System Of A Down guitarist Daron Malakian has been singing the praises of the producer often credited as being ‘the fifth member’ of SOAD: Rick Rubin.
Malakian appeared on Ultimate Guitar’s On the Record podcast, ostensibly to promote Scars On Broadway’s current Addicted To The Violence album. Conversation soon turned, though, to what Rubin brought to SOAD’s body of work.
"He has said himself, 'I'm not a technical guy. I'm not a musician, but I bring my taste and if that if that's something that you respect then I'll give you my opinions and you can take it or leave it,'” the guitarist said. “And that's kind how it was working with Rick."
"He made so many of those songs with just one little opinion or one little nudge, and it made a song better than it was. A song is like two and a half minutes. So when you make a tiny change in that song, you're making a big change in a two and a half minute song."
Malakian continued: "It can be something like, 'Hey, repeat that chorus twice instead of once,' or even questioning, like, 'Is it good enough?' And it makes you think, okay, is it good enough? And if it's not, then you go in there and then you make it good enough – you make it better, or you do something, or you answer that question with, yeah, it is good enough."
The guitarist gives the example of the song Lost In Hollywood, the closing track on the band’s 2005 album Mezmerize. Malakian had written the first part of the song, but it took a nudge from Rubin for him to complete it.
"But when I brought in the first part of the song, he just told me, 'It's not finished.' I thought it was finished, but he's like, 'I don't think it's finished.' And I came home that night, and I wrote the middle part of the song… 'I was standing on the wall feeling ten feet tall…' And I was like, 'Wow, this song just became something really fucking great.'"
"I probably wouldn't have gone there if he just didn't say, well, I don't think it's finished. He didn't turn a knob. He didn't give any technical advice. He didn't even tell me what direction to go to finish it. He just left it to me. I don't need him to paint my painting, but he definitely pushed me into a direction that made my painting better."
