The one artist Rick Rubin struggled with in the studio: “I couldn’t read him”
As Rick Rubin knows better than most, artists and producers need to have a telepathic relationship in the studio.
The producer needs to be able to understand precisely what the artist is thinking at every step of the creative process in order to facilitate the vision of whoever it is they are working alongside. However, if their collaborator isn’t willing to say what’s on their mind, the role of the producer is made extremely more difficult.
Typically, these relationships are made easier the more often that an artist works with a producer. Nevertheless, Tom Petty was a special case. Although Rubin worked with him extensively over the years and admired him greatly, he was unable to understand him as fluently as other artists that he worked with closely.
Their first experience together was when Rubin was tasked with producing ‘Mary Jane’s Last Dance’ for a compilation album and covering the Thunderclap Newman track ‘Something In The Air’. Following the project’s success, they reconvened the following year to record Wildflowers, which proved to be a seminal classic that was thoroughly enjoyable for Rubin.
The producer later reflected on this instance during an episode of his Broken Record podcast. He explained to author Malcolm Gladwell how the singer-songwriter was on his “best behaviour” the first time they worked together, which slowly began to unravel the more time they spent in each other’s company. As they continued to collaborate, it became more challenging to communicate as Petty hid away from expressing his true feelings.
As a producer, Rubin wants to work with artists prepared to go the extra mile and challenge themselves in uncharted territory, which Petty shied away from during their later recordings. When Gladwell asked which version of Petty he preferred to work alongside, Rubin honestly replied: “Early. Not that he was trying to please me but that he was willing to do whatever it took for it to be as good as it could be. That was the most fun.”
For that reason, Rubin believes Wildflowers represented one of the high points in the legendary artist’s discography alongside Damn The Torpedoes and Full Moon Fever. However, he was unwilling to say the same for She’s The One and Echo, which he also co-produced. Petty would even disown She’s The One himself years later, which he admitted was “terrible”.
While Rubin painted a glossier picture of a working relationship during their earlier chapters, it still wasn’t straightforward. Rubin later discussed making ‘Mary Jane’s Last Dance’ with Rolling Stone, which epitomised the difficulties of working with Petty. He recalled how it began with Petty passing him a demo tape, which he said contained nothing “particularly memorable”, apart from the riff for ‘Mary Jane’s Last Dance’.
He then gave his feedback, which was another unnecessarily awkward conversation, sharing, “So I call Tom, and was like, ‘Hey, this whole phrase is really good. You may want to write this song.’ And he did [laughs]. I don’t know how he felt about it. I couldn’t read him. Sometimes he would say things very clearly, and sometimes he would not, and feel strongly about something, and I would never know [laughs].”
As a producer, Rubin’s task is to bring an artist’s vision to life. Yet with Petty, he had to act as a mind reader due to the musician’s lack of direct communication. Although they worked together on several projects, Rubin never fully worked Petty out, who much preferred to let his songwriting do the talking on his behalf.
While Wildflowers is undoubtedly a masterpiece, the rest of their work together may have been elevated if their mindsets were closer aligned. Nevertheless, this was also the attribute that helped Petty become an unpredictable enigma.
