Paul McCartney is set to feature on a new song by the Rolling Stones, the Guardian can confirm. While a Variety report from earlier this week stated that both surviving members of the Beatles – McCartney and Ringo Starr – would play on a Stones record slated for release later this year, a representative for the Stones clarified that McCartney plays bass on one new song, and that Starr has not been collaborating with the band.
The record – which has not yet been announced but will be the Stones’ 31st studio album – will feature the band’s touring drummer Steve Jordan, as well the late Charlie Watts, who recorded his parts before his death in August 2021. Per the Stones’ representative, McCartney entered the studio with Rolling Stones members Keith Richards and Mick Jagger in Los Angeles during the album’s mixing stages to lay down a bass track. The album was produced by Andrew Watt, who has worked on recent albums by Iggy Pop, Ozzy Osbourne and Eddie Vedder, as well as Britney Spears and Elton John’s 2022 collaboration Hold Me Closer.
The Rolling Stones have been alluding to a new album, their first since 2016’s Blue & Lonesome, for a while; earlier this year, Richards posted an Instagram video in which he hinted new music was on the way, and Jagger said the band had “a lot of tracks done” in a 2021 interview with the Los Angeles Times. In that interview, the band said that Covid lockdowns had caused delays in the recording process.
Blue & Lonesome was produced by Jagger, Richards and Don Was, and was released to widespread critical acclaim. In a four-star review for the Guardian at the time, Alexis Petridis said the record – an album of blues covers – was “appealingly visceral and live”, and “sound[ed] more raw and vibrant than the Stones have done in years.”
