Billy Duffy, guitarist for The Cult, recently recalled working with famed music producer Rick Rubin on the band’s 1987 album “Electric.”
Despite The Cult having success with their first two albums (which were produced by Steve Brown), Duffy explained during a recent appearance on the “Rackonteurs with Gary Kemp and Guy Pratt” podcast that the band felt a bit stuck going into their third record.
“We were trying to progress as a band, but we hadn’t really,” the guitarist said. “It was, like, one foot in each camp.”
This led them to Rubin – who had already gained notoriety for his work with bands like Slayer and Beastie Boys.
“A long story short, we’d heard of Rick Rubin. We’d heard from a friend in Canada. He’d done the Beastie Boys’ ‘Cooky Puss,’ which is basically ‘Back in Black’ riff with a beat.”
“And we met Rick Rubin in New York, and the whole deal was, Rick was gonna just mix. He said, ‘I’ll remix your whole album, but you must let me record one song from the ground up.’ That was the deal. So we said, ‘Okay.’ The record company weren’t gonna let us re-record a super-expensive album again.”
He continued: “So we get to New York, we rent all the gear, because it’s one track, right? We didn’t bring any guitars. Everything was rented — amps, drums, guitars. And then Rick says… Ostensibly, this is a mix with one fresh track. So he just says to me, ‘Which track Do you hate on the album the most?’ Like, ‘Which one really disappoints you.'”
“And I remember, I think it was this on ‘Peace Dog,’ it’s like, ‘I don’t like this, it’s too long. And he goes, ‘Right, we’ll start on that one.’ And we started with that Rick Rubin methodology, which he’s proven, you know, the Rick thing.”
“I believe we were the first band he ever produced that had an organic drum kit, you know. And we went to Electric Ladyland, we set up in the main room, and we did multiple old-school takes.”
Duffy then explained that because Rubin is not a musician, he surrounds himself with other talented people to help achieve his vision.
“He did hire Andy Wallace to be the engineer,” he said. “Rick’s always used great engineers. He’s not stupid. And George Drakoulias was there all the time. Rick and George were like a team. I mean, I would say Rick was the senior partner, but George and Rick were like literal partners because George was more musical. Rick’s not musical — at all.”
When asked if they “gradually [broke] down the whole album,” Duffy admitted that he was left to redo parts of the album with gear he wasn’t familiar with.
“Yes, we literally deconstructed the album on the spot,” he said. “I went from a Gretch with the Roland and the chorus and the echoes. And he was like, ‘Well, that’s a Marshall, that’s a Les Paul, off you go. It was quite traumatic for me, I gotta tell you.”
