“I said, ‘Rick, I’m playing one note, how the hell do I play less?’ He said, ‘I know you can do it’”: Tom Petty keyboard player Benmont Tench says that being produced by Rick Rubin on Johnny Cash’s American IV album was like solving a puzzle

Benmont Tench and Rick Rubin.

Former Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers keyboard player Benmont Tench has given us another insight into Rick Rubin’s sometimes idiosyncratic studio demands, recalling the time he worked on Johnny Cash’s American IV: The Man Comes Around, which Rubin produced.

Speaking to Vulture, Tench began by saying that Rubin’s philosophy is that “he doesn’t want anything to get in the way of the song,” and this credo came into sharp focus when he was recording his piano parts for Cash’s version of The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.