“The best work divides audiences and I embrace that. I wanna go as far as we can go to the edge and sometimes we fall over but we can’t help it but those are the things that excite me, that’s what I want to hear from someone else. If we are all in agreement about everything art is going to be dull……” Rick Rubin
I never knew who Rick was but little did I know he’s been part of my youth all along!
Rick Rubin is a multiple Grammy-winning record producer who has worked with a wide range of artists including Adele, the Beastie Boys and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He also reinvigorated the career of Johnny Cash in the 1990s, with a series of acclaimed stripped-back albums, introducing the legendary Man in Black to a new audience.
I highly recommend you listen to Rick Rubin’s Desert Island disc’s broadcasted on BBC radio 4. He speaks about the creative process. What I found interesting is how he explains the place in which you are creative can effect the work produced. In particular Rick mentioned the haunted house that was used to record the 1991 Red Hot Chilli Peppers album, Blood Sugar Sex Magik that was once Harry Houdini.
Below a photo taken in the mansion with two of the members from the Red Hot Chilli Peppers
Rick was born on Long Island in New York in 1963. As a teenager, his first love was punk, but he soon became entranced by New York’s emerging rap scene and started hanging out in hip hop clubs to discover more about what was then considered to be an underground form of music. In 1984 he co-founded Def Jam Recordings from his dorm room at university and produced rap records for T La Rock and LL Cool J.
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