger)

Wood said the Rolling Stones “need someone to boss us around to say: ‘Come on, you’ve got to come in at eight o’clock, and I want your parts done,’ you know? ‘And then over the next week I want all your guitar parts done, Keith [Richards].’”

Richards pushed back, according to Wood. “Keith would go: ‘What do you mean? I’ll do them when I want to.’ [Watt] said: ‘No, you won’t. You’ll do them when I tell you. And you’re going to start now.’” Wood said Richards replied: “‘Oh, okay then.’ It takes an unusual man to be able to converse with Keith on something like bossing him around. It’s good.”

Will There Be More Music With Charlie Watts?

Foreign Tongues included an appearance by their late drummer Charlie Watts on the track “Hit Me in the Head.” Wood said it’s possible that future material could feature more archive recordings.

“We [have] quite a few of them, actually, so that we can keep Charlie’s memory going,” he said. “I leave it to Mick [Jagger]. He’s got this kind of little archive of Charlie. I’m not quite sure what’s in it, but I’m sure there’s some more Charlie drum tracks. We did some in Paris that I know he could tap into.”

Wood also said the Rolling Stones want to keep an element of social commentary in their music – “in our own little way. In a rock ’n’ roll way. We have to try and keep the smile on people’s faces as well as being blatantly honest with them, you know, about that ‘sickness in the land.’ There’s a lot of bad things going on.”