By RockTrail Team
What does it take to tell Keith Richards—a man who has survived six decades of rock ’n’ roll, countless reinventions, and even a notorious fall from a coconut tree—that it’s time to get to work?
Apparently, Andrew Watt had the answer.
The 35-year-old producer did not arrive at the Rolling Stones’ sessions for Foreign Tongues simply to sit behind a console and admire the legends in front of him. He came with a plan, a schedule, a guitar, and enough confidence to tell Keith Richards exactly when his parts needed to be finished.
And somehow, it worked.
“I’ll Do Them When I Want To”
The Rolling Stones are not exactly known as a band that enjoys being told what to do. By the time they entered London’s Metropolis Studios to record Foreign Tongues, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Ronnie Wood had already spent more than six decades doing things largely on their own terms.
But Andrew Watt wanted momentum.
The goal was to get the core of the album recorded quickly, bringing the Stones back into a working rhythm that relied less on endless studio tinkering and more on musicians actually playing together in the room. The result was a remarkably fast process for a band with a history stretching across generations: the album came together in less than a month.
According to Ronnie Wood, Watt's determination occasionally meant pushing even Keith Richards.
Wood recalled the producer laying down the challenge in no uncertain terms:
“Come on, you’ve got to come in at eight o'clock, and I want your parts done. And then over the next week, I want all your guitar parts done, Keith.”
For Richards, being given a deadline by someone young enough to be his grandson was not exactly a familiar experience.
The guitarist pushed back in his own inimitable fashion. But Watt did not blink.
That was part of the point.
A Producer Who Wasn't Intimidated
What made Watt's approach work was that he wasn't simply a young producer walking into the room and trying to impose modern pop-studio discipline on one of the most important rock bands in history.
He knew the Stones.
He knew the records, the guitar language, the chemistry between Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood, and the musical history behind the band. Just as importantly, he could play.
That mattered.
Ronnie Wood has described Watt as a genuine fan with a deep understanding of the band, someone who could back up his enthusiasm with actual musicianship. Mick Jagger has also praised the producer's ability to understand how the Stones work as a band rather than treating them like a legacy act that needed to be carefully preserved.
Watt's role was not to modernize the Stones beyond recognition.
It was to get them moving.
The Jimmy Miller Comparison
That approach led Wood to invoke a particularly important name from the Stones' history: Jimmy Miller.
Miller was the producer behind the band's extraordinary late-'60s and early-'70s run, helping shape albums such as Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, and Exile on Main St.
The comparison is not really about trying to recreate the sound of 1971.
It is about attitude.
The Stones at their best have always sounded like a band reacting to one another in real time—Keith throwing out a riff, Ronnie answering it, Mick pushing against the groove, and the entire thing threatening to fall apart before somehow locking perfectly into place.
Andrew Watt understood that.
Instead of smoothing out every rough edge, the sessions for Foreign Tongues leaned into energy, interaction, and the unpredictable chemistry that has always made the Stones sound like the Stones.
Not a Museum Piece
That may be the most interesting thing about Andrew Watt's relationship with the Rolling Stones.
He clearly respects their history. But he does not seem intimidated by it.
For a producer working with musicians whose catalog has already been dissected, celebrated, remastered, and turned into rock ’n’ roll scripture, it would have been easy to treat every session as a visit to a museum.
Watt apparently chose the opposite approach.
Keith Richards was not a monument.
He was a guitarist who still had parts to record.
Ronnie Wood was not simply a living link to the Stones' past.
He was another player in the room.
And the Rolling Stones were not there to celebrate what they had done fifty years ago.
They were there to make another record.
Getting the Stones Moving Again
Foreign Tongues continues the creative momentum that began with 2023's Hackney Diamonds, again pairing the Stones with Watt and again proving that the band still responds to a little pressure.
The difference this time is the sense of speed.
The sessions moved quickly. The guitars were pushed forward. The band played with the kind of urgency that can disappear when musicians spend too long polishing every detail.
And perhaps that is where Watt's greatest contribution can be found.
He did not try to tell the Rolling Stones how to be the Rolling Stones.
He simply reminded them that rock ’n’ roll works best when somebody eventually says:
“Come on. Get in the room. Pick up your guitar. Let's go.”
Even if that somebody happens to be 35 years old and the person being told is Keith Richards.
What do you think of Andrew Watt's approach with the Rolling Stones? Does the producer bring back some of that classic Stones urgency, or is this simply a new chapter in the band's late-career resurgence? Let us know in the comments.
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