Rick Rubin is listed as the producer of Slipknot’s 2004 breakthrough album Volume 3:
The Subliminal Verses. But if you were to ask the members of Slipknot
more specifically frontman Corey Taylor he doesn’t have fond memories of making the
album often criticizing Rick Rubin in the press. Today let’s explore what happened.
Slipknot’s 2004 album Volume 3 the Subliminal Verses would help raise the band’s profile,
earning a grammy while also featuring some of the band’s best known tracks including before
i forget and duality. A lot of people probably believed that because Rick Rubin was attached
to the project and given his long track record of successful albums, he was instrumental in the
succes of the record, but that wasn’t the case at least according to Corey Taylor. According
to the Slipknot frontman Rubin wasn’t a frequent presence in the studio and offered little direcion
and advice on making the record. Even before the album came out you can see the band was a
little gun-shy discussing Rubin's involvement in the album as they would tell MTV here.
You guys worked with Rick Rubin on this one whose obviously worked with Slayer.Amazing bands,
how was it working with him? Did he actually show up? Did he even show up? Yeah once in a while.
Yeah he kicked it on the couch stroked his beard and nodded and then he was out cause i heard kerry
king saying that he didn't show up.. Well a lot of people have issues with the way he works you
know it's fine whatever, but its the end result that really matters. and i think the album will
speak for itself. Did he take you like to a new place? We were thinking of going there anyways,
but he definitely encouraged us. You know on this album we really wanted to break out of
the wall the closed in space that we made for ourselves and show everybody in the band show
that there was more to this band than just what everybody had seen tried that previously so
we really got the shine on us. We've got a lot of really good stuff on it. Alright so
we will find out tuesday, this tuesday. While Rubin was listed as the producer
Taylor would praise engineer Greg Fiddelman for really stepping up and helping produce the record
even though he is only credited as an engineer on the album. While Taylor would remain mostly quiet
on the matter for a number of years ,the tension between the frontman and producer would come back
into the light in 2011 during a Q&A with fans in Austin, Texas he trashed Rick Rubin saying
"There are some people who would love for me to toe the
party line, which is basically, 'Working with Rick Rubin was a very enriching experience,'
"Let me give you the fucking truth of it: Rick Rubin showed up for 45 minutes a week.
Rick Rubin would then, during that 45 minutes, lay on a couch and have a mic
brought in next to [his] face so he wouldn't have to move.": "The Rick Rubin of today is a thin,
thin, thin shadow of the Rick Rubin that he was. He is overrated, he is overpaid,
and I will never work with him again as long as I f***** live" he would say.
In a separate interview with Revolver he would
reveal how he wasn’t happy with how the vocals turned out on the album
and that he only saw Rubin a total of 4 times during the making of the record.
But it wouldn’t just be Corey Taylor who commented on working with Rubin from Slipknot. In 2008
guitarist Jim Root had more positive things to say about working with Rubin telling Revolver Magazine
Rick was really attentive to what we needed as a band. A lot of the people in the band
say Rick was unavailable. And yeah, he takes on a lot of projects at one time,
but he also does things that are beneficial. He would listen to what we'd done, then have
us retrack things that needed work. He's kind of like Big Brother up on the hill. Even though
he wasn't there physically every day, he was. That's my favorite record we've done" he'd say.
Meanwhile Clown would say in the same interview "'Vol. 3' was all about rebuilding friendships
and since we were rebuilding, it was reall easy to rebuild the innovation of our music.
Listen to that fucking record. It's spiritual. Rick Rubin's the oracle
Five years later though Corey Taylor would strike a more positive tone
hoping to make amends with the producer telling Apple Music
“He works his way and he always has. I was not used to working that way.
I was a young guy, freshly sober. “Being a singer and being sober,
‘I need your attention, Rick! I need it!’ So that was me being young, unsure of myself,
needing the guidance – which I got from Greg Fidelman. Taylor would go on to say that he
hopes to somebody make amends with the producer , but three years later Taylor was interviewed on
the Dean Delray podcast where the subject of rick rubin came up once again saying
“When it came time to work with Rick, he just wasn’t f**** there,”
It’s, like, ‘Oh, I’m working with U2 now.’ And I’m, like, ‘We’re still in the studio,
dude.’ Honestly, it wasn’t until we finished the vocals at his house that
I saw him more than once a week.” In the same interview Taylor would sing Fidelman’s praises
singling him out as the unsung hero of the album and Fidelman would go on to
work with the band on their subsequent as a producer. That does it for today's video guys
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