“The best American rock band,” according to Rick Rubin
Rick Rubin has been around the block more than a couple of times when it comes to any genre of music.
From working with the biggest names in country music to founding the first major imprint for hip-hop with Def Jam, Rubin has never kept any genre off the table when it came time to work with a band. As far as the best artists that America has to offer, Rubin said that no one could beat Tom Petty when he was working with him.
Rubin has always been a strange member of the music community. Not because he doesn’t deserve his place, or shouldn’t be considered among the greatest producers the world has ever known, but because Rubin has achieved this feat while seemingly having no innate musical talent, at least as it comes to playing instruments.
Considering Rubin’s background in punk rock and hip-hop, it’s strange how he would end up recording one of the biggest names in what many consider to be dad rock. When Petty was first making his classics, Rubin was on the completely opposite side of the spectrum, pioneering the sounds of Run-DMC and also finding time to work with metal juggernauts like Slayer on their first masterpieces.
Rubin doesn’t like to limit himself to just one genre, though. From the moment he walks into the studio, he has always been more concerned with the way that the music is moving him than whether everything is in tune, looking to get the best out of every artist he works with. While he had drifted towards mainstream music in the past, his conversion moment came when he heard Full Moon Fever for the first time.
As The Heartbreakers approached another decade, with their esteem only gaining more and more driving force, Tom Petty cut them from his upcoming project. Instead, he unleashed his first solo project to prove that he alone was worth his weight in gold. Full Moon Fever is arguably one of the defining rock albums of the decade. The album made Petty a pop star.
Listening to the album on repeat for months, Rubin fell in love with Petty’s music and was determined to work with him, only to be given a firm no. Since Petty had been produced by longtime friend Jeff Lynne on the last few records, chances were slim that he would be able to work with someone like Rubin at all.
As the Heartbreakers entered the 1990s, Petty started moving towards a new sound, wanting to capture the kind of authenticity of the band playing in the room. Liking what he had heard from the past few Johnny Cash records, guitarist Mike Campbell was the first to suggest Rubin as a possibility for the next album, Wildflowers.
With the bearded guru sitting behind the desk, Petty could experiment with whatever he could, trying his best to create different textures behind the board. Although the album would have only Petty’s name on the front, he never saw Wildflowers as a solo record, often calling it one of the best Heartbreakers albums that the band ever made.
Looking back on working with Petty, Rubin was convinced that out of all the bands he had worked with, The Heartbreakers were what American rock and roll was supposed to sound like, saying, “[They’re] arguably the best American rock band, so you have a great band, with great songs, who make great records. It’s really hard to beat”.
Rubin wasn’t willing to give up working with them after the record had finished, either, going on to help produce their next album, Echo and using most of the band when he worked on Johnny Cash’s next record, Unchained. This was far from the sounds of hard rock and hip-hop, but if it sounded good in the room, nothing else seemed to matter.
