“The way I play guitar, every time I play with a session musician, they’re like, ‘What are you doing? What chords are you playing?’”: Beabadoobee discusses her unorthodox guitar style and how it helped her to gel with Rick Rubin

She might be a poster child for the next generation of guitar players, but Beabadoobee (Beatrice Laus) has admitted that her unconventional style can sometimes confuse those who come from a more ‘traditional’ background.

“The way I play guitar, every time I play with a session musician, they’re like, ‘What the fuck are you doing? What chords are you playing?’” she tells Mix Online. “They’re always like, ‘It sounds pretty, but that chord does not even exist!’ I don’t really follow any rules.”

This unorthodox approach, it seems, is one of the things that helped her to bond with Rick Rubin, producer of recent Beabadoobee album, This Is How Tomorrow Moves, which was recorded at his famous Shangri-La studio in Malibu.

“I think what I really go off with, and what Rick really goes off with, is what you feel and the vibe and what you hear,” says Laus. And, in typical Rubin style, the producer is keen to talk down his own technical abilities.

“Yeah, I don’t know if ‘professional’ would be the word I would use for anything I’ve ever been involved in,” he says. “I come from a punk rock background and have made some of the most, let’s say, naïve-sounding recordings that you can find.”

He does have some rules, though: “I strongly believe in recording everything,” says Rubin, and this is an attitude he brought to the Beabadoobee sessions.

“I can remember with one or two songs in particular, she said, ‘These are not as good as the newer ones; let’s not record them,’” recalls Rubin, “and through the recording process, they became some of her favourite songs - but you don’t know that in advance!” 

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Warming to his theme, the producer also offers a further piece of typically amorphous advice.

“I think accepting the fact that we know so little about what makes something good gives you a great ability to try things freely,” says Rubin. “[It’s about] taking all of the ego out of it and starting with, ‘I don’t know what’s good until I hear it, and when I hear it sounding good, then I know it’s good.’ Thinking about what’s going to sound good doesn’t really tell you anything.”

Whether that’s genius or nonsense we’re not sure - Rubin would probably tell you that it doesn’t really matter - but the great bearded one certainly has an incredible track record, and those Shangri-La vibes seem to bring out the best in people.

Lady Gaga, for example, is another recent visitor who loves being there: “When I’m here at this studio, I’m relaxed and I am able to face my demons and what’s remarkable is… that’s the music. I’m able to hear it back,” she told Vogue. “I’ve developed a relationship with this place - almost like a person.”