Butch Vig on his friendly rivalry with Steve Albini: 'He would stick these little jabs in me'

Starting at In the 1980s, Butch Vig and Steve Albini, who died Tuesday at 61, had one of the most interesting symbiotic relationships in indie rock. Both recorded bands in their studios, in Milwaukee and Chicago, respectively. Both played in bands. “None of us went to recording school,” says Vig. “We just figured it out on the fly.”

Vig produced Nirvana's Nevermind, but when the band wanted a less polished sound for its follow-up, In Utero, they turned to Albini. The famously outspoken Alibi wasn't afraid to make Vig jealous as much as other musicians or producers. In his seminal 1993 article “The problem with music” Albini broke down the costs of making and promoting a record, starting with hiring a producer after Nevermind: “Butch Vig is out of the question — he wants 100 grams and three points.” (“Thanks, Steve,” Vig says now, laughing.)

But despite the superficial rivalry, the men maintained a mutual respect over the decades. Vig, in his own words, looks back on Albini's aesthetic, heritage and vision, right down to the choice of caffeinated beverage.

Here is a funny story. When I went to New York to work Bromic with Sonic Youth [1992]we were trying to be very careful about the budget and found an apartment not too far from Kim [Gordon] and Thurston [Moore]'small. It belonged to a friend of theirs who was in Europe at the time and I rented it for about two months while we made this record. It was a three-story walk-up, and the first time I walked in, there was a big picture of Steve Albini, smiling, with a knife in his mouth and sticking out of his cheek. He and the person who owned the apartment were friends and used to go to punk shows and whatnot. Construction Bromic, every night I came back to the apartment, and it greeted me. It was scary.

I probably met Steve in the late 80's or early 90's. We both made a lot of underground, DIY punk records and worked with some of the same bands, like Urge Overkill and Tad from Seattle. I knew him through Corey Rusk, who ran Touch and Go Records, after I made records for them. i saw too [Albini’s band] Big Black in Chicago. It was so loud. I didn't have earplugs and I was trying to be cool and not sit with my fingers over my ears. I was trying to get into the corner where it was a little less powerful. It was quite intense, like sheet metal, but it was cathartic.

I knew Steve mostly as an engineer. I don't know if it was a competition, but I knew what he was doing because I was listening to his records and thinking, 'What is he using on the kick drum? What kind of room mics did you use on the drums on that?” Steve had a job as a photo retouch artist where he rubbed people's faces and took out the blemishes on them. I think he didn't really like trying to make something better than what it actually was, and I think that aesthetic carried over into how he wanted to record music. He didn't want to get in the way and try to polish it up and make it something it wasn't.

The first time I met Steve in person, he came to my studio when I was working with Tad on 8 Way Santa. I remember him staring at you, like he was analyzing you and watching you. It could be a bit annoying. Before I started the record, Sub Pop's Jonathan Poneman said, “You've got to get Tad to sing and not just yell. He's actually got a really cool voice.” So I encouraged him to sing more melodically. He would still say a lot, but it was probably more of a melodic record than the record. [Salt Lick] they had made with Steve. And I remember Steve was in the studio and he heard some songs and he was like, “Why are you trying to get Tad to sing? He's not a singer.” He was giving me these little piercings.

But it was nice, because I always thought he made great sounding albums. I love the PJ Harvey record he did [Rid of Me, 1993]. I remember the first time I heard it, I was like, “Wow.” I was kind of jealous, because she really had this dynamic with her voice and the guitars and they would just explode. It really captured where he was at that moment. For me, that was the record that really turned me on to her as an artist, and I thought she did an amazing job recording it.

Steve would play me records that were kind of funny, like bands with a comedic punk vein. But he didn't like pop music. If something was too melodic, whether in guitar or melody or vocal, it was not his cup of tea. Maybe he connected pop music with music business, because if something really pops, they'll probably try to get it to mainstream radio. He was so far from that and maintained a DIY aesthetic throughout his life, pretty much.

In the 80s and 90s, you started seeing his name pop up in fanzines and he would do these crazy interviews where he could be quite acidic, a provocateur. Sometimes it was even about artists he had worked with that he didn't think were very good. I was always shocked by what he said. At least for me, there's a kind of confidentiality when you work with someone. You go into the studio and you do your work and you finish it. You don't necessarily want to spill the beans on someone if they sucked. But there was also some humor. He refuted me somewhat famously. I remember him making a comment like, “Butch Vig just wants to make every band sound like the Beatles.” And I kind of took that as a compliment!

But he often called out the bullshit he saw in the music industry. The famous article [“The Problem with Music”] it was kind of true. That's how it was made if you went to a major label, with almost every band I knew. I was in a band, Fire Town, and this happened to us. we signed to a record label and pretty soon we were billed $500,000 and didn't sell a single record. So that was the end of the band pretty quickly.

At the time, I was a bit upset when Nirvana didn't want to work with me [after Nevermind]. Looking back, and I talked to Dave Grohl about it, they had to make a change. You can't be a punk purist like Kurt and have this hugely successful record, so they had to go with Steve, who made a much rawer sounding record. That's what Kurt had to do and Steve did. He famously negotiated with their record label, Geffen, and then put the note online, which I thought was funny, that he wasn't afraid to post these things.

Also, you wouldn't want to play poker with Steve. He was really good. He would play national and local tournaments and said it was one of the ways he kept the studio open. he was making quite a bit of money doing this, and the money was all his own. He told me that you just have to be really disciplined to play poker. You need to know what your chances are.

Steve grew up a little. When we did the Foos' Sonic Highway, we went to his studio in Chicago for the first track, and he couldn't have been nicer. I went in with Taylor Hawkins the first day we set up the drums and Steve was explaining the drum booth he had built and how he had gone to New Mexico to find a certain kind of stone that he put on the wall. reflected but was also porous. So the sound is really soft and diffused. it was absolutely perfect. Taylor said, “Wow, that's the best drum sound I've ever heard.”

It was also then that I learned Steve was a foodie. On the first day, he served us coffee and said, “This is the best coffee you'll ever drink.” He said the beans came from monkey poop, somehow. When it passed through the monkeys' digestive track, it removed some of the acid. It was delicious.

The last time we wrote to each other was right before Covid. I wanted to get some of this coffee for my studio, but you had to mail order it. It was very expensive, like $30 a pound, but it was super smooth and didn't have much acid in it. Steve was right.