“He’s not stupid, but he’s not musical… at all”: The Cult’s Billy Duffy on Rick Rubin
Rick Rubin’s approach to production is pretty unconventional. Despite having worked with the likes of Slayer, Rage Against the Machine, Johnny Cash, Nine Inch Nails and more, he firmly insists he knows “nothing about music”. And The Cult’s Billy Duffy is in agreement.
Speaking on the Rockenteurs podcast, guitarist Duffy recalls collaborating with Rubin on their 1987 record, Electric. While the band has heard good things, they didn’t quite know what they were in for. “Long story short, we’d heard of Rick Rubin,” Duffy says [via MusicRadar]. “We’d heard from a friend in Canada. He’d done the Beastie Boys’ Cooky Puss, which is basically [the] Back in Black riff with a beat.”
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Originally, Rubin was set to just mix the record. “He said, ‘I’ll remix your whole album, but you must let me record one song from the ground up,’” Duffy says. “That was the deal. So we said, ‘Okay.’ The record company [wasn’t] gonna let us re-record a super-expensive album again.”
Very soon, The Cult would realise Rubin didn’t quite understand the technicalities of music production. “He did hire Andy Wallace to be the engineer – Rick’s always used great engineers, he’s not stupid,” Duffy admits. “And [producer and A&R exec] George Drakoulias was there all the time. Rick and George were like a team… [but] George was more musical. Rick’s not musical… at all.”
“He’d say ‘can you play one of those pussy AC/DC English chords there?’” Duffy laughs.
“We literally deconstructed the album on the spot,” he continues. “I went from a Gretsch with the Roland and the chorus and the echoes. And he was like, ‘Well, that’s a Marshall, that’s a Les Paul, off you go.’ It was quite traumatic for me, I gotta tell you.”
Despite Duffy’s frustrations, Electric proved to be a massive success. Since its release, the record has gone platinum in the US and is often hailed as a landmark record of the ‘80s.
Rubin’s technical knowledge hasn’t progressed much since then. Back in 2023, an infamous 60 Minutes revealed Rubin’s lack of technical ability. He revealed that he “barely” plays instruments and has no idea how to “work a soundboard.”
“I’ve no technical ability,” he admitted. “And I know nothing about music. I know what I like and what I don’t like. I’m decisive about what I like and what I don’t like.”
“The confidence that I have in my taste, and my ability to express what I feel, has proven helpful for artists,” he concluded.
In 2024, Rubin told Rick Beato that there’s a “freedom” that comes with ignoring arbitrary musical rules. “There’s a real freedom in knowing that none of the rules about ‘the right way to do it’,” he said. “None of those are real. Those are all made-up rules. You can discard all of them. You can use them if they’re helpful but, as soon as they get in the way, discard them. There truly is no right way to do any of it.”
His connection is rooted in emotion, connecting with the world, and following your gut. It’s a method he preached in his 2023 book, The Creative Act: A Way of Being.
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
