“Somebody needs to occasionally slap Rick Rubin”: Pete Townshend criticises producer’s mixed messages about creativity

Pete Townshend has criticised Rick Rubin and said that “somebody needs to occasionally slap” the esteemed producer.

Not that the Who guitarist is encouraging people to literally inflict physical violence upon Rubin. Townshend was merely guesting on Gary Kemp and Guy Pratt’s Rockonteurs podcast when conversation turned towards the issue of creativity and things became a little heated.

Pete Townshend and Rachel Fuller speak to Gary Kemp and Guy Pratt | IN FULL | Rockonteurs - YouTube

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“You see a lot of stuff on YouTube and Instagram, people nagging you about the way that you have to be creative,” Townshend began. “Somebody needs to occasionally slap Rick Rubin, because, one minute he’s telling us that we need to do whatever we like, and then, on the other hand, he’s telling us that we mustn’t do this, and we mustn’t do that.”

“The book of rules for me is… I’ve dabbled with all of those methods. I’ve carried complete big, recording studios on the road with me sometimes, and then sometimes I’ve used little cassette machines. I’ve recorded in all kinds of different ways. And if I fancy going into a studio with a huge orchestra, I’ve done that too. But what’s most interesting is the paper. The paper, the photograph, the writing.”

Townshend added that creativity is “not just about rock stars, pop stars, singers, musicians, artists, or whatever. It’s about everybody.”

“As Rick Rubin so rightly says, and many other pundits about creativity, it has to be fun,” Townshend says. “It has to be enjoyable. It has to be something that you love to do, and it also has to be something that you like what you do. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that anybody else will like it.”

Townshend was guesting on the podcast with his wife, the writer Rachel Fuller. As well as creativity and Rick Rubin, the couple were also talking about The Seeker, Fuller’s musical ‘reinterpretation’ of Herman Hesse’s classic novel Siddhartha, which coincidentally (or perhaps not) shares its name with a classic Who track. 

Last week saw a special one-off performance of The Seeker at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane. Townshend was one of the performers, along with Alfie Boe, Bollywood superstar Sunidhi Chauhan, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the Chamber Choir of London. The show’s narrator was well-loved actor Christopher Plummer. The Seeker album and an illustrated novel were also released last week.