Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger has teamed up with Eurythmics founder Dave Stewart, soul singer Joss Stone, composer and global superstar A.R.Rahman and reggae star Damian Marley to form a band cooperative project called SuperHeavy. This diverse and eclectic line up have been recording together in various studios around the world, with the majority of the tracks on the project laid down over three weeks in Los Angeles earlier this year. The first single ‘Miracle Worker’is currently at radio. SuperHeavy came together after Jagger and Stewart considered what a band comprising of musicians from different genres would sound like. Jagger explains, “Dave really wanted to make a record with a different group of musicians, in other words, with different backgrounds of music. Instead of everyone being a rock musician, or basically a blues musician, or some other genre, he wanted to get as many genres together that would fit. I said it sounds like a good idea, I never thought it would actually happen.”
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Despite their disparate backgrounds, they instantly connected and hit the ground running, writing twenty-two songs in the first six days. Stone was thrilled with the results, “That’s what you need, all these opinionated people who have been brilliant in their own field, shove them together and see what comes out. It’s really unexpected, it’s mind blowing” she enthuses. Similarly enthused was Rahman, “The first day I was in a daze thinking, ‘What am I doing? What’s my role?’ and then slowly we started writing with each other, and it was great. It took me way back to my high school days when I was playing in a rock band, but this one was a real one!” Jagger says of the writing process, “We ran the gamut of all our different styles mixed up, so we got Joss singing, Damian doing toasting, and me singing different styles.”
The band found a harmonious way of working together, “With five of you everyone has to give and take quite a lot. We tried to understand everyone wouldn’t be too egotistical, start throwing things around the studio, we wouldn’t have fights!” says Jagger. However they weren’t averse to telling each other to be better either, Jagger continues, “We were writing a lot of stuff and throwing it away. I would say, ‘That’s rubbish, another cliché Joss’, and she’d say, ‘Well you come up with something then!’” The experience was refreshing and exciting for the band, “We’re four vocalists, we’ve never worked like that before. It’s great because the whole burdens not on you, and that made it fun.” Jagger enthuses.
Back to that alchemical experiment, Jagger, Stewart, Marley, Rahman and Stone appear to have created a new genre. It’s a new kind of music, it’s a new genre, one that cannot be placed” says Stone. Yet, Jagger is keen to point out the music is accessible, “It’s very approachable. If you’re a Rolling Stones fan there’s definitely stuff you can relate to. Other stuff that you can’t relate to so much, maybe if you listen you’ll enjoy it.” Put in that in your pipe and smoke it!
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