The Rolling Stones – “Scarlet (The War On Drugs Remix)”
Last month, the Rolling Stones released “Scarlet,” a previously unreleased song that features Jimmy Page on guitar and will be included on the upcoming reissue of the Stones’ 1973 album Goats Head Soup. It’s getting more of a push than your standard reissue track typically does. Last week, it got a socially-distant music video starring Normal People breakout Paul Mescal and today it’s getting a remix courtesy of the War On Drugs. The group’s leader Adam Granduciel punches up the track a bit, adding some new instrumentation and speeding it up.
It’s the first new material that the War On Drugs have officially shared in quite a while. Their last full-length album was 2017’s A Deeper Understanding. Toward the beginning of lockdown, Granduciel went on Instagram Live to debut some new songs that he had been working on.
Here’s what Granduciel said about the project in a statement:
“I just re-imagined the song as if I had Mick, Keith and Jimmy in the room with me. After messing with my Linn Drum for a bit, the song fell into this double time thing and I just went with it. I called my friend and bandmate, Dave Hartley, to fill out the bass on the new groove. Then I figured if I had Jimmy Page in the room I’d probably ask him to plug into my favorite rack flanger so that’s what I did. My friend Anthony LaMarca added some last minute percussion. I’m so honored to have gotten to work on this especially since ‘Angie’ was probably the first ‘rock’ song that I asked to be played on repeat when I was really young. Hope you enjoy it!”
Check out the War On Drugs remix of “Scarlet” below.
The deluxe Goats Head Soup reissue is out 9/4 on Interscope/Polydor/UMe.