Speaker 1: Pushkin. Just a quick note here. You can listen to
Speaker 1: all of the music mentioned in this episode on our playlist,
Speaker 1: which you can find a link to in the show
Speaker 1: notes for licensing reasons, each time a song is referenced
Speaker 1: in this episode, you'll hear this sound effect all right.
Speaker 1: Enjoy the episode. Over the past fifteen years, Nashville superproducer
Speaker 1: Dave Cobb has managed to inject some much needed soul
Speaker 1: into country music. Dave Cobb has earned six Grammys for
Speaker 1: standout work with artists like Jason Isabel, Brandy Carlyle, and
Speaker 1: Chris Stapleton, whose song Tennessee Whiskey We're listening to now
Speaker 1: and as You'll Hear Today, Dave Pull's inspiration from sources
Speaker 1: not normally associated with country music. Dave worshiped Ozzy Osborne
Speaker 1: as a kid despite growing up in an avout Pentecostal family,
Speaker 1: and in the early nineties he cut his teeth as
Speaker 1: a session guitarist in Atlanta, working with hip hop and
Speaker 1: R and B producers Jermaine dupri and Dallas Austin. Rick
Speaker 1: Rubin and Dave Cobb connected over zoom recently to talk
Speaker 1: about Dave's unconventional path to becoming a country music producer.
Speaker 1: They also talk about the power of being an outsider
Speaker 1: and the value of goofing around in the studio. This
Speaker 1: is broken record liner notes for the Digital Age. I'm
Speaker 1: justin Richmond. Here's Rick Rubin and Dave Cobb. So how's
Speaker 1: everything been going. How are you feeling. I'm good. I'm
Speaker 1: just surviving the apocalypse. You know, it's it's a weird time.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it's weird for you guys as well. You know,
Speaker 1: I just it sometimes feel like, you know, we have
Speaker 1: a job. We go in the studio, we don't see
Speaker 1: the outside world. That feels kind of norm until you
Speaker 1: actually leave, and then then I realize, you know, we're
Speaker 1: on the other side or something. Have you been able
Speaker 1: to work straight through you know, I took there was
Speaker 1: a lockdown here, so I didn't work during that time,
Speaker 1: but you know, I went back shortly afterwards, and it's
Speaker 1: you know, it's always in the back of your mind, right,
Speaker 1: everything about it. But you know, I think I'm always
Speaker 1: sensitive to I think maybe it's our job to read
Speaker 1: the room and read everything around you, and you can
Speaker 1: just see people come in a little bit disoriented. You know,
Speaker 1: we have to kind of shake it off. You know.
Speaker 1: Tequila usually helps with that though. Yeah. I feel like
Speaker 1: as soon as the music starts playing it it changes everything.
Speaker 1: Like whatever whatever else is going on in the world
Speaker 1: is diminished in that moment when the groove is good.
Speaker 1: You know, absolutely absolutely, man, You're you're right about that.
Speaker 1: What's going on out there? Everything's cool, usual, usual stuff,
Speaker 1: just you know, trying to make good stuff. Well, you
Speaker 1: always seem to pull that off. Dry my best you got.
Speaker 1: You got the best career of all time. I just
Speaker 1: want to say doing being a producer. You you have
Speaker 1: the best career of all time. Tell me why you
Speaker 1: Why do you say that? Because you get to do
Speaker 1: run DMC, you get to do country, and you get
Speaker 1: to do Slayer. It's like, come on, and you know
Speaker 1: who doesn't want that career? You know, it's just the
Speaker 1: music I like. You know, it's just the music I like. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you get to do the music you like? Yeah. Absolutely, No,
Speaker 1: I'm very I'm very fortunate. Absolutely So tell me how
Speaker 1: did you end up in this, uh, in this funny
Speaker 1: position that you're in. Um, you know, I never I
Speaker 1: never wanted to be a producer. It wasn't something I
Speaker 1: woke up and said, you know, I'm going to do
Speaker 1: this when I grow old. You know, I wanted to
Speaker 1: be in a band and and and have a career
Speaker 1: being a guitar player in the band, and and you know,
Speaker 1: of course, we find that we signed a typical bad
Speaker 1: record deal and kind of got stuck. And if I
Speaker 1: did anything, it would go to the label. If I
Speaker 1: didn't do anything, it would go to label. So I
Speaker 1: started producing friends of Minds bands and then they got
Speaker 1: record deals, and next thing you know, I'm living in Nashville.
Speaker 1: So you know, it's but you know, through that whole world,
Speaker 1: I went through being a session player for a long
Speaker 1: time as well, and learning from people like Jermaine dupri
Speaker 1: and Dallas Austin and and uh and just kind of
Speaker 1: figuring it out, figuring like, you know what, if I'm
Speaker 1: a producer, I get to go home. I sleep in
Speaker 1: my own bed. That was really the big cell for me,
Speaker 1: you know, because I never liked touring. I never liked travel.
Speaker 1: So it's interesting that the people you came up under
Speaker 1: were Jermaine and Dallas. Considering what you're doing now, it's
Speaker 1: just it's again, it's another world. Well, I'm I'm from
Speaker 1: I'm from Georgia, Savannah, Georgia. But I lived in Atlanta
Speaker 1: when in my formidable year is kind of coming up
Speaker 1: and and those guys were just owning the town, you know.
Speaker 1: And this guy, Darren Prindle bought me into play guitar
Speaker 1: on the session for Dallas and that's how kind of
Speaker 1: how it started. And I was fascinated with that world. Man.
Speaker 1: I loved I loved the era of R and B.
Speaker 1: You know, in Atlanta, it was it was on fire
Speaker 1: in the early nineties. So it was cool to kind
Speaker 1: of see some of that stuff firsthand and the talent
Speaker 1: that was in the room, you know. But I always
Speaker 1: my passion was always to make rock and roll records.
Speaker 1: So I moved up to Los Angeles thinking that was
Speaker 1: the kingdom of rock and roll. And I go out
Speaker 1: to LA and I wind up producing dis Guys Shooter
Speaker 1: Jennings and having kind of a you know, a country
Speaker 1: single on the radio and it kind of started going
Speaker 1: and then the country then kind of fell on my lap.
Speaker 1: I mean, growing up in Georgia, I didn't I didn't
Speaker 1: really love country. It wasn't my thing at all. I mean,
Speaker 1: it wasn't really really even my parents saying my parents were,
Speaker 1: you know, I had My grandmother was Pentecostal minister, so
Speaker 1: we heard a lot of church music. But aside from
Speaker 1: that and a lot of secular stuff escape except for
Speaker 1: the super mainstream country in the late seventies and early eighties,
Speaker 1: and man, I wanted nothing to do with it, you know,
Speaker 1: I wanted to listen to a CDC and Van Halen
Speaker 1: and led Zeppelin and Beatles, and eventually, through meeting Shooter Jennings,
Speaker 1: he'd introduced me to the good country, which I call
Speaker 1: a good country. Then the obviously Whale and Jennings and
Speaker 1: Jerry Reid and George Jones and all the stuff I
Speaker 1: really loved now, so I fell in love it. Once
Speaker 1: I found the rock and rolling country, I think I
Speaker 1: got it. You know, when I heard Whale in his band,
Speaker 1: his band were playing rock and roll for all tensive purposes.
Speaker 1: There was a phaser on the guitar, there was a
Speaker 1: you know, almost like a driving country funk groove to
Speaker 1: the drums. I got it all of a sudden. It
Speaker 1: made sense. There were rough edges, I guess I was
Speaker 1: always looking for music that had rough edges. Rough edges
Speaker 1: always attracted me, whether it was you know, hip hop,
Speaker 1: R and B, soul, country, bluegrass, whatever it was. I
Speaker 1: want rough edges, you know, I like the mistakes. You know,
Speaker 1: tell me a little bit about what you saw when
Speaker 1: you're working with Dallas, your studio guitar player. Technologically, what
Speaker 1: was going on there and how does that relate to
Speaker 1: how you make music today. Well, I didn't get a
Speaker 1: ton of time with them, you know, I was mainly
Speaker 1: in the studio cutting tracks. There was a guy named
Speaker 1: t Smith that was signed to his label, Rawdy Records,
Speaker 1: and I got to kind of work with them and
Speaker 1: develop the demos. But I remember taking those demos and
Speaker 1: they wound up using one of the tracks and I
Speaker 1: just recorded it with one mic I don't know, a cassette,
Speaker 1: cassette four track or something. And I remember going to
Speaker 1: the studio with his engineers and next thing you know,
Speaker 1: they were using gates the trigger you know, MPCs to
Speaker 1: put samples in it and kind of build a track,
Speaker 1: and I remember it's being so cool they're able to
Speaker 1: do this. I mean, this is something that took god
Speaker 1: knows all day, you know, to do. And just watch
Speaker 1: how technology has changed so much is amazing. But it
Speaker 1: was cool to watch the way those guys thought, I mean,
Speaker 1: they were doing everything we're doing right now. I just
Speaker 1: took a little bit longer, you know. And I remember
Speaker 1: going in and watching them do vocals with artists. I
Speaker 1: remember walking into the Deborah Cox session and Deborah Cox
Speaker 1: had filled up an entire twenty four track with backgrounds,
Speaker 1: and that was the sound of those big records he
Speaker 1: was doing at that time, had track after the track
Speaker 1: and layer after layer, and that's with no technology, that's
Speaker 1: just singing and just building it. It was It was cool.
Speaker 1: It was was watching an absolute, you know, masterpiece come
Speaker 1: come to life in front of you and seeing how
Speaker 1: all that came together. This is when sampling became a
Speaker 1: no no all of a sudden. Everyone was getting sued
Speaker 1: for samples. So me and a couple other kids would
Speaker 1: go in and jam and they'd say, you know, can
Speaker 1: you play something like Curtis Mayfield? So then I go
Speaker 1: down a Curtis Mayfield deep dive, or so can you
Speaker 1: can you play something kind of like the Jbs or
Speaker 1: the Meters? And that was an education in music to
Speaker 1: learn those records and try to figure out, I mean,
Speaker 1: no one can play like any of those bands or
Speaker 1: any of those guys but it was cool. We just
Speaker 1: jam all day and they had a dat going the
Speaker 1: entire time, and then they would take the DAT and
Speaker 1: then they may take one bar of it and turn
Speaker 1: it into a new sample. And it was it was cool.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't really the record making process. It got me.
Speaker 1: It was the education of incredible bands and artists I
Speaker 1: heard through people that knew a lot more about in
Speaker 1: me the music, you know, and and learning the studying
Speaker 1: Curtis Mayfield's guitar playing. I mean, it's something I sneak
Speaker 1: in country all the time, you know, whether I'm doing
Speaker 1: a rock record or a country record, it's the soul.
Speaker 1: I'm always trying to get the soul that's on the
Speaker 1: soul record because to me, that that's that's the magic.
Speaker 1: You know, it's that that's that swing that you're kind
Speaker 1: of missing the one a little bit and you're coming
Speaker 1: right behind it, you know, with a bass or whatever
Speaker 1: it is. It's that pocket beautiful. So you were saying
Speaker 1: that where you grew up, there was not there was
Speaker 1: not music in your house other than church music. Is
Speaker 1: this correct? When you were growing up pretty much? You know,
Speaker 1: my parents weren't. I mean, they're amazing and my mom
Speaker 1: absolutely supported me playing music. She sneak off and buy
Speaker 1: me a drum kid or take me to a bass
Speaker 1: lesson or whatever. So she was there. She was supportive.
Speaker 1: But the music I mainly heard was, you know, at church,
Speaker 1: because I felt like I couldn't get out of church.
Speaker 1: I had to go to church, you know, since I'm
Speaker 1: the grandson of the of the preacher, I had to
Speaker 1: be there Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday morning, Sunday night, vacation,
Speaker 1: Bible study, Christian school. It's like you couldn't get away,
Speaker 1: you know, couldn't get away from it. So what I
Speaker 1: did like about that is I love him Tho still
Speaker 1: to this day, I think, I think they're just beautiful,
Speaker 1: the cadence of it all. And obviously that's that's a
Speaker 1: huge building block of country music, so I understand that.
Speaker 1: But we had a piano, we had a pedal steel
Speaker 1: in the church, and an acoustic guitar. No drums, but uh,
Speaker 1: just the music was definitely steeped empty. But I would
Speaker 1: I would go out and find Black Sabbath and Ozzie.
Speaker 1: I think I got maybe Ozzy first. Maybe it was
Speaker 1: you know, a blizzard of oz was the first record
Speaker 1: to discovered by Ozzy and had to hide the record,
Speaker 1: had to hide it, and I had had an azzi
Speaker 1: poster and I had to hide it in the addict.
Speaker 1: You know, I would for sure we go into hell
Speaker 1: if they were found. Was that Your first memory of
Speaker 1: your own music was Ozzie? No, The first memory I
Speaker 1: ever had with music, I maybe was really young. My
Speaker 1: aunt she uh, she had gone through a divorce and
Speaker 1: she came to live with us for a little while,
Speaker 1: and she bought some of her records, and it was
Speaker 1: during disco era, you know, this is late seventies, and
Speaker 1: I remember she had really great records. But the records
Speaker 1: I really remember was the forty five for New Kid
Speaker 1: in Town by the Eagles, which is my first favorite song.
Speaker 1: I didn't know there was the Beatles at that young age,
Speaker 1: but those harmonies I was so attracted to. It's such
Speaker 1: a brilliant, brilliant arrangement on that song. So I remember
Speaker 1: that that record being probably the first record that that
Speaker 1: I go WHOA, what is this? You know, and just
Speaker 1: obsessed with it until somebody stepped on it and broke it.
Speaker 1: But that you know that and disco duck this might
Speaker 1: have been the first formidable records of my life. You know,
Speaker 1: Disco Duck was a good one. Yeah, he's in top
Speaker 1: ten for me of all time. Bicks of that, you know,
Speaker 1: and then and then it graduated to Ozzie and would
Speaker 1: you say mostly hard rock heavy metal was the was
Speaker 1: the The Beatles were the thing my dad did like
Speaker 1: my dad did, like the Beach Boys. That was one
Speaker 1: of the ones. He loved Buddy Holly and he loved Elvis.
Speaker 1: So I did hear a little bit of that on
Speaker 1: Greatest Hits cassettes, you know, Yeah, but uh yeah, the
Speaker 1: Beatles were kind of my thing because I remember listening
Speaker 1: to The Day in the Life by the Beatles and thinking, like,
Speaker 1: how does humans make that music? It just doesn't seem
Speaker 1: I don't know how what what kind of stars have
Speaker 1: to align for that to happen? You know, that song,
Speaker 1: everything about it is perfect. I mean, Ringo is my
Speaker 1: favorite drummer of all time. Every drum fell a single
Speaker 1: bowl on that song. The bassline is defying what any
Speaker 1: other bass player was doing at the time. You know,
Speaker 1: you have this crescendo of strings that it goes into
Speaker 1: explosion into a whole different tempo and different Feel and
Speaker 1: Alarm Clock and Psychedelic Oz at the end. I just
Speaker 1: I was captivated by it. It doesn't get better, it
Speaker 1: doesn't get better, and it doesn't get old. Ozzie too, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Ozzie too hearing you know, like Suicide Solution and and
Speaker 1: all those songs. Again, I thought I was doing something
Speaker 1: really dangerous, and I think that's what I liked about it,
Speaker 1: you know. And but you know, Ozzie was you were
Speaker 1: You got a chance to work with Ozzie, which is
Speaker 1: I'm so jealous of that. But Ozzie, even though it
Speaker 1: was heavy, it was catchy and they're beautiful pop songs
Speaker 1: and that stuff you know here and uh, mister Crawley,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just a beautiful classical arrangement to that song,
Speaker 1: you know, the keyboard at the beginning, you know, and
Speaker 1: and Randy Rhodes guitar soul. You could sing every riff
Speaker 1: of it, and everything Ozzy's saying was just ketchy, ketchy,
Speaker 1: ketchy ketchy. When he does melodies, he always seems to descend.
Speaker 1: People look to me and say, he goes down and
Speaker 1: everybody else goes up. He just he did pop in
Speaker 1: a different different way, you know. He meant so much
Speaker 1: to me as a kid. I think that first Black
Speaker 1: Sabbath record is probably the heaviest record of all time,
Speaker 1: you know. I know there's my Sugar and bands that
Speaker 1: are really heavy and powerful and awesome, but that record
Speaker 1: is so terrifying. You know, the big church bell and
Speaker 1: everything just terrifying. It scared me. The song Black sabbathysists
Speaker 1: heave Us. It cuts period and I remember, you know again,
Speaker 1: I grew up so heavy in church and they used
Speaker 1: to actually have Sunday school meetings about you know, Ozzy
Speaker 1: was worshiping the devil, and you obviously all the backmasking stuff,
Speaker 1: and kids were knights in Satan's service. You know, we
Speaker 1: heard all that stuff. So it made it extra scary,
Speaker 1: you know. I think I think that's while I was
Speaker 1: so attracted to it. It just seemed like, you know,
Speaker 1: oh man, this is dangerous. You know. It's funny to
Speaker 1: see the footage of him in the Azzie documentary before
Speaker 1: he goes out on stage where he gets on his
Speaker 1: knees and he prays and he crosses himself. It's so beautiful. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: but we didn't know that. We thought he was you know,
Speaker 1: he legitimately eight bats daily, you know, but that must
Speaker 1: have been cool. But also you've got Tonya Almy in
Speaker 1: the band, and he's a butler and Bill Ward, I mean,
Speaker 1: he's absolute ledges. But I think Tony Almy might be
Speaker 1: the riff master of all time too. I think so.
Speaker 1: I think he is. I mean, Jimmy Page is number
Speaker 1: one for me. Let's Zeppelin. Jimmy Page for sure number
Speaker 1: one guitar player. But man, Tonya Almy just as riffs terrifying.
Speaker 1: It's amazing when those guys, as soon as the Black
Speaker 1: Sabbath guys plug in and play, it can't sound like
Speaker 1: anything other than Black Sabbath, you know, it's so in great.
Speaker 1: It's like we think of you know, so many bands
Speaker 1: try to play like Black Sabbath, but that's just how
Speaker 1: they play. And whenever anyone plays like them, it doesn't
Speaker 1: sound really anything like it when they do it. It
Speaker 1: just it's it's just the natural way that it comes out.
Speaker 1: It's unbelievable, thrilling. I think there's something to Bill Ward's playing.
Speaker 1: It's got this hurry up and slow down boh. It's
Speaker 1: just so catches you and it slows up and speeds down,
Speaker 1: and it's so heavy, so have every fill he had.
Speaker 1: It's just it's beautiful, beautiful, so beautiful that whole band.
Speaker 1: Man such a fan. And then after Ozzie, what was
Speaker 1: your next? I think I got into band. It was
Speaker 1: an exciting time, you know, coming into late eighties early nineties,
Speaker 1: All of a sudden there were bands like Fishbone, which
Speaker 1: I adored Fishbone. I thought they were great. I love
Speaker 1: that band. I thought they were mixing up everything, and
Speaker 1: I think music was exciting for a while, where the
Speaker 1: beginnings of Lollapaloosa where you had Alan Jennings and nine
Speaker 1: Ish Nails and Fishbone, all the radio starting to be
Speaker 1: the beginning of alternative music, and the radio playing this
Speaker 1: music that seemed to be going like this and just
Speaker 1: spreading out and music with evolving. I mean, you had
Speaker 1: a lot to do with it with Red Out of
Speaker 1: Chili Peppers. They were one of those bands. It's like
Speaker 1: that they didn't really sound like anybody else. They sounded
Speaker 1: like all the cool elements of lots of music that
Speaker 1: you liked. And then for some reason, maybe that format
Speaker 1: just changed one day and became like Okay, here's the rules,
Speaker 1: and you got to play by these to have a hit.
Speaker 1: But at that point, it feels like you could have
Speaker 1: a hit by not playing by the rules. So anything
Speaker 1: that didn't play by the rules I got into, And
Speaker 1: particularly Trent Resner. I was really into nine Ish Nails.
Speaker 1: I really thought it was just again super dangerous. You know,
Speaker 1: even though there were clicks in programming, he didn't feel
Speaker 1: like that. It felt soulful. Absolutely. Maybe back up before that,
Speaker 1: Van Halen was a big one for me too growing up.
Speaker 1: I just you know, Eddie's a guitar player who I
Speaker 1: think every kid who started playing guitar in the eighties
Speaker 1: wanted to learn how to play a look like them,
Speaker 1: but nobody could. I And I sat and I studied
Speaker 1: that stuff like textbooks and learned every riff. And I've
Speaker 1: never been able to use tapping in a song. He
Speaker 1: was able to do it, and it was awesome and
Speaker 1: catchy and and uh, it's so much melody and what
Speaker 1: that guy did. And again, super soulful player. So I
Speaker 1: was really attracted to that too. And Guns of Roses
Speaker 1: I adored, you know, at the typical Southern story of
Speaker 1: you know, cousin m worked at a tape store and
Speaker 1: he had appetite for destruction and he picked up. You know,
Speaker 1: two girls are older than us. I was thirteen and
Speaker 1: we had wine coolers and a dirt road and listened
Speaker 1: to Appetite for Destruction. I don't know what's more rock
Speaker 1: and roll than that. And obviously, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: think I even like looked where the girl was. I
Speaker 1: was too scared. But just the list hearing that, I
Speaker 1: think I was more occupied with the cassette of guns
Speaker 1: of roses than I was you know anything at the time.
Speaker 1: You know, when did you start playing guitar? Thirteen? Drums
Speaker 1: are my first instrument. I started really young on that,
Speaker 1: and then bass and then guitar. I figured I couldn't
Speaker 1: really write a song just playing drums with the instruments
Speaker 1: in your house. My granddaddy Cob my dad's dad, he
Speaker 1: always played, and my grandmother, the preacher. She was a
Speaker 1: beautiful singer. She had written songs, had gotten published. You know,
Speaker 1: she actually got a publishing deal from Disney in the
Speaker 1: forties in the middle of the war and had to
Speaker 1: turn it down. So she had had a bunch of
Speaker 1: Christian songs published. So there was it was around me.
Speaker 1: She gave me a guitar young and my other granddaddy
Speaker 1: gave me a guitar, and my parents gave me a
Speaker 1: couple of lessons, and so there was always around. But
Speaker 1: you know, I don't remember a time not playing music.
Speaker 1: You know, I wish I was at this age. I
Speaker 1: wish I was good at something else. Not that I'm
Speaker 1: good at music, but I wish I had a hobby.
Speaker 1: I mean, you might need to tell me some hobbies
Speaker 1: to take up. I've tried. I've tried motorcycles and I
Speaker 1: like to look at him. You know, I don't do sports.
Speaker 1: I don't watch sports. You know, I need a hobby.
Speaker 1: So if you got a hobby, Rick, let me know.
Speaker 1: Would you like to read? No? Hell no, I'm dyslexic.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I'm looking at looking at reading. It's just
Speaker 1: like it's as will put me in a jail sale
Speaker 1: it's audio books. Audiobooks might be your I think I
Speaker 1: think it's the OCD man. I need to find something
Speaker 1: that that totally takes me away for a second. But
Speaker 1: pretty much, if I have a day off, I'm trying to,
Speaker 1: you know, chase something music related every day, you know,
Speaker 1: but I do need something. Maybe it's dominoes. I don't know.
Speaker 1: So guitar starts at thirteen, the first things you're playing
Speaker 1: are along with like Ozzie Records, Van Halen Records. Is
Speaker 1: that the first Yeah, definitely, which is terrifying because no
Speaker 1: one should start with those records. You know. I think
Speaker 1: when I say I was playing along, it was probably
Speaker 1: really shittily, you know, But you know, I think learning
Speaker 1: you know, Crazy Train or something early on that those
Speaker 1: were the ones to stick with you just bawn on.
Speaker 1: I don't know, you can kind of handle that too.
Speaker 1: It's two strings for the most part. For that when
Speaker 1: it gets the other part, forget about it. But I
Speaker 1: think I learned lots of parts of songs. I don't
Speaker 1: think I was one to ever learn every single note
Speaker 1: of it, So I know, I know, like lots of
Speaker 1: songs starts and that's where it ends. And I think
Speaker 1: that's probably probably it made me get into writing and
Speaker 1: stuff like that more because I can you know, I
Speaker 1: didn't have the patients to even learn the whole song.
Speaker 1: So again, but you know, all that stuff filtered in ACDC.
Speaker 1: I forgot a CDC massive one for me, massive massive
Speaker 1: ACDC fan. I had a guitar teacher that he had
Speaker 1: a black SG and he would only teach me ACDC,
Speaker 1: so I go pick up, you know, sneaking by dirty
Speaker 1: d under cheap and walking there, and that's how you
Speaker 1: would teach me. So we skip Mary had a little
Speaker 1: lad went straight to highway to hell. You know, ACDC huge,
Speaker 1: Angus and Malcolm huge to me huge, And I still
Speaker 1: play a g chord like the young brothers. They don't play. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they skip a couple of strings, and I still play
Speaker 1: like them, you know in that sense? Do you know
Speaker 1: that Malcolm would use heavy strings and Angus would use
Speaker 1: light strings, and they would pick their chords so that
Speaker 1: between the two of them it would be like the
Speaker 1: two hands on a piano. Really, I did not know
Speaker 1: that that is so cool. Some he told me, and
Speaker 1: maybe you could validate this, that it might have been
Speaker 1: their brother George. It would sneak a piano under the
Speaker 1: guitar sometimes, Is that true. I know that they would
Speaker 1: try out their songs on piano as compositions to see
Speaker 1: if the song stood up. Oh wow, yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: know if it was ever on the records. I think
Speaker 1: somebody should make a piano version of AC's the greatest hit,
Speaker 1: be Great. That might be That might be your next project,
Speaker 1: I know, too bad. I can't play piano, but yeah,
Speaker 1: Bedtime with a CDC. You know, that's a that's a
Speaker 1: good one, you know. I don't know how well that
Speaker 1: would put you Hell's Bells the Singers kid to sleep,
Speaker 1: but it would be fun to listen to. Maybe Chris
Speaker 1: Stapleton singing Hell's Bells would be really good. I could imagine,
Speaker 1: you know what, he could sing the shit out of
Speaker 1: a I bet he's a hell of a rock and
Speaker 1: roll singer. He can sing the phone book. You know.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back with Dave Cobb after a short break.
Speaker 1: We're back with Rick Rubin and Dave Cobb. So you
Speaker 1: got to work with the Colds, right. That was the
Speaker 1: first first rock album I ever produced, was the Cult
Speaker 1: Electric And tell me about walking into a situation because
Speaker 1: I know you'd done rap early on walking to that
Speaker 1: band at that time, because I like, I loved that band.
Speaker 1: I was a big fan of the Colt But that
Speaker 1: record did not sound like what the band sounded like
Speaker 1: prior to you making that record. How do you go
Speaker 1: in from producing BC boys walking in and going like, Okay,
Speaker 1: you guys are gonna change everything. How does that happen?
Speaker 1: It happened in stages and it wasn't well, I'll tell you,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you the whole story. They had liked the
Speaker 1: hip hop records I was making, and they reached out
Speaker 1: and as if I would do a remix. They had
Speaker 1: already finished the album that was going to be electric,
Speaker 1: a completely different album than the one that we made,
Speaker 1: and they came and asked me to remix two songs
Speaker 1: from their new album. And then they loved the remixes
Speaker 1: and said, and it started like, let's remix it, but
Speaker 1: they came, so I had them replace stuff to make
Speaker 1: it more like the way I wanted it, and then
Speaker 1: we made the new version of those and then they said, well,
Speaker 1: maybe this is just what the whole album should be.
Speaker 1: And then we just made that made that album. It
Speaker 1: didn't start with the idea of either making an album.
Speaker 1: It started as a remix project. Wow. But I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, the guitars on that were just to me.
Speaker 1: It was like the first record post seventies or early
Speaker 1: eighties that had that rock guitar. Yeah. Well, I always
Speaker 1: loved I loved rock music, and they thought of themselves
Speaker 1: as a rock band and as a rock fan. I said, well,
Speaker 1: what you guys, do is cool, but it's not this,
Speaker 1: And if you want it to be this, we can
Speaker 1: do this. And they're like, well, yeah, let's do that. Wow. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: that was such a great record, such an inspiring record,
Speaker 1: you know, coming up because it felt dangerous, you know again,
Speaker 1: music maybe at that time was starting to get a
Speaker 1: little safer, and you made sure it wasn't in the Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was still living at the dorm at NYU, and
Speaker 1: I would walk from the dorm to Electric Lady where
Speaker 1: we recorded that album. It was a good experience. How
Speaker 1: did you wind up in La? Like? What made that happen?
Speaker 1: From from New York? I came out to do a
Speaker 1: soundtrack album for the Lesson Zero movie and I loved
Speaker 1: that movie. Cool. I was living in a hotel for
Speaker 1: nine months and eventually decided to buy a house, not
Speaker 1: thinking I was going to live in LA. But when
Speaker 1: I came to La, I would stay in a house
Speaker 1: instead of living in a hotel, because if you've lived
Speaker 1: in a hotel for any period of time, it's not
Speaker 1: a great it's not a great way to live. So
Speaker 1: got a house thinking this would be the place I
Speaker 1: would come instead of going with the hotel. It was
Speaker 1: right across the street from the hotel, but it was
Speaker 1: a house so it felt more private. And then really
Speaker 1: just never went back. I never officially moved to California
Speaker 1: until after being there for about five years and realizing, well,
Speaker 1: I guess I live here now. Man. That less Less
Speaker 1: a zero soundtrack the Hazy Shaded Winter cover on that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I produced that. Oh man, Yeah, I love the Bengals,
Speaker 1: Love love the Bengals, and and that's that must have
Speaker 1: been intimidating too, because that's a Simon a Garth Funcle song,
Speaker 1: and like, you know, just all of a sudden, I
Speaker 1: felt like I didn't know the Simon Garfuncle wrote that song.
Speaker 1: When I heard your version of it, I thought that
Speaker 1: they had written that song. And it feels like their
Speaker 1: song must have been a huge hill to climb to
Speaker 1: make that their song. You know, it actually was pretty natural.
Speaker 1: They picked it themselves. I had picked a song that
Speaker 1: I thought would be great for us to do together.
Speaker 1: That was that was a yardbird song. But I imagine
Speaker 1: them doing it in harm with harmonies, and it would
Speaker 1: have been a really cool thing. And then they're like, well,
Speaker 1: why don't we just do Hazy Shaw to Winters? Like, okay, fine,
Speaker 1: and then that ended up being what it was. And also,
Speaker 1: if I'm my memory serves me, h, Aerosmith was on
Speaker 1: that too, right, Yes, And I grew up, you know,
Speaker 1: Aerosmith was one of my favorite bands growing up, So
Speaker 1: that was the that the first time, I guess we'd
Speaker 1: already done Walk this Way, so it was the second
Speaker 1: time I got to work with them at that time.
Speaker 1: Were they getting along when you guys recorded that song?
Speaker 1: Is that good Aerosmith time? Or were they they fighting?
Speaker 1: I think they were always sort of cool, not cool,
Speaker 1: you know, like there was never a time where they
Speaker 1: weren't speaking that I knew, and there was always this
Speaker 1: sort of tension rivalry in the band, but it was
Speaker 1: always okay to be around them. I know. I know
Speaker 1: you've done a lot of country stuff. What was the
Speaker 1: country record that got you? Obviously you worked with Cash,
Speaker 1: but was there a specific country record that kind of
Speaker 1: got you? I mean, growing up, I liked like the
Speaker 1: pop country that you would hear when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: like Glenn Campbell was great. I watched Hehaw, you know,
Speaker 1: so the guys on Heehaw and always liked the you know,
Speaker 1: the picking, you know, like dueling banjo's like that that
Speaker 1: kind of I was like folk music as well, SOALY
Speaker 1: came through those roots. But I would never I would
Speaker 1: never think of myself as a fan of country music
Speaker 1: because so much of the country music at the time
Speaker 1: that I was really involved in looking for music was
Speaker 1: a kind of a plastic sound that that didn't really
Speaker 1: speak to me. I feel like, what's one of the
Speaker 1: great one of your great contributions is you've made country
Speaker 1: music great again, and I really appreciate that. I love
Speaker 1: speaking of Glenn Campbell man which tall i'man that might
Speaker 1: be the perfect song I think not only knows in
Speaker 1: which tall i'man might the best best songs of all time,
Speaker 1: you know, absolutely perfect. And then knowing that he played
Speaker 1: on you know Monkeys albums that I grew up loving.
Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, there's a great picture in my studio
Speaker 1: where the Monkeys came and they did I think they
Speaker 1: did well. I can't remember the song, but they did
Speaker 1: one of the songs with Mike Nesmith in my studio,
Speaker 1: and there's pictures in the wall of all those guys,
Speaker 1: Belton Jarvis, the producer bringing Monkeys in the studio. I
Speaker 1: feel like we don't have fun now like those guys
Speaker 1: had fun. I feel like we're we're you know, not
Speaker 1: really live in the dream the way they did. You know,
Speaker 1: you call the eighties, which are probably a blast. I
Speaker 1: don't know. It's always I have a feeling, it's always
Speaker 1: dudes in a room working hard to make something good
Speaker 1: is ultimately what it is, and everything else is just
Speaker 1: a fantasy. Yeah, I don't know, man. I read the
Speaker 1: stories of people with drug habits and yellow Lamborghinis and
Speaker 1: we missed them all, you know. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know that even those guys would say those
Speaker 1: were the fun times. The probably don't remember them. You know,
Speaker 1: are there any are they a limmus records that you have,
Speaker 1: Like I like the drum sound on this record. I
Speaker 1: like the guitar sound on this record, and the vocal
Speaker 1: sound on this record, anything that jumps out. There was
Speaker 1: a time that I thought that way, and then I've
Speaker 1: learned since I'll tell you. I'll tell you like there
Speaker 1: was a time when I want to learn all the secrets. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: I really like the Highway to Hell album. I think
Speaker 1: for me maybe the perfect rock album, so so sonically,
Speaker 1: you know, that's good sounding guitars good sounding drums. If
Speaker 1: you try to make other drums sound like those drums,
Speaker 1: not only will they not sound like not sound like
Speaker 1: the Highway to Hell drums, they won't sound like the
Speaker 1: good version of what they actually are. So I've come
Speaker 1: to realize that I'm not trying to get a sound
Speaker 1: that's like that's been anywhere else. It's more using the
Speaker 1: stuff we have here, what's the best that we can
Speaker 1: make this stuff sound? And it really does open up
Speaker 1: the floodgates in terms of, you know, feeling like you
Speaker 1: need special equipment or special mics or special you know,
Speaker 1: it has to be a NIVE console, it has to
Speaker 1: be an API console. It's like they do they or
Speaker 1: it has to be done on tape or any of
Speaker 1: those things. It's like those things all have a sound,
Speaker 1: but they're not required, and we can make something good
Speaker 1: using pretty much anything. And I continually hear things that
Speaker 1: blow my mind that we're made in really suboptimal ways.
Speaker 1: So those are, you know, proof that it can be done.
Speaker 1: So I try not to get too fanatical about either
Speaker 1: equipment or the right way to do anything. I almost
Speaker 1: feel like if there's a right way to do it,
Speaker 1: chances are doing it a different way might be more interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So always looking for the opportunity to find a new
Speaker 1: way to make something interesting. You know, I've never been
Speaker 1: able to nail anything I've ever tried to chase. I
Speaker 1: think you're I think you're right about that. I've never
Speaker 1: been able to nail any of the great sounds and
Speaker 1: records I've tried to chase, not once. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: it's a losing battle. I think's it ends up being
Speaker 1: just a waste of time. When I first started producing
Speaker 1: records was a really unfortunate time of music. Around nineteen
Speaker 1: ninetynine is when I start taking it seriously. And I
Speaker 1: remember at that particular time, I mean, you probably were
Speaker 1: the only person to not doing that and have a success.
Speaker 1: But you had to have a click, and then you
Speaker 1: had to have you know, the drums miked a certain way,
Speaker 1: and you had to have a little loop in the background.
Speaker 1: You had to everything had to be perfect. You had
Speaker 1: to do everything in an assembly line fashion. You had
Speaker 1: to do the drums and the bass and the guitar
Speaker 1: and finally get to it later. And I remember starting
Speaker 1: off that way and I just I just sucked. I sucked,
Speaker 1: and the record sound like shit, and I just didn't
Speaker 1: know how to do it. I couldn't figure it out.
Speaker 1: And I think when I said, you know what, I'll
Speaker 1: just starve is when I started having success making records
Speaker 1: with everybody playing together. I only did it because I
Speaker 1: thought it was, you know, this will be a demo
Speaker 1: or whatever, and maybe maybe maybe someone will hear it
Speaker 1: and actually make the record. But yeah, I could. I
Speaker 1: sucked at the rules. I just and I tried to
Speaker 1: play them. It's not like I was defiant or playing
Speaker 1: or renegade. I just didn't know how to do it.
Speaker 1: And I don't understand technology same And I think, also,
Speaker 1: what you what you just said, like so often the
Speaker 1: demos of songs are better than the records, and it
Speaker 1: happens all the time. It's like the beauty of capturing
Speaker 1: a moment that sounds like a moment in time. It's
Speaker 1: not just everything's perfect and everything's in time and everything's
Speaker 1: in tune, but it's actually the one time they played
Speaker 1: it like this that's a thrilling feeling. And it's one
Speaker 1: of the things that I think is so great about
Speaker 1: bands from like Black Sabbath and led Zeppelin era is
Speaker 1: they didn't they didn't think of songs as a such
Speaker 1: a tightly structured thing. The length of a solo would go,
Speaker 1: however long the solo felt good. It's like if you
Speaker 1: hear the live if you hear the live versions of
Speaker 1: the songs, they're very often very different from the record versions.
Speaker 1: I guess the record versions were the live versions of
Speaker 1: that day right exactly exactly, and there was a there
Speaker 1: was a free them in the way that was done.
Speaker 1: And it seems like somewhere along the way, the idea
Speaker 1: that the record and live and everything was just supposed
Speaker 1: to be exactly the same and all perfect has has
Speaker 1: ticking some of the energy out of the process. You know,
Speaker 1: I never liked pre production on records. I think it's
Speaker 1: the anti christ. I just hate it for the same
Speaker 1: reasons you just said. You know, you always missed the
Speaker 1: best vocal performance the first time somebody sings a song.
Speaker 1: You always miss the intent in the riff after you've
Speaker 1: rehearsed it twenty times. You know, I think trying to
Speaker 1: treat record making as if you were making the demo
Speaker 1: is kind of my preferred way. You know, it's easy.
Speaker 1: I feel like it's cheating, you know, because I've had
Speaker 1: so many instances and still do for somebody, especially now
Speaker 1: everybody's got to technology at home and they're able to
Speaker 1: do some incredible demos at their house. And probably my
Speaker 1: worst thing is when somebody goes, let's listen to the demo,
Speaker 1: let's get let's get back to you know, let's let's
Speaker 1: let me listen to what I did here. It's like,
Speaker 1: you know, you've got it there, let's just use it.
Speaker 1: You know you've got it, you nail it, Let's just
Speaker 1: use it. I just had a conversation with an artist
Speaker 1: last week about their demos being too good, and I said,
Speaker 1: you know you, the demos are so good, like they're
Speaker 1: so produced that you can't even tell if the song
Speaker 1: is good enough, because the production is so good that
Speaker 1: you it sounds finished, like it sounds great. That's fascinating.
Speaker 1: You can't even tell this. That's there's a lot of
Speaker 1: vlidarity to what you're saying. It's true, it's like it
Speaker 1: may the song may be great, but you don't know
Speaker 1: because the harmonies are stacked in, they're so beautiful and
Speaker 1: the interaction between the parts and that's new instrument comes in.
Speaker 1: It sounds so cool, and so many things that we
Speaker 1: like happen. We think, oh, that's that's a great song,
Speaker 1: but it's it has nothing to do with the song
Speaker 1: at that point. That is so fascinating. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: I think people are fooled by sounds over songs quite
Speaker 1: a bit. I think you're right about that, you and
Speaker 1: I think for the simple fact that some people can't
Speaker 1: hear a song and it's raw's form and get where
Speaker 1: it's going too. I think it's is a fault with
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of people down the road because
Speaker 1: it's it seems like you know, particularly and some country
Speaker 1: music stuff, they have these demos. The demos are done records,
Speaker 1: and people hear it it sounds like a record and
Speaker 1: like that's it. That's great, you know. But again if
Speaker 1: you if you just pulled down acoustic guitar and played it,
Speaker 1: maybe wouldn't feel the same way. So I love I
Speaker 1: love the iPhone demos. Those are my favorite ones. I
Speaker 1: love it when it's just somebody you know, you hear,
Speaker 1: press it record, lay it down on the table and
Speaker 1: all the you know, not quite finished. I love that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. I love when there's somewhere you can
Speaker 1: get involved and and and run with it. You know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: as long as you hear this the seed idea that's like, oh,
Speaker 1: there's something good here. So who's on your bucket list?
Speaker 1: You've you've literally worked with everyone's heroes. Who's on your
Speaker 1: bucket list to make a record with? I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's not it's not like a bucketless thing.
Speaker 1: It's more like I'll hear something that will get me
Speaker 1: excited about an artist, and I get excited in the moment.
Speaker 1: It's usually not a long term thing. What's the last
Speaker 1: artist that's done that to you? The last one I
Speaker 1: can think of that really got me excited was James Blake,
Speaker 1: and then I got to work with him, and that
Speaker 1: was really exciting because I loved his music. Yeah, he's
Speaker 1: kind of making his own lane, right, absolutely, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: like I like people who make something that's I love
Speaker 1: nine in Schnails for that reason too. At the time
Speaker 1: that nine and Schnails came along, there was nothing like it.
Speaker 1: Most of my favorite music is pretty um outside of
Speaker 1: the mainstream, but so good that it ends up becoming
Speaker 1: the mainstream. I mean, I think Chili Peppers are one
Speaker 1: of those bands for sure. You know, well, system of
Speaker 1: it down is a great example because they went from
Speaker 1: like I can remember producing the first record and the
Speaker 1: program director at Kai Rock, which is a big rocks
Speaker 1: you know, alternative rocks station, and Angelas saying this is
Speaker 1: the band we will never play on our station no
Speaker 1: matter what. And then one year later it was the
Speaker 1: both number one played and most requested band on the station.
Speaker 1: And but but if you heard it, it didn't sound
Speaker 1: like it belonged in the context of everything else going on.
Speaker 1: It was much too left of center. But I think
Speaker 1: the song that was on the radio was so catchy.
Speaker 1: You managed to make you know, every part of that
Speaker 1: song catchy. Well, it's them, It was really them. It's
Speaker 1: like they're The songwriting is so good and they play
Speaker 1: so well. Even though it wasn't familiar, it was and
Speaker 1: it was groovy. It was really danceable. And it's one
Speaker 1: of the things I like is heavy music that's danceable,
Speaker 1: and um, you know, so much of heavy metal is not.
Speaker 1: You know, the Iron Maidens and the Judas Priests tend
Speaker 1: to have a kind of a straight coldness to them,
Speaker 1: whereas ACB see Aerosmith, let Zeppelin have a groove about it,
Speaker 1: and even Slayer as fast as it is. It's groovy.
Speaker 1: It is. Of all the speed metal bands, they're the
Speaker 1: groovy one. Agreed. So how come there's never been a
Speaker 1: Rick Rubin album? Have you ever thought about doing that?
Speaker 1: Never really thought about it. I think it would maybe
Speaker 1: be too hard to come up with what I would.
Speaker 1: I would want it to do too many things that
Speaker 1: it couldn't do. Beautiful thing about it? You know, Just
Speaker 1: pick pick one thing and have all the of all
Speaker 1: the people you work with it you love, make fantasy
Speaker 1: League bands of them. Take you take Joe Perry, put
Speaker 1: him in a band with you know, Angus Young, and
Speaker 1: then put you know the drummer for you know, Chad
Speaker 1: Smith in there or whatever. Just make make Kaja a
Speaker 1: dream team. You know, Yeah, I can't. I can't imagine
Speaker 1: doing it. Come on, I think it'd be fun, you know.
Speaker 1: Tell me about your You did an album with I
Speaker 1: guess we'd call it a concept album I did. There's
Speaker 1: there's a record I adore written by an English guy
Speaker 1: named Paul Kennelly called White Mansions, and it's just uh,
Speaker 1: it was really cool again for me. It was a
Speaker 1: gateway record of country music because it was produced by
Speaker 1: Glenn John's and done in England at Olympic Studios, which
Speaker 1: I think some of the best records in history were
Speaker 1: made out of the studio. But it had Wayale and
Speaker 1: Jennings and Jesse Coulter, and had Eric Clapton and his
Speaker 1: band playing on the record, and Steve Cash and all
Speaker 1: these these great Southern people going over to England and
Speaker 1: making this record, and it just it was a concept about,
Speaker 1: you know, the beginning, middle and end of the Civil
Speaker 1: War and the reconstruction and it's just a beautiful story
Speaker 1: and it's cinematic, and I always love records that are cinematic.
Speaker 1: I think that's why I love you Nancy Son Sinatra
Speaker 1: Bang Bang or something. It's like a cinematic Even though
Speaker 1: it's one guitar, that record really took me somewhere. So
Speaker 1: I've always wanted to do a concert record. So I
Speaker 1: kind of got some people that I love that are
Speaker 1: great singers to all sing about the stories of their
Speaker 1: childhood and growing up. And it could have been about
Speaker 1: a grandparent, a son, or a daughter or parent whatever,
Speaker 1: these Southern stories. And so we met a record called
Speaker 1: Southern Family, and it was it was really cool just
Speaker 1: to make a record for art sake, and not for
Speaker 1: commercial steak, not for any other reason. And I'm really
Speaker 1: blown away that these people let me work with them
Speaker 1: for one and second of all, the label actually put
Speaker 1: it out because it sounds like, Okay, I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: to the label. I got a concert record. Okay, it's
Speaker 1: about southern people. Okay, we're gonna have a lot of
Speaker 1: people on Okay, how are you gonna market it? Like?
Speaker 1: There really is no there's no way to make a
Speaker 1: concert record go. I don't think you know. But it
Speaker 1: was just pure art piece and I'm glad I got
Speaker 1: to do it, and I'm really proud of that record, beautiful.
Speaker 1: Can you can you play us something off of White Mansions?
Speaker 1: Just because I don't know that album. I'd love to
Speaker 1: hear what the inspiration. There's a song called Story to Tell.
Speaker 1: It's what the first song on the record, and I'll
Speaker 1: show you what I like about it, Okay, just to me.
Speaker 1: It's a masterpiece. And the thing that's brilliant about it.
Speaker 1: There's so much restraint in that song, and if you
Speaker 1: if you pay attention, the strings kind of sneak in
Speaker 1: and they're really cool because the strings aren't doing a
Speaker 1: typical string arrangement. It's not fifty things going in fifty
Speaker 1: different ways. And the cello aren't splitting off from the violins.
Speaker 1: The violas it stays as one in this unison note
Speaker 1: and it'll stay on one note and at the end
Speaker 1: it finally go somewhere and it's so powerful, and the
Speaker 1: snare is not existed in the song. It's a sidestick sidestick, wait, wait, wait,
Speaker 1: and then snare drum and then strings open up and
Speaker 1: it's so it's it's a masterclass in production, I think,
Speaker 1: because it's just the tension. It's supposed to be tension,
Speaker 1: because it's the first story in the in the tale
Speaker 1: of the record, But it's just it makes you worry.
Speaker 1: It makes you worry, It makes you worry, and it
Speaker 1: makes you kind of I don't know. It just it
Speaker 1: becomes answer from something that's so small, and the and
Speaker 1: the piano at the beginning, just the diamonds on the
Speaker 1: piano that held chords. Is so simple, it's so brilliant
Speaker 1: and her Vogel you can hear every tremble in it. Beautiful.
Speaker 1: How did you come across it? Shooter Jennings played it
Speaker 1: for me beautiful, first time I ever heard it. He
Speaker 1: you know, that's his mom on that and he played
Speaker 1: it for me and it was again. That was a
Speaker 1: record that got me into country music, you know, written
Speaker 1: by an English guy, you know, recorded in England. It
Speaker 1: seems like a sideways way to get into it, but
Speaker 1: that was the record. That record to me is a cornerstone. Yeah.
Speaker 1: There's something about when music travels a distance, right, it
Speaker 1: takes on a different almost a fantasy like approach. Like
Speaker 1: the Beatles were making American blues and rock music or
Speaker 1: led Zeppelin, we're making American blues music, but they took
Speaker 1: it to an extreme that no true bluesman men would
Speaker 1: ever do that. It would be it would be garish
Speaker 1: for a bluesman. You know, it's like but because they're
Speaker 1: seeing it from a distance, almost like a spaghetti western,
Speaker 1: you know, like a it's viewed from this, it's from
Speaker 1: a distance and you're imagining what it could be. Same
Speaker 1: as true in hip hop, like the original hip hop
Speaker 1: was an inner city thing and the inner city groups
Speaker 1: like Africa, Bambada and Saul Sonic Force, they would dress
Speaker 1: like more like Parliament like, they would dress like people
Speaker 1: like from outer space. They didn't embrace where they were from.
Speaker 1: And then it took like Run DMC, who were more
Speaker 1: suburban kids, to dress more like b boy gangsters from
Speaker 1: the hood because they really came from the suburbs. And
Speaker 1: there's this like seeing it from a distance, you can
Speaker 1: romanticize the story and embellish it in ways that are
Speaker 1: really thrilling for the uh, for the audience, for us,
Speaker 1: you know, that's fascinating. I never really thought like about that.
Speaker 1: I saw this great documentary recently on Connie Plank, the
Speaker 1: you know kind of the the producer did a lot
Speaker 1: of the German Yeah, and Uh. When I was a kid,
Speaker 1: I loved Houdini, the hip hop group Houdini. I love them.
Speaker 1: I was way into it. I didn't realize that they
Speaker 1: went to Germany to record with Connie Plank, and there's
Speaker 1: like six degrees of separation from kraft Work to to Houdini,
Speaker 1: and I didn't I didn't even put two and two together.
Speaker 1: But again, I think I'd like them because they sounded
Speaker 1: like they're from outer space, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like it was every the sounds were so weird, and
Speaker 1: it didn't sound like you know, the I don't know,
Speaker 1: it didn't sound like where I grew up in Savannah.
Speaker 1: It sound like it was coming again from a whole,
Speaker 1: whole different place. You know. I love music that does that,
Speaker 1: and I guess maybe you're right. I mean that has
Speaker 1: its very southern, but something else has stirred in there,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, it's southern in a way that someone
Speaker 1: one who doesn't live through it could love it. Do
Speaker 1: you know, Like, if you're living through it, you see
Speaker 1: the good and the bad. If you're looking at it
Speaker 1: from the outside, it's just a romantic vision and you
Speaker 1: can really embrace it and maybe go too far, you know,
Speaker 1: in a way that it becomes um more theatrically beautiful. Right,
Speaker 1: we're gonna take a quick break, then we'll be back
Speaker 1: with Dave Cobb. We're back with the rest of Rick
Speaker 1: Rubin's conversation with Dave Cobb. Let's talk more about producing. So,
Speaker 1: how did you end up in the in nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: nine you find yourself starting to produce? How that? How
Speaker 1: did it come about? How did you switch from being
Speaker 1: the studio guitar player. Well, I was in a band
Speaker 1: again at that time, signed and it just felt like
Speaker 1: it was it was I was stuck because the label
Speaker 1: was trying to sell to another label, and I wasn't
Speaker 1: going to ever get out of this deal. So I
Speaker 1: started producing friends. But basically I just fucking lied. I
Speaker 1: said I was a producer. I wasn't a fucking producer.
Speaker 1: I know shit about producing. I didn't go to producing school,
Speaker 1: you know, I didn't know shit. I just fucking made
Speaker 1: it up. One day. It's like, I'm a producer, and
Speaker 1: then i'm you know, then I'd like, you know, I
Speaker 1: gotta I gotta go to Los Angeles because I want
Speaker 1: to do rock and roll records and I gotta be
Speaker 1: out there. And when I got out there, I was
Speaker 1: producing a couple of little things here and there and
Speaker 1: met a producer manager, and all of a sudden, I
Speaker 1: was a legitimate producer, you know. I was on a
Speaker 1: producer roster. So I kind of lied my way into
Speaker 1: the whole thing, you know. And then after i'd really
Speaker 1: worked with Shooter Jennings, I met this guy Jamie Johnson
Speaker 1: through him, and then we had some records kind of
Speaker 1: work with him. And then I met Sturgil Simpson through
Speaker 1: him and we did a Stergil Meta Modern record, and
Speaker 1: then Jason Isbll just kind of kept rolling, you know what,
Speaker 1: would have been the rock artists that you would have
Speaker 1: moved out in the hopes of getting to work with
Speaker 1: at that time. Well I did. I mean I would have.
Speaker 1: I would have loved to work with, you know, Paul
Speaker 1: Rodgers on something you know. But I've loved to work
Speaker 1: with you know, anything you know relating to the stuff
Speaker 1: I grew up And I mean obviously Ozzie or or
Speaker 1: any of the bands that that I really loved growing up,
Speaker 1: Humble Pie, that would have been a dream one. But
Speaker 1: he was Steve, Steve Marriott or somebody like that at
Speaker 1: the time. But I didn't get to work with any
Speaker 1: that stuff. But I did find work with this band
Speaker 1: rival Sons that kind of took off in the rock world,
Speaker 1: and I've gotten to work with a bunch of rock
Speaker 1: bands through them, so I still get to do quite
Speaker 1: a bit of rock and roll and I still love it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, man, the producer thing, I just I fell
Speaker 1: in love with it because I've always been a studio rat,
Speaker 1: even when I was in a band or a session player.
Speaker 1: I love being in the studio. I love working really fast,
Speaker 1: capturing a moment like like you said, like a yearbook,
Speaker 1: and just remembering that moment, and I was a session player,
Speaker 1: so I played drums and bass and guitar. So I
Speaker 1: love helping people find the parts. And I just love
Speaker 1: getting involved with the songs and just being around it.
Speaker 1: And even if you know my day is done, I'll
Speaker 1: just hanging around the studio two or three hours later
Speaker 1: and just screw off and look at stuff. You know.
Speaker 1: Still I have the same feeling about a studio that
Speaker 1: I had when I got my first real guitar. I
Speaker 1: remember getting an SG really bad seventies, like the worst one,
Speaker 1: Gibson SG, and putting it into my bed and just
Speaker 1: looking at it until I fell asleep. And I remember
Speaker 1: smelling the case, the smell of a Gibson guitar in
Speaker 1: a case, you know. And I feel that way about
Speaker 1: a studio still. I just you can't get me out
Speaker 1: of them, you know. And if I have a day off,
Speaker 1: I'm either looking at stuff about studios or reading about
Speaker 1: you know, engineers or producers or whatever it is. I
Speaker 1: just I'm completely enthralled with everything about studios. You know,
Speaker 1: you typically play on the records that you produce. I do.
Speaker 1: I play a lot. Jimmy Miller one of my favorite producers.
Speaker 1: He produced my favorite air of stone stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of let it bleed through exile. He was a
Speaker 1: drummer and he would go in from what I was told.
Speaker 1: He would play percussion with the band and he kind
Speaker 1: of helped kind of guy the rhythm and the field.
Speaker 1: So a lot of records. I play acoustic guitar as
Speaker 1: a shaker, you know, I treated like a shaker or
Speaker 1: a play a shaker or whatever it is. Instead of
Speaker 1: having a click, I'll just become, you know, the click
Speaker 1: or the human click for it. So yeah, I like
Speaker 1: being in there. I don't. I don't know if I
Speaker 1: can feel it unless I'm kind of in it. And
Speaker 1: even if I'm not playing on something i'm in the
Speaker 1: room with the band, I don't. I don't. I never
Speaker 1: liked the separation of control room and studio. I love
Speaker 1: being in the middle of it the whole time. I
Speaker 1: love the instant communication, especially if you have a guitar on,
Speaker 1: you can go, Okay, why don't we try this part
Speaker 1: for a bridge or try this chord here. I feel
Speaker 1: like it's a it's a bit of a crutch to
Speaker 1: have a guitar on the whole time. It helps me
Speaker 1: work faster. You know absolutely. Are you ever surprised after
Speaker 1: being on the floor going in and hearing it through speakers?
Speaker 1: For sure, it's usually sounds like shit, But now usually
Speaker 1: I feel like you can feel the take as it
Speaker 1: as it goes down. I feel like you kind of
Speaker 1: feel that one. But I've definitely been surprised where ones
Speaker 1: I didn't think was the one was the one too.
Speaker 1: You know, somebody else may may have a better idea.
Speaker 1: Somebody said, you know that that second one, we should
Speaker 1: listen to that one too, and then they're right and
Speaker 1: I'm wrong. Somebody told me a long time ago about
Speaker 1: sometimes and actually I think if somebody used to work
Speaker 1: with you, Greg Gordon, it's a kind of a mentor
Speaker 1: to me. And Greg Gordon told me it's like sometimes
Speaker 1: it just feels like a record, and I'm always looking
Speaker 1: for that take. It's like it just feels like a record.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't know what it is. I don't
Speaker 1: know what that means. Yeah, sometimes it just kind of
Speaker 1: comes together in a funny way where like the take
Speaker 1: before it, everyone's doing pretty much the same thing, and
Speaker 1: the next one's not like everyone's playing a lot better.
Speaker 1: It's pretty similar, but all of a sudden it goes
Speaker 1: from like mediocre to mind blowings. Yeah, I don't know
Speaker 1: what that is, but there's something to it. And God,
Speaker 1: I think I think you know, being in the studio,
Speaker 1: you kind of just make stuff up and and it
Speaker 1: just it's a lot of feeling as opposed to being
Speaker 1: clinical about it. I'm never clinical about anything. I don't
Speaker 1: I don't think I have that kind of smarts to
Speaker 1: be super clinical about stuff. I'm always looking for what
Speaker 1: was it about that one? It's just like you're saying
Speaker 1: that take, that's the one. I don't know why I
Speaker 1: can inscribe it to you. Do you do a lot
Speaker 1: of tend to do a lot of takes or No,
Speaker 1: not really, but I have done a lot of takes
Speaker 1: on certain things. I mean usually I think by fourth
Speaker 1: or fifth take, I think you kind of have a
Speaker 1: good sense of the song. You know. I'm not somebody
Speaker 1: that goes in there and just says, try something else.
Speaker 1: So I think I'm always kind of really involved, and
Speaker 1: if there's a part that's missing, I'll suggest something. I
Speaker 1: don't necessarily write it, but I'll suggest to somebody to
Speaker 1: write it. So I like to work super quick, super fast,
Speaker 1: and just get it down because I think the tension
Speaker 1: span mainly in blaming it on myself, I think goes
Speaker 1: after you do tons of takes. But there's there's definitely
Speaker 1: been times where we've recorded a song and felt pretty
Speaker 1: good about it, listened to it later ago like I
Speaker 1: don't know, if we got it, I'll just recut it.
Speaker 1: It's easier than I don't think, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: think I could cut ninety takes of a song. I
Speaker 1: think i'd be over it. You know, what about you?
Speaker 1: How do you do it? Takes? What do you do? Debates?
Speaker 1: Really depends on the artist goes different ways. Sometimes it's
Speaker 1: sometimes it happens and you know, one or two or
Speaker 1: two or three takes, and sometimes it's I've been on
Speaker 1: projects where we've done I don't know, ninety takes or something.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like wow, who depends on the artist? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love going in and usually I try to get
Speaker 1: you know, two songs a day done. Still nice, And
Speaker 1: it's not it's not because it's like a bragging right
Speaker 1: to get that done, but I just love the fin
Speaker 1: sense of completion. I mean, I mean, I'll be totally completely,
Speaker 1: but just the basic of two songs and then then
Speaker 1: I like kind of goofing off. I've really value goofing
Speaker 1: off in the studio, which is probably something I should
Speaker 1: never say out loud, especially when when labels are paying
Speaker 1: me money to make records. I shouldn't tell them that
Speaker 1: I love gooping off in the studio. But I think
Speaker 1: there's a lot of the time of camaraderie and joking
Speaker 1: around and listen to records, and that informs what the
Speaker 1: record becomes. Absolutely, and sometimes sometimes the best ideas come
Speaker 1: in the non work time in the studios. Always, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I produced a Less Strokes album, and on that I
Speaker 1: had them come to the studio and just jam every
Speaker 1: day with the idea of creating something new because in
Speaker 1: their minds, you know, the album was written, they already
Speaker 1: had all the songs like come in play every day
Speaker 1: before I get there for an hour, and when I
Speaker 1: get there, you know, have something to play for me
Speaker 1: that you didn't have when you got to the studio,
Speaker 1: but that you make in that hour. And a couple
Speaker 1: of things ended up being on the album coming out
Speaker 1: of those sort of just experimental before the real session
Speaker 1: starts playing, you know, and you're recording the whole time, right,
Speaker 1: We were recording the whole time, but it was more
Speaker 1: about the writing of it. It was more about them
Speaker 1: being in the room together and playing sometimes. It actually
Speaker 1: the take came for that so cool playtime. Sometimes it
Speaker 1: was just like, oh, this is really good if we
Speaker 1: chop it up like this and then make it into
Speaker 1: a song and then they would play it. Wow, that
Speaker 1: is so brilliant, that is so smart. Shit just a
Speaker 1: doubt again, and that, I'll tell you. The idea for
Speaker 1: that came from the fact that they all while they
Speaker 1: all came from New York and grew up, you know,
Speaker 1: playing together all the time. As bands get older, they
Speaker 1: ended up moving to all different places, so they don't
Speaker 1: really get to play as a band as much as
Speaker 1: they used to. So they were coming together for the
Speaker 1: first time in you know, really years to make a
Speaker 1: record and it felt like even if nothing came from
Speaker 1: it writing, just being in the room playing together as
Speaker 1: a band with no stakes would end up having a
Speaker 1: good effect on the performances later in that day. It's
Speaker 1: also a different like when you're trying to execute something
Speaker 1: and you know what it is, is different than when
Speaker 1: you're just playing free to make something up. And I
Speaker 1: thought having those muscles open, those make something up muscles
Speaker 1: open to bring into the performance of the thing we
Speaker 1: know we're doing could be a good thing and turned
Speaker 1: out to be. That is absolutely brilliant. It probably made
Speaker 1: them feel like they were in rehearsal space, you know,
Speaker 1: in the parents basement or whatever, when they're fifteen again
Speaker 1: or something. You know. Yeah, really sharp, I love that idea.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna steal it. I'll send you a pick. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think it's any anything we can do to get
Speaker 1: an artist to tune into their lives at the time
Speaker 1: that they were doing their either their best work or
Speaker 1: the time that they most loved what they did. You know,
Speaker 1: because if you work with some artists that have been
Speaker 1: doing it for a long time, it has become a job, right,
Speaker 1: whereas when you're first doing it, there's usually much more
Speaker 1: of a passion in the process. And you can imagine
Speaker 1: the difference between making your first or second album and
Speaker 1: making your fortieth album, you know, or your fiftieth album.
Speaker 1: Those are different things. No, you're absolutely right. That is
Speaker 1: such a smart concept. Just have them get together and play.
Speaker 1: That doesn't happen, You're right. After band's been together for
Speaker 1: a while, they don't really do that anymore, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's one of the I can remember when I worked
Speaker 1: with Metallica, suggesting because they're very popular band, you know,
Speaker 1: very well known, well loved band, you can rely on
Speaker 1: the fact that people are going to listen to a
Speaker 1: Metallica record, and that goes into your process of people
Speaker 1: pay attention to us, and that's not always okay when
Speaker 1: you're starting, that's not the case. So one of the
Speaker 1: writing assignments was, imagine there was no such band as Metallica,
Speaker 1: and imagine you guys are going to enter a Battle
Speaker 1: of the Band's contest next week and you have to
Speaker 1: write music that's going to blow everybody away in the
Speaker 1: room and nobody knows who you are. Oh man, that's
Speaker 1: why you're Rick Rubin. That is brilliant. I'm taking notes
Speaker 1: because those are just brilliant, brilliant statements. It's so true though,
Speaker 1: it's very true. I've absolutely been in the studio with
Speaker 1: artists who've made multiple records and they go, you know, oh,
Speaker 1: let's do a groove like blah blah blah like our
Speaker 1: other record, and we need one of these for the record,
Speaker 1: because that's what we do that we always have. You know,
Speaker 1: the one, you know, acoustic song on the record. You
Speaker 1: know that's that's what you're saying. It's so brilliant valid
Speaker 1: because it really isn't. I mean, people get attracted to
Speaker 1: when they discover a band, and I guess getting a
Speaker 1: banded rediscover you know that that themselves too, is I
Speaker 1: don't know, that's so smart, so smart it's I could
Speaker 1: remember when I first said to Johnny Cash, like the
Speaker 1: goal would be to make the best album you've ever made,
Speaker 1: and he looked at me like I was insane, Like
Speaker 1: like that just seemed like, you know, here's someone who
Speaker 1: had made a lot of records over a long period
Speaker 1: of time, a lot of records that people didn't care
Speaker 1: about for probably twenty years. He'd been dropped from two labels,
Speaker 1: and the suggestion that we're going to make his best
Speaker 1: album ever just seemed like so foreign. But that's the job, Like,
Speaker 1: why are we doing it if we're not going to
Speaker 1: make the best one ever. I mean, those records are
Speaker 1: really what bowl a lot of people to Johnny Cash,
Speaker 1: So you know, you you captured discovery on those records,
Speaker 1: you know, discovery of the audience discovered him. But also
Speaker 1: there's discovery in that sound that you know, the thing
Speaker 1: we're talking about earlier with the White Mansions, with the cinema,
Speaker 1: the simple piano. That record was that record. Those records
Speaker 1: you did with him were just beautiful examples of simplicity
Speaker 1: in the best way because you knew. I'm speaking for
Speaker 1: you here, but I feel like you knew it was
Speaker 1: about his voice and his narrative and everything that around
Speaker 1: the companies that is just supporting that. It's so smart.
Speaker 1: But what'sn't I don't know that it was that thought out.
Speaker 1: It was more of a just part of the experiment
Speaker 1: of figuring out what worked. So it started with demos
Speaker 1: in my living room, and then we went into the
Speaker 1: studio with different players and tried different things, and then
Speaker 1: eventually the demos from the living room just sounded better.
Speaker 1: So being free enough to know that you could record
Speaker 1: it in your living room on the couch and if
Speaker 1: you like it, then that's the record, that's okay. So smart,
Speaker 1: it's so smart. Yeah, that stuff is absolutely brilliant. I
Speaker 1: think it redefined a lot, you know, and maybe at
Speaker 1: the time, and I'm just speculating, like country was radio
Speaker 1: only and I think those records kind of you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know if there was a viral was the
Speaker 1: word at the time, but they went viral and kind
Speaker 1: of beat the system in a lot of ways, and
Speaker 1: I thought, I think that's really cool. One of the
Speaker 1: best things that came from that was other grown up
Speaker 1: artists telling me, I feel like I can like I
Speaker 1: can try to make something good now, you know, like
Speaker 1: like they saw at that point in Johnny's career that
Speaker 1: he could be received well, whereas other people just sort
Speaker 1: of thought it can never happen again, and then they would,
Speaker 1: you know, raise their game. That's an interesting thing that
Speaker 1: people even think that way, you know. I think there's
Speaker 1: such value in making records for adults. You know. I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people just angle for whatever, you know,
Speaker 1: the big immediate gratification hit is. But man, adults are
Speaker 1: out there, and adults grew up at a time and
Speaker 1: you paid for music, and you go to shows, and
Speaker 1: you live a lifestyle around an artist. And I think
Speaker 1: records like that, the cash stuff you did, they're adult records,
Speaker 1: even though kids found them and discover them, they're just
Speaker 1: it's adult music. I think there's so much value to that,
Speaker 1: you know, And I hate to hate to think anybody
Speaker 1: who is a hero would think that way about their
Speaker 1: careers because you know, God, I would love to hear
Speaker 1: you know, one of my favorite bands getting back together.
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear the Zombies make a new record. Incredible.
Speaker 1: I'd be the first in line to buy it, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? Absolutely, you know, and that guy
Speaker 1: can still saying unbelievably. Well, you know. Yeah, So I
Speaker 1: think there's probably a list of people that I would
Speaker 1: love to hear make new records. You know, reach out.
Speaker 1: I'm scared, man, Rod Argent, come on, Yeah, what a
Speaker 1: hell of a player, right, yeah, yeah, I'm I'm scared.
Speaker 1: I would never reach out to anybody, but but definitely
Speaker 1: I might have his email. If I can find his email,
Speaker 1: I'm sending it to you, and you're going to reach out, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'll tell I'll tell him. I'll put in the preference,
Speaker 1: Rick Rubbin said, and then maybe go answer my email back.
Speaker 1: You can blame me all you want. I want to
Speaker 1: hear the record that you make with Zone, Well, i'll
Speaker 1: call you man, you produce it with me. I would
Speaker 1: love to do a record with you one day. That's
Speaker 1: on my list of things to do. You know. I'm
Speaker 1: sure we will find a way to make that happen.
Speaker 1: All right, man, it'd be great, cool man. All right, well,
Speaker 1: thanks for everything. A pleasure speaking to you always. Man.
Speaker 1: Hopefully I'll see you one day in the in the
Speaker 1: in the future, when the world gets normal. Thanks to
Speaker 1: Dave Cobb for running through his career and inspiration for Rick.
Speaker 1: You can hear all of our favorite Dave Cobb produced
Speaker 1: tracks on a playlist at broken record podcast dot com,
Speaker 1: and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel at
Speaker 1: YouTube dot com slash broken record Podcast. There you can
Speaker 1: find extended cuts of our new and old episodes. Broken
Speaker 1: Record is produced with helpful Leah Rose, Jason Gambrel, Martin Gonzalez,
Speaker 1: Eric Sandler and his executive produced by Miolabel. Broken Record
Speaker 1: is a production of Pushkin Industries and if you like us,
Speaker 1: please remember to share, rate, and review our show on
Speaker 1: your podcast app. Our theme music is by Kenny Beats.
Speaker 1: I'm justin Richmond Bass