As a kid, he wanted to be a magician: having become a music producer, a wave of the wand was enough for Rick Rubin to transform the Red Hot Chili Peppers into a stadium-filling machine, which he finds on their new album released on Friday.
Today, this guru-looking sonic wizard with his long hermit beard is considered the fifth member of the California band.
“Rick Rubin has a strong imprint, in the 1980s, he was already the fourth Beastie Boys”, at the beginning of this rap group, as Sophie Bramly reminds AFP. She was one of the rare photographers to document the beginnings of hip-hop at that time in New York.
His ease in swimming between musical currents emerges from the career of the sixty-year-old, unknown to the general public. This fan of the punk and rock scene first revealed himself as a rap producer (LL Cool J, Run-DMC, Public Enemy), before touching on everything, metal with Slayer, rap-rock fusion with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, passing through the latest twilight albums of Johnny Cash or pop stars like Shakira, Justin Timberlake and Adele, among many other artists.
“I’m not surprised, the guy was brilliant, with him the sound was so crazy that there was no reason for him to limit himself to hip-hop”, comments Sophie Bramly, who was also a producer-host. in London of “Yo!”, the first show on rap launched by MTV Europe, which will become “Yo! MTV Raps” for the USA.
– “Teddy bear head” –
It all started professionally for Rubin in busy dorm room 712 at NYU (New York University). A small space quickly invaded by vinyl records, speakers and audio equipment. The young man fell into the hip-hop pot. We see him in the shots of Sophie Bramly, beardless, with his AC/DC fanatic perfecto (which he will produce later, of course), one of the rare white faces of the evenings at the Roxy, club-crucible of the rap of the Big Apple.
“He was a big baby student, all round, with a good teddy bear head, super nice, full of New York energy, someone who goes fast, efficient,” the photographer still remembers. Frightened not to find the energy of the clubs on the records he listens to, he founded his first label (with Russell Simmons, manager of Run-DMC.): Def Jam, with the initials DJ all found, with his HQ as his accommodation of student.
The following compiles the imposed figures of US business: dazzling success, growth crisis, new start, move to the West Coast. There he meets the Red Hot Chili Peppers, young crazy dogs from the Los Angeles scene, who live on.
“The first time, at a rehearsal, there are bad vibes, a toxic feeling, because of the drugs, which I understand afterwards,” Rubin once told BBC1. The association will only be made “2-3 years later, when I see them again, they are sober”.
– “Reducer” –
The RHCP then lost their guitarist, Hillel Slovak, who died of an overdose, and replaced him with a young prodigy, John Frusciante.
The latter will also fall into drugs later, will leave the group, will come close to death, will come back, will leave again.
Frusciante reconnects with the Red Hot again, as does Rubin, for “Unlimited Love,” released Friday. We therefore find the cast of “Blood Sugar Sex Magik” (1991), album-launch pad which made the band of Anthony Kiedis megastars.
What is Rubin’s contribution? Kanye West, who has also worked with him, describes him as a “reducer”, not a “producer”. No criticism: with Rubin, we go to the essentials. On the back of “Radio”, LL Cool J’s debut album, we read “Reduced by Rick Rubin”.
Rubin doesn’t just reduce when cooked, he also adds his grain of salt. Like when he suggests that Jay-Z attack his famous “99 Problems” a capella. Last anecdote: “Blood Sugar…” was recorded in a house that belonged to Harry Houdini, an illusionist who inevitably made the apprentice magician Rubin dream.
–
