Mick Jagger – Damian Marley – A.R. Rahman – Dave Stewart – Joss Stone
Mick Jagger has teamed up with Eurythmics founder Dave Stewart, soul singer Joss Stone, Academy Award winning 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 who share eleven Grammy Awards between them, 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 album will be unveiled in September and tracks include the first single ‘Miracle Worker’, plus ‘One Day One Night’, ‘Energy’, ‘Unbelievable,’ ‘SuperHeavy,’ I Can’t Take It No More,’ ‘You’re Never Gonna Change’ and ‘I Don’t Mind.’
Stewart refers to SuperHeavy as, “A mad alchemist type experiment”. Fusing the talents of one of the greatest front-men of all time, a two time Academy award winning Indian composer, a soul vocal prodigy, a three time Grammy winning reggae star, and one of the most sought after producers in the world, you would expect the explosive results to defy categorisation.
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.” The SuperHeavy album is co-produced by Jagger & Stewart.
The band’s path crossed with legendary Indian composer A.R. Rahman, in the City of Angels fresh from his Slumdog Millionaire Oscar glory. Jagger explains, “We didn’t know what kind of music we’d make, we didn’t know if it would be any good, but we hoped we’d have fun.” They were thrilled to have Rahman on board,Stewart says, “He brings so much musical knowledge, amazing musicianship, melody and singing power from a different culture.”
As far as the future of SuperHeavy goes, “We haven’t planned to do a tour or anything, but if people really like it maybe we will. We’d love to get out and play some of it live,” says Jagger humbly. “As soon as we started playing together in the studio it gelled, and all these different styles didn’t seem to be a problem to make them fit together… I hope people will like it….”
Main Credits on the ‘SuperHeavy’ album are – Mick Jagger (vocals, guitar and harmonica), Dave Stewart (guitar), Joss Stone (vocals), Damian Marley (vocals) and A. R. Rahman (vocals plus a variety of keyboards).
