Slipknot’s Corey Taylor hated working with Rick Rubin: “He’s overrated and overpaid”
Whilst Rick Rubin might have made an indelible impact on popular culture by bringing widely consequential works to life by the likes of Beastie Boys, Slayer, Johnny Cash, Red Hot Chili Peppers and many others, some would claim that the bearded studio whizz is not all he’s cracked up to be, with one of his most prominent critics being Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor.
Notably, Rubin worked with the masked metal group on their third studio album, 2004’s Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses), which features fan favourites such as ‘Duality’ and ‘Before I Forget’. However, Taylor would later recount that he felt Rubin’s work could have been much more attentive, with him criticising his laid-back manner and claiming that he was barely there during the process. Instead, over the years, Taylor has credited engineer Greg Fidelman as the “unsung hero” of the album. The Des Moines band were so happy with Fidelman’s work that he produced the 2014 effort, .5: The Gray Chapter.
Speaking before the 2004 album arrived, Taylor sat down with MTV and demonstrated a touch of reluctance in praising Rubin for his work on the album, suggesting that he wasn’t very present in the process. Asked by the interviewer whether the producer actually showed up as his absence had been made known by other acts in the past, Taylor said: “Yeah, once in a while. Yeah, he kicked it on the couch, stroked his beard and nodded and then he was out.”
The host then referred to Slayer guitarist Kerry King saying that “he didn’t show up” for the thrash band’s sessions. In response, Taylor touched on how some people have found fault with Rubin’s laid-back style: “Well, a lot of people have issues with the way he works. You know, which, it’s fine. Whatever, but, I mean, it’s the end result that really matters, and I think the album will speak for itself.”
So, did the esteemed producer take the band to a new place? Taylor maintained that the group were probably heading there anyway. He asserted: “We were thinking of going there anyway, but, I mean, he definitely encouraged us. You know, on this album, we really wanted to break out of the closed in space we painted for ourselves and really show everybody in the band, show that there was more to this band than just what everybody had seen and tried previously, so we really got the shine on us. We’ve got a lot of really good stuff on it.”
Whilst Taylor’s MTV comments weren’t incendiary, the frontman struck a different chord when he commented on the recording of Vol. 3 during a solo show in 2011. Here, he went into detail about how absent Rubin was at the time, claiming that he was only present for “45 minutes a week”. Taylor also said he would never work with him again as long as he lived.
Taylor said: “Rick Rubin shows up for 45 minutes a week. Rick Rubin would then lay on a couch and have a mic brought next to his face so he wouldn’t have to move. Then he’d be like, ‘Play it for me.’ And he had shades on the whole time.”
He continued: “I respect what Rick Rubin has done. But the Rick Rubin of today is a thin shadow of the Rick Rubin that he was. He is overrated, he is overpaid, and I will never work with him again as long as I fucking live.”
Elsewhere, looking back on the record with the rest of the band for Revolver in 2008, Taylor lamented Rubin’s style again, citing his unhappiness with the sound of his vocals. Part of this was due to Rubin being absent, and part was due to his heavy drinking – by the frontman’s admission. He also claimed that Rubin had eight projects running concurrently at the time.
Taylor said: “I wouldn’t know what it’s like to work with Rick Rubin. I only saw him about four times. Rick Rubin is a nice man. He’s done a lot of good for a lot of people. He didn’t do anything for me. I’m not happy with the vocals on that record. I didn’t get a lot of say in anything. There were a lot of takes that I thought were much better than the ones they used. It sounds amazing, the songs are great. My performances could have been so much fucking better.”
He continued: “And part of it is my fault. I was coming out of a booze-induced coma. But I wasn’t asked about a lot of shit. My melodic vocals sound very cool, my heavy vocals don’t sound that great. And I regret that Rubin just wasn’t there. He had eight different projects going on at the time. We were being charged horrendous amounts of money. And for me, if you’re going to produce something, you’re fucking there. I don’t give a shit who you are.”
In 2019, when speaking on Dean Delray’s Let There Be Talk podcast, Taylor again tore into Rubin’s style and praised Fidelman for his efforts. Here, he dubbed the engineer the “unsung hero” of Vol. 3.
“When it came time to work with Rick, he just wasn’t fucking there,” Taylor said before changing his previous statement about the number of projects the producer had at the time. “He had six different projects going on, it felt like. It’s, like, ‘Oh, I’m working with U2 now.’ And I’m, like, ‘We’re still in the fucking studio, dude.’ Honestly, it wasn’t until we finished the vocals at his house that I saw him more than once a week.”
Praising Fidelman, Taylor continued: “To me, he was the other producer… [Rick was a] nice guy, absolutely nice guy, however, Fidelman was there soup to nuts with us, man. He was there from sometimes six in the morning till four in the morning, I mean, every day, when we needed him.”
Whilst Corey Taylor made his gripes with Rick Rubin very clear, nearly 20 years after Slipknot made Vol. 3, he would seek to make amends for his previous comments. In 2022, he clarified his position during a conversation with Apple Music, saying that he now believes how his work on the album turned out was more his fault than Rubin’s: “I’m going to be honest. I think it was more on my end than it was on his.”
“He works his way and he always has. I was not used to working that way. I was a young guy, freshly sober,” he continued. “Being a singer and being sober, ‘I need your attention, Rick! I need it!’ So that was me being young, unsure of myself, needing the guidance – which I got from Greg Fidelman.”
“All of Rick’s engineers are essentially his surrogates. You know that when you’re working with him,” he added. Taylor also described himself at the time as “an open wound that just needed to heal”, before addingL “I didn’t have anybody there to help me. So I blamed him a lot – in retrospect, probably more than I should have.”
He concluded: “I feel bad about it. Hopefully someday I’ll be able to make some amends with him.”
Perhaps there is credence to Taylor’s refreshed assertions, as in the 2008 Revolver article, his bandmates, Jim Root and Clown, offered opposing views to his. Root’s account was particularly fascinating, as he praised Rubin’s “attentive” style and noted how other band members criticised him. As for Clown, he went as far as to call the producer “the oracle”. Both points are far removed from Taylor’s old ones.
Root said: “Rick was really attentive to what we needed as a band. A lot of people in the band say Rick was unavailable. And yeah, he takes on a lot of projects at one time, but he also does things that are beneficial. He would listen to what we’d done, then he would have us retract things that needed work. He’s kind of like a big brother up on the hill. Even though he wasn’t there physically every day, he was. That’s my favorite record we’ve done.”
Clown added: “Vol. 3 is all about rebuilding friendships and since we were rebuilding, it was really easy to rebuild the innovation of our music. Listen to that fucking record. It’s spiritual. Rick Rubin’s the oracle.”
