Jagger's SuperHeavy Collective Gets A Release Date
The group\'s debut album will be released on 19 September
SuperHeavy will see Sir Mick team 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.
The 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 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.'
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."
Despite their disparate backgrounds, the collective hit the ground running, writing twenty-two songs in the first six days. Joss 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."
A first for Mick Jagger is singing in Urdu, on a song composed by Rahman, entitled "Satyameva Jayate", meaning, "the truth alone triumphs", Rahman wrote the song after some gentle teasing from the others. Rahman explains, "In the daytime I was playing with them, in the night time and evenings I was gigging" "Then", says Jagger, "He didn't come into the studio one day, so I said, 'Where's A.R?' and he came in really late at night, really pleased saying, 'I've got my song!' I manage one line in Urdu, only one!"
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...."
The promo video for the first single - 'Miracle Worker' - due to be filmed later this month and debut shortley afterwards.