(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still)
Wed 14 January 2026 22:00, UK
It’s safe to say that Rick Rubin knows a thing or two about when a band has pushed themselves far enough on record.
There are countless artists who would take one look at the bearded guru and think that he’s doing absolutely nothing in the studio, but every single second he’s behind the board is spent listening out for one little detail that could tie an entire song together. He was always appealing to the kind of sounds that fans would want to hear out of their favourite bands, but sometimes the greatest artists can transcend anything that Rubin could have ever thought of when they had the right song.
Because at the end of the day, that’s always what Rubin was after. None of the chops that any musician had mattered as much as the songs, and the greatest artists of all time were usually the ones who had a certain magic to them every time they picked up an instrument. It was one thing to work with people like Beastie Boys and Run-DMC, but an artist like Johnny Cash almost commanded respect every time he walked into a room.
But Rubin wasn’t going to be treating any of his talent like they were some holy figure that no one could touch, either. Everyone was in that studio to work, and even when Red Hot Chili Peppers were on the verge of creating their masterpiece on Blood Sugar Sex Magik, the documentary Funky Monks from around that time shows Rubin not holding back when it comes to his feedback, eventually working Flea down to the bone until he comes up with the bassline to ‘Give It Away’.
Then again, it was going to be a tough sell for anyone to go from Slayer to Johnny Cash. That kind of range is something that needs to be taught a bit more often, but after spending the first decade of his career trying to make the heaviest music possible, what stopped Rubin in his tracks was hearing Tom Petty’s Full Moon Fever for the first time. He had been a fairweather fan of Petty’s forever, but this was where everything sounded perfect in his mind, but it was another matter trying to get him in a room.
Petty already seemed to be doing just fine with Jeff Lynne as a producer, but when Rubin talked about him stripping things down for Wildflowers, the heartland rocker landed on something a lot more natural. He would say time and time again that he was never going to be able to top what he did on that album, but Rubin felt that the songs didn’t come about from anything that he did. He was simply watching Petty paint a masterpiece, and seeing him slowly unfold tunes out of the air blew him away.
It’s one thing for an artist to eat, sleep, and breathe a song until it’s done, but Rubin remembered Petty didn’t realise how great he was, recalling, “One day, he began strumming the guitar. After a couple of minutes of strumming chords, he played me an intricate new song complete with lyrics and story. I asked him what it was about. He said he didn’t know it just came out. He had written it or more like channeled it in that very moment. He didn’t know what it was about or what the inspiration was. It arrived fully formed. It was breathtaking.”
And that kind of magic wasn’t lost on Petty, either. As much as he worked on getting every single thing right when he made Damn the Torpedoes, the fact that a song like ‘Wildflowers’ fell out of him in the exact same way is a strange miracle in many respects, especially with every single verse being so perfectly joined with each other.
There’s not many people in the industry that can be that sort of emotional translator when they pick up a guitar, but Rubin knew to never take those artists for granted, either. Because even if Petty has spent years trying to make a few of his tunes sound perfect, all he needed was the right time and right circumstances for the muse to enter his brain.
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