The Rolling Stones have released their new song ‘Sweet Sounds of Heaven’, which features Lady Gaga and Stevie Wonder. Gaga sings and Wonder plays keys and piano on the track, which will appear on their upcoming album Hackney Diamonds alongside the previously released ‘Angry’. Check it out below.
In an interview with Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1, Mick Jagger said of working with Gaga: “She’s a really great singer and I’d never heard her sing quite that style before. Not exactly. We did it live in the room and that was a great experience, her just coming in the room and her just opening up and seeing her bits and feeling her way and then getting more confident. And then we came back and then did some extra parts that we hadn’t done on the day and then we did some tidying up and we were just in the overdub room, really face-to-face, getting them really tight, the parts really tight, and then being slightly competitive and screaming.”
Of ‘Sweet Sounds of Heaven’, he elaborated:
It’s all played live. And of course we did overdubs, but it’s all played in the room. Yeah, there’s that moment, especially in that session where we had Stevie, and you’re feeling your way out a little bit and then you do that soul ending, which is you do sometimes on stage where you stop and you start. It’s very kind of tried and tested redoubling thing. But, yeah, I mean, it really feels like, yeah, it is played live… it was a good moment… we played it with Keith and Ronnie when we were in The Bahamas when we more or less finished everything. But we hadn’t mixed it then, so then we mixed it, I mixed it with the mixer and Andy [Andrew Watt] and we were in three places. And then when we finished mixing it, we had a sort of three-way playback. And, yeah, it’s a really good moment when you play something. And it’s always a great moment when you play it back like that. And, “Wow, we finished it and it sounds really good, and we’re pleased with it.” Because if we hadn’t been pleased with it, we’ve had to have change it. You’ve got to choose the right songs because we recorded a lot more songs than this. And then to choose a set of songs, these aren’t necessarily even, you might prefer one than the other, but they will come out. The other ones will come out. But choose a good balance of the songs you’ve recorded.
Hackney Diamonds, the band’s first full album of original material since 2005’s A Bigger Bang, comes out on October 20.