Mr. Hewitt
What’s it like working with Rick Rubin? Does he have a permanent studio at his house now?
He’s got a house in Laurel Canyon where the Chili Peppers did Blood Sugar Sex Magik. It’s a permanent studio in that nobody lives there but he doesn’t own any of the gear that’s there. They’ll rent a Neve and they’ll rent a tape machine or Pro Tools depending on what’s needed. There’s Plexiglas put in between what used to be a study and the ballroom, which are now control room and live room, respectively. The live room is huge, but it’s all unfortunately been carpeted and there’s a big American flag hanging from the ceiling and draped on the walls and lots of curtains so it’s really dead. But it’s an amazing place to do a record. There’s tons of room and there are all different kinds of spaces for experimentation with sound and echo. The foyer in there is just astounding and there’s another room that the drums on the first track on Blood Sugar Sex Magik – “[The] Power of Equality†– were tracked, where you hear the drums and all this crazy room sound around it. It’s this little room, probably fifteen feet square, but with marble floors and two glass walls. I heard they recorded that drum kit with two mics. He has another studio at his main residence in Hollywood. It’s a proper studio there with a console and tape machines and Pro Tools and gear that’s set up permanently. They track some bands there occasionally, but mainly it’s for overdubs. Rick’s got a phenomenal nine-foot Bösendorfer in the living room and there’s some glockenspiels and some strange instruments hanging out and a couple of small rooms for recording.
What’s he like to work with?
His input is completely unconventional. He’s not a sounds guy. He’s not going to say, “Give me more midrange,†or anything. He’s going to say, “That sounds good,†or, “That’s not quite right.†With the Chili Peppers, after the first take they would come in and make sure they liked the sounds and then they would go out and do more takes. To me it seems that Rick is more about the vibe of the session – to make sure everyone is happy and able to give their best to the music. I feel that he’s about the songs themselves, and he’s about making the arrangement ideal and perfect and featuring everybody or nobody depending on what needs to happen – that it’s not overplayed, that it’s not too busy, that it’s not too boring – that when something needs happen, the right thing happens. He’s a fan of music and so he approaches it with a fan’s ear. He makes no bones about saying what he thinks is appropriate for a song. He might say, “I’m getting bored here, something else needs to happen there,†or, “That intro needs a little something extra. It’s too sparse,†or, “There’s too much shit going on here, pare it down. We need to get rid of something.†During tracking he’s more sparse with comments and he maintains a very even-keeled level of energy in the studio. A lot of musicians get tremendously excited about something they just did, or a producer will get all fired up and excited, then if it’s not as perfect the next time they do it they’ll get really bummed. So you have this giant roller coaster of emotion going on. Rick is able to maintain an evenness that smoothes out the roller coaster ride. If something is amazing he might say, “That was great,†and everyone will be happy. If something was not that great he might say, “You know, that’s not so good. Let’s do that again.†But no one gets bummed out because it wasn’t like, “This is amazing! This is fucking unbelievable!†and then “That sucked!†He’s always conscious of the truth doing the job in a studio, and that to me is a feat unto itself.
As an engineer working with Rick, you got a lot of room to work out what it sounds like.
There’s a lot of room, and specifically with the Chili Peppers – I can’t speak to other bands he’s worked with – they have a lot of autonomy. Rick knows they’re going to come up with a fine product, so he’s not around a lot during the overdubs, because he trusts all those guys to do their thing. He trusts his engineers to make sure that things are recorded well and in tune. His main interest is in getting the basic track down, because if you have a bed track that’s amazing, you can put whatever you want on top of it and the track is going to support it. Sometimes the songs are pared back and simple. Sometimes they need something more. But Rick knows that they’re going come up with the parts. When the band writes the song together they’ll all come up with ideas for overdubs and they’ll know well in advance of actually recording what they’re going to do in the studio.
Rick’s other focus is the vocals, and he was there all the time with every single lead vocal that Anthony sang. They would try different things. They would change lyrics. They’d swap verses and they’d refine stuff right down to the very end when we were mixing. I’ve had to track vocals in the middle of a mix. Anthony wanted to re-sing something, so Andrew would do that, or John needed to do an extra background vocal, so I’d run up to his house and do it. We’ll think a song is done and then Anthony would say, “No, I think that I can beat that,†and then he’d go in and he’d beat it. It’s a process where it’ll be whittled down to the perfect song in the end.
