Andrew Watt looks back on working with Elton John

Andrew Watt, producer for Elton John’s album, compared the revolutionary singer to “Mozart or Beethoven.”

Watt has worked with the EGOT winner on his collaborative album with Brandi Carlile, Who Believes in Angels?, which was released in April.

Speaking with PEOPLE, the Grammy-winning music producer expressed his praise for John.

“[He's] a little more like Beethoven, I would say, and when he's writing, he's extremely volatile,” he said, noting the differences among artists in the music industry, but that they had to work in a specific manner with John.

“My job is to read the room, and if you're in Elton's eyeline as he's writing, you're in the f---ing lion's den,” he shared. “So I would try and be around him to make sure I was close enough for when he would call for me or needed something, or I could hear what he was doing, what he was coming up with.”

Watt admitted he would often “try to stay out of Elton’s direct eyeline” while they worked.

He explained that John writes music “in a way almost no one else does,” a craft shaped by decades of collaboration with lyricist Bernie Taupin.

According to Watt, John takes a lyric, props it on the piano, visualises it like a movie scene, and then scores that scene in real time.

As he plays, he begins singing the words, shaping melodies around the chords, the phrasing, and even the phonetics of the lyrics.

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