Rick Rubin discusses how he crash-coursed Kanye West's Yeezus

Def Jam founder and uber-producer, Rick Rubin has spoken in depth to Newsweek on his recent role on Kanye West’s new album Yeezus.

The record may have just gone to number 1 in both the UK and the U.S, but things could have been different, with West approaching Rubin with just five weeks until then record was due out and only 15 days left to work on the release before it needed to be handed in.

Here are some excerpts from the interview with Andrew Romano that give an idea of Rubin’s input as executive producer-come-muse.

How he came to work on the record:

“Kanye called me. I’d just finished working at the studio for about two months on another album, and I was getting ready to go away on vacation for a couple weeks. Then he called up and said, “Can I just come play my album?” And I said, “Sure.” I always like to hear what he’s working on. So he came over to my house in Malibu. We listened. I thought I was going to hear a finished album, but actually we listened to probably three and a half hours of works in progress.”

What Yeezus sounded like before Rubin’s input:

“Kind of meandering, unfocused, usually without his vocals. I assumed that the album was scheduled to come out next year. So I said, “When are you thinking of finishing up?” And he said, “It’s coming out in five weeks.” Like completely confident and fine.”

His first thoughts on finding out the impending deadline:

“To me it seemed impossible what he was asking. I remember I wasn’t feeling that well that day, and I was thinking, Is the music making me sick? I don’t feel good about this. We ended up working probably 15 days, 16 days, long hours, no days off, 15 hours a day. I was panicked the whole time.”

What the first steps were in piecing it all together:

“There was so much material we could really pick which direction it was going to go. The idea of making it edgy and minimal and hard was Kanye’s. I’d say, “This song is not so good. Should I start messing with it? Can I make it better?” And he’d say, “Yes, but instead of adding stuff, try taking stuff away.” We talked a lot about minimalism. My house is basically an empty white box. When he walked in, he was like, “My house is an empty white box, too!” “

On Kanye sealing the victory in the dying moments:

“Three days before Kanye had to turn the record in he tells us, “I’m going to Milan tonight.” There are probably five songs that still need vocals at this point. Two still need words! So he says, “I have to go to this baby shower before I go to Milan. I’ll be back at 4 p.m., and from 4 to 6 I’ll do the vocals. Then I have to go.” I say, “OK,” thinking it’s not OK, and he says, “Don’t worry. I’ll score 40 points for you in the fourth quarter.” Again it just seemed impossible, but that’s basically what he did. He didn’t come back until after 4, and we probably didn’t start until after 5. He said, “I have an hour and 10 minutes. Let’s go.” And then it was full-on NBA finals . It probably ended up taking two hours. Five vocals. He wrote two lyrics on the spot.”