Having already produced albums for Eddie Vedder and Ozzy Osbourne, Andrew Watt‘s adding another rock legend to his list of collaborators: Iggy Pop.
The Godfather of Punk is releasing his next album with Watt’s Gold Tooth Records, and the lead single, “Frenzy,” is out Friday. Speaking with ABC Audio, Watt shares that the upcoming record is “done and dusted.”
“It’s so exciting,” Watt says. “He’s one of my favorite artists. I mean, the guy literally invented punk rock.”
While Pop’s last release, 2019’s Free, was more of a jazzy, ambient affair, Watt declares that the new effort is a “rock album” in “every sense of the word,” describing it as “high energy” and “all things that I love about Iggy.”
“We tried to go places musically that were a familiar territory for the fans,” Watt says. “It’s made from a fan’s perspective, of loving and worshiping Iggy Pop.”
That “we” includes Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan, and ex-RHCP guitarist and current Pearl Jam touring member Josh Klinghoffer. Watt previously worked with Smith and McKagan on the Ozzy records, and played with Smith and Klinghoffer in Vedder’s solo band.
“We kinda just had a conversation, like, ‘What do we want to hear Iggy sing on?"” Watt says of their approach. “So we’d just make stuff that made our hearts full, and I’d send it to him, and he’d write songs to it. It was really that simple.”
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