AMERICAN HEAD CHARGE Frontman Says Producer RICK RUBIN Gave Band 'No Direction'

AMERICAN HEAD CHARGE's Martin Cock recently spoke to Pitriff.com about the band's decision to leave the American Recordings label following the release of their debut, "The War of Art". An excerpt from the interview follows:

Pitriff.com: How was it working with Rick (Rubin, producer and American head honcho) in the past?

Martin Cock: "It's a really hard thing to explain, but he's very...actually, I talked to Clown from SLIPKNOT about this briefly. He kind of coined it well. He said that Rick is either really hands-on or he's not. Either way, he's almost like this weird entity that is like a catalyst for good things getting out into the world, so to speak. I don't know that we're one of those things. It's odd working with him because from moment to moment, he can be really hands-on or he can not be there at all."

Pitriff.com: How was it different working with Greg (Fidelman) this time?

Martin Cock: "The difference is that Greg is really, really hands-on, which is exactly what we needed for this record because personally, and I'm speaking for everyone when I say personally (laughing),everybody's personal worlds were pretty fucked up...including mine. Really fucked up! So, it was hard to really get a cohesive vibe in terms of what we wanted to do until we all got in the room together. The problem is getting us all in the room together was near impossible at the point when we were all writing all this stuff. It was good to have somebody like Greg that was like, 'Everybody shut the fuck up and listen to me. We've got a great record here, but everybody's got to get on the same page with what we're after.' That's why we asked to be let go from American...because for that two years or whatever, we were writing consistently five to 10 songs every couple of weeks. We would send it out to L.A. for Rick to listen to, and it would take him anywhere from a week to two weeks to listen to it. We'd call all throughout that two weeks and say, 'What's the deal?' They'd go, 'He hasn't listened to it yet.' It's like, 'Dude, we're starving our asses off trying to get this fucking record together, and you don't even give a shit enough that once you have it, you listen to it.' And then it was like, 'Well, he's listened to it, but he hasn't put his notes together yet.' We'd spend a month just waiting to hear what he thought of something we sent a month ago, and it was just...And then, once we got the notes, the notes were the most ambiguous, vague shit. It was basically just opinions of the parts — not constructive criticism or direction. It was always just 'Yeah, the chorus is cool,' or 'The verse was kinda boring.' Literally! I'm not kidding you! I'm not exaggerating at all. It was like, 'As our producer, what do you want us to do differently?' There was never any direction."

Listen to the entire interview at this location (Real Player required).