Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr may reunite and collaborate on the upcoming album by The Rolling Stones. According to Variety, several sources confirmed that the two surviving members of The Beatles added to an unannounced Rolling Stones album, which is reportedly produced by American record producer, singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Andrew Watt.
According to the article by Variety, McCartney recorded bass parts for the project during sessions that took place in Los Angeles in the past few weeks. They also report that the Rolling Stones’ offering, their first since 2005’s A Bigger Bang, is currently in the mixing phase though a release date has yet to be announced. However, Mick Jagger has given updates about new material in recent years.
In 2020, he said the band had recorded a handful of tracks, and they were finishing off the vocals and cleaning up other instrumental aspects of them. “It sounds good, what we’ve already done,” he said in a statement. “[it] sounds pretty good to me.”
In 2022, Keith Richards also stated that he and his bandmate had recorded a collection of tracks while spending a week in Jamaica. Last month, he also posted to Instagram that “there’s some new music on its way.”
As for McCartney’s addition to the exciting speculation, he said on his website he had been recording with various people, including Watt, whom he said is “very interesting — we’ve had some fun.”
Notably, Watt recorded with Iggy Pop, Pearl Jam and Ozzy Osbourne, the last of which he enjoyed a 2022 Award win for Best Rock Album for “Patient Number 9,” which also featured Jeff Beck. Other collaborators of Watt’s include pop superstars including Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus and Dua Lipa.
The Variety article also insinuated that the possible Rolling Stones album would also include songs with the sonic imprint of the late founding member and drummer Charlie Watts, as Richards said to the Los Angeles Times in a 2021 interview, “You haven’t heard the last of Charlie Watts.”
The extremely high-profile collaboration could mark the end of a rivalry between The Rolling Stones and The Beatles that has lasted multiple generations and lifetimes, though all in good fun. Since A Bigger Bang, The Rolling Stones have yet to put out any material except a few singles and revamped remasters as part of their greatest hit discographies, along with two live albums last year and GRRR Live! which was released just weeks ago.
This is a developing story.