Chad Smith will be behind the kit on May 15 to back Paul McCartney during one of the musician’s Saturday Night Live performances, filling in for Abe Laboriel Jr. for the night. The move brings Smith back into McCartney’s orbit at a moment when the two men have already crossed paths more than once.
The assignment matters because Laboriel has drummed with McCartney since October 2001, and his absence has not been explained. Smith, by contrast, is no stranger to McCartney. In 2024, McCartney made a surprise appearance during Smith’s covers set with producer and musician Andrew Watt at Stephen Talkhouse in New York’s Hamptons, where Smith later told Q104.3 that “the people there were losing their minds” and called it “a real once-in-a-lifetime thing.”
The two musicians have also worked together before. In 2020, Smith and Josh Homme remade McCartney’s “Lavatory Lil” for McCartney III Imagined, giving the Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer another tie to the former Beatle’s catalog. Smith’s appearance this week also comes as Watt remains a central figure in McCartney’s recent output, having produced McCartney’s first album in six years, The Boys of Dungeon Lane, due May 29.
That overlap matters because it turns Smith’s SNL turn into more than a last-minute substitution. He already knows McCartney’s world, and McCartney knows his. Still, the setup leaves one unanswered point: whether Smith’s role on the show is a one-off or the start of something longer. The facts released so far do not confirm that, but they do make clear that McCartney was comfortable enough to bring Smith in for a high-profile slot when Laboriel was unavailable.
Smith’s presence on the program also lands while he is due to appear on another major release: the Watt-produced forthcoming Rolling Stones album, Foreign Tongues. For one night, though, the focus is narrower. Smith is in, Laboriel is out, and McCartney is set to take the stage with a drummer who has already been part of his extended musical circle.
