Rick Rubin Is Not From This Planet. His Explanation of System Of A Down's "Chop Suey" Origin Is Bananas
Rick Rubin is better at hearing music in his brain and transferring it to a tangible medium that us average Earthlings can interpret and enjoy.
He was on Rogan a few weeks ago, (I blogged about him casually mentioning that he recorded a new album with The Strokes in his downtime, nbd), and clips like this are still leaking out. And still blowing my mind.
Everything Rubin does blows my mind in fact.
I cannot get enough of listening to this guy talk, and tell stories.
The term "national treasure" gets thrown around a lot and beaten to death, rightfully so.
But in 99% of cases the term doesn't really apply. When it comes to Rick Rubin, it doesn't either because he's actually so much greater than that.
The man is responsible for SO MUCH of the music that'd become the soundtracks to our lifetimes. And he's still doing it.
I mean will you look at this resume???
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Absolutely bonkers.
And hearing him tell Rogan all nonchalantly about how when he was helping record System of A Down's album Demo Tape 3, and they hit a writer's block snag, he had an idea to pull a book off his shelf, flip to a random page, and read the words…
What resulted was one of the best verses on the standout track from the album-
What's also nuts is just how much information Rubin has in his brain, and how many stories like this he's just apparently sitting on and doesn't think are a big deal. When he's asked about them he lights up and gushes about his experiences but its almost as if crazy shit like this has become so commonplace for him that it's just normal to him now. So he doesn't think they're worth recounting unless asked.
Which is why I'm saying I can't get enough of listening to this guy.
Here he is again talking to BBC a while back about working with System of A Down
I could seriously listen to Rogan and him speak for a 20 part series, 4 hours apiece. And I still don't think it would be enough.
After that give us a bonus set of people that know and have worked closely with Rubin, telling us more stories about him.
Like Anthony Kiedis just casually mentioning that if it weren't for Rubin selling him on doing "Under The Bridge" the right way, our ears might never have ever heard it.
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Rick Rubin I love you man.
We talked about a bunch of Rick Rubin stories, amongst a whole ton of other shit from the past week in music, Kanye West included, on this week's episode of "On The Guest List"