How Rick Rubin Talked Johnny Cash Into Covering Nine Inch Nails

Rick Rubin recalled persuading Johnny Cash to report a canopy of Nine Inch Nails’ basic music “Hurt” – leading to a model that additionally turned a basic.

The stripped-down take appeared on Cash’s 2002 album American IV: The Man Comes Around. It was considered one of a collection of data he made with producer Rubin in a undertaking that started in 1994 and led to a resurgence within the legendary singer’s profession.

“He wasn’t well enough to tour anymore,” Rubin instructed the BBC in a current interview (through Musicradar). “His partner was gone. And his choice was to die or to carry on, and he chose to carry on.” He defined that, once they first met, Cash didn’t know something about him. “He wanted to understand why I would want to work with him, because why would anyone want to work with him? In his mind, he was done.”

Rubin mentioned he did not attempt to persuade Cash of something: “I said, ‘Well, let’s just sit down and play me songs you love, and we’ll figure out what to do.’ He sat in my living room and he just started playing me these songs, most of which I had never heard – old country songs, or old folk songs, and it was magnificent.”

Watch Johnny Cash’s ‘Hurt’ Video

Rubin centered on Cash’s picture as “the mythical Man in Black” and that’s why “Hurt” got here to thoughts. “If you listen to the words, it’s like looking back over a life of regret and remorse,” the producer mentioned. Nevertheless, it wasn’t a case of simply going forward.

“I played him the song first, and Johnny just looked at me like I was insane because the Nine Inch Nails version of the song is very noisy, aggressive. Johnny was wary! And I think I did a demo where I had a guitar player play it, and I said the words the way I imagined him saying it. And then when he heard the lyrics, and he heard the format of what it could be, he said, ‘Let’s try it.’”