It could be written on his tombstone: ‘1-2-FUCK-YOU!’ The way Steve Albini always counted down before his punk band Big Black erupted in a raging tornado of brutal and biting guitar violence was the perfect summary of his recalcitrant attitude to life. That life came to an end on Tuesday after 61 years: the singer-guitarist, punk purist and professional provocateur who would become a legendary producer died of a heart attack in his hometown of Chicago.
His death comes as a shock, and the timing is awkward. Next week – after ten years – the sixth album from his noise trio Shellac will be released, from which he performed several songs in the Amsterdam Paradiso last October.
Albini (1962) always did everything differently from others. As an ultimate statement that punk could still be more bare and simple, he performed with Big Black without a drummer, but with the cheapest possible drum computer. To get extra venom out of his guitar, he scraped the strings with a metal (instead of plastic) pick. The harder it scratched, the better. And if that provoked anger or disgust, that was only better. That’s why he named his next band after a Japanese superhero who, for a change, didn’t save the world, but raped women: Rapeman.
“My whole life I’ve looked at everything through the lens of punk rock,” he said, explaining his contradiction. When he also started recording other (underground) bands, he discovered his true calling. He wanted to capture the music of his kindred spirits as honestly as possible: bare, direct, without embellishment. It was allowed to squeak, creak and grind, just like real life.
Also read
The Five Personalities of Steve Albini
Nirvana
Conversely, bands found in Albini the listening ear they had been longing for for so long. Finally there was someone who understood them, and didn’t insist on hits or a radio-friendly sound. Countless musicians (The Jesus Lizard, Pixies, PJ Harvey, The Breeders and Low) recorded crucial albums with (or thanks to) him.
An important condition applied: Albini refused to be called ‘producer’, but only ‘engineer’. On principle, he did not want to interfere in the creative process by tinkering with musicians on their songs, but only had to document the music as best as possible. To emphasize that submissive role, he always wore blue overalls in the studio. Once all the microphones were properly set up and the tape recorder was running, his job was done. That’s why he started playing Scrabble behind the buttons, playing online poker or writing vegan cooking blogs.
His growing reputation as an audiophile nerd and bookseller of important bands led to his greatest achievement. After the monster success of the (flat-produced) hit album Nevermind asked Nirvana, the biggest band in the world at the time, whether Albini would be the successor In Utero (1993) wanted to include. He gave the trio the raw and dry sound they craved. The record eventually sold fifteen million copies (although the bewildered record company had the sharpest edges mixed off first).
Punk principles
After such a gigantic commercial mainstream success, a carefree retirement life would beckon for many colleagues, but not for a rioter with punk principles. Producers usually share in the band’s royalties, but Albini considered it “ethically indefensible” to free-ride on other people’s creativity for life. Instead, he wanted to be “paid like a plumber” on a one-off basis, he wrote in a stern letter to Nirvana in advance. “There’s no fucking way I would ever take that much money. I wouldn’t be able to sleep.”
He continued to oppose big grabbers from the music industry and warned about record companies that promised artists mountains of gold, but always ended up sucking them dry. “Here is the math that will explain just how fucked they are,” he wrote in the essay ‘The Problem With Music’. It became a leading manifesto for up-and-coming indie talent, in which he mercilessly calculated how much money was left at the hands of all outsiders (record executives, producers, promoters, managers, etc.)… and band members were left with virtually nothing.
In his studio – Electrical Audio, in Chicago – he continued to record not only big names but also obscure (and therefore less wealthy) bands. To keep the accounts correct, he tapped into another lucrative source: his poker talent. He won several major tournaments. It led to iconic photos, in which the Nirvana producer sat behind a green table full of chips, grinning in a T-shirt of the Belgian punk band Cocaine Piss that he had just recorded. “Playing poker is the only thing I do for money,” he said. “Having a studio is a bigger gamble than a game of cards.”
And he may have built up the image of a “cynical prick” (according to Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl), but in recent years he has increasingly started to express himself – including on https://twitter.com/electricalWSOP/status/1448050175658713092/ – to apologize for his sick jokes, offensive behavior and the band name Rapeman. He swore that he did not want to use all the bluffing and lying talents that served him so well at the poker table for the rest of his life. “I’m not a psychopath.”
To share
Email the editor
