Rick Rubin: Zen, music, a Midas touch

LOS ANGELES — It's impolite to stare, but since Rick Rubin is in a meditative state, his eyes sealed, there's little chance he'll catch you gawking.

So you lean forward to study the iconoclastic record producer's beard up close. What a sight!

Rubin's hirsute hallmark is wiry and unruly, its craggy tips resembling a seismic reading. It droops to Rubin's chest; given his sprawling bald spot, it's as if there'd been a hairslide on his ample mug and nobody bothered to clean up the mess.

And ... suddenly Rubin is staring right back, with piercing blue-green eyes.

Gulp.

"Isn't it beautiful?" he says softly.

He smiles. You nod.

He nods. You blink.

"It really feels like we captured a moment in the studio," he finally says.

Oh, right — he's not talking about his beard, silly! It's the Neil Diamond song that's been thundering over the outrageously high-end stereo system here in Rubin's magnificent Hollywood Hills home.

Rubin is playing "12 Songs," Diamond's best-reviewed work in decades, landing on more than a few critics' best-of-2005 lists and reaching the No. 4 Billboard ranking — Diamond's highest chart position in 25 years.

You may not have heard of Rick Rubin, but you've definitely heard Rick Rubin. The mercurial master of many domains, from rap and metal to country and Top 40, Rubin is probably the only producer in pop music capable of restoring Diamond's relevance while also making the art-metal band System of a Down sound sublime. Twice.

Two System albums ("Mezmerize" and "Hypnotize") headbanged their way to No. 1 last year, and Rubin had a hand in five more albums that reached the Billboard Top 5.

Few producers have that sort of success in a career, let alone a single year. Certainly none do it working with such a broad range of artists: Dubbed "the king of rap" two decades ago by the Village Voice, Rubin has traded up to "the most successful producer of any genre," according to Rolling Stone.

Rubin's hits last year also included Audioslave's No. 1 hard-rock album "Out of Exile" and Weezer's No. 2 alt-rocker "Make Believe." There were also the two albums Rubin executive-produced for the hip-swiveling Colombian pop star Shakira ("Fijacion Oral Vol. 1" and "Oral Fixation Vol. 2," both Top 5 U.S. entries), plus "The Legend of Johnny Cash," a country retrospective that included six songs produced by Rubin and reached No. 11.

"I'm just trying to make my favorite music. That's how I work; I just do things based on the way they feel to me. I want to be touched by the music I'm making. Luckily, other people have shared that response to my work over the years," Rubin says.

Then again, the work itself isn't always so great.

"I've really lived the last 20 years of my life in a recording studio," he says. "It's yielded great artistic results, but I don't know how good it's been for my life. I can't say it's always the happiest existence."

Rubin, 42, has a girlfriend and plenty of pals, many of them famous. But he's consumed by work. Consider his current schedule: He's producing something like a half-dozen projects, for the likes of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Dixie Chicks and former boy-band idol Justin Timberlake.

"We put everything we have into it all the time, whatever it takes," he says. "If we're going to do it, let's aim for greatness. Because, honestly, the physical act of documenting the ideas that you have is not fun. So if it's not going to be great, I'd much rather go swimming."

Impressive discography

Since Rubin produced his first two rap singles in 1984, while attending film school at New York University, he's amassed a discography of more than 90 albums, a catalog that's sold in excess of 100 million.

There are early rap masterworks (L.L. Cool J's "Radio," Run-D.M.C.'s "Raising Hell," the Beastie Boys' "Licensed to Ill") and landmark rock albums (the Chili Peppers' "BloodSugarSexMagik," Slayer's "Reign in Blood," System of a Down's "Toxicity"), plus the superlative recordings from the last decade of Cash's life.

"Rick is a brilliant producer, probably the greatest producer alive," says Dan Charnas, a music journalist who in the 1990s worked as vice president of A&R and marketing at Rubin's American Recordings label. "He's fantastic with sound and arrangements, and he's tremendous with artists. They love him. He shows them how to make it better, and he gets more honest and exciting performances out of people than anyone."

If you enter Rubin's inner sanctum expecting to find chaos, mayhem and noise, you're bound to trip over your own disappointment. Rubin is a man in search of peace.

His multilevel house reeks of antiques and incense.

Rubin, who calls himself "a spiritual quester," spends a lot of time at home reading. Or listening to Bach. Or meditating.

Rubin is engaging, thoughtful and warm. He seems ... sweet.

The cynic in you begins to wonder if he's putting you on.

This is, after all, the same guy who used to date a porn star, who once owned part of a wrestling league, who went to the First Amendment mat for Slayer, Geto Boys and Andrew "Dice" Clay — abrasive artists with whom Rubin helped record some of the most controversial albums of the past 25 years.

So you check.

"He's really likable and sincere, and he's very easy to be with," Diamond says by phone later.

"He certainly wasn't easygoing in the studio. He's a passionate, obsessive person, like I am. But I have so much respect for the guy. He's talented, and he knows music and he brings a fresh perspective."

For Rubin, the production process begins well before entering the studio downstairs.

Songwriting is critical, he says. Always has been.

In 1984, when Rubin was trying to launch a record label out of his dorm room at NYU, he implored an aspiring teen rapper to add traditional song structure to his work, figuring that if it worked for the Beatles, it should work for everyone else. Rubin signed the artist shortly thereafter, and L.L. Cool J would become rap's biggest solo star. (Def Jam Records, the label Rubin founded with rap impresario Russell Simmons, didn't do so badly, either.)

Later, while working as a freelance producer for the Chili Peppers, Rubin was intrigued by an entry in one of lead singer Anthony Kiedis' notebooks, a poem about overcoming heroin addiction. Rubin talked the reluctant singer into presenting it to the band. "Under the Bridge" would become the Chili Peppers' breakthrough hit.

"I feel like the job is like being a coach, building good work habits and building trust," says Rubin. "You want to get to a point where you can say anything and talk about anything. There needs to be a real connection. My goal is to just get out of the way and let the people I'm working with be their best."

First, bonding

Says Daron Malakian, principal songwriter for System of a Down: "Production with Rick doesn't mean you're going to sit in a studio. It might mean you go to a record store or to the beach. Or you go for a drive. You bond as people first. And then you get these songs, and Rick's like the song doctor.

"The songs always feel better after his suggestions. And so do you. He's just so easy to be around. That's why people keep going back to him."

Frederick Jay Rubin grew up in an upper-middle-class Long Island neighborhood. A fan of hard rock and punk, Rubin was something of an outcast in school, wearing black leather and playing guitar in a hardcore band. He enrolled at NYU and had every intention of applying to law school until rap got in the way.

Enamored of what he considered to be black punk rock, Rubin was a regular at hip-hop clubs throughout New York but was disappointed by most of the studio recordings emerging from the rap scene. So he began shopping his services as a producer.

Most of the new hip-hop records "were not good. I wondered what it would be like if a record felt and sounded like being at a club instead of trying to sound like a record," he said.

In 1984 Rubin produced his first single, "It's Yours," for T La Rock and Jazzy Jay. Within two months the spartan song — built around beats, rhymes and little else — was one of New York's biggest rap hits. Among those taking notice was Russell Simmons, a music promoter from Queens, who was shocked to discover that "It's Yours" — which he'd declared the "blackest" song he'd ever heard — was produced by a Jewish kid.

Helping rap explode

In late 1984, Simmons and Rubin launched Def Jam, which soon landed a $2 million distribution deal with Columbia. The hits began coming, including L.L. Cool J's marvelously minimalist 1985 album "Radio."

At 22, Rubin graduated from NYU and began working on albums by Run-D.M.C. and the Beastie Boys. Obnoxious and bratty, the Beasties' 1986 debut, "Licensed to Ill," exploded rap's sonic boundaries and blew up its demographic demarcations by hooking masses of white suburban kids. "Licensed" became the first rap LP to land atop the Billboard pop chart and helped shove hip-hop into the mainstream.

But Rubin's relationship with Simmons suffered. He moved to Los Angeles to launch Def American with a controversial roster that included the Geto Boys and Slayer. Rubin entered into a partnership with Time Warner that reportedly was worth up to $100 million, and his label jumped out to a fast start with best sellers from the Black Crowes and Sir Mix-a-Lot. But the hits eventually stopped coming, even as Rubin was successfully producing work for artists signed to other labels (Mick Jagger, the Chili Peppers, Tom Petty). By the mid-'90s, he was in a dark place emotionally, though Rubin doesn't drink and says he's never done drugs.

"My work was being questioned, and it really shook me. It's a normal real-world experience, and if I'd had a different upbringing, it probably would've been nothing. But I was a spoiled only child, and I'd had success professionally from the beginning," he says.

Rubin takes a deep breath. "I think I probably relate better to some of the artists now. Because when they're in pain, I know what it feels like. ... I'm definitely a different person now ... But I like where I am."

Eventually the talk returns to music and to the country legend with whom Rubin forged a special bond. He offers to play a song from the posthumous Johnny Cash album he's readying.

As Cash's haunting spirit fills the room, Rubin again shuts his eyes. And this time, you do, too.