TROUBLE Legends Talk Working With RICK RUBIN

BraveWords had the honour to speak with legendary Trouble guitarists Bruce Franklin, Rick Wartell, along with bassist Rob Hultz and drummer Garry Naples on the recent 70000 Tons Of Metal cruise (the band are rounded off by Exhorder’s ferocious frontman Kyle Thomas). The entire interview will appear in the coming days, but in the meantime here’s an excerpt from the chat, where the hands of doom talk about working with Def Jam Recordings founder and producer guru Rick Rubin on their game changing self-titled album from 1990 and the great follow-up in 1992, Manic Frustration.
BraveWords: “There’s so many great stories, there’s so many horror stories, about Rick Rubin – who I’ve never met. What were your dealings with Rick Rubin?

Wartell: “We had two different kinds, actually. Like, when we did the first record with him, Rick Rubin had just started Def American. So he was more hands-on. He was actually in the rehearsal studio with us during preproduction. He came to Chicago and did preproduction. And he was hands-on with helping us construct the songs. And then he was in the studio with us, recording the songs. The second time, for the Manic Frustration record, he walked into rehearsal once and he said, ‘You’re ready’. He left, and they recorded us, then he came back at the end and he did his thing. Two different versions of our time with him. Both of them were good.”

Franklin: “And two different experiences working with him also. So there was stuff where he really helped, and stuff where we had, you know, some arguments, where we did not agree. And there was back-and-forth. So we loved him, didn’t love him so much, loved him, you know.”

Wartell: “It was a work in progress. It was a collaboration, basically.”

BraveWords: I’m sure he probably admired a band that would stand up to him.

Franklin: “We did that, we did that.”

Wartell: “He understood that we had our opinions, and we knew what we wanted, as well. But he also saw something in us that we didn’t see, that he helped bring out of us, too. So I mean, I thought it was a really good collaboration. I think he put us on a path that we wanted to be on.”

Stay tuned for more from our chat!