Why David Gilmour Didn’t Hire Rick Rubin to Produce His New Album

When David Gilmour was considering producers for his fifth solo album, a famous name came to mind.

“We had thought about Rick Rubin,” the former Pink Floyd rocker admitted during an appearance on The Rockonteurs podcast, adding that “a number of other people who’ve been around for quite a while” were also discussed. Rubin, of course, has a resume featuring some of the biggest names in the history of rock. Yet Gilmour ultimately decided he wanted to go in a different direction, instead enlisting a young rising star who could offer a fresh perspective.

“My lovely wife, Polly, came up with the notion of looking at who was younger and hot in the production world,” he explained. That idea led him to Charlie Andrew, best known for his work with U.K. indie rock groups Alt-J, Wolf Alice and London Grammar.

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“There was a fresh thing in those records that really appealed to me,” Gilmour continued, adding that he initially reached out to Andrew via Instagram. “He came down and listened to the early formation of the demos, which some of them weren’t that early, but they were certainly unfinished. And he asked some pertinent questions and then said he’d love to work.”

Andrew Helped Gilmour Find a ‘Different Sound’

The result is Luck and Strange, an album Gilmour believes is his best work since Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon. Stylistically, the rocker notes Andrew was able to help him capture “something different” than what older producers would have done.

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“There’s less of a crystal clear purity,” he explained. “And the cohesiveness of the whole album, to me, I find quite extraordinary. They have put all those sounds together and every track ties in in a certain way. It’s a different sound. I don’t think it’s any less brilliant or any less pure.”

Some of Andrew’s choices – like “distorted elements” and “out of tune elements” – initially made Gilmour shake his head, only for him to soon grasp the idea. “There are some things which were just, one of those moments you’re sitting there and going, ‘What? What the hell?’” the rocker admitted. “And the next day you’re going, ‘Yeah.’”