Andrew Watt on His Insane 2026: Madonna, McCartney, the Stones, Gaga

Producer/songwriter Andrew Watt spent yet another wildly overscheduled year working with legends, producing both Paul McCartney ‘s The Boys of Dungeon Lane and the Rolling Stones ‘ Foreign Tongues (his second album with the band), while also co-producing Brandi Carlile’s Returning to Myself and two songs from Madonna ‘s Confessions II. Continuing his much-lauded Mayhem collaboration with Lady Gaga , he worked with her on multiple new songs as well, including tracks fo r The Devil Wears Prada 2. He also co-wrote and co-produced Michael Stipe ‘s track “I Played the Fool,” and is working with Stipe on his long-awaited solo debut. Also on his schedule: a new album with Elton John .

In a new episode of The Rolling Stone Studio , Watt sits down with Brian Hiatt to talk about all those collaborations and more. Watch it on YouTube or above; here are some highlights from the discussion:

Watt played matchmaker for Madonna and Charli XCX for the “Danceteria” remix he worked on. “ I actually put them on a text message together,” says Watt, “to kinda meet and talk before they were ever gonna do a record together, because they just needed to be friends. They’re both so awesome and so cool, and really special people to me in my life. I was at a wedding with Charli, and I was like, ‘Have you ever met Madonna?’ And she’s like, ‘No, we actually, we don’t know each other.’ And so I just, I thought that needed to happen.” The original “Danceteria” grew out of Madonna’s stories about the downtown New York club “where it all started for her.” “She would tell us, like, you know, you look around and there’s Nile Rodgers and there’s David Byrne,” Watt says. “And she obviously invented talking on a pop song, right? … So we threw the beat on, and then she started just talking about her life. It’s her origin story.” For the remix, he says, “Charli recorded her part, but then they worked on the track and the production together … It’s a completely different record than the original.”

Watt calls Lady Gaga “my older sister,” and says their sessions have brought him to tears. “Greatest feeling in the world is when you make a project with an artist, it ends, and everyone’s sad, and you’re gonna miss each other, and then they call you back, and they’re like, ‘Let’s make more stuff,'” Watt says. “She and I are from the same place. We’re from New York. We both grew up playing in the Bitter End, and were walking in the … same streets, and in the same scenes a couple years apart. … So it feels like my sister, you know? Like my older sister, couple years older than me. When we sit, we break a song down, even when it’s an electronic song, and I’m on the guitar and she’s on the piano, sitting head-to-head and going through the song, it’s like it’s one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. It’s brought me to tears multiple times.” Editor’s picks The 250 Greatest Albums of the 21st Century So Far The 100 Best TV Episodes of All Time The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century

Watt is in the middle of making Elton John’s next album, and because Elton has lost much of his sight, they had to rebuild the way he writes songs.