“It’s peak”: The band Rick Rubin called the best musicians in the world
Rock and roll isn’t a genre that thrives on virtuoso musicians. Although many legends have become masters of their craft over the years, it’s sometimes better to have an artist who can make a classic out of three chords than someone who can make the most inventive chord sequence ever. While Rick Rubin was more about function over flashiness whenever he went into the studio, he knew that these musicians were some of the finest that he had ever seen in the studio.
When Rubin first started making records, though, he didn’t seem to care whether a song was perfectly in tune or not. Looking through some of his biggest records with Beastie Boys and Run-DMC, the whole premise behind the songs was about trying to get the right feeling down on tape rather than worrying about everything being played to perfection or working with the best turntables.
Even when working with Slayer, that mentality didn’t change at all. Throughout Reign in Blood, some of Kerry King’s licks are some of the most unhinged leads to have ever been put on a masterpiece album, and yet no one complains because it always fits in with what the song is trying to say.
Around the 1990s, though, Rubin got in touch with Red Hot Chili Peppers before they went in to work on Blood Sugar Sex Magik. While most casual rock fans had known them to be that college-bro funk-metal band that played with socks over their more delicate areas, adding John Frusciante meant bringing a whole new depth to their sound.
Although the loss of Hillel Slovak was deeply felt, Frusciante’s sense of melody on both Mother’s Milk and Blood Sugar Sex Magik marked the point where the band started getting much more melodic, especially when bouncing off of Flea’s basslines on ‘Give It Away’ or making heartachingly beautiful moments on ‘I Could Have Lied’. While Flea had always been an absolute legend behind the bass, Rubin said he had never worked with a band that tight ever before.
Despite initially turning down producing the band’s third album, Rubin considered the group one of the best he had ever seen once he saw them in action, saying, “They’re a really good band. It’s why I say I’m not a musician. They’re some of the best musicians in the world — Chad, Flea and John, those three musicians, I don’t know if you can find better musicians than those three. It’s the peak. Whether you like their music or not, their ability to play is on another planet.”
Even when some of the lyrics are a little bit goofy like on ‘Around the World’, hearing each of them jam next to each other is why a tune like ‘Californication’ is so pleasing to listen to. And even by the long runtimes that most Peppers fans are used to, Stadium Arcadium never sounds boring for a second despite being the length of most feature films.
Because when you get musicians like this in a room, it’s about more than jamming on a riff that they think sounds cool. By the time they get into the zone and start making up stuff on the fly, they may as well be speaking in their own language.
