“I said to Andy, ‘Is he gonna be into this? Because it’s a punk tune and I want overdriven bass. It’s gonna be simple, no mucking about’”: Mick Jagger on recruiting Paul McCartney to play bass on the Rolling Stones’ upcoming album

For their most recent respective releases, The Rolling Stones and Beatles bassist Paul McCartney shared a producer – i.e., producer to the stars, Andrew Watt. Not only that, though, Macca is reportedly the one laying down the low end on an upcoming Stones track, titled Covered in You, from their upcoming album (out July 10), Foreign Tongues.

“You could be a bit blasé and go, ‘Yeah, OK, so what?’ But for me, it wasn’t – it went the other way,” McCartney told NME.

“It was like, ‘Wow, there’s Mick [Jagger]! Ooh, there’s Keith [Richards]! Woah, there’s Ronnie [Wood]!’ It was exciting. It was really good. A great thing is all I had to do was play bass and not make mistakes, so it was good.”

As for Jagger, the Stones’ iconic frontman revealed that the new tune required more of a “funk bass part.”

“Obviously, I’ve known Paul for ages. He’s not a stranger, but he’s never played bass with us before,” he said matter-of-factly. “It’s a different thing, you know?

“I said to Andy [Watt, producer], ‘Is he gonna be into this? Because it’s a punk tune and I want overdriven bass. It’s gonna be simple, no mucking about.’ And Paul did exactly what was needed in, like, 10 minutes.”

Now, McCartney did also play bass on Bite My Head Off, from the Stones’ 2023 album, Hackney Diamonds (some Foreign Tongues tracks date back to those sessions), but these instances didn’t mark the first time the two collaborated.

The Macca-Lennon powerhouse wrote the Stones’ second single, I Wanna Be Your Man, back in 1963, while the late Brian Jones also contributed to the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine. Jagger, meanwhile, contributed backing vocals to Baby, You’re a Rich Man.

Another instance where the two bands collided was when members of the Beatles and the Stones did a legendary one-off performance together as part of the TV spectacular, the Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus, where Lennon and Richards played the Beatles’ Yer Blues in the temporary supergroup the Dirty Mac – alongside Eric Clapton and Mitch Mitchell.

In more recent news, Paul McCartney recently challenged fans to work out the mystery guitar chord that inspired his new album – and, here at Guitar World, we figured it out.

Janelle is a staff writer at GuitarWorld.com. After a long stint in classical music, Janelle discovered the joys of playing guitar in dingy venues at the age of 13 and has never looked back. Janelle has written extensively about the intersection of music and technology and how it is shaping the future of the music industry, and has a special interest in shining a spotlight on traditionally underrepresented artists and global guitar sounds. She also had the pleasure of interviewing Melissa Auf der Maur, Yvette Young, Danielle Haim, Fanny, and Karan Katiyar from Bloodywood, among others. When she’s not writing, you’ll find her creating layers of delicious audio lasagna with her Anglo-Maltese, art-rock band ĠENN.