With his image as the music industry’s guru, guide, a wizard of sorts, Rick Rubin has become hard to miss. His long, Gandalf-like beard, his bare feet, his uniform consisting of a t-shirt and shorts and no shoes, it’s all become somewhat inescapable. Respected by industry newcomers and veterans alike, Rick Rubin is a producer who is very open about his lack of technical knowledge about music. He doesn’t play any instruments, doesn’t sing, and doesn’t know how to operate a Protools setup or a mixing board. And yet he has become one of the most respected producers in the industry with an extremely respectable repertoire to say the least. Not only did he found Def Jam recordings in his NYU dorm room with Russel Simmons in 1994 while hosting a series of parties, but he also worked closely with the Beastie Boys, was the co-president of Columbia Recordings, and now owns the idyllic Shangri-La studio. He’s worked with Johnny Cash for 10 years and helped revive his career, and played an important role in taking hip-hop to the mainstream. Other than that, he’s worked with artists including LL Cool J, Run DMC, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Slayer, Public Enemy, Mick Jagger, Joan Jenn & The Blackhearts, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, Nine Inch Nails, AC/DC, Neil Young, Rage Against the Machine, Aerosmith, Jay-Z, Metallica, Adele, Lady Gaga, Wu-Tang Clan, and Blondie, to name a few. More recently, he produced The Strokes’ critically-acclaimed album The New Abnormal. Specifically, his work with Aerosmith and Run DMC is particularly notable in its role to make hip-hop mainstream and accessible. When listening to Walk This Way, he realised that Aerosmith was essentially making use of a hip-hop beat. You can hear him talk more about this in an episode of his podcast Broken Record, but essentially he had the idea of combining the two. So he contacted anyone that could help him and made it happen. That’s where his talents lie: not in any technical ability, but in the confidence of knowing what he likes and in his skills in dealing with people. He knows how to help musicians access their most creative ideas, their emotions, resulting in their best work. For example, when talking about his book The Creative Act: A Way Of Being, Rubin says “So much of what happens in the studio is not anything that I know. It’s more about intuitive reactions in the moment.” As another example, he mentioned to Complex that “It’s not about knowing. It’s about feeling and noticing what’s happening in your body. If you’re bored in your body, it’s going to be boring to someone else, chances are. And if it’s exciting to you, it’s likely that it’ll be exciting to someone else. (…) Whatever lights you up is the way to go, even if it seems crazy or wrong or bad, because sometimes things that are bad make you really excited.” He doesn’t approach making music in the way you would think. In his view, the audience should come last because “the audience doesn’t know what they want, they only know what’s come before”. It’s this self-knowledge and human touch that sets him apart, showing creatives everywhere that perhaps technical ability is overrated, while confidence and a human touch is the true secret. All his work now takes place in Shangri-La. Not the mythical place in Lost Horizon, although the property was a ranch bought by actress Margo in 1958 after playing in a movie adaptation of the book. Such is the history of the name. But the property was purchased by The Band in 1974 and subsequently converted into a recording studio. There they lived after touring with Bob Dylan, at one point joined by Eric Clapton for three months, as well as Van Morrison, Ringo Starr, Pete Townsend, Joe Cocker, Billy Preston, Ronnie Wood, and Georgie Fame also taking turns spending time at the studio. In 2011, Rubin purchased the property for $2 million and painted it all white so as to empty the mind of the artists that recorded there. When he arrived, the studio was almost falling apart, but under the care of Rubin, it had a life of its own and survived the 2018 California fires despite both of Rubin’s homes being lost. But Rubin kept Shangri-La alive, and with it its mysticism. Converting Bob Dylan’s tour bus into a studio in the backyard and maintaining the baby pink kitchen tiles, he preserved the spirit of its old days while the all-white remainder of the property acts as a blank canvas for artists to create their own work from nothing. There, artists access their deepest emotions and thoughts, with as little outside influence as possible. Rubin’s role in the production process is not so much to make the songs, but rather to help the artists explore their strengths through conversation and introspection. He trims the fat and leaves only the essential parts, just as he has done with the studio itself. Everything in the song has a reason to be there, everything is done with intention. This is advice anyone can take to heart when creating something: whatever you write, film, draw, paint, sculpt, photograph, or build, all the elements must serve a purpose. And to quote one of his daily-posted and daily-deleted Instagram quotes, “The work is done when there is nothing else to add”. When you look at your work and you genuinely can’t think of how to make it better, what to add or take away, what to tweak or perfect, that’s when the work is done. As long as there’s still something to alter – however small – the work is not done. This, of course, takes patience and dedication, something Rick Rubin seems to have an endless supply of. He serves the purpose of the work, letting it be what it wants to be. I believe that’s something imperative that he teaches creatives: not rushing something that is a subjective telling of a personal experience or opinion. Something so specific and individual. But sometimes there is a deadline. Perhaps his most notable one was Kanye West’s two-week deadline for My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, which Rubin produced with a time crunch to say the least. Because he realises that this mentality has to come from the artists themselves. In conversation with Zane Lowe, he says that it truly is a lot of work and dedication that some artists simply don’t wish to commit to, and that’s when Rubin can’t help them. He asks a lot of his artists, which does end up in some of their best work. Yet there is something somewhat incomprehensible about Rick Rubin. As described by Kyle Eustice in his article on Rick Rubin and Shangri-La studios, “The mystique surrounding Rick Rubin has been palpable for years”. This article then goes on to show multiple artists’ descriptions of working with Rubin and being in the studio, ranging from Run The Jewels’ El-P saying, “He would come by, barefoot, cross his legs, close his eyes and just listen and really take it in and really give feedback. He was really excited about the music we were doing” and describing Rubin as an “apostle”, to Shangri-La being described by Jean Dawson as “sacred ground”. The space and the man himself put everyone at ease, simplifying not only the physical space they take but also life’s issues themselves. From how he looks to how he speaks, to how he dresses and carries himself, to where he lives, Rick Rubin seems to be an endless source of wisdom. With his long white beard, he looks like the wizard that the hero would go to for guidance inn a fantasy movie, and he plays that role too. Now my next mission is to get my hands on his book to absorb his teachings. I recommend you do the same.