Henry Rollins, Joe Strummer, Rick Rubin, and Johnny Cash- Photo: SGranitz/WireImage
Rick Rubin was interviewed on October 23 by Lauren Larverne for BBC Radio’s “Desert Island Discs” present, and through their chat he revealed how he bought Johnny Cash to file Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt” for his 2002 farewell album, American IV: The Man Comes Around.
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According to Rubin, when he first advised the duvet, “Johnny looked at me like I was insane.” He provides, “The Nine Inch Nails version of the song is very noisy, aggressive. Johnny was wary,” Rubin stated, although Cash would agree in the long run. “I think I did a demo where I had a guitar player play it, and I said the words the way I imagined [Johnny] saying it, and then when he heard the lyrics, and he heard the format of what it could be, he said, ‘Let’s try it.’”
Later within the dialog, Rubin provides, “I thought of the image of Johnny Cash as the mythical Man in Black, and any song he sang had to suit this mythical Man in Black. And one of the ones that seemed to have resonated with people after we did it was ‘Hurt.’ If you listen to the words, it’s like looking back over a life of regret and remorse.”
For his half, Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor was additionally as skeptical of the concepts as Johnny Cash was. He recounted the story to Alternative Press in 2004. “Rick Rubin has been a friend for a long time, and he called me asking how I felt about Johnny covering ‘Hurt.’ I was flattered, but frankly, the idea sounded a bit gimmicky to me. … A few weeks later, a CD shows up with the track. … It sounded… weird to me. That song in particular was straight from my soul, and it felt very strange hearing the highly identifiable voice of Johnny Cash singing it.” Once Reznor noticed the video, nonetheless, he was satisfied of the brand new model’s energy.
Buy or stream American IV: The Man Comes Around.