Veteran producer Rick Rubin has long made waves in the music industry by spanning genres, producing landmark albums for artists from Public Enemy to Metallica.
His work with Slayer on their third studio album, Reign In Blood, reveals a unique approach rooted not in technical expertise but in raw, experimental instinct. Rubin recently shared his perspective on this groundbreaking project in an interview with YouTuber and fellow producer Rick Beato, offering insights into what made the album a defining moment in metal.
"I had a theory," Rubin explained (via Guitar), emphasizing that his approach was not based on formal musical training or technical production methods. Instead, he drew from his passion as a fan
"This was not based on being a musician. This was not based on being a technical person. This is based on being a fan and…theoretical, just thoughts. So, when I hear very fast music like Metallica, and the sounds are big sounds… the whole thing gets blurry, and you can't really hear it," he observed.
Rubin reasoned that the dense, booming sounds typical of heavy metal blurred together in fast-paced music. "If the music you're playing is fast and if the sounds are big, there's not enough space for those big sounds to happen next to each other. There's no punctuation; it becomes a blur."
In a pivotal moment, Rubin played Slayer engineer Andy Wallace a Metallica track to highlight what he thought went wrong in fast metal production. "I said, 'Would it be possible to record in such a way that it was hard-sounding but everything was short because it's fast and we want there to be this?'" Rubin recalled, adding, "I didn't want it to be a blur of bass; I wanted it to be a pulse. And he said, 'I think we can do that.'"
The stripped-back, punchy sound Rubin envisioned became the album's defining characteristic. Rubin's approach relied on subtraction rather than addition: "I was more subtractive than additive. It was getting back to the essence. It wasn't doing the professional 'thing'. I wasn't using all the normal tricks of the craft. It was reducing them to only what was essential with the particular case in mind."
Rather than defaulting to established heavy metal production techniques, he limited effects to only what felt essential, embracing a rawer, more visceral sound: "Not having the experience of the right way to do it was part of the key," Rubin said. "If I was an experienced heavy metal producer, I would use the tricks that I'd used on other heavy metal records, because that's what people do. You learn the ways to do it…"
Reflecting on his early career, Rubin shared that his lack of experience allowed him to think outside traditional metal conventions. "I didn't have the baggage of what the old way of doing it was," he admitted. "And in this case, these forms of music were so new that the old way would've lessened their impact. It wouldn't have made them better."
