... right? Which is so hard to do this day and age.

Yeah.

Um, I think they, you know, we didn't, their, the album before, Hackney Diamonds, they had demoed the songs a lot.

They demoed them alone, then they demoed them, they recorded all, a, a lot of the songs that they liked in two different places.

They recorded them a little bit in Jamaica, then they recorded them a little bit at, at Electric Lady, just early versions of the stuff, and then we went through all of those.

There was like this big kinda long, arduous process.

Um, but they were figuring out how they were gonna make this album for the first time in 18 years, so, um, it's understandable.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah

... ability to do this second album with them.

Um, they were happy with how it went.

So we were able to go a level deeper, which was really, really awesome.

Um, I think the, the second album is a little looser and there's parts where they're really jamming more and kind of, you know, digging in, and my relationship with Keith went a level deeper on this album.

Um, we really kind of became friends and, and Keith, um, and I were both, uh, kind of transplants in London, even though that's where he's from, during the making of the album.

And so we hung a lot, like in and out of the studio this time and, and really got to know each other deeper, which made our working relationship, um, go even better this time around.

... he's bringing stuff

That's education.

Yeah.

So I would go to those jam sessions to help her every night.

And then one night, Captain Kirk had, like, a family emergency, and Questlove was like, "All right, you're up." I was like, "What do you mean I'm up?" He's like, "Kirk's not here.

You've been here every night.

You play guitar.

You said you wanna play guitar.

Mm.

Sometimes it's just fun.

You get your friends to do stuff.

Mick was at my studio in Los Angeles, where I am right now, and we were doing some vocals and finishing up some things.

And Bruno was in town, who's a really good friend of mine, um, we do a lot of work with Bruno Mars, and, um, he wanted to pop by one day to see Mick.

And we were listening to Never Wanna Lose You, and Bruno was like, "It's perfect, but where's the cowbell?" Like, literally, Christopher Walken needs more cowbell.

Like, l- but legitimately, and he was right.

So we got him a cowbell and he played it down in one take, even with the little flourishes, and that's it.

What's he doing here?"

Producer Andrew Watt.

Jealous Lover is incredible.

The every part of that recording, the band, Mick, the words, the tune, e- everything.

I'm kind of obsessed with that.

And when we made that one, I don't wanna say a turning point, because there was, it was all always positive with this album.

It felt like, okay, we're, you know what? We're going into a different territory than Hackney Diamonds here.

Like, the sophomore album thing, how are we gonna make this different than the first one? That is not something we touched on.

Producer Andrew Watt.

I say.

I had two studios going at Metropolis.

One was, like, a really small room that just had set up really close in a small room with Ronnie, Keith, Mick, and me, and my engineer, Marco, and we just rehearsed The songs like that a little bit, just kind of found the tempo, found the way, made sure people had played through the chords a little bit.

And then I didn't want them to play with Steve and the drummer yet until they were ready to go, because I knew we'd be catching stuff immediately.

Um, and I- we wanted to go for full takes of the band.

So, uh, then we moved to the next room where my other engineer, Paul, had the room all set up, and I got the great pleasure of sitting in the live room while they were recording, and my role was to call the arrangements, you know? So I'd have a microphone, and they'd be recording, and they'd be on something, and it would be time, like, "Chorus," you know? Like, or something like, "Back to the chorus." Just kind of calling sections, so guiding through the form for something that was so fresh, you know? And you do that, like, a couple times, and then by the couple times that's happened, no one needs those calls anymore.

But while it was forming, that's how we kind of got the form together.

[laughs]

When you start it off, even if Ronnie doesn't really know what he's gonna do, as soon as he hears it and I'm playing guitar and Keith's playing guitar, Ronnie will automatically fall into that because he can hear it, that we know how it goes.

It's just so magic.

You got the tune.

We need an intro, and the drums start going, and then Keith just starts playing this thing, and then the other guys react to him and join in, and now it's on this riff that he's playing, and then boom, the song begins, right? It's truly like catching lightning in a bottle, and just watching them react to each other and watching Keith watch Mick and listen to Mick and play off of him, and then Ronnie plays off Keith, and Steve is just powering through.

I mean, it's, it's really, it's really incredible.

Um, and that's how this entire album was made.

It's just easier and more emotive in another way.

Tell me what other band right now are playing a blues that you'd never want it to end.

This has been good always, just gotten better, man.

The origin of my work with the guys came through Don Was, who is, um, a good friend and their longtime producer.

And during COVID times, he asked me if I would be interested in helping, you know, do the production on one of these songs, just a kind of, like, a different mix.

And so I Zoomed with Mick and met him that way, and I was wearing a Prince shirt, and he immediately told me a Prince story of Prince opening for The Stones, and we just kinda had, like, a cool back and forth.

I worked on the thing.

Nothing ever really happened with it.

That was just how we met.

A little perspiration.

Yeah.

Then when that shirt's off and he's in the black t-shirt and the veins are coming through every part of his body, you have full-blown

Use your face's influence

on this one.

Use that.

It's truly like catching lightning in a bottle.

Just watching them react to each other and watching Keith watch Mick and listen to Mick and play off of him.

And then Ronnie plays off Keith and Steve is just powering through.

This one, eh," you know?

There are two artists that you've worked with a few times who you did a song together recently, and I'm curious to hear how you...

Sort of the process of working with both of these two.

Both of these two, uh, who are, by the way, two of the biggest artists in the world.

You too.

[upbeat music] The Trackstar Podcast is a presentation of Public Opinion created by me, Jack Coyne, Kieran Coyne, and Henry Korneros.

Produced by Haley Sobel.

Edited by Haley Sobel.