Rick Rubin: Hit Man

By Josh Tyrangiel

Rick Rubin enjoys long walks on the beach, sushi dinners and hugs that warm the corners of the soul. Behind the ZZ Top exterior lurks the soul of a Playmate. Rubin is also the most widely accomplished record producer of the past 20 years, getting career-best work out of everyone from the Dixie Chicks to the Red Hot Chili Peppers to Justin Timberlake--all of whom are vying for Album of the Year at the Grammys on Feb. 11. He's able to do this largely because his teddy-bear sensitivity defies every stereotype of his profession. Unlike Phil Spector, who allegedly motivated the Ramones by having them play at gunpoint, Rubin is neither crazy nor intimidating. Unlike Robert (Mutt) Lange, the obsessive genius behind AC/DC and Shania Twain, he has never ordered 80 consecutive vocal takes of a one-syllable lyric. "Those guys have made some of my favorite records," says Rubin. "But they had their method, and I have mine."

Rubin doesn't read music or write lyrics, and has no idea what the knobs on a mixing board do. "I had my doubts," says the Dixie Chicks' Emily Robison. "How do you produce music if you can't say, 'O.K., from the D chord I want to hear going to the G?' But somehow it just works." Rubin's dominance of this year's Grammy Album category is unprecedented. So is the fact that other than platinum sales, his nominated discs--one country, one rock and one pop/soul--have absolutely nothing in common. Factor in his other big releases of the past two years--albums by Weezer, Neil Diamond and Johnny Cash--and it's clear his aesthetic range is essentially limitless.

"That's why he deserves Producer of the Year," says comedian Chris Rock, a close Rubin friend and fan. (Rubin is nominated for a Grammy in the category and appears a lock to win.) "Most producers have their own sound, and they lease it out to different people, but we know it's still their record. The records you make with Rick are your records. He makes it his job to squeeze the best out of you--and not leave any fingerprints."

Combine artistic success with the fact that he rarely strikes out commercially and it's no surprise that Rubin is also highly sought after by record companies. He's currently discussing a role as co-chairman of Columbia Records. A Rubin associate says, "Negotiations are going on, but there's still ground to cover," while a source close to Columbia says, "Rick is a transcendent creative force. He'd be a huge hire."

Even jaded pros speak with squishy, New Age adulation of his mysterious abilities to make other people better, a reputation enhanced by the Bhagwanesque curtain of hair across his face. But Rubin, 43, feels he's credited with more magic powers than he actually possesses. "So much of what we do is just common sense," he says. Rubin co-founded Def Jam Records with Russell Simmons out of his New York University dorm room in 1984 and had a huge influence on the early history of rap (that's him as DJ Double R on the Beastie Boys' Licensed to Ill), but his formative experience as a producer came during a long-ago session with the Bangles. "Just before recording, one of the girls completely broke down," Rubin recalls. "She said, 'I don't think I can do this. I've never played on one of our records before.' Someone made her believe she wasn't good enough to play on her own records. It just made me realize that the music business is lousy at nourishing creative people but that my personality is pretty well suited for it."

Rubin does have a gift for setting people at ease. In the Malibu, Calif., home he shares with his girlfriend, he shuffles around barefoot in loose khakis and a white T shirt, trailed step for step by a lazy-looking dreadlocked puli. He has three laptops full of music in his living room but can't work iTunes on any of them, and when friends stop by, he greets them with well-intended but lung-collapsing hugs. He's your classic effortlessly amiable clumsy dude--a metaphorical Buddha in a terry-cloth robe.

But Zen as he is, Rubin is ruthless with his professional time. He's inundated with requests for his services, so he asks most prospects to drop by and play him whatever songs they've been writing. This eliminates most applicants. Few pop musicians, it turns out, are used to regular writing, and even fewer show enough promise in their songs to interest him. "One of Rick's favorite phrases is 'metaphor deficient,'" says Rock. "If people write things that are metaphor deficient, even he can't help them."

Timberlake passed muster on a piano at Rubin's house ("That kid is no joke," says Rubin), while the Dixie Chicks, who were coming off their career-threatening Bush-bashing incident and didn't have much music to play, piqued his interest over sushi. "It was a weird time for us, obviously," says Robison. "If he had come in like a car salesman and said, 'I can totally hear a sound for you all,' we would have been put off. But he said, 'I don't know what this record will be, but you guys have something to say, and it'll make itself clear as we work.' Then he made us work 10 times harder than we've ever worked before."

Rubin begins by telling artists that they won't be going to a recording studio, picking a release date or thinking about a single. "I try to get them in the mind-set that they're not writing music for an album," he says. "They're writing music because they're writers and that's what they do." Months and occasionally years can pass, which is why Rubin often has as many as four projects going at once. He almost never comments on individual lyrics, although he will protest if he thinks something is emotionally untrue. ("He's great at productive antagonism," says Chili Peppers' singer Anthony Kiedis.) Instead, he uses beach walks and quiet meals to get people to open up. "Writing is dull and unglamorous stuff," says Rubin. "For most people, it's really pretty miserable. But if you write 30 songs, there's a better chance that the 10 on your album will be better than if you just write 10."

By the time everyone decides that there's enough material to start recording, Rubin usually feels that the work is 90% done. "If a song is great on an acoustic guitar, you can make a hundred different versions of that song and it'll still be great," he says. While many producers came up as studio engineers, Rubin says, "I came up as a fan. I'm no expert at the technical aspects" of recordmaking. Kiedis, who has worked with Rubin on five albums, says, "He basically goes into the engineer's booth, removes everything in the room and has his people bring in the most comfortable couch-bed-type object that you'll ever see. Then he'll cover it with pillows and blankets, and that becomes his station."

Rubin listens intently from his cushioned perch and uses his lack of expertise to upend the traditional producer-as-God dynamic. "In the old days, when I'd hear something that's not working, I'd say, 'O.K., this is how we're going to fix it.' Now I ask, 'How do we fix it?' And nine times out of 10, what they come up with is as good as or better than how I would've done it," he says. Rubin's "they" includes a circle far wider than that of his peers. During a 1993 recording of an aborted Mick Jagger blues record, session guitarist Smokey Hormel recalls, Rubin walked up and asked, "How can I make guitars sound better?" "That was a first," says Hormel, who has since become a featured player on several Rubin albums. "He's still the only producer that does that. He runs a real democracy." Says Kiedis: "The truth of the matter is, we probably could have made this album without Rick, but why would we want to? It's just a better, more bitching experience when he's around."

Kiedis, Rock and other close Rubin friends (the circle changes and currently includes actor Owen Wilson and Borat director Larry Charles) are pressing Rubin to go to the Grammys and revel in his moment, but Rubin says, "I'm really not a celebrating-myself kind of guy. I'll probably spend the night at the studio, then come home and watch it on TiVo."

As always, he has no shortage of work, with albums by Kanye West, Metallica and Linkin Park in various stages of readiness, but the project that's closest to his heart is a sixth and final album from his recordings with Johnny Cash. Settling onto his couch, Rubin plays a Cash version of Redemption Day, an overlooked song from a 1996 Sheryl Crow album. "Johnny found this," he says. "I'd never heard it, but it's perfect for him." Rubin was worried that he might have to tinker more than usual with some of the songs in the singer's absence, but after listening to the material again, he decided he was wrong. "I don't think I'll need to do too much. I mean, how much can I really improve Johnny Cash?"