Interview for MOJO

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If you’re working with the Stones, they’ve got the Stones sound. It’s kind of the opposite with me – we’re trying not to do that. The way we approached this album was: We’ve done that before. Let’s do it different.

From MOJO – July 2026

Speaking of the thrill of right now, The Boys Of Dungeon Lane is often about the past, but I don’t get the sense you and [producer] Andrew Watt were trying to recreate the sound of the past. He has done that to some extent with The Rolling Stones and Ozzy Osbourne. Did you want to guard against familiar sounds?

No, that’s right. In fact, it’s kind of the opposite. We’re trying to not do that. If you’re working with the Stones, they’ve got the Stones sound, so I think you would be looking to get that sound. And it’s natural to them – it’s the way they sound. I worked on a track on their new album [McCartney plays bass on Foreign Tongues track Covered In You, due out in July], and it was great to do. You sit down and the noise you’re hearing, the record you’re making, it’s the Stones. After the day at the studio, people said, “How was it?” It was great! I mean, I was a session man with the Stones. (Laughs) I really enjoyed that, and it sounds like a Stones record.

But when I’m working on my stuff, I’m open to ideas. Just, for instance, since the ’60s, I’ve liked to do tape loops. It’s funny because, even though now it’s an old technology, it sounds new. It’s definitely unusual. It’s not synthetic. I’m sure you can dial a similar sound up on a synthesizer, but doing it with the loops, it’s all hands-on. I enjoy that. So, that’s the way we approached the whole album: We’ve done that before, let’s do it different. I am not sure we did loops on this, but I’ve done a whole other set of tracks that have loops, that are loop heavy. That’s another project, but it’s representative of the idea of not doing it the normal way – just trying to find something that you haven’t done before. And the main reason is it’s just so, so boring.

See Paul McCartney: “I was a session man with The Rolling Stones!” as well.