Interview: The New Regime’s Ilan Rubin Talks “Exhibit B”, Nine Inch Nails, & Blink 182 Drama

By: Daniel Gerichter (@ZenDonut) –

Ilan Rubin (of The New Regime, Nine Inch Nails, Angels and Airwaves). (Photo: Tamar Levine)

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lan Rubin is a rock and roll journeyman with a genre-spanning resume. Having provided percussion for Lostprophets, Paramore, Nine Inch Nails, and Angels and Airwaves, you’d have to believe he’s learned a thing or two. Add to the the fact that Rubin is only 26. With those kinds of experience under his belt and a penchant for much more than just drums, Rubin has a lot of pent up energy to impart on the world. And that’s exactly what he intends to do with as the frontman for The New Regime.

Exhibit B (out March 31), The New Regime’s latest album, cannot be pinned down to one genre. It’s a frenetic mix of sounds that speaks to Rubin’s experience and eccentricities. We recently caught up with Rubin on the cusp of a new album and new tour to chat about his influences, stepping out in front of the drum kit, and the lessons he learned from Trent Reznor, Hayley Williams, and Tom Delonge.

The New Regime is a project where you’re almost 100% in control. What are the rewards and detractors of full control vs. a collaborative effort?

Personally, I find I’m at my best when I’m doing everything myself. I don’t have to depend on anyone and the flow of creativity solely comes from me. The most satisfying thing about the New Regime is that I’m able to see my own creative process through from top to bottom. The drawback would be the live scenario. I don’t know that I’ll have the same core of musicians to always play with because everyone has their own schedule. Eventually I’ll probably have to press reset because someone new is going to come into the mix.

It’s almost continuing the exact conundrum Trent Reznor went through over the years, with a constant rotation of band members for his touring outfit.

Exactly. I mean, at this point, Trent gets who he wants to play with him when he’s on the road. He’s got the storied history to get a fairly consistent grouping to go out on the road. With me, every time someone new leaves or joins, it’s time spent getting familiar with each other, practicing material and so on. But I can’t really let anything get in my way, so I deal with the punches as they come.

Much of the music industry is genre-fied, and there’s rarely any crossover. Yet here you are, having played with so many different acts. How do you think thatelevated your approach to making albums as the New Regime?

It’s hard to say because I don’t think you can take any of the tracks from Exhibit B and say that it sounds very much like any of the other bands I’m affiliated with. In those other outfits, I’m the drummer and that’s pretty much it. In Nine Inch Nails, I’ve been fortunate enough to try out other instruments, but the New Regime is the only band where it’s 100% me as a musician on display.

In your social media feed(s) you talk a lot about your favourite studio equipment, while other artists are extremely secretive about those things. Why doesn’t it matter to you? Why do you think other acts are so protective? 

I think bands who hold their gear in such heightened secrecy do that because there’s a deep insecurity there. As if people knowing the model number on some gear they own somehow compromises their style. The fact is, you can take any piece of gear, no matter how modified, and then put it in the room with two different musicians, and I guarantee you’ll get two completely different sounds out of that. Or, you can put a 1959 Les Paul and a stack of Marshalls in a room with any two guitarists and neither of them are going to sound like Jimmy Page, either. The sound that you play comes from your own personal style. The gear is there to enhance it. And frankly, that’s why I don’t care. I love my toys (laughs) and I got a lot of toys for this album, which is why I got so excited about them. I was just bragging about it on social media.

The bands you’ve been part of have embraced social media in unique ways. Is there a ‘too far’ with social engagement? 

I think you have to walk a fine line. People are following you for any number of reasons. They like the music you make, but they’re also interested in the personal side of you. Nobody wants to be following a band who’s just always hawking their merch, but at the same time, someone who’s always yapping about some weird personal stuff can betedious as well. And  anyway, if someone is bored or sick of you, they’ll just click ‘unfollow’ and move on.

With The New Regime’s forthcoming album, Exhibit B, Rubin wrote, recorded, produced and played every instrument on the album.

What kinds of personal experiences influenced the lyrics on Exhibit B?

A lot of my career has been about working on other people’s projects and letting that get in the way of the personal work I’ve wanted to do. Not that I’m complaining. But I think the lyrics have a lot to do with not letting people or situations get in the way and just pushing through. I don’t mean for this to sound like too much of a copout, but I don’t like to delve too deep in my lyrics. I think that’s what’s best about songs – that people from somewhere across the planet can relate, which is why I like to be somewhat vague. I like to let people enjoy the songs at face value, or find their own meaning if they dig a little deeper. 

Tom Delonge has put a heavy focus on adding new dimension to Angels and Airwaves with added mediums like film and graphic art. What effect has that had on your own creative process? Are there any negatives to an approach like that? 

I think the only negative part of an approach like that is that it becomes more difficult to juggle when you have that many balls in the air. Tom has a method to his madness. He’s a very ambitious guy and I think I was able to be an asset to the way he works, but I don’t work like that. If there are going to be added elements like that, they’d have to come naturally, and not as some sort of pre-planned campaign. I treat the music as the nucleus of any project I work on, because if you don’t have the music locked down, then all that other stuff has nothing to rest on. 

When you’re part of so many side projects, you’re going to come across some controversy – ie the current one between Tom and Blink 182. As member of his band, how do you offer support in a time like this? What (if any) are the boundaries at a time like this?

I can’t really say I’ve talked to him about what’s going on with Blink much. That’s their world. But if a conversation between us sparks up, I gently ask him how everything’s going and then we get back to business. I try to be a pal and not to delve too deep because honestly, I’ve got nothing to do with that side of things. I know that with Blink, Mark (Hoppus) and Tom were there in the beginning and Travis (Barker) came in a bit later, but overall those three have done it for a long, long time and so there’s just a ton of history for them to work through, no matter what the issues are. I hope their fans take that into consideration, too. Most people have a hard enough time staying in the same job for 20 years. Now add touring and marketing and recording to all of that. It takes a lot of strength to keep something like that together.

Creatively, what kinds of mental gear do you have to switch to when going from working with a moody, aggressive act like NIN to a more straight-ahead act likeParamore? 

The only real changes from band to band is the way they have things structured in the studio. With Trent, he usually wants me to contribute more than just drums, which I’m happy to do. With Paramore, it was more about just learning the songs and being ready to play them when we all got into the studio together. As a drummer, I find that genre isn’t really that important. 

As you push the New Regime forward as a frontman, you’ve no doubt taken something away from seeing the frontmen for each of the bands you’ve played with. What did you take away from working with Hayley Williams, Tom DeLongeand Trent Reznor?

Hayley is great about showing her true personality on stage. There are two trains of thought with being a front person. A lot of entertainers like to adopt a whole new personality on stage, while others just act like themselves and that’s what she does. And a woman like Hayley feeds off the fact that so many people love her for just being herself. Seeing that, I know that when you make that kind of connection with the fans, it’s the greatest feeling the world.

Tom has a real knack for simplicity. He’s the best example I’ve seen of knowing how to get your point across in a way everyone can relate to. Him and I come from very different musical perspectives. I think I come from a more classical background than he does, so it was always a push-and-pull relationship that resulted in better material overall. We’re always going to have different approaches to how we do work, but with him I definitely learned how not to over think things.

Trent is the most detailed and hard-working musician I have ever worked with. That guy is 100% aware of every single thing that’s happening in the studio. Everything. Every note matters to him. Every bit of production work matters to him. To know that it matters to him that much 25 years down the road has just inspired me to at least try to share the same passion for creativity and to achieve at his level.