FINNEAS says Rick Rubin may have some technical ability after all: “There are many videos of him setting up the mics. He doesn’t ‘know nothing’”

Producer Finneas has shared his thoughts on Rick Rubin’s self-confessed lack of technical knowledge, and like many others, he finds it hard to believe that Rubin really knows “nothing about music”.

Rubin said these exact words back in 2023 during an interview with Anderson Cooper for 60 Minutes, when he also said he didn’t know how to use a mixing desk. Finneas, known for his production work with sister Billie Eilish and others, has said he feels Rubin perhaps isn’t being literal when he says he knows nothing.

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Speaking to Billboard, Finneas explains, “He’s made work that I’m really inspired by. I’m a little confused by his kind of… He swears that he knows nothing at all about music, and it’s like, just Google Rick Rubin, Johnny Cash. There are many videos of him setting up the mics. He doesn’t ‘know nothing.’”

He adds: “What I assume he means by that, and I respect this, is similar to what I’ve said before: there are a lot of people that know a lot more than I do. I don’t know the most, but I also don’t know ‘nothing.’

“I think it’s an effective [strategy]. I try to do the same thing, which is, I don’t want to make people feel like it isn’t achievable,” he says. “You don’t want to intimidate somebody out of trying to make something by way of, ‘I have my 10,000 hours, I know so much, you’ll never know as much as I do.’ So I like that.”

Check out the full conversation with Finneas below:

Finneas isn’t the only artist to call Rubin’s confessions into question. Jacob Collier has also shared his own confusion around his claims. In a 2024 interview for the Colin and Samir podcast, Collier said he “doesn’t trust” Rubin’s creative philosophies, adding, “I’d love to sit with Rick at some point and just talk to him and chew the cud and push him.

“[I’d] also welcome to be pushed because all of us need to be examined. Our opinions need to be squeezed and broken and I just think that anyone sitting there and saying ‘This is the wrong way to do it’, like Rick saying art is only pure if it’s made for art’s sake. Absolutely false.”

While other artists have felt particularly riled up by Rubin, including Pete Townshend, who suggested someone should “occasionally slap” Rubin, others who have worked with him have praised his practices, including Kesha, System Of A Down’s Daron Malakian, and Beabadoobe.

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