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The following is a conversation with Rick Rubin, one of the greatest music producers of all time, known for bringing the best out of anyone he works with, no matter the genre of music, or even the medium of art, or just the medium of creating something beautiful in this world.
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And the list of musicians he produced includes many, many, many of the greats over the past 40 years, including the Beastie Boys, Eminem, Metallica, LL Cool J, Kanye West, Slayer, Tom Petty, Johnny Cash, Dixie Chicks, Aerosmith, Adele, Danzig, Red Hot Chili Peppers, System of a Down, Jay-Z, Black Sabbath.
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I can keep going for a very long time here.
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Most importantly, Rick is just an amazing human being.
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We became fast friends, which is surreal to say and is just an incredible honor.
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I felt truly heard as a person when I spent the day with him eating some delicious Texas barbecue, talking about life, about music, about art, about beauty.
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This was a conversation and experience I ll never forget.
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And now, a quick few second mention of each sponsor.
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Check them out in the description.
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It s the best way to support this podcast.
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We got Lambda for deep learning, Theragun for recovery, Roka for style, Onnit for performance, and ExpressVPN for privacy.
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Choose wisely, my friends.
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And now onto the full ad reads.
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As always, no ads in the middle.
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I try to make these interesting, but if you skip them, please still check out our sponsors.
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I enjoy their stuff.
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Maybe you will too.
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This show is brought to you by a new sponsor, new to the sponsorship, but old to me.
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I love them, have loved them for a long time.
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It s Lambda.
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the CPU, everything.
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You can do Linux, Ubuntu Linux 20.04 or you can do Windows also.
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I promise not to judge if you go with Windows.
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Anyway, Lambda is as good as it gets.
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You will not regret it.
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lambdalabs.com slash flex.
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This show is also brought to you by Theragun, a handheld percussive therapy device that I use after workouts for muscle recovery.
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It s surprisingly quiet, easy to use, comes with a great app that guides you through everything you need to know.
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I ve been doing almost every day a large amount of push-ups, a large amount of pull-ups.
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If you re not careful, you can get the, what s that called?
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Tendonitis, I think, overuse injury.
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So I take my recovery very seriously.
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Also, getting back on the mat now.
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I had an injury with my leg that I was dealing with.
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Again, Theragun helps a lot there.
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This show is brought to you by Roka, the makers of glasses and sunglasses that I love wearing for their design, feel, and innovative materials, optics, and grip.
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Roka was started by two all-American swimmers from Stanford, one of whom I met, both of whom I m sure are awesome, but one of, I can testify that one of them, Rob, is for sure 100% awesome, 110% awesome.
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This episode is brought to you by Onnit, nutrition supplement and fitness company.
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They make AlphaBrain, which is nootropic, that helps support memory, mental speed, and focus.
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I use it as a boost for a difficult deep work session that s gonna last two, three, four hours.
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It s brilliant.
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That s lexfriedman.com slash on it.
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This show is also brought to you by ExpressVPN.
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I use them to protect my privacy on the internet.
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So many reasons to use ExpressVPN.
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First of all, ISPs, they collect your data using incognito mode on Chrome.
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All the shady things you do on the internet, and I know you do all of the shady things.
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The ISPs know all about it.
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For Netflix and Hulu and so on, you can use ExpressVPN to change locations.
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So if any of the shows are geographically restricted and a bunch of them are, you can change your location instantly throughout the world.
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in terms of connection speed, in terms of intuitive nature of its design.
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That s expressvpn.com slash LexPod.
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This is the Lex Friedman Podcast, and here is my conversation with Rick Rubin.
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Are you nervous?
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I m not shaky, but I would say I feel uneasy.
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And I feel like the sooner we start talking, the more relaxed we ll get.
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Yeah.
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Well, maybe we should sit in this moment and enjoy the nervousness of it.
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Let me start with Nietzsche.
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He said, without music, life would be a mistake.
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What do you think he means by that?
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Let s talk some philosophy.
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Let s try to analyze Friedrich Nietzsche from a century ago.
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It seems like music has the ability to bring us so much depth in our soul that s hard to access any other way.
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And without it, there would be a loss beyond the pleasure of it.
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Feels like it s a window into something else.
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Something that no other medium can express quite the same way.
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I would say not as automatically.
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Something about music can do it automatically.
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Maybe poetry or maybe certain abstract forms can get us there.
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But there s something about music that really can get us there quickly.
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But it s also the time, the place, the history.
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There s something about, like a lot of my family s still in Philly, there s something about driving through Jersey and listening to Bruce Springsteen.
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And then it just, I ll get like emotional.
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Like listening to like, I m On Fire.
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That like, one of my favorite Bruce Springsteen songs, there s a haunting kind of strumming to it.
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It s not a strumming, it s actually picked, has a country feel to it, almost like a Johnny Cash feel actually.
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And it, I don t know, makes me feel, so for people who don t know, I m On Fire, that song is, I guess,
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a love song to a woman that you can t
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have because she s married or she s with somebody else, which I guess is quite a lot of love songs.
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But there s something about the haunting nature of the guitar.
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And then it has to be driving through Jersey.
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And I feel like everyone has fallen in love with a Jersey girl at one point in their life.
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I don t know if that s true for everybody, but I feel like that.
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I haven t either, but I just feel like that.
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There s something about Bruce Springsteen s like, yeah, I ve been there.
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I, you know,
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And that just takes you to a place of emotion that you just, that captures love, that captures longing, that captures the heartbreak of just the way time flows in life, and the fact that it s finite, and just all of that in a single simple song.
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What else can capture that?
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Yeah, I don t know.
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But it s true that there s a connection both between time and place and music.
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Certain music growing up on the East Coast didn t really resonate with me until I spent time on the West Coast.
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Eagles being an example.
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When I lived in New York, the Eagles didn t really speak to me.
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ZZ Top didn t really speak to me.
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And then when I started spending time in California and driving through Laurel Canyon, all of a sudden the music of the Eagles felt appropriate somehow.
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And I started listening to it more.
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Got it, so not until you went out West can you understand the sounds of the West.
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So it s really like New York as a sound.
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What other places have a sound in the United States?
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I think every place does.
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And that said, sometimes we can get an experience through music of a place, like we can resonate with the music and not understand why.
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And then maybe when we go to the place where it was created, it s almost like we have a knowingness of that place.
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It s not a strange place anymore.
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Yeah, Stevie Ray Vaughan with blues and Texas blues.
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You can just listen to Texas Flood and just, again, there s like a woman you re missing, a broken heart, and somehow that connects you to the place, The Eagles.
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What song with The Eagles connects with you?
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Are we talking about like, Take It Easy, or are we talking more like Hotel California?
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I m thinking Take It Easy, but both are great.
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Yeah, there s certain songs when I started learning guitar when I was young, that s like, I would like to be the kind of person that not only knows how to play this song, but understands this song.
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And like, have that song be something I played 20 years ago.
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And I ve lived with that song for a while.
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Like Hotel California is an example.
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Obviously there s the solo, but there s also the soulfulness of the lyrics, which I still don t understand.
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And it could be about anything.
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And as you get older, I feel like the meaning of the song could be anything.
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Yeah, I think that s true.
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I think that s the beauty of them.
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I think when the person wrote them, they may have had one interpretation, but it s not contingent on us getting that interpretation to like it or resonate with it or feel it.
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In some ways, the best art is open enough
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where the artist gets to have their experience when they make it, and then the audience gets to have their experience when they listen, and they don t have to be the same.
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And then it connects thousands or millions of people together.
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There s a togetherness of music when you share that music, when you re listening to stuff together, like in a car.
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First of all, the car is a sacred place.
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So I work in part on autonomous vehicles.
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And you start to think, well, what are the things you lose when the car stops being the central part of American life?
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The car ownership.
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It just feels like the car, when you re alone, it s like a therapist thing, session, because you get angry at other humans, and then you get to sit in your own anger and emotion.
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You get to listen to the song on a long road trip and remember, like run through your memories, the heartbreak, I don t know, the one that got away, but also like the beautiful moments, all of it.
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Yeah.
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And all of that in the car.
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Yeah.
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Driving also serves another purpose.
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And it s one of the things that we can do that
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we have to pay attention enough not to crash, but typically can essentially run on autopilot enough where we could be thinking about something else or concentrating on something else.
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And the difference between concentrating on something or trying to solve a problem when you re solely trying to solve a problem versus when you have some little task that s keeping you occupied,
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I find if I have something slight to take care of, it frees a more creative side of my mind to better solve problems.
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You know, I m kind of jealous of people that found that in painting, for example.
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They ll be drawing or painting and listening to, so that s the small task you do.
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You re coloring in the lines.
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It s like this gentle, peaceful, slow process that requires just a small fraction of your mind and then you can listen.
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Some people listen to podcasts that way.
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Some people listen to music that way.
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Yeah.
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How do you do it?
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How do you free your mind?
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Running is one of them.
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there s a process.
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So most freeing of the mind for me has to go through a process of a bit of pain for a bit.
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So doing something difficult, it s just like a airplane taking off or something.
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So that s like, for example, running, the first few miles would just be just, first of all, the physical aspect, which is like, ah, you re so fat, you re out of shape, this is getting old, this or that.
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Okay, that slowly dissipates.
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And then the demons come in who are like,
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you should be getting this and that and this done.
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You haven t gotten it done.
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You re like breaking promises, all those kinds of voices coming in.
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And after that, maybe mile four, it s like, fuck it.
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You just run.
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Run with the wind at a very slow pace, but with the wind.
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And then you could think.
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So it s the footsteps, the physical activity, then you could deeply think about stuff, ideas.
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sort of design, whether it s program design stuff or like high-level life decisions, all those kinds of things, I would say running.
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I used to build bridges from toothpicks.
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I used to be a thing.
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It s an engineering, I guess some people like glue together airplanes and stuff like that.
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But the bridges, it s such deeply honest work because at the end of it, you re gonna have to test that bridge.
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and you re gonna see how good your work was.
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The little details, but also the big picture.
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Do you use glue or no?
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Yeah, you use glue.
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So it s not pure physics, it s materials engineering too.
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The way you want to do it is you actually split the wood as thin as possible and then glue it back together because the glue is really strong except for the arches and things like that.
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So you re building arch bridges which is a whole other skill because you have to bend the wood.
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And it s so cool because the thing can hold thousands of times its weight.
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And then you get to watch it explode at a certain point.
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from the pressure and when you do a really good job, it doesn t explode in a kind of some weak point that you didn t anticipate, just kind of starts cracking.
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Everything cracks, everything explodes.
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It s just pieces fly everywhere.
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And it s literally hundreds of hours of work just explode in front of you.
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And that s a metaphor for life maybe.
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And it s all for nothing.
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except for the journey that you took to get there, and no one understands.
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Speaking of which, back to Nietzsche.
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These questions are ridiculous, so you re gonna have to try to figure out what the heck I m trying to do here.
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So Nietzsche also said,
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a line I love, which is, and those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.
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Do you, Rick Rubin, ever feel crazy?
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Or maybe, maybe you re the one who s sane and everybody else is crazy.
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You know that,
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the dancing, the joy of the music, of just feeling the music and everybody else just doesn t understand.
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And this doesn t have to be literally about music.
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This is about art, about creation.
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I would say I feel different
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And it s hard to say, it s like, which side of the equation is crazy, you know?
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Did you ever find a group of people that you get, they get you?
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Yes.
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Is that what producing is essentially, is you try to find the moments when you just get each other?
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No.
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I would say they re definitely,
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Certain artists with certain temperaments, when you re around them, it feels like you can finish each other s sentences, just see the world the same way.
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Comedians as well.
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And that s not essential for the two of you together creating something special?
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No.
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So it could be attention too?
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It could be anything.
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There s no rules.
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Think of it like a coach.
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A coach could bring what they have to bring to any talented individual and help them find their way.
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And sometimes the right coach for the right athlete really works and other times
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There s a mismatch.
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Have you seen the movie Whiplash?
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I did.
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I saw it when it came out, so I don t really remember it well, but I did see it.
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So there s a coach type of figure who is pushing a drummer to create, to grow as a musician, but also to create something special.
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I don t know if it s even special music skill-wise.
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It s a special moment.
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I don t know what he s trying to create.
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From one perspective, it s just an abusive, a person who selfishly gets off on being abusive to those he s with.
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But from another perspective, the way I saw that movie, it s just the two right humans finding each other at the right moment in life and risking destroying each other in the process, but maybe something beautiful will come of it.
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Do you think that s a toxic relationship?
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Or is there, does some of that movie resonate with you as that sometimes is required to create art?
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That kind of suffering.
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Yeah, it doesn t—well, there s suffering involved, but not that kind of suffering.
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Not for me.
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There s some, there s some people who that s their process and that s whatever works.
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You know, there s no, there s no right answers for anything involved in art.
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It s we re, we re all trying experiments to find a way.
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And even for the things that I work on, I don t have a set way that I do anything.
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Every, I come to every project blank and um, see,
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I really listen to what the artist plays and says, and through what they explain they wanna do, help find the best way to get there.
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Was it implicit in the movie that the mean teacher liked being a mean teacher?
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You said the way you described it was that he got off on treating people this way.
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Do we know that to be the case?
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I don t remember that in the movie.
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We sometimes project that onto people, people who are really rough on students.
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You start to think, well, maybe, um,
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Maybe that is fundamentally who they are, and if it s fundamentally who they are, that there must be some pleasure in it, or it s an addiction of some sort.
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But it could be also a deliberate choice made by the teacher.
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also could be a lineage.
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In the Zen tradition, there are the mean Roshis, who, if you do something wrong, take a physical action.
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In the lineage, it s considered
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that s how you teach.
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I didn t come from that lineage, so I feel like it s more of a collaboration between people working together to make the best thing.
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It s not a boss-slave relationship at all.
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It s much more of a
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let s find our way.
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And we agree at the beginning of the process that if either of us, or any of us, don t like what s happening, we say it.
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And the goal is to keep working until we get to a point where we re all really happy with it.
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It s like if we make something that an artist likes and I don t like, or that I like and they don t like, we haven t gone far enough.
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In terms of lineage, the ones that seek destruction and the ones that seek happiness all come from the same lineage.
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We all came from fish, so somewhere in you, deep down, there s the other stuff too.
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It s just that you haven t been yet, by the way, because you said every new project, including maybe starting today, is an opportunity to channel, to plug into something that was always there and you haven t gotten a chance to plug into.
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You mentioned listening.
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How do you listen to a person?
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How do you hear a person?
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When you first come in, like we just met, what s the analysis happening?
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But, I mean, with me is one thing.
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I m an artist of sorts.
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I program and I, I m just, I m human, I guess.
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I guess we re all creating art.
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How do you see, like, how do I bring out?
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So, for people who don t know,
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I mean, obviously everyone knows that you ve produced some of the greatest records ever, but the way I see that is you just brought out the best in a lot of interesting artists.
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And so in order to bring out the best in them, you have to understand them.
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You have to hear the music of their soul.
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Hope I m not being too romantic here, but just like, is there something you can say?
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of how difficult that is, if there s a process, if there s tricks, if it s luck.
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I think it starts with this, again, coming in blank, like not having any preconceived ideas, being open and really listening, listening and not thinking about what you re gonna say next or what your opinion is or any, you know, not...
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basically being a recorder and just hearing what comes in.
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And then once you hear what comes in, processing that information and trying our best to do that without any of the beliefs that we might have to impact what that is.
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If I ask you a question, I don t wanna hear what, I don t wanna listen to you and have any reaction happening when you re speaking.
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and wanna be as neutral as possible.
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For me, my goal is not to form an opinion, it s to understand.
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So if anything, I would draw you out further and just ask questions to really understand.
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Or if you say something that somehow triggers me in a way that I wonder how,
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He came to that, I wouldn t challenge you, I would ask, how did you find that?
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How did you get to that place?
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From a place of curiosity, you would try to figure out.
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Yeah, I want to understand who the person is, and through questioning we can usually get there, or through just spending time together, you find out who the person is.
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What about finding out and figuring out how to then take the next steps of bringing out the best in them?
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Like, is it just trial and error?
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Like, let s try this.
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It s definitely trial and error.
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It s always trial and error.
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Are you afraid of making a mistake?
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Like, let s add this instrument, let s remove this instrument.
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Let s try.
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Let s add this line, let s remove this line.
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Let s try.
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And let s be open.
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So one of the, we don t really have rules, but one of the agreements in the studio is any idea that anyone has,
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will always demonstrate it, will always try it, because I can describe to you an idea, and you can think, that s a terrible idea, let s not do that.
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And then I can play you the idea, and then you can say, oh, that s really good.
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And it s completely different, because when we re told something,
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we have to imagine what that is.
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And the way you see something and imagine it and the way I see something and imagine it are completely different.
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So you say a thing and now there s two humans that play that thing in their mind differently, in their imagination.
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And then there s a cool creative step and when you actually do it to see how it differs in the imagination.
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And then the difference or the commonality
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will be like an exciting little discovery together.
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Well, so many groups of people making things together in a room, one person will suggest something, and someone else in the room say, ah, that doesn t sound like a good idea, let s not do that, and then they move on.
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The testing of every idea is really important, and that s how you get to see, oh, that s not at all what I thought it was gonna be.
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It happens to me all the time, I know, because someone will suggest, why don t we do it like this, and I ll think,
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that sounds bad.
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And then I ll think, okay, let s try it.
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And then we hear it.
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And then, you know, eight times out of 10, it s nothing like I imagined and great.
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And you try not to have an ego about the fact that you thought it was not a good idea in your head.
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There can t be any ego in this.
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It doesn t, uh, if, if, if everyone s there with the purpose of making the best thing we can,
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There s nothing else.
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There can t be any boundaries to that.
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So there s a moment I saw with, I know you don t love talking about previous things you ve done, but it s cool to dive in there every once in a while.
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I m fine to talk about it, maybe.
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To sample it.
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Anything?
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We ll see.
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I have this pain, I gotta talk now.
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I ll think of something ridiculous that would make you change your mind.
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You mentioned, I saw a video of you with Jay-Z working on 99 Problems where you suggested acapella opening the song with acapella, just no instruments, just voice.
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That to me, I mean, that s one of the characteristics of the things, of the ways you ve brought out the best in artists is doing less, sort of the tending towards simplicity in some kind of way.
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So that choice of acapella is really interesting, because I could see a lot of people think that that s a bad idea.
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but it turned out to be a really powerful idea.
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Can you maybe talk about the simplicity, how to find simplicity, why you find simplicity is beautiful?
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It does appear to be beautiful.
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What is that?
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Yeah, I don t know where it comes from.
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It has been with me from the beginning of my work.
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The very first album I ever produced, the credit I took was reduced by me instead of produced by me.
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for that reason.
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I like the idea of getting to the essential.
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I have a better idea now that I ve done it for a while, but at the time it was purely an instinctual thing.
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Part of it is a sonic, there s a sonic benefit, which is the less elements you have,
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you can hear each of the ones that are there, and they can sound better.
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And the less there are, the more space they can have around them, and the more you can hear their personality.
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If you were to record 10 people playing the same guitar part, and you listen to it, it would sound like guitar.
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And if you record one person playing a guitar part,
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it sounds like a person playing the guitar.
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It s different than just guitar.
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And often in the studio, the idea of building upon things and adding layers to thicken, to make it sound bigger, sometimes the more things you add, the smaller it gets.
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So it s a, a lot of it is counterintuitive until you just in practice see what works.
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To try it, to try removing stuff until it s just right.
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It s the Einstein thing, make it as simple as possible but not simpler.
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That s such a, like finding a stopping place, just keep chopping away and chopping away.
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Yeah, there s something we also like to do called the ruthless edit, which is, let s say you re at a point where
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It can work for anything, but I ll give you the example with an album.
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We ve recorded 25 songs.
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We think the album s gonna have 10.
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Instead of picking our favorite 10, we limit it to what are the 5 or 6 that we can t live without?
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So going past even the goal to get to the real heart of it and then see, okay, we have these five or six that we can t live without.
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Now, what would we add to that that makes it better and not worse?
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It puts you in a different frame when you start with building instead of removing.
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And you might find that there s nothing you need to add.
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Sometimes.
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Sometimes something happens when you get to the real essence.
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Then when you start adding things back, it becomes clear that it was just supposed to be this tight little thing.
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Can I ask you like a therapy session question?
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So you mentioned somewhere that one way to kind of think about music to get into music is to look at the top like a hundred albums of all time and just go down the list and like just take it all in like one piece of artwork.
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So I was doing that for a while.
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It s a cool experiment because unfortunately I have to admit I ve gotten lazy and stopped taking in albums as albums.
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And I looked at one interesting top 100 list, top 500 actually, which is put together by Rolling Stone.
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And they put, this is the therapy session part, and this has to do with simplicity too.
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They put Marvin Gaye s What s Going On at number one.
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Spoiler alert.
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So I d like to maybe get your opinion
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on that choice.
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The reason Marvin Gaye is really interesting, it d actually be cool to play what s going on in a second, but when you just listen to his a cappella, just listen to his voice, it is really good.
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People
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It makes me wonder if it s possible to pull off most of his songs with no instruments.
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In many parts, there s so much soul in just Mercy Mercy Me, What s Going On.
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There s so many songs that you could just be like, I wonder if you could just like...
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Just go raw, or maybe in parts, or maybe do what you do with Jay-Z, just open up with nothing.
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Anyway, there s something so powerful to a great soulful voice.
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Do you mind if I play it real quick?
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No, please.
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What s going on?
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This is probably one of my favorite songs.
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I mean, it s up there.
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that voice there s some just very subtle backing vocals
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This one hurts.
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Father, father, we don t need to escalate.
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I wonder who the father he s talking about is.
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Oh, that s interesting.
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I mean, so for people who don t know, his own father ended up killing Marvin Gaye.
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Yeah.
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I mean, that one is really pain, I mean, for a lot of people, your relationship with your father, your mother, I mean, there s different dynamics, but there s, it s almost like part of life is resolving some kind of complex puzzle you have with the people you love, the people close to you, or the people who are not there, all those kinds of things.
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That s so much pain in that we don t need to escalate father, father.
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I never thought if it s, I always thought it s his father directly.
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Yeah, I don t get that.
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It could be, but I don t, I feel like it s a more,
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masculine spirituality.
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Like a father figure or just broadly some kind of spirituality?
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Could be like God.
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Father God, Mother God, you know, like could be, I don t know.
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But there s so much, it s like both hope and melancholy.
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He s saying war is not the answer.
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It s like you don t tell your father war is not, your blood father war is not the answer.
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It s a strange conversation.
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It s a bigger conversation than a personal.
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Don t you think it feels like war when it s personal?
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What s the difference between
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is the war is personal too.
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It s only leaders think about war in a geopolitical sense.
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When people that fight wars, you lose your brothers, you lose, I mean, death is just right there.
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So it might feel just like that.
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But yeah, there is a dance between like the personal and like talking to the entirety of the society.
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It s like John Lennon, Imagine, like also a song where, is that hopeful?
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Is that cynical?
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Is it like melancholy?
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Like heartbroken?
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Like you hope, you wish things would be a certain way and they re not.
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Yeah, I don t know.
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I don t know if John Lennon is giving up on the world in Imagine.
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Yeah, I don t know.
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No, it s an interesting question.
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There s another John Lennon lyric in, let me think of what it is, take me a second.
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and different songs keep coming into my head, not the one that I m looking for.
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And you keep pressing next.
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Across the universe, nothing s gonna change my world.
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And when I hear that, I hear it as hopeless.
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But I don t think, I don t believe that that s,
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Well, it may be how he meant it, but I don t think that s how it s normally taken.
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And it s also the taker is important.
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I m generally optimistic and hopeful, so I always look for the hope.
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And actually, the harshest love heartbreak songs are always somehow hopeful to me.
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That s a love song.
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To me, a song about losing love is a song about the great capacity for love in the human heart.
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That s what I hear.
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To me, losing love is exciting.
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Cause it s like, that means you really cared.
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That means you felt something, you feel something, you can sit in that pain and that pain is a reminder of what it means to be human.
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When you re that, what is it?
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We re just listening.
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The only man who could have reached me was the son of a preacher man.
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So it s like that early love or something or partially sexual or whatever.
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That s not as interesting to me.
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It s fun.
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It s great.
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But it s that heartbreak.
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That s the reminder that it can go deep.
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although that s a damn good song.
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Have you ever heard the Detroit mix of the Marvin Gaye album?
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No.
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Call it up.
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By far better.
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Mind-blowing.
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I just heard it recently, blew my mind.
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Oh, wow.
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Reverb.
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Distant.
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interesting feels like it s all around the room more more voices, more voices
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My father He s layering his own vocals Feels like there s multiple people singing
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Yeah, it s beautiful.
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Yeah.
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It seems to have more energy.
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If you listen to the whole album, even though you just said you don t listen to albums anymore, the Detroit mix of the whole album changes the album a lot.
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I mean, that felt, so that s the opposite of a cappella, I would say.
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Because it s, there s layers, there s, and maybe, I don t know if you remember, but if memory serves me correct here, he produces this own album here, Marvin Gaye was the producer on this, I believe.
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I believe so.
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And this one sounds more like it s a get together.
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And the whole album sounds more like a get together where it s a group of people
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in a room playing music together, whereas the album version sounds more like a recording.
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This sounds less like a recording and a little more like a party.
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Now you had a series of conversations with Paul McCartney, which is amazing that people should watch, but is there, this is continuing our therapy session, is there a case to be made that what s going on is number one album above the Beatles, a white album, or Abbey Road above Pet Sounds?
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Can you still manage case?
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There s always a case.
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I mean, there s always a case.
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In reality, in art, there s no metric that makes sense.
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So you could put numbers on things, but...
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It s like, is this apple better than this peach?
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It s not really a fair comparison.
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But if you just had to keep one to represent the human species, that s the way I think to the aliens.
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I think it s a very personal decision.
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I think you can make your choice to represent the human species and I ll make mine, you know?
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Well, I would pick the Beatles over Beach Boys, so that s my, if I became dictator of the world, I was talking to the aliens.
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But I don t know the full historical context to the impact of the music.
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I don t know if that s something to consider, like this kind of thought experiment of imagining what it was like back then to create, to go into the studio, to do such interesting work in the studio.
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as opposed to listening to just as a pop song almost.
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I ve never been able to understand Beach Boys, God Only Knows.
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The song, God Only Knows?
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God Only Knows, but all of it, the album, the Pet Sounds.
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In My Room?
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In My Room.
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That song.
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What was your favorite on the album?
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On the Pet Sounds album?
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Pet Sounds.
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The opening track.
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Do you mind if I play it?
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Please.
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It s too fun.
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That s part of their trip, though.
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You open the heart with the fun.
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It s possible.
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Original mono and stereo mix versions.
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What s the opening song?
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Wouldn t it be nice?
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Yeah, that s the song.
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This part is good, man.
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And then back to fun.
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Yeah, we could say goodnight and stay together.
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Wouldn t that be nice?
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Wouldn t it be nice to wake up together?
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But we re not.
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There s heartbreak in this one, too.
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Still, to me, like George Harris, like,
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Is that the White Album, While My Guitar Gently Weeps?
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I mean, the Beatles, it s so hard to, depending on the day, I ll say a very different song that s my favorite song, but I often return to While My Guitar Gently Weeps as my favorite song.
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Spectacular.
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Anything George Harrison, honestly.
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Something in the way she moves.
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What would you classify that?
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There s like several Beatles songs, categories of Beatles songs.
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So that s like the melancholy love songs or ballads or something like that.
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Yesterday, Let It Be.
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What s, do you have favorites?
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So from your, like how have you changed as a man, as a human being, as a musician and music producer ever having done that lengthy interaction with McCartney?
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Hmm, anytime you re around someone who s such a hero and you spend time with them and they re a human being, it helps put perspective on everything.
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You know, it s like- Oh, they re just human.
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Well, obviously.
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I mean, everyone s just human.
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But I remember the first time I got to see Paul McCartney play live, it was in a stadium of 70,000 people.
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And he started playing and I started crying.
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And I couldn t believe I was in, even with 70,000 people, I couldn t believe that this man walks the earth and that I m in the same place as him.
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And he s the person who wrote that and played that.
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And now he s here playing it for us.
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It s mind blowing.
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That s the voice.
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It s overwhelming.
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Is it inspiring or is it, like, because sometimes when you have, and I ve gotten a chance to meet, I mean, I love people in general, like every person is fascinating to me, but yeah, when you ve been a fan for a long time and you meet a person, sort of, I ll just remove present company, is you,
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It s like, oh, they re just human.
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So there s both.
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It s both inspiring that just a simple human can achieve such beautiful things, but it s also like almost wishing there were gods moving around us.
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It s somehow peaceful.
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It s more comforting to know that there s, you know, there s bigger fish.
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I m just a small fish and then there s bigger fish and they will take care of the ocean for us.
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I think we re all capable of being big fish.
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I don t think that there are special people.
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I don t think it s like that.
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I would make a case, so the variety of artists that you worked with and brought the best out of, it does seem that you re out of this world.
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So do you think you would know, like, if you re the same kind of species?
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Maybe you re just a meat vehicle and you re channeling ideas from somewhere else.
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I feel like I m channeling ideas from somewhere else, 100%.
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Have you asked questions about where from?
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I believe we all are, though.
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we re vehicles for information that when it s ready to come through, it comes through.
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And the people who have good antennas pick up the signal.
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But if I m sure you ve had an experience in your life where you ve had an idea for something and you ve not acted on it, and eventually someone else does it.
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And it s not because they re doing it because you had the idea and they stole your idea.
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It s because
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The time has come for that idea, and if you don t do it, someone else is going to do it.
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It s being broadcast by whatever the source is.
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Whatever the source is.
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Yeah, I tend to
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I tend to see humans as not quite special in that way.
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It s different kinds of antennas walking around, listening to ideas.
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I like the notion of Richard Dawkins of memes.
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It s kind of the ideas of the organisms, and they re just using our brains to multiply, to select, to compete, to evolve.
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And humans, we really wanna hold on to the specialness of our body, of our mind, but it s really the ideas.
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So if Rick Rubin was born two centuries ago, you wouldn t be a music producer.
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SPEAKER_01
You d be, or I mean maybe, but you have an antenna.
2
SPEAKER_01
And if no signal s coming in, or you d be hearing potentially a different signal.
2
SPEAKER_00
Is there... I think we all have our own antenna for whatever it is that we, you know, maybe not everyone has tuned into their antenna to see what it is that their strength in bringing through is.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m lucky in that it found me, because I didn t know that it was a, I didn t even know this was a job.
2
SPEAKER_01
I sometimes wonder, I mean, a lot of young people, a lot of people wonder, like, what s the purpose and the specs of my antenna?
2
SPEAKER_01
what am I put on this earth to do?
2
SPEAKER_01
Like if, you know, I can live a thousand lives, there s so many trajectories, and imagine the greatest possible trajectory that reveals the most beautiful thing I can possibly create in this world, live the most beautiful way.
3
SPEAKER_02
What is that?
3
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I feel like that s a good exercise to think about.
3
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Because it s also liberating to think that you can do anything.
3
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More and more, I suppose that s kind of life.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s like society is pushing conformity on you.
3
SPEAKER_02
I thought
3
SPEAKER_02
I had my own flavor of conformity I thought I was supposed to be following.
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SPEAKER_02
Early on, I would say in the late 20s, you realize, wait a minute, you don t have to do what teachers tell you to do, what parents tell you to do, what society tells you to do.
3
SPEAKER_02
I would never wear a suit if I listened to my colleagues and community who think a suit is like,
3
SPEAKER_02
the symbol of, what is it?
3
SPEAKER_02
A symbol of conformity, actually, which is hilarious, but it s actually a kind of rebellion and everything else of that nature, doing these silly podcasts.
3
SPEAKER_00
I have a question I have to ask.
3
SPEAKER_00
Sure.
3
SPEAKER_00
Because you brought up the suit.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
Do you wear the suit
3
SPEAKER_00
Is this your daily uniform outside of podcasting?
3
SPEAKER_02
So for the longest time, it was some kind of suit.
3
SPEAKER_02
And then recently, I mean, coinciding with going to Texas, there s a I m such a loner.
3
SPEAKER_02
I m an introvert.
3
SPEAKER_02
And there s a bit of a hiding from the world when I wear other stuff.
3
SPEAKER_02
I really want to
3
SPEAKER_02
to not make fame, recognition, money, all of those things a motivation at all.
3
SPEAKER_02
And the world kind of wants you to make those motivations.
3
SPEAKER_02
Not the world, but I would say maybe the Western world, maybe America, maybe a capitalist system does.
3
SPEAKER_02
But... That s a choice to buy into that or not.
3
SPEAKER_02
Right.
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SPEAKER_02
It takes a brave person, a person of character to not buy in and I m like a baby deer trying to find its legs.
3
SPEAKER_02
You don t have to buy in.
3
SPEAKER_02
I love people and I think I m kind of an idiot and so when other people say do this and do that,
3
SPEAKER_02
there is a pressure there.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s actually very difficult to not listen necessarily to the advice of others and yet keep yourself fragile and open to the world.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s easy to be like, I m always right, you know, just kind of sticking your ground, but if you want to be like vulnerable, if you want to connect with people and just wear your heart on your sleeve, then you re going to listen to them.
3
SPEAKER_02
I mean, that s the double-edged sword of it.
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SPEAKER_02
But then again, that pain, if you don t let it destroy you, you can grow from that.
3
SPEAKER_02
Has fame affected you at all?
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SPEAKER_02
Did you unplug from the system at some point?
3
SPEAKER_02
Same.
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SPEAKER_00
I ve always been sort of removed.
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SPEAKER_00
I don t feel like I m part of any system.
3
SPEAKER_00
Do you feel famous?
3
SPEAKER_00
I m aware that when I go out, people say nice things to me, which is great.
3
SPEAKER_00
But that s about it.
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SPEAKER_00
That s about as far as it goes.
3
SPEAKER_02
But it doesn t affect your art about your creativity or your thoughts.
3
SPEAKER_02
Like when you re sitting alone and thinking about the world.
3
SPEAKER_00
It can t.
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SPEAKER_00
It can t.
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SPEAKER_00
It s a destructive force.
3
SPEAKER_00
The thing, the reason that you re who you are and the reason that you re finding the success you re finding is because you ve been true to yourself to get to that stage.
3
SPEAKER_00
So to start changing that to either conform to someone else s idea of what you should be doing, it just seems like it doesn t make sense.
3
SPEAKER_02
Do you have a sense of who you are?
3
SPEAKER_00
Because I don t necessarily have a,
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t know, I know that I really like making good things, and I know that I m crazy about it in that it s like an obsession.
3
SPEAKER_00
and I want things to be as good as they could be, whatever it is.
3
SPEAKER_00
And if I m, if I finish a music project and I have a window of time where I m not working on music, I might be moving the furniture around in the house.
3
SPEAKER_00
You know, I m, I m always looking for a product, a creative outlet to find a way to make something better.
3
SPEAKER_00
Or there was a period of time where I was in a weird corporate situation that was, uh,
3
SPEAKER_00
that didn t allow me to flourish.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I turned, I focused the creativity in on myself and I lost a bunch of weight and changed my life.
3
SPEAKER_02
And- So that was the kind of art, like you ve gone through a whole process of losing weight, getting in shape, getting healthy.
3
SPEAKER_00
That was a kind of creative act.
3
SPEAKER_00
It certainly was.
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SPEAKER_00
It wasn t an intentional creative act, but I had a lot of energy and I just, a series of events happened
3
SPEAKER_00
I read a book.
3
SPEAKER_00
At the time, that was my heaviest.
3
SPEAKER_00
I weighed about 318 pounds.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I d been sedentary my whole life, basically laying on a couch working on music.
3
SPEAKER_00
So I ve never been physically active in my life.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I read a book about a guy named Stu Middleman, a runner, who ran 1,000 miles in 11 days.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I thought, wow, I get out of breath walking to the corner, and another human being can run 1,000 miles in 11 days.
3
SPEAKER_00
I feel like I have bad information.
3
SPEAKER_00
Clearly, I m doing something wrong.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I reached out to a person that Stu mentioned in the book, Phil Maffetone.
3
SPEAKER_02
Who s a legend.
3
SPEAKER_02
I really appreciate him as well.
3
SPEAKER_02
He s Maff180Method2.
3
SPEAKER_02
He s such an interesting, I think he focuses on heart rate training.
3
SPEAKER_00
And he was the first person to talk about essentially a- Low carbs.
3
SPEAKER_00
Paleo, keto.
3
SPEAKER_02
diet 40 years ago.
3
SPEAKER_02
For a person who s going to be healthy, who can exercise and actually perform at an early level.
3
SPEAKER_02
He s the first person, when I talk about heart rate training, him and other endurance athletes he influenced, he gave me permission to run slower.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_02
It was the first time I realized, oh, I can run long distances if I just run slower, and I take that seriously.
3
SPEAKER_02
And I actually fell in love with running very much so, because for me, everyone s different, but for me, the love of running happens in the longer distances.
3
SPEAKER_02
Did you read Born to Run?
3
SPEAKER_02
Great book.
3
SPEAKER_02
Amazing book.
3
SPEAKER_02
There is something special about running.
3
SPEAKER_02
And everybody has their own journey with it.
3
SPEAKER_02
And even ultramarathon running, those kinds of things.
3
SPEAKER_02
It is like many journeys, one that can pull you in.
3
SPEAKER_02
Like you won t be the same person after.
3
SPEAKER_02
And I try to be deliberate about making choices after which you ll not be the same person.
3
SPEAKER_02
And so I m nervous about like the ultramarathon running world.
3
SPEAKER_02
I have to talk to you about Johnny Cash.
3
SPEAKER_02
I mean, when people ask me what my favorite musical thing is of all time, I m
3
SPEAKER_02
You know, it s a very difficult question to answer, of course, but I m pretty quick, if I m not allowed to pick anything by Tom Waits, I m pretty quick to say Hurt by Johnny Cash, the performance, the whatever you call it, whatever the heck that is, because that s not just a song covered by an artist.
3
SPEAKER_02
That s a human being at the end of their life
3
SPEAKER_02
that the rawness of that, the, I mean, just, there s also a music video, which for a lot of people adds a lot to it.
3
SPEAKER_02
For me, just the music alone is, I mean, the guitar.
3
SPEAKER_02
Every choice on that, see the few things I ve heard about it, it seemed like almost accidental.
3
SPEAKER_02
I mean like little subtle choices here and there.
3
SPEAKER_02
Can you maybe comment on that to the degree, I think you had a huge role in sort of bringing Johnny Cash back.
3
SPEAKER_02
from a different part of his life.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s like bringing something out that wasn t there before.
3
SPEAKER_02
And it was incredible.
3
SPEAKER_02
It was a celebration of a really special musician.
3
SPEAKER_02
And that s a totally new kind of celebration.
3
SPEAKER_02
Now, Hurt is just one of the songs that s an amazing celebration of Johnny Cash.
3
SPEAKER_02
But Hurt is at the peak of that.
3
SPEAKER_02
So what was that like?
3
SPEAKER_02
putting that song together.
3
SPEAKER_02
It might be nice to listen to it because I freaking love that song.
3
SPEAKER_02
And as a guitarist, I just, the simplicity of it, it seems like every choice contributes to the greatness of the song.
3
SPEAKER_02
Simple, it s crisp, but it s dark, too.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s one of the greatest opening lines of any song.
3
SPEAKER_00
I miss that.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m talking about the lyrics.
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t even mean the performance.
3
SPEAKER_00
The words are...
3
SPEAKER_02
But those words out of Trent Reznor are not the same.
3
SPEAKER_02
They have a different meaning coming out of Johnny Cash s mouth.
3
SPEAKER_01
What have I become?
3
SPEAKER_01
Written probably for a young man.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think he was 20 when he wrote it, Trent.
3
SPEAKER_01
Anger, regret, pain.
3
SPEAKER_02
The way the guitarist played, the choice of instrument, the layers there, the freedom to give him, to use the voice that s fading.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s not fading, it s changing.
3
SPEAKER_02
Maybe he s losing some aspects of his voice.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s almost like shaking a little bit, and it s a little bit out of tune in parts.
3
SPEAKER_02
Ah, how much of that was deliberate?
3
SPEAKER_02
How much was, like, how do you give Johnny Cash the freedom to do that?
3
SPEAKER_02
How do you find that together?
3
SPEAKER_02
Is there any insights you can give?
3
SPEAKER_00
I think it s a case almost of like the right, pairing the right role with the right actor, you could say.
3
SPEAKER_00
The song lyrics, the reason we chose the song was because of the lyrics, purely about the lyrics.
3
SPEAKER_00
And at that point in time, both Johnny and I would send each other songs of possible ideas to record, and that was one that I sent him, and he didn t respond to initially.
3
SPEAKER_00
I would send him, at that time we would burn CDs, and I would send him like a CD of 20 songs or 25 songs, and he would send them to me.
3
SPEAKER_02
You d burn a CD for Johnny Cash and you d send him of different songs?
3
SPEAKER_00
Of like songs to consider recording.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
And we would send these back and forth.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then that I had hurt on one of the ones that I sent him and he didn t respond.
3
SPEAKER_00
And usually if he didn t respond, we didn t go back to it, you know, and that one, I remember I sent it again and I put it first on the next, on the next CD.
3
SPEAKER_00
And when we spoke about when he listened to the CD again, he didn t respond.
3
SPEAKER_00
I said, check out that first song, and I really feel like that one could be good.
3
SPEAKER_00
What did you see in that song?
3
SPEAKER_00
It s the lyrics.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s the lyrics.
3
SPEAKER_02
Because I feel like there s very few people in the world
3
SPEAKER_02
that would see these lyrics in Johnny Cash s mouth and think this is a good idea, including for a resident.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
I know that Trent had trepidations in the beginning.
3
SPEAKER_00
But if you listen to the words, if you forget the music, and if you forget what Nine Inch Nails sounds like, and you just read it like a poem, and then you imagine a 70-year-old man reading these lyrics,
3
SPEAKER_00
it ll be, it ll be profound.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s profound.
3
SPEAKER_00
So that was the, based on lyrics that started the journey.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then at this point in time, Johnny was not in great health.
3
SPEAKER_00
And sometimes I would go to Nashville and record with him at his house.
3
SPEAKER_00
Sometimes he would come to California, but he was coming to California less regularly.
3
SPEAKER_00
And because there were so many songs we wanted to try, he would start sometimes recording just a straight acoustic version.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like you d have someone play guitar, he would sing, and they would send those to me and we would discuss like, is this one to build on?
3
SPEAKER_00
And that was when we said, I don t want to record this one until we re together.
3
SPEAKER_00
I feel like we should do this one together.
3
SPEAKER_00
So on the next trip to California, we recorded it at my old house
3
SPEAKER_00
And I mean, all the songs we recorded felt special.
3
SPEAKER_00
So I can t say this one felt special, but lyrically it just, it s more the lyrics have such a profound sense of regret.
3
SPEAKER_00
What have I become?
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
And to hear when you re 20 years old talking about regret,
3
SPEAKER_00
It s heartbreaking, but it s heartbreaking in a different way because you have your whole life to figure it out.
3
SPEAKER_00
When you re looking back over your life at the end of your life with regret, it s brutal.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s brutal.
3
SPEAKER_00
So that was the initial spark of doing it.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then when we recorded it, I believe it was two guitar players, if I remember correctly, maybe even three, Smokey Hormel, Matt Sweeney, and Mike Campbell.
3
SPEAKER_00
I believe.
3
SPEAKER_00
And Ben Montench was playing the piano in my living room as we were doing it.
3
SPEAKER_00
And we cut the basic track and with Johnny singing, and then Johnny probably sang over that basic track a few more times.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then we clumped his vocal and then, uh,
3
SPEAKER_00
built up the drama and you didn t get to the part, but at the end of the song, it gets very loud.
3
SPEAKER_00
The music gets very loud.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s subtle because it s not anything that takes your ear and the vocal is so powerful that you don t really think about what s going on.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s building and it even gets distorted at the end.
3
SPEAKER_00
It gets really, uh, like over, overpowering.
3
SPEAKER_00
And that s part of the emotion of it.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s, uh,
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_02
I hear almost anger and frustration.
3
SPEAKER_02
And it just rings out, the clean vocal.
3
SPEAKER_02
I mean, it s so simple.
3
SPEAKER_02
So incredible.
3
SPEAKER_02
And it s interesting to have a young man s lyrics in an old Johnny Cash voice and heart and mind.
3
SPEAKER_02
Are you a fan of Tom Waits?
3
SPEAKER_02
Of course.
3
SPEAKER_02
Tom Waits, when he was younger, had
4
SPEAKER_03
There s a song called Martha, but there s a bunch of songs he s written when he was young.
4
SPEAKER_03
It s like, how does a young man have that melancholy wisdom?
4
SPEAKER_03
The song Martha is about an older man calling a woman he used to love, that she s now married, and he s married, and they re having that conversation.
4
SPEAKER_03
They haven t spoken for 30 years, and they realize that there s still love there, and it could have been a different life,
4
SPEAKER_03
world where they could have been together.
4
SPEAKER_03
And here s like a 23-year-old Tom Waits writing so beautifully about something that s very, I ve had a lot of people like tell me how real that as an older person looking back at that love that you had and realizing it wasn t, it was really, it s still there.
4
SPEAKER_03
Inklings of that love are still there.
4
SPEAKER_02
I think there s a,
4
SPEAKER_02
When a young person writes a sad song, they almost seem more willing to go to a more hopeless place because they have a long journey ahead.
4
SPEAKER_02
And older artists tend to want to look at the bright side of things, which also I think comes from the wisdom of aging.
4
SPEAKER_02
It s a more realistic position.
4
SPEAKER_02
So it s not uncommon for younger people to write.
4
SPEAKER_02
I think even in the Beatles, you ll see like they re very heavy lyrics, middle to late era Beatles, which is still, you know, they re in their early twenties, I guess.
4
SPEAKER_02
Wow, that s hard to think about.
4
SPEAKER_03
So much accomplished.
4
SPEAKER_03
Unbelievable.
4
SPEAKER_03
And they went through the full journey from fun to darkness in the span of a few years.
4
SPEAKER_03
You mentioned lyrics.
4
SPEAKER_03
So you ve obviously produced albums with incredible lyrics.
4
SPEAKER_03
I think you ve mentioned the interesting characteristics of hip hop, of rap, is that you re writing poetry to rhythm versus writing poetry to melody.
4
SPEAKER_03
So that s one way to think about it.
4
SPEAKER_03
And I m a fan, I mean, Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, I m a fan of poetry, period.
4
SPEAKER_03
Is there...
4
SPEAKER_03
something about highlighting the poetry of it, the power of words, as you did with Hurt.
4
SPEAKER_03
I have to play it again.
4
SPEAKER_03
It s a Tom Waits song that s less than a minute long that I always go back to.
4
SPEAKER_03
It s one I really love, and it has just a few lines.
4
SPEAKER_03
It s called I Want You.
4
SPEAKER_03
And all it is is him saying, I want you.
4
SPEAKER_03
I want you, you, you All I want is you, you, you All I want is you Give you stars above
4
SPEAKER_01
Sun on the brightest day Give you all my love If only you would see That I want you, you, you All I want is you, you, you
4
SPEAKER_03
And then he hums for 20 more seconds.
4
SPEAKER_03
So simple.
4
SPEAKER_03
Man, that young man, like, for people who don t know Tom Waits, you should definitely listen to him.
4
SPEAKER_03
And his voice sounds very different now.
4
SPEAKER_03
And it s interesting to see the evolution of a human voice, the artist over time, because that s a young, like, boy-like voice, hopeful, less clever, less witty, more simple.
4
SPEAKER_03
That simplicity is there.
4
SPEAKER_03
And he s not, I mean, that takes guts to be so simple, I would say, lyrically and musically.
4
SPEAKER_03
Is there, sort of laying that out on the table, is there ways that you like to highlight the voice, the lyrics, or is there no one
4
SPEAKER_03
rule.
4
SPEAKER_03
So do you, what is the thing that makes music special?
4
SPEAKER_03
Is it the rhythm, the melody, the, uh, or is ultimately the lyrics are always there or the idea?
4
SPEAKER_03
You just asked me five different questions.
4
SPEAKER_03
I don t care.
4
SPEAKER_03
I ll just get back.
4
SPEAKER_02
It s not about you.
4
SPEAKER_02
You don t want the answers.
4
SPEAKER_02
I ll listen.
4
SPEAKER_03
I look forward to your comments, the internet.
4
SPEAKER_03
Okay.
4
SPEAKER_03
You have the greatest producer of all time in front of you and he can t shut the hell up.
4
SPEAKER_03
That s right, friends.
4
SPEAKER_03
But you do value lyrics.
4
SPEAKER_02
Is there a way to celebrate lyrics?
4
SPEAKER_02
I value lyrics if the lyrics are important.
4
SPEAKER_02
I m not a lyric person.
4
SPEAKER_02
I m very much, whatever the thing that makes the thing good is the thing that I m drawn to, for me.
4
SPEAKER_02
For a long time, lyrics meant very little.
4
SPEAKER_02
I would say from the... Wait, really?
4
SPEAKER_02
In the beginning?
4
SPEAKER_02
Yes.
4
SPEAKER_03
From the earliest days... Fight for your right to party, Beastie Boys?
4
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, it was fun.
4
SPEAKER_02
I thought they were good lyrics, but it wasn t what was important.
4
SPEAKER_02
I mean, it was in almost a novelty way, not in a serious way.
4
SPEAKER_02
Early in my career, I was much more focused on the rhythm, first the rhythm.
4
SPEAKER_02
And if the lyrics weren t good enough, I would be aware of it, but it wasn t the driving force for me.
4
SPEAKER_02
And eventually over time, then melody became an important piece, which it wasn t in the beginning.
4
SPEAKER_02
And then lyrics became more important over time, but it s always been, always changing what draws me in.
4
SPEAKER_02
And one of the things I found as it relates to lyrics that can give a lyric a different power has to do with rhythm, where if there s no drum,
4
SPEAKER_02
the lyrics tend to mean more.
4
SPEAKER_02
So earlier, what you were saying about if it was just acapella, you felt Marvin Gaye in a different way hearing the acapella.
4
SPEAKER_03
Can you comment on, I mean, in terms of one of the greatest albums ever.
4
SPEAKER_03
Why does it sound so raw?
4
SPEAKER_03
Her voice.
4
SPEAKER_03
She s just a great singer.
4
SPEAKER_03
But this is that you re not doing anything else.
4
SPEAKER_03
You re doing the, uh, there s, there s, there s the strumming and then there s just a single beat and then it builds.
4
SPEAKER_04
This gets simpler but it feels like it s a giant orchestra.
4
SPEAKER_03
There s backing vocals.
4
SPEAKER_03
The anger.
4
SPEAKER_03
I love it.
4
SPEAKER_03
There s something about such a powerful voice and the instruments not getting in the way.
4
SPEAKER_03
I mean, the same with Hurt and Johnny Cash.
4
SPEAKER_03
Why does it sound so...
4
SPEAKER_03
like raw, it s the same as hurt.
4
SPEAKER_03
It feels like you re in the room with them.
4
SPEAKER_03
It feels like they re not even singing.
4
SPEAKER_03
They re literally freshly mad and angry.
4
SPEAKER_02
I think those are the things that make great singers sound like great singers.
4
SPEAKER_02
It s not anything that s happening in the studio.
4
SPEAKER_02
I mean, I would say the only thing that us in the studio can do is kind of get out of the way and not
4
SPEAKER_02
not ruin it, you know?
4
SPEAKER_02
It s like, that s what comes through of these people.
4
SPEAKER_03
I should also, before I forget, there is a lot of song choices on that CD.
4
SPEAKER_03
I would love to see the full options on the CD that you sent to Johnny Cash that I love.
4
SPEAKER_03
So, Solitary Man is one of my favorite choices made there.
4
SPEAKER_03
Is that a Neil Diamond song?
4
SPEAKER_02
It s funny you talk about them as songs, because I tend to listen more to albums than songs, so.
4
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If that s what you re doing in your head, you re pulling up the album, essentially.
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No, I m like, I m going to that song, but I don t know.
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I ve never listened to that song, but I know that when that song comes up in the sequence of the album, it has a really powerful effect in me.
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Let s see what it does if you just start it.
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If you could read my mind Wow Just like an old-time movie About a ghost from a wishing well In a castle dark Or a fortress strong With chains around my feet You know that ghost
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and i will never be set free as long as there s a ghost that you can t see that s beautiful such a beautiful choice beautiful melody such a beautiful melody haunting words sung so simply i i have to uh
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SPEAKER_03
I mean, so I was born in the Soviet Union.
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When you re growing up,
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There s a few bands that kind of, I mean, they re probably forbidden still, but they seep in and you get like bootlegged and they somehow take over the culture of the young folks, such as myself.
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SPEAKER_03
So on the metal side, it was Metallica and Iron Maiden.
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on the, I don t know what you call them, but Beastie Boys.
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I remember hearing Fight For Your Right, and it was just like, for some reason that stuck as it did for a lot of people in Russia.
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SPEAKER_03
It s like, wow, America is when you get to say fuck you to the man, the rebellion, the freedom.
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I probably heard it a few years after it was released because it kind of,
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it dissipates to the culture, you get the bootleg.
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I mean, it s hard to get your hands on.
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But I just remember, I mean, I wanted to kind of bring that up because it was such a personally important song to me.
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And yet, probably you didn t even think of that.
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You probably thought of it as its role in the culture here in the United States, like in terms of musically.
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But it just- I was, you know, 20, 21 years old and we just- Well, you were that kid too, right?
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Yeah, we were just making fun songs for our friends.
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There was no,
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Expectations, that s just a fun song.
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Yeah, no one thought we never imagined anybody would like any of it One of the greatest albums ever I have to it s I love this so much.
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SPEAKER_03
I just remember This is America
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how do you know how do you understand where and there was a ridiculous
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SPEAKER_03
So hearing that and hearing Metallica, Master of Puppets, I was like, I knew I m going to have to end up in America one day.
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SPEAKER_03
I mean, maybe now that I m more mature or maybe a little bit more mature, I realize like that was kind of the longing for freedom.
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it felt like, at least at the time, if this is allowed, then anything is allowed.
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And I think that the rebellion of it, I guess it s also fun.
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I just loved it.
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If you look back to that, because you re a
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I mean, you were that person, not just the producer.
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It feels like- Well, yes and no.
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Even to us then, it was still satirical.
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It was.
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SPEAKER_03
Oh, absolutely.
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SPEAKER_03
But isn t music in part, you re dancing in the line, it s part satirical, part serious in the sense you re losing yourself in the satire.
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SPEAKER_03
Anytime you go over the top, isn t that part of the-
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SPEAKER_03
Or is it explicitly satirical?
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I mean, girls, there s a lot of ridiculous songs in that album.
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I don t know.
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I just think it was definitely to make each other laugh.
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Like we were trying to make each other laugh.
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We weren t trying to make a point.
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We were trying to make each other laugh.
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But that person, how s that person different than the person today in you?
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The person that produced that record?
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I wouldn t say so different.
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It really is that,
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I like things that make me laugh.
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I like ridiculous things.
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It s the same person still.
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I think so.
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Is it strange just how many incredible- I don t think I would make that today, but I understand why we made it when we did.
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It s in the vocabulary of ridiculous that would make sense to do.
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For the right artist today could make something ridiculous and gives you that feeling.
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I mean, there s just a sense when you make so many different albums and you look back at that creation, it can feel like a different person created that.
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SPEAKER_03
But you re making it seem like if you travel back in time or maybe do a memory replay, you d be able to hang out with the…
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with a teenage and in the 20s recruitment.
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I think it s fine.
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I don t think I was so different, honestly.
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SPEAKER_02
That s hilarious.
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SPEAKER_02
It s funny, I ran into someone recently in Costa Rica, who I hadn t seen in a long time and who I knew from the New York days when, those days.
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SPEAKER_02
And we spent a couple of hours talking and she said, you re exactly the same person that you were then.
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So I have a short, you know, a recent confirmation that that s the case.
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SPEAKER_03
That s beautiful.
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SPEAKER_03
Was it, Tim Ferriss asked you about like, who s the most successful person you know?
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That s the definition of success, I would say.
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You re exactly the same person.
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You haven t lost yourself, or rather you found yourself early on.
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I would say there are aspects of me that have changed for sure, but I can t say that it s necessarily better.
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It s different.
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I would say at that time, I was more confident than I am now.
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And I m very confident now.
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But then I had an unrealistic confidence.
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And I think now it s a little more based in reality.
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At that point in time, I had never been depressed.
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And then once you go through a depression,
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Well, some people, I know in my case, when I went through depression afterwards, I was a different person than I was before.
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And I feel more...
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grounded now than I did then.
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And I probably relate to the artists who, so many of the artists I work with suffer.
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So many artists suffer because that s part of what makes an artist great is their level of sensitivity, that the same thing that makes an artist uncomfortable, other people don t feel at all.
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The time you were
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The Press.
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What was the darkest moments of your life?
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What took you there?
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How did you get out?
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It was triggered by a person making a comment about something to do with work that didn t matter.
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You know, it was like to anyone else, they would hear that and it would just be like, okay, we ll deal with it next week, whatever.
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SPEAKER_01
But for some reason, I took it in a way that I felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me.
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Even beyond the rational part of it, of understanding,
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you know, even after the problem that came up was solved, it somehow undermined something in me and made me feel very vulnerable in a way that I hadn t felt before.
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And it spiraled.
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How did you get out?
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I did a lot of different kinds of therapy.
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I did, starting with alternative therapies, I was seeing, I would say, between seven and eight doctors and or therapists a week.
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Acupuncture, talk therapy,
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herbs, any possible modality.
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Tried everything for a long time and nothing seemed to have an impact.
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And then finally, I m wary of taking any Western medicine.
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I m not a drug taker or drinker or partier in any way.
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And I found a psychopharmacologist who was a psychic, but because she was a psychic, I was okay to see her.
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I ll listen to a psychic, but I m not going to listen to a psychopharmacologist.
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But the fact that she had the psychic, that made her fit into my worldview.
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And she recommended antidepressant, which went terribly wrong in the first night that I took it.
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And then that set me on a journey of looking for the right antidepressant, which was a long and painful process.
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That s a heck of a journey.
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Every one that I took made me sick, every one.
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And then finally, I don t know, five months later, six months later, I found the magic one that worked for me.
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It shifted me out of the depression.
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I took it for, my camera was six months or a year and then weaned off and was okay.
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And then I had another event some years later.
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I think I took it again for a short period of time and got out of it and I ve not needed it since.
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SPEAKER_00
Were you able to kind of introspect the triggers that led to the events?
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Is there something, or is it random events of life?
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SPEAKER_01
I think it s more that because of the way that I grew up, I never had to deal with much controversy.
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And when I was challenged,
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I didn t have any ability to deal with it.
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It s like, you know, Jonathan Haidt talks about, it s like that.
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SPEAKER_00
So you ve actually also mentioned like business sometimes gives you stress.
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SPEAKER_00
So this was business related stuff.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it was a business-related thing.
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It just made me feel bad.
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SPEAKER_00
It s one of the sadder things about art and music is that it s often interleaved with business folk.
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SPEAKER_00
I suppose that s the way of the world if you have a capitalist system, but it makes that business folks rubbing up against artists can sometimes destroy a fragile mind and soul.
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SPEAKER_00
To me, one of the best representations of an artist, honestly, is Johnny Ive, the designer from Apple, and he s just so fragile with his ideas, and you talked about when he has ideas, he really wouldn t show it to Steve Jobs or anybody except for the small design team, because he was so nervous that it would break, but give it a chance, give it a chance to grow.
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SPEAKER_00
And it seems like the outside world, business people, PR people, people that kind of have not lost themselves in the passion of creating, but instead are kind of representing or like making deals, all that kind of stuff, they can kind of trample on those little ideas.
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SPEAKER_00
And it s sad to see.
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SPEAKER_00
It s really heartbreaking to see, because you know how much trampling there s going on.
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SPEAKER_01
It s one of the main jobs, my jobs as a record producer is to keep the voices away from the artist, from all of the people who are really on their side, but don t know.
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SPEAKER_01
You know, like the, whether it be people, anyone on the business side who doesn t make things,
5
SPEAKER_01
They re excited to do their part.
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SPEAKER_01
They re excited if when you deliver the thing, the art that you make to me, then we can start the project.
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SPEAKER_01
But there s nothing to sell if the art doesn t happen in the right way and it has to be protected and it can t happen on the same kind of a timetable that business can.
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SPEAKER_01
It s just a different thing.
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SPEAKER_01
Art doesn t come in a quarterly way.
5
SPEAKER_00
And that doesn t apply just to music, or it applies to art, it applies to all creative pursuits.
5
SPEAKER_00
This is generally the case, again, at MIT.
5
SPEAKER_00
it s just there s the administration and then there is the professors and students.
5
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And the professors and students are the creative folk.
5
SPEAKER_00
They create stuff, they dream, they have wild ideas that go on tangents and so on.
5
SPEAKER_00
They have hopes and they go with those and they get on these weird passionate pursuits.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then the administration can often just trample on that.
5
SPEAKER_00
And
5
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They set up bars in all kinds of ways that you think you re not actually hurting, but you really are.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I won t mention why, but, because this happens to everybody, and I have a large amount of leverage at MIT now, but even I get a little bit of pressure in such stupid ways to like, don t, like,
5
SPEAKER_00
Be careful, be careful, Lex.
5
SPEAKER_00
We really want your career to succeed, be careful.
5
SPEAKER_00
And that little pressure to an artist, do you wanna go acapella?
5
SPEAKER_00
Do you wanna go, do you want to do a country record?
5
SPEAKER_00
Be careful, you re already a superstar, be careful.
5
SPEAKER_00
And in that way, you kinda push people, like flock of fish into one fish tank where they re all the same.
5
SPEAKER_00
And it s sad to see, and obviously in the modern world, there s nice mechanism to protect, to let artists flourish a little bit more, because they get to put themselves to the world and get a little bit more confidence, maybe different funding mechanisms, all that kind of stuff.
5
SPEAKER_01
Tremendous problem.
5
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The voices that don t understand interfering with the process is huge.
5
SPEAKER_01
The other side of it is, in success,
5
SPEAKER_01
there can be a lack of reality, where all of the people around the successful person just tell them everything they do is great, and then they don t have anything to bump up against anymore, or have a realistic,
5
SPEAKER_01
a sense of how things work or how things measure.
5
SPEAKER_01
So both sides are really important, both avoiding the voices getting in the way and having a trusted group of a sangha, a group of people who
5
SPEAKER_01
can say, you know, I don t know if that s as good.
5
SPEAKER_01
And you can still, you know, say, I don t care what you think, that s fine.
5
SPEAKER_01
But it helps to hear it.
5
SPEAKER_01
You know, it helps to have, if someone who you respect tells you something isn t good enough, it s helpful.
5
SPEAKER_00
when you know it comes from a place of love, when it comes from a place of wisdom.
5
SPEAKER_01
100%, and not from a place of fear, not from a place of, oh, this doesn t sound like it s gonna do as well as your last thing.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s not the point.
5
SPEAKER_01
The point is, on this quest for greatness, are you living up to your ability?
5
SPEAKER_00
By the way, is there something interesting to say about your worldview?
5
SPEAKER_00
Because you mentioned psychic,
5
SPEAKER_00
in sort of the ways we can be healthy, the ways we can grow and how much maybe medicine or science has the answers.
5
SPEAKER_00
Is there some interesting way to describe that worldview?
5
SPEAKER_01
I would just say I m open-minded.
5
SPEAKER_01
I believe anything s possible.
5
SPEAKER_01
And if I was gonna trust in any practical information, it would be something thousands of years old.
5
SPEAKER_00
There s wisdom in that history, yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
Well, it s more tested.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s not always right.
5
SPEAKER_01
but at least it s been somewhat tested.
5
SPEAKER_00
Science is also tested.
5
SPEAKER_00
The thing I m a little bit skeptical of sometimes is just the hubris that often comes with the modern, with the latest, the newest, this feeling like you figured it all out.
5
SPEAKER_00
Everything that s been done in the past has no wisdom.
5
SPEAKER_00
And we basically solved every problem.
5
SPEAKER_00
there s nothing else to be solved.
5
SPEAKER_00
I mean, that s a defining characteristic of any age, is like, we ve solved all the problems there are, we have the final answers, and our parents are all stupid.
5
SPEAKER_00
That kind of energy, yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
You have to be extremely, extremely careful with that when it talks about, when you think about something as complex as the human body or the human mind, you have to be very, very, very careful.
5
SPEAKER_01
I believe we know close to nothing.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, exactly.
5
SPEAKER_00
Close to nothing.
5
SPEAKER_00
About anything.
5
SPEAKER_00
about anything.
5
SPEAKER_00
That place of humility is a good place to start to figure it all out.
5
SPEAKER_00
In the end, we ll still know almost nothing.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I don t think we need to know.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s like we need to see what works, and we need to see what works for us.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s interesting to know.
5
SPEAKER_01
I know on the art side,
5
SPEAKER_01
knowing how it works isn t what makes it work.
5
SPEAKER_01
The magic of it isn t how it works.
5
SPEAKER_01
The magic is the magic.
5
SPEAKER_01
And the magic happens in a way that s intuitive and accidental at times, or incidental where you re trying many things and all of a sudden something works and you don t know why.
5
SPEAKER_01
And it s okay not to know why.
5
SPEAKER_01
It doesn t really matter why, as long as it does the thing that you want it to do, whatever that is.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, that s so weird.
5
SPEAKER_00
When you know the components, you don t, you still, yeah, the magic, what s the magic, where s the magic?
5
SPEAKER_00
Like we know the components for stuff I care about, artificial intelligence, we know the components of a powerful computing machinery, but where does consciousness come from?
5
SPEAKER_00
What is that?
5
SPEAKER_00
Where does the brilliant moments of insight come from?
5
SPEAKER_00
What s that?
5
SPEAKER_00
Even in simple games of chess or in simple, where do those breakthrough ideas of taking the big risk that doesn t make any sense and then all of a sudden it becomes something beautiful.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, we don t need to understand why, it just happens.
5
SPEAKER_01
It just happens.
5
SPEAKER_01
And often the things that end up breaking through
5
SPEAKER_01
don t break through in the way we thought, or turn out to be a third iteration of something that we thought was an entirely different thing, or, we don t know.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I think it s, if we embrace that not knowing, we ll have a healthier experience going through life.
5
SPEAKER_00
You made a lot, it s not just music, everything.
5
SPEAKER_00
Rearranging the chairs, the furniture as well.
5
SPEAKER_00
You ve done, like I said, the documentary, I guess you would say, with Paul McCartney.
5
SPEAKER_00
And you ve done a podcast yourself, a broken record podcast, and you ve done conversation too.
5
SPEAKER_00
So what have you learned from that process about the art of conversation?
5
SPEAKER_00
And also maybe what advice would you give to this, to me about how, what to do with conversation?
5
SPEAKER_00
Like what is interesting to you about conversation?
5
SPEAKER_01
One of the things that I like is to not feel like it s,
5
SPEAKER_01
there is any stakes or that it s actually almost that it s not happening.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like the fact that when I came in, you were setting up cameras made it less good for me.
5
SPEAKER_01
I knew that that would impact the conversation in a negative way.
5
SPEAKER_01
The best version of it would be if we didn t see the cameras,
5
SPEAKER_01
And we didn t see any technology, and we were just sitting at this table having a conversation.
5
SPEAKER_01
Maybe even if we were miked beforehand, it would be okay if it was necessary.
5
SPEAKER_01
But then we were just sitting here having a conversation, no people in the room, nothing, and feeling like we re just having a conversation.
5
SPEAKER_01
I feel like it would get closer to
5
SPEAKER_01
closer to the relaxed feeling.
5
SPEAKER_01
Same thing we do in the studios.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like, you know, you ve heard of red light fever, you know, when artists get nervous when, like, they play a song great and then the tape starts rolling and they can t play it.
5
SPEAKER_01
And it s, we re all to some degree like that.
5
SPEAKER_01
When you were with Paul McCartney, I mean, were you cognizant of cameras?
5
SPEAKER_01
We had the room black.
5
SPEAKER_01
Everybody who was working there was dressed in black.
5
SPEAKER_01
everything was invisible.
5
SPEAKER_01
We were lit in a way where, even though there were probably
5
SPEAKER_01
20 people, between 12 and 20 people working in the room, within three minutes of starting the conversation, Paul and I were alone in the room.
5
SPEAKER_01
So that was the feeling.
5
SPEAKER_01
On occasion, you d hear a noise and it would be weird.
5
SPEAKER_01
We also had, nobody was allowed to wear shoes because it had to, we were trying to create this intimate space.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I know from in the recording studio, when we re recording, if even one person is there,
5
SPEAKER_01
that s just watching and not working, you know, like there s usually, I m usually there and an engineer is there technically making it happen.
5
SPEAKER_01
If anyone else is in the room, it s different because then it goes from this moment where the person s doing a performance to the sense or where the person is
5
SPEAKER_01
feeling something internally and we re capturing it to the other version is they re performing for someone.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s so interesting.
5
SPEAKER_00
So like to push back the alternatives here.
5
SPEAKER_00
So one, about the third person, not to make people self-conscious, but I find that I m so torn on that.
5
SPEAKER_00
Because sometimes when that person, like, so Evan is in the room here.
5
SPEAKER_00
He s been in the room before.
5
SPEAKER_00
He s a huge fan of yours, by the way.
5
SPEAKER_00
So he ll, he ll nod.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah, he ll get excited.
5
SPEAKER_00
He s like, and you can see that nodding.
5
SPEAKER_00
And for some reason, for me, it s like, yeah, you get it, like, yeah, you get excited together.
5
SPEAKER_00
I mean, that third person can be like a really special.
5
SPEAKER_00
So having an audience,
5
SPEAKER_00
when it s a friend or somebody that has that love in them.
5
SPEAKER_01
It depends on the performer.
5
SPEAKER_00
Right.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, some people really thrive in front of an audience.
5
SPEAKER_00
And you re saying
6
SPEAKER_04
And you like that simple intimacy of everything dissipates.
6
SPEAKER_04
Well, I like the reality of it not being, I want it to be as far from a performance as possible.
6
SPEAKER_04
Got it.
6
SPEAKER_04
And if someone, I ll tell you a story, a story that just happened, and it was viewed as kind of a, it seemed uncool in the moment to the person that it happened to.
6
SPEAKER_04
It wasn t at all.
6
SPEAKER_04
We were recording the new Chili Peppers album, which is coming out, I think, any day now.
6
SPEAKER_04
I don t know what today s date is, but maybe by the time this airs, it will be out.
6
SPEAKER_04
The band was playing in the studio, and it was ripping because they re incredible.
6
SPEAKER_04
One of the members walked through the control room after a particularly great performance, and the engineer said, wow, that solo was really great.
6
SPEAKER_04
And the person who heard this said,
6
SPEAKER_04
please don t say that, and walked away.
6
SPEAKER_04
It s like it was not, it just changed this feeling of we re in this place where we re doing this thing and there is no outside world.
6
SPEAKER_04
We re doing this for us.
6
SPEAKER_04
We re going as deep as we can for us.
6
SPEAKER_04
And as soon as there s an acknowledgement to someone else, in a way, it breaks the concentration of being inside of it.
6
SPEAKER_00
That s so well told, but it s something about saying, wow, that s always great, it reminds you that there s an outside world, but I feel like there s a way to enter the inside world as an audience.
6
SPEAKER_00
So you just have to do that.
6
SPEAKER_00
It matters what you say, it matters how you look.
6
SPEAKER_00
It matters, so there s these generic compliments, not generic, but they sound in the way an outside world would interact, as opposed to in that creative thing where you re dancing around the fire together or something.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_04
There s actually, I can tell you, there s another interesting one that happened to me, and I didn t know this until I saw the film of it, which was,
6
SPEAKER_04
a strange one.
6
SPEAKER_04
We were recording with the Avett brothers, and the song was called No Hard Feelings, and it was this recording of No Hard Feelings.
6
SPEAKER_02
When my body won t hold me anymore And it finally lets me free Will I be ready?
6
SPEAKER_02
When my feet won t walk another mile Such a great voice So beautiful Kiss goodbye Will my hands be steady?
6
SPEAKER_02
My hopes and my doubts The rings on my fingers And the keys to my house With no hard feelings When the sun hangs low in the west And the light in my chest won t be kept
6
SPEAKER_02
So bright, so hopeful, so light-hearted.
6
SPEAKER_02
let s be free where will i go?
6
SPEAKER_00
does he sound as good in studio?
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SPEAKER_02
yes, every bit will the trade winds take me south through georgia grain a tropical rain a snow from the heavens will i join with the ocean blue
6
SPEAKER_02
Or run into a Saviour s room And shake hands laughing And walk through the night Straight to the light Holding the love I ve known in my life And no hard feelings
6
SPEAKER_01
There s so much to have and more Under the burning sky I m finally learning why
6
SPEAKER_00
This is building and building and building.
6
Wow.
6
SPEAKER_00
He s got the power of like Jeff Buckley with more, like, so much more sort of flavor to the voice.
6
SPEAKER_00
He can go so many different places.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s cool when it s like an acropologist, mostly him, he could do like Hallelujah, the Jeff Buckley way I could tell.
6
SPEAKER_00
That s incredible.
6
SPEAKER_00
That s an incredible song.
6
SPEAKER_00
Is this a new record?
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SPEAKER_04
This was, I don t know, four or five years ago, something like that.
6
SPEAKER_04
But what happened with this
6
SPEAKER_04
That happened, and I mean, they re great, and it s always good, but that performance in that moment felt like the sky opened up.
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SPEAKER_00
It was unbelievable.
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SPEAKER_00
This was a single take?
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SPEAKER_00
This was a single take.
6
SPEAKER_00
Oh, wow.
6
SPEAKER_00
That was incredible.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, that was perfect.
6
SPEAKER_00
That was perfect, yeah.
6
SPEAKER_04
When it ended, I said, great, what do you want to do next?
6
SPEAKER_04
And
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SPEAKER_04
they said, we just need a few minutes.
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SPEAKER_04
They walked out and that s all I know.
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SPEAKER_04
It s like, okay, I m laying down, waiting until they re ready to start again.
6
SPEAKER_04
And in the film, there was a film made of the sessions of this.
6
SPEAKER_04
They went out and they re like, what was that?
6
SPEAKER_04
Like, like, like, didn t he get what just happened?
6
SPEAKER_04
Like, like, uh, because it was so heavy.
6
SPEAKER_04
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_04
And
6
SPEAKER_04
it was just as heavy for me.
6
SPEAKER_04
And in the spirit of we re here to make the most great stuff we can, we re not going to like open champagne.
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SPEAKER_04
Like that s not, it s like, great.
6
SPEAKER_04
What do you want to do next?
6
SPEAKER_04
It s like, let s, let s not revel in this.
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SPEAKER_04
Let s, but they took it as like,
6
SPEAKER_04
this guy just doesn t even understand what we re doing.
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SPEAKER_03
But I had no idea until I saw the film.
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SPEAKER_00
That s funny.
6
SPEAKER_03
Whoa, that was the reaction.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
But I think your response is the right risk to take, right?
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SPEAKER_00
Because it s the celebration at the end of a, you want to keep, like, people celebrate too early.
6
SPEAKER_04
Yes, great.
6
SPEAKER_04
And now let s use that momentum.
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SPEAKER_04
We re in the zone.
6
SPEAKER_04
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_04
What s next?
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
But you yourself in conversation.
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SPEAKER_00
So you said that you want to create as, would you use the word intimacy?
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SPEAKER_00
Like, is it to create or just the most real, like there s no cameras, there s no mics.
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SPEAKER_04
I would say a place where you re comfortable to be naked, you know, a vulnerable, a place where you can be your most vulnerable without questioning it.
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SPEAKER_04
You want to, you want to really,
6
SPEAKER_04
be able to let your guard down and to, you know, if you want to start crying when you re singing, whatever it is, whatever it is.
6
SPEAKER_04
And it s, it s hard to get to that place.
6
SPEAKER_04
And again, just the idea of someone, you know, like, Hey, that was good.
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SPEAKER_04
That could take you right out of that going in, you know, going in.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s so interesting to think about how to achieve that and still have mics.
6
SPEAKER_00
that it s harder, it s harder.
6
SPEAKER_00
Some of it is space, some of it is raw conversational skill.
6
SPEAKER_00
Like there s something about certain, well, some of that is also just like, you have that, as I m sure you are, there s a legend to Rick Rubin.
6
SPEAKER_00
And there s like my now friend Joe Rogan, there s a legend to him.
6
SPEAKER_00
And when you show up into Joe Rogan s studio,
6
SPEAKER_00
the legend creates an aura.
6
SPEAKER_00
And he, I think, subconsciously or consciously uses it.
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SPEAKER_00
To like, this is somehow, it s nervous, nervous, nervous, and then you realize, oh, he s just human or something.
6
SPEAKER_00
There s a relief, and then yeah, you could be,
6
SPEAKER_00
you could be yourself.
6
SPEAKER_00
So it s that nervousness, nervousness, nervousness, and it s like, oh, it s not that.
6
SPEAKER_00
This legend is just a human and it s just, it s normal.
6
SPEAKER_00
So I don t know how that s done.
6
SPEAKER_00
But it s so interesting to think about how that s, because I,
6
SPEAKER_00
forget recording.
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SPEAKER_00
I just enjoy it when it s real, like this microphone gives us an excuse to connect on a human level and forget that nobody s listening, it doesn t matter.
6
SPEAKER_04
I would say I felt maybe in the last 15 minutes I was less aware of anybody else being in the room or any equipment here.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_04
But it took that long.
6
SPEAKER_00
That s so interesting.
6
SPEAKER_00
I didn t have that at all.
6
SPEAKER_00
All I had, I mean, the wind calmed down outside, but there was a wind before.
6
SPEAKER_00
And there s something about the wind that you can think of it from an audio engineering perspective, like, oh, I wonder if the wind creates sound or whatever that you hear.
6
SPEAKER_00
But I was thinking like, none of this matters.
6
SPEAKER_00
Like the wind is like nature will be here before us, after us, and all of this will be dead and forgotten.
6
SPEAKER_00
That s what the wind was reminding me of.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s almost like laughing at the fact that we would even consider ourselves important enough to put on clothes and talk.
6
SPEAKER_00
But you love it.
6
SPEAKER_00
You love talking.
6
SPEAKER_00
You love the podcast and just that.
6
SPEAKER_00
Why did you dive into that?
6
SPEAKER_04
It was a strange occurrence.
6
SPEAKER_04
My friend Malcolm said he wanted to start doing a podcast about music and asked if I would do it with him.
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SPEAKER_04
I was like, I like Malcolm.
6
SPEAKER_04
And I thought it would be more like his podcast, which is not an interview podcast.
6
SPEAKER_04
I thought it was going to be telling stories in the music world using audio stories.
6
SPEAKER_04
And then it just started being interviews.
6
SPEAKER_04
Again, it wasn t intentional, it just started that way and ended up being that.
6
SPEAKER_04
But I love it.
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SPEAKER_04
both because I get to talk to people that I don t know, but also when I get to talk to people that I know and ask them about things that we would never talk about ever.
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SPEAKER_04
You know, I don t know the origin stories of any of the people, any of my friends.
6
SPEAKER_04
So to get to hear their perspective, another like relating to the Chili Peppers, because their album s coming out now, I interviewed all four members of the band individually.
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SPEAKER_04
John,
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SPEAKER_04
I interviewed John and midway through Anthony came in and then I interviewed Flea separately and interviewed Chad separately.
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SPEAKER_04
And it was fascinating.
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SPEAKER_04
I know them for 30 years and I learned a tremendous amount because we don t, you don t ask people about themselves when you re just,
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SPEAKER_04
you know, workmates or friends.
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SPEAKER_00
I do this sometimes.
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SPEAKER_00
I ll just set up my microphones and I ll record a thing for private consumption with friends or loved ones.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s fascinating.
6
SPEAKER_00
Good idea.
6
SPEAKER_00
Because you get to ask those ridiculous questions.
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SPEAKER_00
First of all, about life, about the future, about the past, about little fears and the things you miss.
6
SPEAKER_00
And yeah, there s something that people just reveal
6
SPEAKER_00
first loves, all those kinds of things.
6
SPEAKER_00
Your view on love, your view on, and those things don t come up in regular conversations.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s so nice that that s something about, see, that s the pushback.
6
SPEAKER_00
There s something about this microphone, or maybe it s just the deliberate nature of sitting down and let s just talk.
6
SPEAKER_00
But there is something about the microphone that for me thinks, just same with the suit.
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SPEAKER_00
I m gonna take this moment seriously.
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SPEAKER_00
I ve long forgotten that anyone is listening.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I m gonna try to really listen to another human, first of all, and to also ask the questions that are really interesting.
6
SPEAKER_00
Like I feel like when I talk to normal people out on the street, I m not allowed to ask anything.
6
SPEAKER_00
I m allowed to ask only the more sort of generic things.
6
SPEAKER_04
I think you can ask anything.
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SPEAKER_00
I m starting to think that.
6
SPEAKER_00
I think you re allowed to ask anything.
6
SPEAKER_00
I think you re allowed to basically do anything, especially in Texas.
6
SPEAKER_04
Yeah, I think it s okay to ask people, and I think people like it when you ask them.
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SPEAKER_04
People like to be seen and like to show who they are.
6
SPEAKER_00
As the wind blows again, do you have advice for young people?
6
SPEAKER_00
You have a fascinating life journey.
6
SPEAKER_00
Is there advice you can give to people in high school and college about
6
SPEAKER_00
I don t have a life like yours in whatever pursuit in terms of, success is such a silly word, but just find success or maybe happiness in career or just in life in general.
6
SPEAKER_04
Yeah, the only advice I would have would be to not listen to anyone and to do what you love and to make things that you love, whatever it is.
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SPEAKER_04
Make your favorite things.
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SPEAKER_04
You be the audience.
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SPEAKER_04
Make the thing for you, the audience.
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SPEAKER_04
And
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SPEAKER_04
It doesn t really matter what anyone else thinks, and if you have to get a job to support yourself so that you can make your art, that s fine.
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SPEAKER_04
You can t make art for someone else, you can t make art with someone else in mind, I don t believe.
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SPEAKER_04
I don t believe it can be good.
6
SPEAKER_00
So what does success feel like?
6
SPEAKER_00
Are you grateful, are you proud of the work you ve done in the past, or is there some engine of constant dissatisfaction, like self-criticism of, I could have done better,
6
SPEAKER_04
No, I m pleased with the work that we did, excited to keep working.
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SPEAKER_04
It s fun.
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SPEAKER_04
I don t know what else I would do with myself because I like the
7
SPEAKER_01
I like making things, it s fun.
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SPEAKER_01
I feel like it s my reason to be on the planet, so I just keep doing it.
7
SPEAKER_00
Whatever ideas are actually coming from elsewhere and are using your mind as a temporary vehicle, that s their purpose to be on this planet.
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SPEAKER_00
Your purpose is to procreate and not die and eat regularly enough such that the brain is alive.
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SPEAKER_00
It s a biological purpose.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah, and anything I can do to keep the channel open, to allow what wants to come through to come through, I m a willing channel.
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SPEAKER_00
It s so interesting, because I m extremely self-critical, so you don t have that self-criticism, harsh, like, this could have been better, this... If it could have been better, I would keep working on it.
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SPEAKER_01
It s like, if it could be better, it s not done.
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SPEAKER_01
So when it s done, it s done.
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SPEAKER_01
Well, it s the best it can be.
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SPEAKER_01
I ve done everything I can to make it the best it can be.
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SPEAKER_01
And I can t do more than that.
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SPEAKER_01
So there s nothing to be critical of.
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SPEAKER_01
If you always give all of yourself and do your best, which you re capable of doing,
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SPEAKER_01
I m not suggesting that you re capable of doing more than you can do, but whatever it is that you can do, if you ve given all of yourself to it, you ve done your best, where could there be regret?
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I mean, there could be, you re-listen to an album, you re-listen to anything you ve created and think, oh, there s so many interesting ideas missed.
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SPEAKER_01
It s fine though, but that was that moment.
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SPEAKER_01
It s like, everything is like a, it s almost like a diary entry.
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SPEAKER_01
Everything we make is a reflection of a moment in time, a window in time.
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SPEAKER_01
It could be a day, it could be a year, it could be whatever window you decide that it is.
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SPEAKER_01
But if you give it all of yourself, and you know, if you re not interested in working on it anymore, it s done.
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SPEAKER_01
Now, you may decide it s not good enough to share with people, and that s fine.
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SPEAKER_01
But if it s good enough to share with people, there s no regret looking back.
7
SPEAKER_00
That s funny, because think of it as a diary entry.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s hard to look back at a diary entry and say, you know- I did it wrong.
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SPEAKER_00
I did it wrong.
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SPEAKER_00
It s impossible.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
And even if it s read by a hundred people, a thousand people, a million people, it s just a diary entry.
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SPEAKER_00
It doesn t matter.
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SPEAKER_00
Speaking of doesn t matter, this life is finite.
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SPEAKER_00
All of us, even Rick Rubin, will be forgotten one day.
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SPEAKER_00
Do you think about your mortality?
7
SPEAKER_00
Tomorrow.
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SPEAKER_00
Tomorrow, yes.
7
SPEAKER_00
Do you think about the finiteness of this thing?
7
SPEAKER_00
Do you think about mortality, about your mortality?
7
SPEAKER_00
Does it make any sense to you?
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SPEAKER_00
Do you think about death?
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SPEAKER_00
Are you afraid of death?
7
SPEAKER_01
I don t think about it.
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SPEAKER_01
I don t think about it very much.
7
SPEAKER_01
Are you afraid?
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SPEAKER_01
I don t think I m afraid.
7
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I don t want to die, but I know that that s in the cards, and when it happens, it happens.
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SPEAKER_00
Your nature of not wanting to die is kind of like, you don t want to go to a shady restaurant.
7
SPEAKER_00
You d like to go to a nicer one.
7
SPEAKER_00
So it s just a preference thing.
7
SPEAKER_01
Well, I want to keep living because I want to do what I like to do.
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SPEAKER_01
So whatever, now who knows?
7
SPEAKER_01
Whatever comes next may be even better.
7
SPEAKER_01
Maybe we re, you know, I don t know.
7
SPEAKER_01
I can t, I can t, I haven t experienced it yet, so who knows.
7
SPEAKER_01
What do you think happens after we die?
7
SPEAKER_01
I believe we go on in some capacity, I don t know what that means, but in the same way that everything recycles, you know, everything comes around.
7
SPEAKER_01
I don t know why we would be different.
7
SPEAKER_01
in some way.
7
SPEAKER_01
In some way.
7
SPEAKER_01
I don t know what that way is, and I don t know that it s in the same being, or in the same grouping of information, whatever that is.
7
SPEAKER_01
But the thing that makes us us, that information, I imagine, goes on.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yes, it does seem like our world here, at least on Earth, is like a memory.
7
SPEAKER_00
And just like history, it kind of rhymes.
7
SPEAKER_00
It brings back creations of the past and riffs on them, improvises on top of them.
7
SPEAKER_00
And in that way, humanity propagates.
7
SPEAKER_01
I mean, you see it with garbage.
7
SPEAKER_01
You see the mountains of garbage.
7
SPEAKER_01
It s like it doesn t really go anywhere.
7
SPEAKER_01
Even when it breaks up, it disintegrates, but it s never really gone.
7
SPEAKER_01
Same.
7
SPEAKER_00
Is there anything in this world you re afraid of?
7
SPEAKER_00
A lot of things.
7
SPEAKER_00
But not death.
7
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I don t know, I don t know.
7
SPEAKER_01
It s more of a question, death is more of a question mark.
7
SPEAKER_01
Again, I m not in any.
7
SPEAKER_01
To be answered.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I m not in any hurry for that to happen, but it will happen, and when it does, we get to experience what that is.
7
SPEAKER_00
Okay, then the big question mark, what s the meaning of this whole thing?
7
SPEAKER_00
What s the meaning of life, Rick Rubin?
7
SPEAKER_00
Putting my name on it makes it harder to answer.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s just a diary entry, like we said.
7
SPEAKER_01
It s true, and you will get a different answer tomorrow.
7
SPEAKER_01
Let s see, what s the meaning of life today?
7
SPEAKER_00
And later today.
7
SPEAKER_00
It could be, so for people who don t know, we were maybe thinking of maybe meeting in Austin, have some barbecue, and now we re in the middle of nowhere in beautiful West Texas, and this is basically a glorified delivery of barbecue, of my favorite barbecue, maybe one of your top favorite barbecues, to one of my favorite humans, so we get to eat some barbecue today.
7
SPEAKER_00
Maybe that s the meaning.
7
SPEAKER_00
Do you have something bigger than barbecue?
7
SPEAKER_00
Barbecue s pretty big.
7
SPEAKER_00
Barbecue s pretty good.
7
SPEAKER_00
Where s your love for barbecue come from, by the way?
7
SPEAKER_01
Well, I was a vegan for 20-something years, and once I found my way back into eating meat, I think barbecue s my favorite of any of the things that I didn t eat for so long.
7
SPEAKER_00
I have to ask you, I almost forgot,
7
SPEAKER_00
So there s an SNL skit with Will Ferrell that he wrote about Don t Fear the Reaper, where Bruce Dickinson is the producer.
7
SPEAKER_00
I always think about you when I see that skit.
7
SPEAKER_00
I don t know why.
7
SPEAKER_00
People should definitely watch it.
7
SPEAKER_00
And he demands more cowbell into the mix.
7
SPEAKER_00
And the whole band, this is how I imagine people interact with you.
7
SPEAKER_00
The whole band is really impressed.
7
SPEAKER_00
Like, we get to work with the great Bruce Dickinson.
7
SPEAKER_00
And then it s played by Christopher Walken, and he says, like, fellas, fellas, I put on my pants one leg at a time, just like the rest of you.
7
SPEAKER_00
But once my pants are on, I make gold records.
7
SPEAKER_00
And I just, and then the whole skit continues and he wants to add more and more cowbell.
7
SPEAKER_00
And Will Ferrell said he wrote that skit because he always heard the song, Don t Fear the Reaper, and there s a distant cowbell.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s very light in the mix.
7
SPEAKER_00
And he s like, I wonder what the story of that cowbell is.
7
SPEAKER_00
Like if we just look at that one layer, who s that guy that was in there?
7
SPEAKER_00
So is that basically exactly how your life is, is Bruce Dickinson from The Cowboy?
7
SPEAKER_00
I don t know if you ve seen that skit.
7
SPEAKER_01
I don t think it s like that.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s not?
7
SPEAKER_00
Okay, all right.
7
SPEAKER_00
I m just gonna pretend then.
7
SPEAKER_00
Rick, this is a huge honor that you sit with me.
7
SPEAKER_00
I mean...
7
SPEAKER_00
What can I say about how incredible of a human you are?
7
SPEAKER_00
You truly are out of this world, and thank you so much for talking today.
7
SPEAKER_01
I m a great fan.
7
SPEAKER_01
I m so happy that you agreed to do this with me.
7
SPEAKER_00
Thanks for listening to this conversation with Rick Rubin.
7
SPEAKER_00
To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description.
7
SPEAKER_00
And now, let me leave you with some words from Albert Einstein.
7
SPEAKER_00
Imagination is everything.
7
SPEAKER_00
It is the preview of life s coming attractions.
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SPEAKER_00
Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.