So anyway, the Beastie Boys were complete assholes during the interview, slamming their fists down next to my cassette recorder so hard I was never able to transcribe any of it, and the article was, for obvious reasons, never written. I didn't know who Rick Rubin was at the time. But I do remember a guy named DJ Double R who was profusely apologetic at the time.

Six years later, he was arguably the greatest record producer on the planet, and I found myself sitting in the living room of his Hollywood home, being interviewed for a job with his record label. To say, I was in awe would be an understatement. To say I was like a kid off the turnip truck would be far more like it.

So there I sat in Rick Rubin's living room.

The two things I most remember about Rick's house are the big stuffed polar bear and the wrestling boots — which I recognized had the initials "RF" on them. I asked Rick if these stood for Ric Flair, and from there we were pretty much off and running.

Like me, it seemed Rick Rubin was a big fan of pro-wrestling. I would later learn he actually had a financial interest in the independent Smokey Mountain Wrestling promotion. One year after I actually worked for Rick at Def American, wrestling babe Missy Hyatt delivered her calendar to me as a birthday present in person.

How sweet is that?

Anyway, from there Rick and I discussed our mutual fondness for bands like Blue Cheer — and he played a track by the then unknown and unsigned band Monster Magnet, a band obviously inspired by Blue Cheer — the sixties psychedelic band who more or less invented heavy metal.

Rick and I had bonded on Ric Flair, Blue Cheer, and my background with hip-hop. Basically I was in, and I knew it. The phone call I got that hot spring afternoon on the porch of my Seattle house a few weeks later was simply the confirmation I had been waiting for.

What transpired over the next two years that I uprooted to L.A. and went to work for Rick at Def American — and later the renamed American Recordings — is in many ways a blur. The celebrities came and went from our office. In a two year period, I met everyone from George Harrison to Johnny Cash (I'll never forget the way that he extended his hand and said "hello, I'm Johnny Cash").

Article Author: Glen Boyd

You'll find Blogcritics assistant music editor Glen Boyd sharing his Thoughtmares on his personal blogs The World Wide Glen, and The Rockologist. In a previous life, Glen was a music professional and journalist whose work has appeared in The Rocket, SPIN, Pulse!, and The Source. …

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