“It was bizarre”: The collaboration Rick Rubin said never worked
The art behind any great song is the process of collaboration. Unless it’s someone like Brian Wilson who has the entire song mapped out in his head before he even records a note of music, the best artists usually find their classics after hearing input from every musician in the room before they settle on what an arrangement should be. And while Rick Rubin always thrived on that kind of collaboration, he knew there were some instances where people mixed like oil and water.
If there was one person who could make different genres work together nicely, it was Rubin. Over the years, he had built up one of the most impressive resumes in music, having connections to artists as diverse as Johnny Cash, Run-DMC, Tom Petty and Slipknot, to name only a few. But there is one piece of connective tissue behind every one of his records: the importance of a good song.
Everything that Rubin had ever worked on was about seeing the music through the eyes of a fan, so it made sense for him to want to make music that would work well on the radio. Even when genres like rap and hip-hop were in their infancy, Rubin was convinced that all the genre needed was the right vehicle to be accepted by the masses, which became a reality when Aerosmith hooked up with Run-DMC for a cover of ‘Walk This Way’.
Run-DMC helped bring that style of music to the masses, but the Beastie Boys were what helped everything blow up and become larger than life. Anyone would have felt that their schtick was a touch annoying when listening to something like ‘Rhymin’ and Stealin’ back in the day, but as long as they had those excellent samples behind them across their tracks, it was impossible for their choruses to get out of people’s heads whenever they played.
This was hip-hop with the spirit of punk rock, so it was only natural for them to work with a handful of rock artists when they could. And since Rubin was working with Slayer around the same time, he knew that Kerry King could deliver a crazy solo on ‘No Sleep Till Brooklyn’, only for them to clash the minute he walked into the studio.
King never bothered to associate with hip-hop, and according to Rubin, you could feel the tension in the air once they tried to find common ground, saying, “Kerry did the guitar solo. I don’t think he liked the song. I think he thought it was bizarre. He’s a real, serious metalhead. He really loves metal, and I don’t think he listens to much music outside of metal. I don’t think it spoke to his aesthetic. And honestly, in retrospect, I don’t think he really spoke to the Beasties’ aesthetic. They didn’t really like him.”
If there was one thing connecting Slayer and the Beasties, it was that sense of punk rock attitude. No one in the room was going to settle on making something that didn’t have some heart behind it, and even if it’s hard to piece together what notes King is even playing, it’s all in service of making the track as noisy and aggressive as possible.
While King may not have had a change of heart, he did come around to this kind of musical cameo later in his career, doing the same thing when Sum 41 asked him to perform a solo on their Beastie Boys pastiche ‘What We’re All About’. It might not have been his musical cup of tea, but sometimes the best collaborations can come from people who aren’t even the best of friends.
