In 1987, Rick Rubin produced The Cult’s Electric, the album on which he transformed the British indie/goth outfit into a blue collar rock’n’roll band firmly in the mould of one of his favourite acts, AC/DC. Imagine Rubin’s thrill, then, when in 1993 the Def Jam co-founder had the opportunity to produce an AC/DC song, “Big Gun”, for the Arnold Schwarzenegger blockbuster Last Action Hero. The session went so well he was hired to helm Ballbreaker, the follow-up to 1990’s The Razors Edge. Determined to revive the grit and warmth of classic AC/DC recordings, his plan was to have the band play live in the same room with minimal overdubs. His cause was strengthened when former drummer Phil Rudd returned to replace Chris Slade, restoring the dependable and identifiable no-nonsense groove that propelled classic albums such as Highway to Hell and Back In Black. Unfortunately the sessions did not go entirely smoothly. Issues around the New York studio and Rudd’s drum sound prolonged the recording, while a literal earthquake followed the band’s relocation to LA. Rubin—who had previously committed to working on the Red Hot Chilli Peppers’ One Hot Minute—had to divide his attention between the two bands. He was also a stickler for fine-tuning songs, making the band rehearse and rehearse each track before recording—a far cry from the more spontaneous sessions of early albums. Neither of these developments exactly thrilled guitarists Angus and Malcolm Young. Rubin did, however, achieve his goal of making a classic-sounding AC/DC album, with Ballbreaker sitting in the same sonic world as LPs such as Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap and the raw-as-guts Flick of the Switch. It’s full of no-frills, no-nonsense blues-influenced rock’n’roll that veers from the brooding (“Burnin’ Alive”) to the typically sex-drenched (the title track) and, in opener “Hard As a Rock”, anthemic. Having taken over lyric-writing duties from vocalist Brian Johnson on The Razors Edge, the Young brothers also wrote the words on Ballbreaker, embellishing their fixation on bawdy sexual themes (“Cover You In Oil”) with occasional dashes of more serious social commentary; according to Angus Young, “Burnin’ Alive” was inspired by the Branch Davidian cult siege in Waco, Texas. The band would reunite with longtime producer (and Malcolm and Angus’ older brother) George Young on their next album, 2000’s Stiff Upper Lip—but the Rick Rubin era remains an important part of AC/DC’s legacy.