Rick Rubin: Legendary Music Producer | Lex Fridman Podcast #275

00:00:00.000 | There are no right answers for anything involved in art.

00:00:03.080 | We're all trying experiments to find a way.

00:00:06.480 | And even for the things that I work on,

00:00:08.320 | I don't have a set way that I do anything.

00:00:10.400 | Every, I come to every project blank.

00:00:13.920 | - Maybe you're just a meat vehicle

00:00:16.200 | and you're channeling ideas from somewhere else.

00:00:18.560 | - I believe we know close to nothing,

00:00:21.320 | close to nothing about anything.

00:00:25.480 | If we embrace that not knowing,

00:00:27.760 | we'll have a healthier experience going through life.

00:00:31.800 | - The following is a conversation with Rick Rubin,

00:00:36.840 | one of the greatest music producers of all time,

00:00:40.280 | known for bringing the best out of anyone he works with,

00:00:43.600 | no matter the genre of music or even the medium of art,

00:00:47.040 | or just the medium of creating something beautiful

00:00:49.480 | in this world.

00:00:50.920 | And the list of musicians he produced includes many, many,

00:00:54.560 | many of the greats over the past 40 years,

00:00:57.720 | including the Beastie Boys, Eminem, Metallica,

00:01:01.720 | LL Cool J, Kanye West, Slayer, Tom Petty,

00:01:04.600 | Johnny Cash, Dixie Chicks, Aerosmith, Adele,

00:01:08.200 | Danzig, Red Hot Chili Peppers, System of a Down,

00:01:11.400 | Jay-Z, Black Sabbath.

00:01:13.640 | I can keep going for a very long time here.

00:01:16.480 | Most importantly, Rick is just an amazing human being.

00:01:20.560 | We became fast friends, which is surreal to say,

00:01:23.800 | and is just an incredible honor.

00:01:26.600 | I felt truly heard as a person when I spent the day with him

00:01:30.160 | eating some delicious Texas barbecue,

00:01:32.360 | talking about life, about music, about art, about beauty.

00:01:37.360 | This was a conversation and experience I'll never forget.

00:01:41.160 | This is the Lex Friedman Podcast.

00:01:44.280 | To support it, please check out our sponsors

00:01:46.480 | in the description.

00:01:47.720 | And now, dear friends, here's Rick Rubin.

00:01:51.200 | Are you nervous?

00:01:53.680 | - I'm not shaky, but I would say I feel uneasy.

00:01:57.280 | And I feel like the sooner we start talking,

00:01:59.640 | the more relaxed we'll get.

00:02:01.360 | - Yeah.

00:02:02.240 | Well, maybe we should sit in this moment

00:02:03.960 | and enjoy the nervousness of it.

00:02:05.880 | Let me start with Nietzsche.

00:02:08.760 | He said, "Without music, life would be a mistake."

00:02:12.960 | What do you think he means by that?

00:02:14.720 | Let's talk some philosophy.

00:02:16.000 | Let's try to analyze Friedrich Nietzsche from a century ago.

00:02:22.040 | - It seems like music has the ability to bring us

00:02:26.520 | so much depth in our soul

00:02:31.520 | that's hard to access any other way.

00:02:33.760 | And without it, there would be a loss

00:02:37.200 | beyond the pleasure of it.

00:02:39.640 | Feels like it's a window into something else.

00:02:45.200 | - Something that no other medium

00:02:47.880 | can express quite the same way.

00:02:51.040 | - I would say not as automatically.

00:02:53.120 | Something about music can do it automatically.

00:02:56.480 | Maybe poetry or maybe certain abstract forms

00:03:01.480 | can get us there.

00:03:04.720 | But there's something about music

00:03:06.920 | that really can get us there quickly.

00:03:09.440 | - But it's also the time, the place, the history.

00:03:12.040 | There's something about,

00:03:14.000 | like a lot of my family's still in Philly,

00:03:16.440 | there's something about driving through Jersey

00:03:20.640 | and listening to Bruce Springsteen.

00:03:22.880 | And then it just, I'll get like emotional.

00:03:25.920 | Like listening to "I'm On Fire."

00:03:30.000 | That like, one of my favorite Bruce Springsteen songs,

00:03:33.880 | there's a haunting kind of strumming to it.

00:03:38.760 | It's not a strumming, it's actually picked.

00:03:41.760 | Has a country feel to it,

00:03:43.160 | almost like a Johnny Cash feel actually.

00:03:45.200 | And it, I don't know, makes me feel,

00:03:47.640 | so for people who don't know "I'm On Fire,"

00:03:50.080 | that song is, I guess, a love song to a woman

00:03:55.080 | that you can't have because she's married

00:04:01.920 | or she's with somebody else,

00:04:03.800 | which I guess is quite a lot of love songs.

00:04:06.360 | But there's something about the haunting nature

00:04:08.520 | of the guitar and then it has to be driving through Jersey.

00:04:12.960 | And I feel like everyone has fallen in love

00:04:16.040 | with a Jersey girl at one point in their life.

00:04:18.960 | I don't know if that's true for everybody.

00:04:21.040 | But I feel like that.

00:04:22.440 | I haven't either, but I just feel like that.

00:04:25.640 | There's something about Bruce Springsteen's like,

00:04:26.960 | "Yeah, I've been there."

00:04:28.480 | And that just takes you to a place of emotion

00:04:33.680 | that you just, that captures love,

00:04:37.320 | that captures longing, that captures the heartbreak

00:04:40.880 | of just the way time flows in life

00:04:42.440 | and the fact that it's finite

00:04:43.560 | and just all of that in a single, simple song.

00:04:47.520 | What else can capture that?

00:04:49.240 | - Yeah, I don't know.

00:04:50.720 | But it's true that there's a connection

00:04:53.920 | both between time and place and music.

00:04:55.840 | Certain music growing up on the East Coast

00:05:02.000 | didn't really resonate with me

00:05:03.280 | until I spent time on the West Coast.

00:05:05.200 | Eagles being an example.

00:05:06.680 | When I lived in New York,

00:05:08.200 | the Eagles didn't really speak to me.

00:05:09.840 | ZZ Top didn't really speak to me.

00:05:12.400 | And then when I started spending time in California

00:05:14.640 | and driving through Laurel Canyon,

00:05:16.840 | all of a sudden the music of the Eagles

00:05:18.360 | felt appropriate somehow.

00:05:21.880 | And I started listening to it more.

00:05:23.840 | - Got it.

00:05:24.680 | So not until you went out West

00:05:26.080 | can you understand the sounds of the West.

00:05:29.520 | So it's really like New York has a sound.

00:05:32.600 | What other places have a sound in the United States?

00:05:34.760 | - I think every place does.

00:05:36.760 | And that said, sometimes we can get an experience

00:05:40.360 | through music of a place,

00:05:42.800 | like we can resonate with the music and not understand why.

00:05:46.520 | And then maybe when we go to the place where it was created,

00:05:49.800 | it's almost like we have a knowingness of that place.

00:05:52.000 | It's not a strange place anymore.

00:05:54.000 | - Yeah, Stevie Ray Vaughan with blues and Texas blues.

00:05:58.960 | You can just listen to Texas Flood and just,

00:06:01.640 | again, there's like a woman you're missing, a broken heart,

00:06:04.680 | and somehow that connects you to the place.

00:06:07.200 | The Eagles, what song with the Eagles connects with you?

00:06:11.400 | Are we talking about like "Take It Easy"

00:06:15.520 | or are we talking more like "Hotel California"?

00:06:18.440 | - I'm thinking "Take It Easy," but both are great.

00:06:21.240 | - Yeah, there's certain songs

00:06:23.760 | when I started learning guitar when I was young

00:06:27.000 | that's like, I would like to be the kind of person

00:06:29.480 | that not only knows how to play this song,

00:06:31.920 | but understands this song.

00:06:33.960 | And like have that song be something I played 20 years ago.

00:06:38.960 | And I've lived with that song for a while.

00:06:42.680 | Like "Hotel California" is an example.

00:06:45.320 | Obviously there's the solo,

00:06:47.480 | but there's also the soulfulness of the lyrics,

00:06:50.360 | which I still don't understand.

00:06:51.760 | And it could be about anything.

00:06:52.920 | And as you get older,

00:06:53.800 | I feel like the meaning of the song could be anything.

00:06:56.080 | - Yeah, I think that's true.

00:06:57.720 | I think that's the beauty of them.

00:06:59.000 | I think when the person wrote them,

00:07:00.240 | they may have had one interpretation,

00:07:03.240 | but it's not contingent on us getting that interpretation

00:07:08.400 | to like it or resonate with it or feel it.

00:07:12.800 | In some ways, the best art is open enough

00:07:17.680 | where the artist gets to have their experience

00:07:21.640 | when they make it.

00:07:22.480 | And then the audience gets to have their experience

00:07:24.480 | when they listen and they don't have to be the same.

00:07:26.880 | - And then it connects thousands

00:07:28.360 | or millions of people together.

00:07:30.960 | There's a togetherness of music when you share that music,

00:07:34.160 | when you're listening to stuff together, like in a car.

00:07:36.800 | First of all, the car is a sacred place.

00:07:39.720 | So I work in part on autonomous vehicles.

00:07:43.040 | And you start to think, well, what are the things you lose

00:07:46.800 | when the car stops being the central part of American life?

00:07:51.200 | The car ownership.

00:07:54.920 | It just feels like the car, when you're alone,

00:07:57.800 | it's like a therapist thing, session,

00:08:01.120 | because you get angry at other humans,

00:08:04.240 | you get to, and then you get to like sit

00:08:07.040 | in your own anger and emotion.

00:08:09.560 | You get to listen to the song on a long road trip

00:08:12.320 | and remember, like run through your memories,

00:08:17.000 | the heartbreak, I don't know, the one that got away,

00:08:20.320 | but also like the beautiful moments, all of it.

00:08:23.480 | Yeah.

00:08:26.160 | And all of that in the car. (laughs)

00:08:28.000 | - Yeah, driving also serves another purpose.

00:08:30.840 | And it's one of the things that we can do

00:08:34.240 | that we have to pay attention enough,

00:08:39.360 | not to crash, but typically can essentially run

00:08:44.320 | on autopilot enough where we could be thinking

00:08:46.680 | about something else or concentrating on something else.

00:08:50.560 | And the difference between concentrating on something

00:08:53.480 | or trying to solve a problem,

00:08:55.560 | when you're solely trying to solve a problem

00:08:57.600 | versus when you have some little task

00:08:59.640 | that's keeping you occupied,

00:09:01.960 | I find if I have something slight to take care of,

00:09:09.040 | it frees a more creative side of my mind

00:09:12.960 | to better solve problems.

00:09:15.520 | - You know, I'm kind of jealous of people

00:09:17.200 | that found that in painting, for example.

00:09:19.700 | They'll be drawing or painting and listening to,

00:09:22.680 | so that's the small task you do.

00:09:25.080 | You're coloring in the lines.

00:09:27.400 | It's like this gentle, peaceful, slow process

00:09:31.600 | that requires just a small fraction of your mind

00:09:33.760 | and then you can listen.

00:09:34.780 | Some people listen to podcasts that way.

00:09:36.980 | Some people listen to music that way.

00:09:39.120 | Yeah.

00:09:39.960 | - How do you do it?

00:09:40.980 | How do you free your mind?

00:09:42.980 | - Running is one of them.

00:09:49.020 | There's a process.

00:09:54.000 | So most freeing of the mind for me has to go

00:09:58.660 | through a process of a bit of pain for a bit.

00:10:01.360 | So doing something difficult,

00:10:02.980 | it's just like a airplane taking off or something.

00:10:06.920 | So I have to, like for example, running,

00:10:09.060 | the first few miles would just be just,

00:10:12.220 | first of all, the physical aspect,

00:10:14.700 | which is like, ah, you're so fat, you're out of shape,

00:10:17.180 | you're, this is, this is, getting old, this, that.

00:10:20.060 | Okay, that slowly dissipates.

00:10:22.060 | And then the demons come in who are like,

00:10:25.600 | you should be getting this and that and this done.

00:10:30.040 | You haven't gotten it done.

00:10:31.400 | You're like breaking promises,

00:10:33.580 | all those kinds of voices coming in.

00:10:36.000 | And after that, maybe mile four, it's like, fuck it.

00:10:41.000 | You just, you just run, run with the wind

00:10:43.900 | at a very slow pace, but with the wind,

00:10:45.700 | and then, and then you could think.

00:10:47.940 | So it's the footsteps, the physical activity,

00:10:50.940 | then you could deeply think about stuff, ideas,

00:10:54.640 | sort of design, whether it's program design stuff

00:10:57.000 | or like high level life decisions,

00:10:59.360 | all those kinds of things.

00:11:00.280 | I would say running.

00:11:02.480 | I used to build bridges from toothpicks.

00:11:05.620 | It used to be a thing.

00:11:07.800 | It's an engineering, I guess some people like

00:11:10.520 | glue together airplanes and stuff like that.

00:11:13.120 | But the bridges, it's such deeply honest work

00:11:17.560 | because at the end of it,

00:11:19.020 | you're gonna have to test that bridge.

00:11:21.420 | And you're gonna see how good your work was,

00:11:24.140 | the little details, but also the big picture.

00:11:26.700 | - Do you use glue or no?

00:11:28.760 | - Yeah, I use glue.

00:11:30.800 | So it's not pure physics.

00:11:32.200 | It's materials engineering too.

00:11:36.780 | 'Cause the way you want to do it is

00:11:40.280 | you actually split the wood as thin as possible

00:11:42.740 | and then glue it back together

00:11:43.980 | 'cause the glue is really strong,

00:11:46.900 | except for the arches and things like that.

00:11:49.060 | So you're building arch bridges,

00:11:50.740 | which is a whole nother skill

00:11:52.300 | 'cause you have to bend the wood.

00:11:54.460 | And it's so cool 'cause the thing can hold

00:11:56.340 | thousands of times its weight.

00:11:58.860 | And then you get to watch it explode

00:12:02.720 | at a certain point from the pressure.

00:12:05.560 | And when you do a really good job,

00:12:07.420 | it doesn't explode in a kind of some weak point

00:12:11.620 | that you didn't anticipate,

00:12:12.680 | just kind of starts cracking.

00:12:14.680 | Everything cracks, everything explodes.

00:12:17.260 | It's just pieces fly everywhere.

00:12:20.420 | And it's literally hundreds of hours of work

00:12:23.520 | just explode in front of you.

00:12:26.580 | And that's a metaphor for life maybe.

00:12:29.400 | And it's all for nothing.

00:12:30.700 | (laughs)

00:12:31.940 | Except for the journey that you took to get there.

00:12:34.960 | And no one understands.

00:12:37.580 | Speaking of which, back to Nietzsche.

00:12:40.660 | These questions are ridiculous.

00:12:42.280 | So you're gonna have to try to figure out

00:12:46.020 | what the heck I'm trying to do here.

00:12:48.380 | So Nietzsche also said,

00:12:49.700 | a line I love, which is,

00:12:53.260 | and those who were seen dancing

00:12:55.000 | were thought to be insane by those

00:12:56.740 | who could not hear the music.

00:12:58.280 | Do you, Rick Rubin, ever feel crazy?

00:13:02.460 | Or maybe you're the one who's sane

00:13:05.860 | and everybody else is crazy.

00:13:07.260 | You know that the dancing, the joy of the music,

00:13:11.900 | of just feeling the music

00:13:13.940 | and everybody else just doesn't understand.

00:13:15.820 | And this doesn't have to be literally about music.

00:13:17.680 | This is about art, about creation.

00:13:21.260 | - I would say I feel different.

00:13:24.940 | And it's hard to say, it's like,

00:13:29.400 | which side of the equation is crazy, you know?

00:13:33.600 | - Did you ever find a group of people

00:13:37.100 | that you get, they get you?

00:13:39.180 | - Yes.

00:13:40.020 | - Is that what producing is essentially?

00:13:42.120 | Is you try to find the moments

00:13:43.480 | when you just get each other?

00:13:45.560 | - No.

00:13:48.380 | I would say they're definitely,

00:13:51.740 | certain artists with certain temperaments,

00:13:58.420 | when you're around them,

00:13:59.580 | it feels like you can finish each other's sentences,

00:14:02.380 | you know, just see the world the same way.

00:14:04.860 | Comedians as well.

00:14:06.140 | - And that's not essential for the two of you together

00:14:12.940 | creating something special?

00:14:14.740 | - No, no.

00:14:16.140 | - So it could be attention too?

00:14:18.180 | - It could be anything, it could be any,

00:14:19.800 | there's no rules.

00:14:21.540 | It'd be like, think of it like a coach.

00:14:24.220 | A coach could bring what they have to bring

00:14:29.220 | to any talented individual

00:14:31.700 | and help them find their way.

00:14:35.640 | And sometimes it's the right,

00:14:38.460 | the right coach for the right athlete really works.

00:14:41.160 | And other times there's a mismatch.

00:14:44.100 | - Have you seen the movie "Whiplash"?

00:14:46.660 | - I did.

00:14:47.500 | - When it came out, so I don't really remember it well,

00:14:49.220 | but I did see it.

00:14:50.060 | - So there's a coach type of figure

00:14:52.340 | who is pushing a drummer to create,

00:14:56.100 | to grow as a musician,

00:14:58.220 | but also to create something special.

00:15:00.140 | I don't know if it's even special music skill wise,

00:15:02.260 | it's a special moment.

00:15:04.060 | I don't know what he's trying to create.

00:15:06.020 | From one perspective, it's just an abusive,

00:15:08.140 | a person who selfishly gets off on being abusive

00:15:11.240 | to those he's with.

00:15:12.660 | But from another perspective, the way I saw that movie,

00:15:15.660 | it's just the two right humans finding each other

00:15:20.340 | at the right moment in life

00:15:21.740 | and risking destroying each other in the process,

00:15:24.340 | but maybe something beautiful will come of it.

00:15:27.700 | Do you think that's a toxic relationship?

00:15:31.940 | Or is there, does some of that movie resonate with you

00:15:37.620 | as that sometimes is required to create art?

00:15:40.640 | That kind of suffering.

00:15:43.700 | - Yeah, it doesn't.

00:15:44.940 | Well, there's suffering involved,

00:15:46.140 | but not that kind of suffering.

00:15:47.700 | Not for me.

00:15:50.620 | There are some people who that's their process

00:15:53.180 | and that's whatever works.

00:15:55.300 | There's no right answers for anything involved in art.

00:15:58.980 | We're all trying experiments to find a way.

00:16:02.380 | And even for the things that I work on,

00:16:04.220 | I don't have a set way that I do anything.

00:16:06.420 | I come to every project blank

00:16:10.420 | and see, I really listen to what the artist plays and says.

00:16:15.420 | And through what they explain they wanna do,

00:16:23.980 | help find the best way to get there.

00:16:29.380 | Was it implicit in the movie

00:16:32.940 | that the mean teacher liked being a mean teacher?

00:16:38.820 | You said the way you described it

00:16:40.740 | was that he got off on treating people this way.

00:16:43.340 | Do we know that to be the case?

00:16:44.540 | I don't remember that in the movie.

00:16:45.820 | - But we sometimes project that onto people,

00:16:47.900 | people who are really rough on students.

00:16:52.180 | You start to think, well, maybe,

00:16:54.080 | maybe that is fundamentally who they are.

00:17:01.020 | And if it's fundamentally who they are,

00:17:03.460 | that there must be some pleasure in it

00:17:05.180 | or it's an addiction of some sort.

00:17:07.460 | But it could be also a deliberate choice made by the teacher.

00:17:12.460 | - It also could be a lineage.

00:17:15.380 | Like in the Zen tradition,

00:17:17.980 | there are sort of the mean Roshis,

00:17:22.980 | who if you do something wrong, take a physical action.

00:17:27.360 | And it's just in the lineage,

00:17:30.740 | it's considered that's how you teach.

00:17:35.940 | I didn't come from that lineage.

00:17:37.540 | So I'm much more of a,

00:17:39.740 | I feel like it's more of a collaboration

00:17:43.020 | between people working together to make the best thing.

00:17:46.540 | It's not a boss-slave relationship at all.

00:17:51.500 | It's much more of a, let's find our way.

00:17:54.980 | And we agree at the beginning of the process

00:17:57.700 | that if either of us or any of us

00:18:02.140 | don't like what's happening, we say it.

00:18:04.420 | And the goal is to keep working

00:18:05.740 | until we get to a point where we're all really happy with it.

00:18:09.420 | It's like if we make something

00:18:10.980 | that an artist likes and I don't like,

00:18:13.060 | or that I like and they don't like,

00:18:14.780 | we haven't gone far enough.

00:18:16.220 | - In terms of lineage,

00:18:19.020 | the ones that seek destruction

00:18:21.220 | and the ones that seek happiness

00:18:22.500 | all come from the same lineage.

00:18:23.720 | Well, it came from fish.

00:18:24.740 | So somewhere in you, deep down,

00:18:28.460 | there's the other stuff too.

00:18:30.340 | It's just that you haven't been yet, by the way,

00:18:33.780 | 'cause you said every new project,

00:18:35.260 | including maybe starting today,

00:18:37.200 | is an opportunity to channel, to plug into something

00:18:42.780 | that was always there

00:18:43.860 | and you haven't gotten a chance to plug into.

00:18:46.060 | You mentioned listening.

00:18:47.380 | How do you listen to a person?

00:18:49.580 | How do you hear a person?

00:18:51.420 | When you first come in, like we just met,

00:18:54.500 | what's the analysis happening?

00:18:57.700 | But I mean, with me is one thing.

00:18:59.780 | I'm an artist of sorts.

00:19:00.980 | I program and I'm just, I'm human, I guess.

00:19:05.980 | We're all creating art.

00:19:08.660 | How do you see, like, how do I bring out?

00:19:10.660 | So for people who don't know,

00:19:12.640 | I mean, obviously everyone knows

00:19:16.500 | that you've produced some of the greatest records ever,

00:19:19.020 | but the way I see that is you just brought out the best

00:19:24.020 | in a lot of interesting artists.

00:19:27.520 | And so in order to bring out the best

00:19:30.900 | in them, you have to understand them.

00:19:33.580 | You have to hear the music of their soul,

00:19:38.140 | hopefully I'm not being too romantic here,

00:19:39.820 | but just like, is there something you can say

00:19:44.220 | of how difficult that is, if there's a process,

00:19:48.620 | if there's tricks, if it's luck?

00:19:51.820 | - I think it starts with this, again, coming in blank,

00:19:56.260 | like not having any preconceived ideas,

00:19:59.460 | being open and really listening,

00:20:01.860 | listening and not thinking about what you're gonna say next

00:20:05.980 | or what your opinion is or any,

00:20:07.940 | basically being a recorder and just hearing what comes in.

00:20:14.060 | And then once you hear what comes in,

00:20:16.180 | processing that information and trying our best to do that

00:20:21.180 | without any of the beliefs that we might have

00:20:25.780 | to impact what that is.

00:20:29.340 | If I ask you a question, I don't wanna hear what,

00:20:31.980 | I don't wanna listen to you and have any reaction happening

00:20:36.460 | when you're speaking.

00:20:37.980 | I wanna be as neutral as possible.

00:20:41.100 | For me, my goal is not to form an opinion,

00:20:46.100 | it's to understand.

00:20:48.900 | So if anything, I would draw you out further

00:20:52.460 | and just ask questions to really understand.

00:20:56.940 | - And if you say something that somehow triggers me

00:21:01.940 | in a way that I wonder how he came to that,

00:21:08.300 | I wouldn't challenge you, I would ask,

00:21:11.420 | how did you find that?

00:21:12.700 | How did you get to that place?

00:21:14.900 | - Form a place of curiosity.

00:21:16.380 | You would try to figure out--

00:21:17.340 | - Yeah, I wanna understand who the person is

00:21:20.380 | and through questioning, we can usually get there

00:21:22.660 | or through just spending time together,

00:21:26.180 | you find out who the person is.

00:21:29.260 | - What about finding out and figuring out

00:21:31.740 | how to then take the next steps

00:21:33.500 | of bringing out the best in them?

00:21:36.060 | Is it just trial and error?

00:21:40.260 | Let's try this.

00:21:41.260 | - It's definitely trial and error.

00:21:42.820 | It's always trial and error.

00:21:44.220 | - Are you afraid of making a mistake?

00:21:47.060 | Let's add this instrument, let's remove this instrument.

00:21:50.380 | - Let's try. - Let's add this line,

00:21:51.580 | let's remove this line.

00:21:52.500 | - Let's try.

00:21:53.340 | And let's be open.

00:21:55.340 | So one of the, we don't really have rules,

00:21:59.820 | but one of the agreements in the studio

00:22:02.140 | is any idea that anyone has,

00:22:05.340 | we'll always demonstrate it, we'll always try it

00:22:09.620 | because I can describe to you an idea

00:22:11.940 | and you can think that's a terrible idea,

00:22:14.460 | let's not do that.

00:22:16.340 | And then I can play you the idea

00:22:18.020 | and then you can say, oh, that's really good.

00:22:19.540 | And it's completely different because we,

00:22:22.020 | when we're told something,

00:22:25.060 | we have to imagine what that is.

00:22:28.820 | And the way you see something and imagine it

00:22:30.940 | and the way I see something and imagine it

00:22:32.300 | are completely different.

00:22:33.500 | - So you say a thing and now there's two humans

00:22:36.420 | that play that thing in their mind differently,

00:22:39.220 | in their imagination,

00:22:40.740 | and then there's a cool creative step

00:22:43.060 | and when you actually do it,

00:22:44.620 | to see how it differs in the imagination,

00:22:46.660 | and then the difference or the commonality

00:22:49.220 | will be like an exciting little discovery together.

00:22:52.180 | - So many groups of people making things together in a room,

00:22:57.180 | one person will suggest something

00:22:59.220 | and someone else in the room say,

00:23:00.060 | "Ah, that doesn't sound like a good idea,

00:23:01.780 | let's not do that."

00:23:02.620 | And then they move on.

00:23:03.580 | The testing of every idea is really important

00:23:07.780 | and that's how you get to see,

00:23:09.740 | oh, that's not at all what I thought it was gonna be.

00:23:11.620 | Happens to me all the time, I know,

00:23:13.420 | because someone will suggest,

00:23:15.620 | why don't we do it like this?

00:23:16.780 | And I'll think, that sounds bad.

00:23:19.740 | And then I'll think, okay, let's try it.

00:23:21.260 | And then we hear it and then eight times out of 10,

00:23:24.540 | it's nothing like I imagined and great.

00:23:26.660 | - And you try not to have an ego about the fact

00:23:30.540 | that you thought it was not a good idea in your head.

00:23:33.500 | - There can't be any ego in this.

00:23:36.980 | If everyone's there with the purpose

00:23:43.900 | of making the best thing we can,

00:23:45.780 | there's nothing else.

00:23:49.260 | There can't be any boundaries to that.

00:23:52.020 | - So there's a moment I saw with,

00:23:56.060 | I know you don't love talking about

00:23:59.420 | previous things you've done,

00:24:00.940 | but it's cool to dive in there.

00:24:02.860 | - I'm fine to talk to maybe.

00:24:04.100 | - To sample it.

00:24:04.940 | Anything?

00:24:06.940 | Well, I have this pain I gotta talk now.

00:24:09.100 | I'll think of something ridiculous

00:24:12.540 | that would make you change your mind.

00:24:16.540 | You mentioned, I saw a video of you with Jay-Z

00:24:19.860 | and working on 99 Problems where you suggested acapella,

00:24:23.420 | opening the song with acapella,

00:24:25.420 | just no instruments, just voice.

00:24:28.180 | That to me, I mean, that's one of the characteristics

00:24:33.180 | of the things, of the ways you've brought out

00:24:36.420 | the best in an artist is doing less.

00:24:38.700 | Sort of the tending towards simplicity in some kind of way.

00:24:43.180 | So that choice of acapella is really interesting

00:24:45.660 | 'cause I could see a lot of people think

00:24:47.620 | that that's a bad idea,

00:24:49.260 | but it turned out to be a really powerful idea.

00:24:52.300 | Can you maybe talk about the simplicity,

00:24:55.420 | how to find simplicity,

00:24:56.740 | why you find simplicity is beautiful?

00:24:58.940 | It does appear to be beautiful.

00:25:00.860 | What is that?

00:25:01.900 | - Yeah, I don't know where it comes from.

00:25:03.860 | It has been with me from the beginning of my work.

00:25:07.460 | The very first album I ever produced,

00:25:10.860 | the credit I took was reduced by me

00:25:12.860 | instead of produced by me.

00:25:15.140 | For that reason, I like the idea

00:25:17.780 | of getting to the essential.

00:25:19.540 | And I have a better idea now that I've done it for a while,

00:25:24.540 | but at the time it was purely an instinctual thing.

00:25:28.940 | And part of it is a sonic, there's a sonic benefit,

00:25:33.140 | which is the less elements you have,

00:25:36.460 | you can hear each of the ones that are there

00:25:40.940 | and they can sound better.

00:25:42.940 | And the less there are,

00:25:44.380 | the more space they could have around them

00:25:47.700 | and the more you can hear their personality.

00:25:49.940 | If you were to record 10 people playing the same guitar part

00:25:54.940 | and you listen to it, it would sound like guitar.

00:25:58.740 | And if you record one person playing a guitar part,

00:26:02.780 | it sounds like a person playing the guitar.

00:26:05.620 | It's different than just guitar.

00:26:07.460 | And often in the studio,

00:26:11.940 | the idea of building upon things

00:26:14.500 | and adding layers to thicken, to make it sound bigger,

00:26:18.420 | sometimes the more things you add, the smaller it gets.

00:26:23.420 | So a lot of it is counterintuitive

00:26:27.460 | until you just in practice see what works.

00:26:30.980 | - To try it, to try removing stuff until it's just right.

00:26:33.740 | It's the Einstein thing,

00:26:35.100 | make it as simple as possible, but not simpler.

00:26:40.820 | That's such a, like finding a stopping place,

00:26:44.460 | just keep chopping away and chopping away.

00:26:47.460 | - Yeah, there's something we also like to do

00:26:49.580 | called the ruthless edit, which is,

00:26:51.460 | let's say you're at a point where it can work for anything,

00:26:55.100 | but I'll give you the example with an album.

00:26:57.300 | We've recorded 25 songs.

00:27:02.580 | We think the album is gonna have 10.

00:27:05.100 | Instead of picking our favorite 10,

00:27:08.100 | we limit it to what are the five or six

00:27:11.940 | that we can't live without?

00:27:13.300 | So going past even the goal

00:27:18.540 | to get to the real like heart of it,

00:27:20.820 | and then see, okay, we have these five or six

00:27:22.540 | that we can't live without.

00:27:24.300 | Now, what would we add to that

00:27:27.420 | that makes it better and not worse?

00:27:35.380 | - It puts you in a different frame

00:27:38.580 | when you start with building instead of removing.

00:27:42.900 | - And you might find that there's nothing you need to add.

00:27:45.420 | - Sometimes.

00:27:46.260 | Sometimes something happens when you get to the real essence.

00:27:51.380 | Then when you start adding things back,

00:27:52.740 | it becomes clear that it was just supposed to be

00:27:56.820 | this tight little thing.

00:27:59.180 | - Can I ask you like a therapy session question?

00:28:02.220 | So you mentioned somewhere that one way

00:28:05.660 | to kind of think about music to get into music

00:28:09.940 | is to look at the top like 100 albums of all time

00:28:12.900 | and just go down the list and like just take it all in

00:28:15.740 | like one piece of artwork.

00:28:17.620 | So I was doing that for a while.

00:28:20.100 | It's a cool experiment 'cause unfortunately I have to admit,

00:28:23.420 | I've gotten lazy and stopped taking in albums as albums.

00:28:29.700 | And I looked at one interesting top 100 list,

00:28:32.780 | top 500 actually, which is put together by Rolling Stone.

00:28:36.860 | And they put, this is the therapy session part,

00:28:39.780 | and this has to do with simplicity too.

00:28:41.300 | They put Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" at number one.

00:28:44.100 | Spoiler alert.

00:28:44.940 | So I'd like to maybe get your opinion on that choice.

00:28:51.100 | The reason Marvin Gaye is really interesting,

00:28:53.380 | it'd actually be cool to play what's going on in a second,

00:28:57.780 | but when you just listen to his like acapella,

00:29:02.660 | just listen to his voice, it is really good.

00:29:05.940 | It makes me wonder if it's possible to pull off

00:29:10.140 | like most of his songs with no instruments.

00:29:13.180 | In many parts, there's so much soul

00:29:17.780 | in just "Mercy, Mercy Me," "What's Going On."

00:29:21.820 | There's so many songs that you could just be like,

00:29:23.620 | "I wonder if you could just like, just go raw."

00:29:28.140 | Or maybe in parts, or maybe do what you do with Jay-Z,

00:29:30.340 | just open up with nothing.

00:29:31.380 | Anyway, there's something so powerful

00:29:33.700 | to a great soulful voice.

00:29:36.180 | Do you mind if I play it real quick?

00:29:37.740 | - No, please.

00:29:38.580 | - "What's Going On."

00:29:39.420 | This is probably one of my favorite songs.

00:29:41.300 | I mean, it's up there.

00:29:42.420 | (indistinct chatter)

00:29:46.500 | (upbeat music)

00:29:52.020 | (upbeat music)

00:29:54.620 | That voice.

00:30:01.460 | ♪ There's too many of you to cry ♪

00:30:07.460 | ♪ Brother, brother, brother ♪

00:30:11.820 | ♪ There's far too many of you to die ♪

00:30:14.580 | There's some just very subtle backing vocals.

00:30:16.940 | ♪ You know we've got to find ♪

00:30:21.740 | ♪ To bring some loving in today ♪

00:30:26.740 | ♪ Father, father ♪

00:30:29.980 | This one hurts.

00:30:31.220 | ♪ We don't need to escalate ♪

00:30:33.500 | Father, father, we don't need to escalate.

00:30:36.260 | ♪ You see, war is not the answer ♪

00:30:40.540 | ♪ For only love can hold a hand ♪

00:30:44.020 | - I wonder who the father he's talking about is.

00:30:47.060 | - Oh, that's interesting.

00:30:48.060 | I mean, so for people who don't know,

00:30:50.700 | his own father ended up killing Marvin Gaye.

00:30:55.140 | I mean, that one is really painful.

00:30:58.540 | I mean, for a lot of people,

00:30:59.620 | your relationship with your father, your mother,

00:31:01.980 | I mean, there's different dynamics,

00:31:03.180 | but it's almost like part of life is resolving

00:31:06.100 | some kind of complex puzzle you have

00:31:08.860 | with the people you love, the people close to you,

00:31:10.940 | or the people who are not there, all those kinds of things.

00:31:14.300 | That's so much pain in that,

00:31:15.780 | we don't need to escalate, father, father.

00:31:17.860 | I never thought if it's,

00:31:19.780 | I always thought it's his father directly.

00:31:22.100 | - Yeah, I don't get that.

00:31:23.180 | It could be, but I don't, I feel like it's a more

00:31:26.100 | masculine spirituality.

00:31:33.700 | - Like a father figure,

00:31:34.780 | or just broadly some kind of spirituality.

00:31:37.220 | - Could be like God, father God, mother God,

00:31:41.500 | you know, like could be, I don't know.

00:31:44.100 | - But there's so much, it's like both hope and melancholy.

00:31:49.660 | - You're saying war's not the answer.

00:31:51.220 | It's like, you don't tell that your father war's not,

00:31:53.500 | your blood father war's not the answer.

00:31:56.300 | It's a strange conversation.

00:31:58.460 | It's a bigger conversation than a personal.

00:32:01.020 | - Don't you think it feels like war when it's personal?

00:32:05.380 | What's the difference between,

00:32:06.920 | is, war is personal too.

00:32:11.020 | It's only leaders think about war in a geopolitical sense.

00:32:14.860 | When people that fight wars, you lose your brothers,

00:32:18.660 | you lose, I mean, death is just right there.

00:32:21.420 | So it might feel just like that.

00:32:22.700 | But yeah, there is a dance between like the personal

00:32:26.380 | and like talking to the entirety of the society.

00:32:28.660 | It's like John Lennon, imagine,

00:32:30.220 | also a song where, is that hopeful?

00:32:36.900 | Is that cynical?

00:32:38.120 | Is it like melancholy?

00:32:41.540 | Like heartbroken?

00:32:43.480 | Like you hope, you wish things would be a certain way

00:32:47.020 | and they're not.

00:32:48.900 | Yeah, I don't know.

00:32:49.740 | I don't know if John Lennon is giving up

00:32:50.980 | on the world in "Imagine."

00:32:52.860 | - Yeah, I don't know.

00:32:53.860 | No, it's an interesting question.

00:32:55.580 | There's another John Lennon lyric in,

00:32:58.260 | let me think of what it is, take me a second.

00:33:04.860 | Different songs keep coming into my head.

00:33:11.420 | It's not the one that I'm looking for.

00:33:12.260 | - And you keep pressing next.

00:33:14.640 | - Um,

00:33:15.480 | cross the universe.

00:33:20.360 | Nothing's gonna change my world.

00:33:23.500 | And when I hear that, I hear it as hopeless.

00:33:30.360 | But I don't think, I don't believe that that's,

00:33:35.380 | well, it may be how he meant it,

00:33:38.200 | but I don't think that's how it's normally taken.

00:33:43.400 | - And it's also the taker is important.

00:33:46.040 | I'm generally optimistic and hopeful,

00:33:47.600 | so I always look for the hope.

00:33:49.800 | And actually the harshest love heartbreak songs

00:33:54.800 | are somehow hopeful to me.

00:33:56.080 | That's a love song.

00:33:57.260 | To me, a song about losing love

00:34:01.760 | is a song about the great capacity for love

00:34:06.460 | in the human heart.

00:34:07.600 | That's what I hear.

00:34:08.520 | So to me, losing love is exciting.

00:34:12.400 | 'Cause it's like, that means you really cared.

00:34:15.040 | That means you felt something, you feel something,

00:34:17.160 | you can sit in that pain,

00:34:18.440 | and that pain is a reminder of what it means to be human.

00:34:21.660 | When you're that, what is it?

00:34:24.920 | We're just listening.

00:34:26.960 | The only man who could have reached me

00:34:29.120 | was the son of a preacher man.

00:34:30.440 | So it's like that early love or something,

00:34:33.120 | partially sexual or whatever.

00:34:35.020 | That's not as interesting to me.

00:34:36.440 | It's fun, it's great.

00:34:37.960 | But it's that heartbreak.

00:34:39.260 | That's the reminder that it can go deep.

00:34:41.400 | Although that's a damn good song.

00:34:43.160 | - Have you ever heard the Detroit mix

00:34:46.280 | of the Marvin Gaye album?

00:34:48.280 | - No.

00:34:49.120 | - Call it up.

00:34:51.200 | By far better.

00:34:54.960 | Mind-blowing.

00:34:55.800 | I just heard it recently, blew my mind.

00:34:57.460 | (upbeat music)

00:35:01.260 | - Oh, wow.

00:35:04.160 | Reverb.

00:35:04.980 | Distant.

00:35:11.160 | Interesting.

00:35:12.160 | ♪ There's too many of you to cry ♪

00:35:17.160 | ♪ Brother, brother, brother ♪

00:35:21.200 | ♪ There's far too many to love you, die ♪

00:35:24.640 | - Feels like it's all around the room more.

00:35:26.480 | ♪ I know we've got to find a way home ♪

00:35:31.120 | ♪ To bring some loving here today ♪

00:35:36.120 | - More voices.

00:35:38.520 | More voices.

00:35:41.000 | ♪ For you to escalate ♪

00:35:46.000 | ♪ War is not the answer ♪

00:35:49.920 | ♪ For only love can end ♪

00:35:51.240 | - He's layering his own vocals.

00:35:52.960 | ♪ You know we've got to find a way ♪

00:35:59.520 | ♪ To bring some loving here today ♪

00:36:04.520 | - Feels like there's multiple people singing.

00:36:10.080 | ♪ Punish me with brutality ♪

00:36:14.800 | ♪ Talk to me so you can see ♪

00:36:18.680 | ♪ Oh, what's going on, what's going on ♪

00:36:21.320 | - Yeah, that's beautiful.

00:36:22.400 | - Yeah.

00:36:23.240 | Seems to have more energy.

00:36:24.480 | If you listen to the whole album,

00:36:26.560 | even though you just said you don't listen to albums anymore,

00:36:29.200 | the Detroit mix of the whole album changes the album a lot.

00:36:33.440 | - I mean, that felt,

00:36:36.440 | so that's the opposite of a cappella, I would say.

00:36:38.800 | - Yes.

00:36:39.640 | - 'Cause it's,

00:36:40.480 | there's layers, there's,

00:36:44.400 | and maybe, I don't know if you remember,

00:36:47.720 | but if memory serves me correct here,

00:36:51.360 | he produces this own album here, Marvin Gaye

00:36:54.400 | was the producer on this, I believe.

00:36:56.160 | - I believe so.

00:36:57.000 | And this one sounds more like it's a get-together.

00:37:00.160 | And the whole album sounds more like a get-together

00:37:02.280 | where it's a group of people in a room

00:37:04.960 | playing music together,

00:37:06.800 | whereas the album version sounds more like a recording.

00:37:11.800 | This sounds less like a recording

00:37:13.360 | and a little more like a party.

00:37:14.920 | - Now, you had a series of conversations

00:37:17.480 | with Paul McCartney, which is amazing

00:37:19.000 | that people should watch,

00:37:21.160 | but is there, this is continuing our therapy session,

00:37:24.760 | is there a case to be made that what's going on

00:37:28.920 | is number one album above the Beatles,

00:37:31.360 | a white album, or Abbey Road above Pet Sounds?

00:37:36.040 | Can you still manage case?

00:37:38.200 | - There's always a case.

00:37:39.480 | I mean, there's always a case.

00:37:41.000 | In reality, in art, there is no metric that makes sense.

00:37:46.960 | So you could put numbers on things,

00:37:50.760 | but it's like, is this apple better than this peach?

00:37:55.760 | Like, it's not really a fair comparison.

00:37:59.600 | - But if you just had to keep one

00:38:01.280 | to represent the human species,

00:38:02.760 | that's the way I think to the aliens.

00:38:05.760 | - So I think it's a very personal decision.

00:38:07.960 | I think you can make your choice

00:38:10.360 | to represent the human species and I'll make mine.

00:38:13.040 | - Well, I would pick the Beatles over the Beach Boys,

00:38:16.240 | so that's my, if I became dictator of the world

00:38:18.920 | and was talking to the aliens,

00:38:20.400 | but I don't know the full historical context

00:38:22.360 | to the impact of the music.

00:38:24.360 | I don't know if that's something to consider,

00:38:26.840 | like this kind of thought experiment

00:38:29.240 | of imagine what it was like back then

00:38:32.920 | to create, to go into the studio,

00:38:35.000 | to do such interesting work in the studio,

00:38:38.200 | as opposed to like listening to just as a pop song almost.

00:38:44.120 | 'Cause I've never been able to understand

00:38:46.120 | Beach Boys, God Only Knows.

00:38:50.520 | - The song God Only Knows?

00:38:53.160 | - God Only Knows, but all of it,

00:38:54.560 | the album, the Pat Siles just--

00:38:56.600 | - In My Room?

00:38:57.760 | - What, In My Room?

00:39:00.080 | - That song.

00:39:02.320 | - Is that, what was your favorite on the album?

00:39:04.360 | That non-favorite? - On the Pat Siles album?

00:39:06.000 | - Pat Siles.

00:39:07.240 | - The opening track.

00:39:08.480 | - Do you mind if I play it?

00:39:10.360 | - Please.

00:39:11.200 | - It's too fun.

00:39:14.840 | - That's part of their trip though.

00:39:18.800 | - You open the heart with the fun?

00:39:22.880 | - It's possible.

00:39:28.760 | Original mono and stereo mix versions.

00:39:32.800 | - What's the opening song?

00:39:33.960 | Wouldn't It Be Nice?

00:39:35.160 | Yeah, that's the song.

00:39:36.320 | (upbeat music)

00:39:40.920 | ♪ Wouldn't it be nice if we were older ♪

00:39:48.840 | ♪ Then we wouldn't have to wait so long ♪

00:39:52.600 | ♪ And wouldn't it be nice to live together ♪

00:39:56.440 | ♪ In the kind of world where we belong ♪

00:40:01.440 | ♪ No one's gonna make it that much better ♪

00:40:05.720 | ♪ When we can say goodnight and start living together ♪

00:40:07.560 | - This part is good, man.

00:40:09.640 | And then back to fun.

00:40:12.560 | - Yeah, that we could say goodnight and stay together.

00:40:16.200 | Wouldn't that be nice?

00:40:17.320 | - Wouldn't it be nice?

00:40:18.280 | - To wake up together.

00:40:19.840 | But we're not.

00:40:20.680 | - There's heartbreak in this one too.

00:40:24.600 | - Still, to me, George Harrison,

00:40:26.400 | is that the way the album, While My Guitar Gently Weeps?

00:40:31.320 | With the Beatles, it's so hard to,

00:40:37.000 | depending on the day, I'll say a very different song

00:40:40.040 | that's my favorite song, but I often return

00:40:42.440 | to While My Guitar Gently Weeps as my favorite song.

00:40:45.080 | - Spectacular, it's spectacular.

00:40:46.760 | - And anything George Harrison, honestly.

00:40:48.360 | Something in the way she moves.

00:40:50.280 | What would you classify that?

00:40:54.160 | - There's several Beatles songs,

00:40:56.120 | categories of Beatles songs.

00:40:57.720 | That's the melancholy love songs

00:40:59.960 | or ballads or something like that.

00:41:01.640 | Yesterday, Let It Be.

00:41:04.800 | Do you have favorites?

00:41:08.240 | So from your, how have you changed as a man,

00:41:11.040 | as a human being, as a musician and music producer,

00:41:13.840 | ever having done that lengthy interaction with McCartney?

00:41:21.640 | - Anytime you're around someone who's such a hero

00:41:26.640 | and you spend time with them and they're a human being,

00:41:30.280 | it helps put perspective on everything.

00:41:32.760 | - Oh, that they're just human?

00:41:34.120 | - Well, obviously.

00:41:35.560 | I mean, everyone's just human.

00:41:37.480 | But I remember the first time I got to see

00:41:40.560 | Paul McCartney play live, it was in a stadium

00:41:43.440 | of 70,000 people and he started playing

00:41:46.920 | and I started crying and I couldn't believe I was in,

00:41:50.800 | even with 70,000 people, I couldn't believe

00:41:52.880 | that this man walks the earth

00:41:55.440 | and that I'm in the same place as him

00:41:58.560 | and he's the person who wrote that and played that

00:42:01.400 | and now he's here playing it for us.

00:42:04.840 | Mind-blowing.

00:42:06.160 | That's the voice.

00:42:07.280 | - That's the, I--

00:42:09.720 | - It's overwhelming.

00:42:10.720 | - Is it inspiring or is it,

00:42:14.800 | like, 'cause sometimes when you have,

00:42:18.600 | and I've gotten a chance to meet,

00:42:21.080 | I mean, I love people in general,

00:42:22.800 | like every person is fascinating to me,

00:42:24.800 | but yeah, when you've been a fan for a long time

00:42:27.600 | and you meet a person, sort of,

00:42:30.520 | I'll just remove present company,

00:42:32.800 | is you, it's like, oh, they're just human.

00:42:37.800 | So there's both, it's both inspiring

00:42:41.280 | that just a simple human can achieve such beautiful things,

00:42:45.140 | but it's also like almost wishing

00:42:47.820 | there were gods moving around us.

00:42:50.720 | It's somehow peaceful.

00:42:53.420 | It's more comforting to know that there's,

00:42:57.300 | there's bigger fish, I'm just a small fish,

00:43:02.340 | and then there's bigger fish,

00:43:03.860 | and they will take care of the ocean for us.

00:43:05.780 | - I think we're all capable of being big fish.

00:43:08.660 | I don't think that there are special people.

00:43:11.220 | I don't think it's like that.

00:43:14.340 | I would make a case, so the variety of artists

00:43:19.340 | that you worked with and brought the best out of,

00:43:22.140 | it does seem that you're out of this world.

00:43:26.280 | So do you think you would know,

00:43:30.600 | like, if you're the same kind of species,

00:43:35.860 | maybe you're just a meat vehicle,

00:43:38.100 | and you're channeling ideas from somewhere else?

00:43:40.940 | - I feel like I'm channeling ideas

00:43:42.300 | from somewhere else, 100%.

00:43:44.740 | But I think--

00:43:45.580 | - Have you asked questions about where from?

00:43:47.060 | - I believe we all are, though.

00:43:49.860 | I believe we are,

00:43:52.140 | we're vehicles for information

00:43:57.540 | that when it's ready to come through, it comes through,

00:44:00.700 | and the people who have good antennas pick up the signal.

00:44:03.780 | But if, I'm sure you've had an experience in your life

00:44:07.660 | where you've had an idea for something,

00:44:09.340 | and you've not acted on it,

00:44:11.020 | and eventually someone else does it,

00:44:13.420 | and it's not because they're doing it

00:44:14.660 | because you had the idea and they stole your idea,

00:44:16.700 | it's because the time has come for that idea.

00:44:20.120 | And if you don't do it, someone else is gonna do it.

00:44:22.820 | - It's being broadcast by whatever the source is.

00:44:24.780 | - Whatever the source is.

00:44:26.180 | - Yeah, I tend to,

00:44:29.140 | I tend to see humans as not quite special in that way, yeah.

00:44:33.860 | It's different kinds of antennas walking around,

00:44:36.460 | listening to ideas, and ideas that are,

00:44:39.020 | I like the notion of Richard Dawkins of memes,

00:44:44.020 | it's kind of the ideas of the organisms,

00:44:46.420 | and they're just using our brains to multiply,

00:44:48.660 | to select, to compete, to evolve.

00:44:53.220 | And humans, we really wanna hold onto the specialness

00:44:55.860 | of our body, of our mind, but it's really the ideas.

00:44:59.140 | So if Rick Rubin was born two centuries ago,

00:45:02.980 | you wouldn't be a music producer.

00:45:04.740 | You'd be, or I mean, maybe,

00:45:07.840 | but you have an antenna.

00:45:09.540 | And if no signal's coming in,

00:45:12.740 | or you'd be hearing potentially a different signal.

00:45:16.740 | Is there--

00:45:19.500 | - I think we all have our own antenna for whatever it is

00:45:22.500 | that we, maybe not everyone has tuned into their antenna

00:45:26.800 | to see what it is that their strength

00:45:29.820 | in bringing through is.

00:45:31.180 | I'm lucky in that it found me,

00:45:33.460 | 'cause I didn't know that it was a,

00:45:34.820 | I didn't even know this was a job.

00:45:37.060 | I sometimes wonder, I mean, a lot of young people,

00:45:41.780 | a lot of people wonder, like, what's the purpose

00:45:45.860 | and the specs of my antenna?

00:45:48.080 | What am I put on this earth to do?

00:45:52.480 | Like if, you know, I can live a thousand lives.

00:45:58.380 | There's so many trajectories.

00:46:00.620 | And imagine the greatest possible trajectory

00:46:03.300 | that reveals the most beautiful thing

00:46:06.020 | I can possibly create in this world.

00:46:08.820 | Live the most beautiful way.

00:46:10.680 | What is that?

00:46:13.740 | I feel like that's a good exercise to think about.

00:46:16.300 | 'Cause it's also liberating to think

00:46:20.700 | that you can do anything.

00:46:22.040 | I mean, that, more and more, I suppose that's kind of life.

00:46:27.720 | It's like society is pushing conformity on you.

00:46:30.940 | You know, I thought, I had my own flavor of conformity.

00:46:34.580 | I thought I was supposed to be following.

00:46:36.300 | And then early on, I would say like in the late 20s,

00:46:40.500 | you realize, wait a minute, you don't have to tell,

00:46:42.780 | you don't have to do what teachers tell you to do,

00:46:45.620 | what parents tell you to do, what society tells you to do.

00:46:49.100 | You can, like, I would never wear a suit

00:46:53.280 | if I listened to like my colleagues in community

00:46:56.580 | who think that a suit is like the symbol of, what is it?

00:47:03.280 | A symbol of conformity, actually, which is hilarious.

00:47:05.620 | But it's actually a kind of rebellion

00:47:08.220 | and everything else of that nature,

00:47:10.020 | doing these silly podcasts.

00:47:12.260 | - I have a question I have to ask.

00:47:16.780 | - Sure. - 'Cause you brought up the suit.

00:47:18.340 | - Yeah.

00:47:19.980 | - Do you wear the suit?

00:47:21.980 | Is this your daily uniform outside of podcasting?

00:47:25.320 | - So for the longest time, it was some kind of suit.

00:47:29.580 | And then recently, coinciding with going to Texas,

00:47:33.500 | I'm such a loner, I'm an introvert,

00:47:38.480 | and there's a bit of a hiding from the world

00:47:41.160 | when I wear other stuff.

00:47:43.740 | I really want to not make fame, recognition,

00:47:49.980 | money, all of those things a motivation at all.

00:47:58.160 | And the world kind of wants you to make those motivations.

00:48:01.480 | Not the world, but I would say maybe the Western world,

00:48:04.120 | maybe America, maybe a capitalist system does.

00:48:07.540 | But--

00:48:09.520 | - That's a choice to buy into that or not.

00:48:12.120 | - Right.

00:48:13.520 | It takes a brave person, a person of character

00:48:16.760 | to not buy in.

00:48:17.640 | And I'm like a baby deer trying to find its legs.

00:48:22.440 | You don't have to buy in.

00:48:24.620 | 'Cause I love people, and I think I'm kind of an idiot.

00:48:27.080 | And so when other people say, do this and do that,

00:48:30.280 | there is a pressure there.

00:48:33.680 | It's actually very difficult to not listen necessarily

00:48:38.640 | to the advice of others,

00:48:40.360 | and yet keep yourself fragile and open to the world.

00:48:43.600 | It's easy to be like, I'm always right,

00:48:47.160 | just kind of sticking your ground.

00:48:50.260 | But if you want to be vulnerable,

00:48:52.440 | if you want to connect with people

00:48:53.720 | and just wear your heart on your sleeve,

00:48:55.880 | then you're going to listen to them.

00:48:56.960 | I mean, that's the double-edged sword of it.

00:48:59.120 | But then again, that pain, if you don't let it destroy you,

00:49:04.720 | you can grow from that.

00:49:06.240 | Has fame affected you at all?

00:49:08.800 | Did you unplug from the system at some point?

00:49:11.440 | - Same.

00:49:12.280 | I've always been sort of removed.

00:49:14.440 | I don't feel like I'm part of any system.

00:49:16.480 | - Do you feel famous?

00:49:19.400 | - I'm aware that when I go out,

00:49:22.760 | people say nice things to me, which is great.

00:49:26.480 | (laughing)

00:49:27.440 | But that's about it.

00:49:28.720 | That's about as far as it goes.

00:49:29.800 | - But it doesn't affect your art, about your creativity,

00:49:32.520 | or your thoughts.

00:49:33.600 | Like when you're sitting alone and thinking about the world.

00:49:36.800 | - It can't.

00:49:37.920 | It's a destructive force.

00:49:39.920 | The reason that you're who you are,

00:49:46.120 | and the reason that you're finding the success

00:49:48.280 | you're finding is because you've been true to yourself

00:49:51.080 | to get to that stage.

00:49:52.800 | So to start changing that, to either conform

00:49:57.800 | to someone else's idea of what you should be doing,

00:50:01.200 | it just seems like it doesn't make sense.

00:50:04.280 | - Do you have a sense of who you are?

00:50:06.480 | 'Cause I don't necessarily have a--

00:50:09.040 | - I don't know.

00:50:09.880 | I know that I really like making good things,

00:50:12.960 | and I know that I'm crazy about it in that

00:50:16.360 | it's like an obsession.

00:50:21.000 | And I want things to be as good as they could be,

00:50:22.840 | whatever it is.

00:50:23.680 | And if I finish a music project,

00:50:26.840 | and I have a window of time where I'm not working on music,

00:50:30.640 | I might be moving the furniture around in the house.

00:50:33.560 | You know, I'm always looking for a creative outlet

00:50:38.560 | to find a way to make something better.

00:50:41.440 | Or there was a period of time where I was in a weird

00:50:44.160 | corporate situation that was,

00:50:49.640 | that didn't allow me to flourish.

00:50:52.680 | And I turned, I focused the creativity in on myself,

00:50:56.680 | and I lost a bunch of weight and changed my life.

00:50:59.680 | - So that was the kind of art,

00:51:00.800 | like you've gone through a whole process of losing weight,

00:51:03.200 | getting in shape, getting healthy.

00:51:05.120 | That was a kind of creative act.

00:51:07.240 | - It certainly was.

00:51:08.240 | It wasn't an intentional creative act,

00:51:10.520 | but I had a lot of energy.

00:51:12.520 | And I just, a series of events happened.

00:51:16.520 | I read a book.

00:51:17.960 | At the time, that was my heaviest.

00:51:19.280 | I weighed about 318 pounds.

00:51:21.760 | And I'd never been, I'd been sedentary my whole life,

00:51:24.400 | basically laying on a couch working on music.

00:51:26.240 | So I've never been physically active in my life.

00:51:30.960 | And I read a book about a guy named Stu Middleman, a runner,

00:51:34.200 | who ran a thousand miles in 11 days.

00:51:36.840 | And I thought, wow, I get out of breath

00:51:39.280 | walking to the corner,

00:51:40.600 | and another human being can run a thousand miles in 11 days.

00:51:45.000 | I feel like I have bad information.

00:51:47.360 | Clearly I'm doing something wrong.

00:51:49.160 | And I reached out to a person

00:51:52.360 | that Stu mentioned in the book, Phil Maffetone.

00:51:55.080 | - Who's a legend.

00:51:56.120 | I really appreciate him as well.

00:51:58.080 | He's Math 180 Method 2.

00:52:00.360 | He's such an interesting, I think he focuses on--

00:52:03.320 | - Heart rate training.

00:52:05.320 | And he was the first person to talk about essentially a--

00:52:10.320 | - Low carbs.

00:52:13.760 | Paleo, keto diet.

00:52:17.920 | - For a person-- - 40 years ago.

00:52:20.400 | - For a person who's going to be healthy,

00:52:21.960 | who can exercise and actually perform at an early level.

00:52:25.600 | He's the first person when I,

00:52:28.040 | talking about heart rate training,

00:52:30.560 | him and other endurance athletes he influenced,

00:52:33.760 | he gave me permission to run slower.

00:52:36.680 | - Yeah.

00:52:37.520 | - It was the first time I realized,

00:52:39.960 | oh, I can run long distance as if I just run slower

00:52:42.480 | and then take that seriously.

00:52:45.000 | And I actually fell in love with running very much so.

00:52:48.720 | 'Cause for me, everyone's different,

00:52:50.600 | but for me the love of running happens

00:52:53.000 | in the longer distances.

00:52:54.920 | - Did you read Born to Run?

00:52:56.960 | Great book.

00:52:57.800 | - Amazing book.

00:52:58.620 | There is something special about running.

00:53:00.520 | And everybody has their own journey with it.

00:53:04.760 | And even ultra marathon running, those kinds of things.

00:53:09.440 | It is like many journeys,

00:53:12.080 | one that can pull you in.

00:53:15.640 | Like you won't be the same person after.

00:53:17.520 | And I try to be deliberate about making choices

00:53:22.000 | after which you'll not be the same person.

00:53:25.220 | And so I'm nervous about the ultra marathon running world.

00:53:29.620 | I have to talk to you about Johnny Cash.

00:53:37.640 | I mean, when people ask me what my favorite musical thing is

00:53:42.640 | of all time,

00:53:45.980 | you know, it's a very difficult question to answer,

00:53:53.160 | of course, but I'm pretty quick,

00:53:55.880 | if I'm not allowed to pick anything by Tom Ways,

00:53:58.280 | I'm pretty quick to say Hurt by Johnny Cash,

00:54:04.080 | the performance, the whatever you call it,

00:54:06.480 | whatever the heck that is.

00:54:07.800 | Because that's not just a song covered by an artist.

00:54:12.800 | That's a human being at the end of their life.

00:54:17.500 | That the rawness of that,

00:54:21.140 | I mean, just there's also a music video,

00:54:25.880 | which for a lot of people adds a lot to it.

00:54:29.160 | For me, just the music alone is,

00:54:32.520 | I mean, the guitar, every choice on that.

00:54:36.680 | See, the few things I've heard about it,

00:54:39.320 | it seemed like almost accidental.

00:54:41.200 | I mean, like little subtle choices here and there.

00:54:44.360 | Can you maybe comment on that to the degree,

00:54:49.360 | I think you had a huge role

00:54:51.480 | in sort of bringing Johnny Cash back

00:54:53.280 | from a different part of his life.

00:54:56.600 | It's like bringing something out that wasn't there before.

00:54:59.520 | And it was incredible.

00:55:01.720 | It was a celebration of a really special musician.

00:55:04.520 | And that's totally new kind of celebration.

00:55:07.960 | Now, Hurt is just one of the songs

00:55:09.560 | that's an amazing celebration of Johnny Cash.

00:55:13.240 | But Hurt is like at the peak of that.

00:55:17.280 | So what was that like putting that song together?

00:55:20.900 | It might be nice to listen to it

00:55:24.200 | 'cause I freaking love that song.

00:55:26.200 | And as a guitarist,

00:55:29.240 | I just, the simplicity of it,

00:55:31.400 | it seems like every choice contributes

00:55:35.840 | to the greatness of the song.

00:55:37.300 | (gentle music)

00:55:41.100 | Simple, it's crisp, but it's dark too.

00:55:51.440 | ♪ I hurt myself today ♪

00:55:54.520 | - It's one of the greatest opening lines of any song.

00:55:58.240 | ♪ If I still feel ♪

00:55:59.880 | - The shape. - I miss that.

00:56:01.360 | - Yeah, to see if I still feel.

00:56:03.000 | - Yeah, I'm talking about the lyrics.

00:56:04.400 | I don't even mean the performance, the words.

00:56:07.000 | ♪ The only thing that's real ♪

00:56:12.840 | ♪ The needle tears a hole ♪

00:56:15.760 | - But those words out of Trent Reznor are not the same.

00:56:18.720 | They have a different meaning

00:56:20.280 | coming out of Johnny Cash's mouth.

00:56:22.040 | ♪ Try to kill it all away ♪

00:56:28.240 | ♪ But I remember everything ♪

00:56:33.240 | ♪ What have I become ♪

00:56:38.000 | - What have I become?

00:56:40.360 | ♪ My sweetest friend ♪

00:56:43.280 | - Written probably for a young man.

00:56:45.400 | - I think he was 20 when he wrote it, Trent.

00:56:49.040 | ♪ Goes away in the end ♪

00:56:55.280 | ♪ And you could have it all ♪

00:57:00.280 | ♪ My empire of dirt ♪

00:57:03.720 | - Anger, regret, pain.

00:57:06.160 | ♪ I will let you down ♪

00:57:11.160 | ♪ I will make you blue ♪

00:57:14.600 | - The way the guitarist played,

00:57:20.640 | the choice of instrument, the layers there,

00:57:23.440 | the freedom to give him, to use the voice that's fading.

00:57:28.440 | It's not fading, it's changing.

00:57:34.120 | Maybe he's losing some aspects of his voice.

00:57:38.240 | And it's almost like shaking a little bit.

00:57:43.000 | And it's a little bit out of tune in parts.

00:57:46.160 | How much of that was deliberate?

00:57:52.120 | Like, how do you give Johnny Cash the freedom to do that?

00:57:56.040 | How do you find that together?

00:57:57.680 | Is there any insights you can give?

00:57:59.760 | - I think it's a case almost of like the right,

00:58:04.600 | pairing the right role with the right actor, you could say.

00:58:08.680 | The song lyrics, the reason we chose the song

00:58:13.920 | was because of the lyrics, purely about the lyrics.

00:58:17.320 | And at that point in time,

00:58:18.480 | both Johnny and I would send each other songs

00:58:20.440 | of possible ideas to record.

00:58:23.480 | And that was one that I sent him

00:58:27.200 | and he didn't respond to initially.

00:58:29.160 | I would send him, at that time we would burn CDs

00:58:32.080 | and I would send him like CD of 20 songs or 25 songs.

00:58:35.040 | And then, and he would send them to me.

00:58:36.600 | - You burn a CD for Johnny Cash

00:58:38.040 | and you send him of different songs.

00:58:39.720 | - Of like songs to consider recording.

00:58:42.200 | - Yeah.

00:58:43.040 | - And we would send these back and forth.

00:58:46.600 | And then that I had hurt on one of the ones that I sent him

00:58:50.920 | and he didn't respond.

00:58:51.760 | And usually if he didn't respond, we didn't go back to it.

00:58:56.640 | And that one, I remember I sent it again

00:58:59.200 | and I put it first on the next CD.

00:59:02.560 | And when we spoke about when he listened to the CD again,

00:59:06.920 | he didn't respond.

00:59:07.760 | I said, check out that first song.

00:59:09.320 | And I really feel like that one could be good.

00:59:11.360 | - What did you see in that song?

00:59:12.600 | - It's the lyrics.

00:59:14.040 | It's the lyrics.

00:59:15.120 | 'Cause I feel like nobody,

00:59:16.600 | there's very few people in the world

00:59:18.800 | that would see these lyrics in Johnny Cash's mouth

00:59:24.840 | and think this is a good idea, including Trent Reznor.

00:59:28.520 | - Yeah.

00:59:29.360 | I know that Trent had trepidations in the beginning.

00:59:33.520 | But if you listen to the words, if you forget the music

00:59:36.960 | and if you forget what Nine Inch Nails sounds like

00:59:40.920 | and you just read it like a poem,

00:59:43.840 | and then you imagine a 70 year old man reading these lyrics,

00:59:48.520 | it'll be profound.

00:59:51.880 | It's profound.

00:59:53.200 | So that was the, based on the lyrics

00:59:56.840 | that started the journey.

00:59:58.000 | And then at this point in time,

00:59:59.360 | Johnny was not in great health.

01:00:01.880 | And sometimes I would go to Nashville

01:00:04.720 | and record with him at his house.

01:00:07.800 | Sometimes he would come to California,

01:00:10.240 | but he was coming to California less regularly.

01:00:13.800 | And because there were so many songs we wanted to try,

01:00:17.240 | he would start sometimes recording

01:00:20.480 | just a straight acoustic version.

01:00:22.240 | Like he would have someone play guitar, he would sing,

01:00:25.560 | and they would send those to me.

01:00:27.760 | And we would discuss like, is this one to build on?

01:00:30.320 | And that was when we said,

01:00:32.880 | I don't wanna record this one until we're together.

01:00:35.040 | I feel like we should do this one together.

01:00:37.080 | So on the next trip to California,

01:00:38.600 | we recorded it at my old house.

01:00:43.080 | And I mean, all the songs we recorded felt special.

01:00:48.080 | So I can't say this one felt special,

01:00:55.360 | but lyrically it just, it's more,

01:00:57.320 | the lyrics have such a profound sense of regret.

01:01:02.320 | - What have I become?

01:01:08.760 | - Yeah, and to hear, when you're 20 years old,

01:01:11.800 | talking about regret, it's heartbreaking,

01:01:15.440 | but it's heartbreaking in a different way

01:01:16.800 | because you have a whole life to figure it out.

01:01:19.520 | When you're looking back over your life

01:01:21.240 | at the end of your life with regret, it's brutal.

01:01:25.400 | It's brutal.

01:01:26.320 | So that was the initial spark of doing it.

01:01:30.600 | And then when we recorded it,

01:01:32.160 | I believe it was two guitar players,

01:01:37.160 | if I remember correctly, maybe even three,

01:01:41.400 | Smokey Hormel, Matt Sweeney, and Mike Campbell, I believe.

01:01:46.400 | And Ben Montench was playing the piano in my living room

01:01:51.600 | as we were doing it.

01:01:52.800 | And we cut the basic track with Johnny singing.

01:01:58.880 | And then Johnny probably sang over that basic track

01:02:01.880 | a few more times.

01:02:03.440 | And then we comped his vocal and then built up the drama.

01:02:10.840 | And you didn't get to the part,

01:02:12.000 | but at the end of the song, it gets very loud.

01:02:14.000 | The music gets very loud.

01:02:15.120 | It's subtle because it's not anything that takes your ear

01:02:19.200 | and the vocal is so powerful

01:02:21.680 | that you don't really think about what's going on.

01:02:23.160 | - But it's building the whole time musically.

01:02:24.600 | - It's building and it even gets distorted at the end.

01:02:26.720 | It gets really like overpowering.

01:02:29.240 | And that's part of the emotion of it.

01:02:36.080 | - It's a...

01:02:40.080 | (soft music)

01:02:42.480 | I hear almost the anger and frustration.

01:02:47.920 | ♪ You know ♪

01:02:51.520 | ♪ If I could start again ♪

01:02:56.520 | ♪ A million miles away ♪

01:03:01.720 | ♪ I would keep myself ♪

01:03:07.200 | ♪ I would find a way ♪

01:03:10.360 | - And it just rings out, the clean vocal.

01:03:15.200 | I mean, it's so simple, so incredible.

01:03:17.800 | And it's interesting to have a young man's lyrics

01:03:20.960 | in an old Johnny Cash voice and heart and mind.

01:03:25.960 | Are you a fan of Tom Waits?

01:03:30.440 | - Of course.

01:03:31.280 | - Tom Waits, when he was younger,

01:03:34.240 | there's a song called "Martha,"

01:03:36.600 | but there's a bunch of songs he's written when he was young.

01:03:38.720 | It's like, how does a young man

01:03:41.280 | have that like melancholy wisdom?

01:03:45.000 | The song "Martha" is about an older man

01:03:49.680 | calling a woman he used to love

01:03:51.640 | that she's now married and he's married.

01:03:54.840 | And they're having that conversation.

01:03:56.320 | They haven't spoken for 30 years

01:03:58.240 | and they realize that there's still love there

01:04:01.160 | and it could have been a different life,

01:04:02.560 | a different world where they could have been together.

01:04:05.200 | And here's like a 23-year-old Tom Waits

01:04:08.080 | writing so beautifully about something that's very...

01:04:12.440 | I've had a lot of people like tell me

01:04:14.640 | how real that as an older person,

01:04:18.840 | looking back at that love that you had

01:04:20.840 | and realizing it wasn't, it was really, it's still there.

01:04:24.960 | Inklings of that love are still there.

01:04:27.160 | - I think there's a...

01:04:28.280 | When a young person writes a sad song,

01:04:36.100 | they almost seem more willing to go to a more hopeless place

01:04:43.160 | because they have a long journey ahead.

01:04:47.160 | And older artists tend to wanna look

01:04:49.960 | at the bright side of things,

01:04:51.600 | which also I think comes from the wisdom of aging.

01:04:54.440 | It's a more realistic position.

01:04:57.360 | So it's not uncommon for younger people to write.

01:05:01.400 | I think even in the Beatles,

01:05:02.680 | you'll see like they're very heavy lyrics,

01:05:07.200 | middle to late era Beatles, which is still,

01:05:11.680 | they're in their early 20s, I guess.

01:05:14.800 | - Wow, that's hard to think about.

01:05:16.600 | So much accomplished. - Unbelievable.

01:05:18.640 | - And they went through the full journey

01:05:22.320 | from fun to darkness in the span of a few years.

01:05:27.200 | You mentioned lyrics.

01:05:30.380 | So you've obviously produced albums with incredible lyrics.

01:05:35.260 | I think you've mentioned the interesting characteristics

01:05:38.200 | of hip hop, of rap is that you're writing poetry to rhythm

01:05:43.200 | versus writing poetry to melody.

01:05:46.820 | So that's like one way to think about it.

01:05:50.840 | And I'm a fan, I mean, Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen,

01:05:53.520 | I'm a fan of poetry, period.

01:05:55.140 | Is there something about highlighting the poetry of it,

01:06:01.640 | the power of words as you did with "Hurt"?

01:06:05.840 | - If I have to put, it's one, a Tom Waits song

01:06:10.840 | that's like less than a minute long

01:06:14.200 | that I always go back to, it's one I really love.

01:06:17.000 | And it has just a few lines.

01:06:18.660 | It's called "I Want You."

01:06:20.840 | And all it is is him saying, "I want you."

01:06:24.660 | (gentle music)

01:06:35.200 | ♪ I want you, you, you ♪

01:06:37.640 | - This is a 22 year old Tom Waits.

01:06:40.400 | ♪ All I want is you, you, you ♪

01:06:45.400 | ♪ All I want is you ♪

01:06:52.800 | ♪ Give you stars above ♪

01:07:00.920 | ♪ The sun on the brightest day ♪

01:07:05.400 | ♪ Give you all my love ♪

01:07:09.720 | ♪ If only you would see ♪

01:07:13.320 | ♪ That I want you, you, you ♪

01:07:18.320 | ♪ All I want is you, you, you ♪

01:07:22.280 | - And then he hums for 20 more seconds.

01:07:27.040 | (laughs)

01:07:27.880 | - Yeah, beautiful.

01:07:28.720 | So simple, man, that young man,

01:07:32.000 | but for people who don't know Tom Waits,

01:07:34.440 | you should definitely listen to him.

01:07:35.960 | And his voice sounds very different now.

01:07:37.920 | And it's interesting to see the evolution of a human voice,

01:07:40.920 | the artist over time,

01:07:45.160 | because that's a young, boy-like voice, hopeful,

01:07:49.560 | less clever, less witty, more simple.

01:07:52.240 | That simplicity is there.

01:07:54.080 | And he's not, I mean, that takes guts to be so simple,

01:07:57.440 | I would say, lyrically and musically.

01:08:01.920 | Is there, sort of laying that out on the table,

01:08:06.920 | is there ways that you like to highlight the voice,

01:08:11.280 | the lyrics, or is there's no one rule?

01:08:16.280 | So do you, what is the thing that makes music special?

01:08:20.680 | Is it the rhythm, the melody,

01:08:24.400 | or is ultimately the lyrics are always there, or the idea?

01:08:28.520 | - You just asked me five different questions.

01:08:29.920 | - I don't care, I'll just get back.

01:08:31.480 | (laughs)

01:08:32.600 | It's not about you.

01:08:33.600 | (laughs)

01:08:35.880 | - You don't want the answers.

01:08:36.920 | - I don't want the answers.

01:08:37.760 | - Just wanna ask questions.

01:08:38.600 | Okay, I'll listen.

01:08:40.280 | (laughs)

01:08:42.360 | - I look forward to your comments, the internet.

01:08:45.560 | Okay.

01:08:46.400 | (laughs)

01:08:48.080 | You have the greatest producer of all time in front of you,

01:08:50.440 | and you can't shut the hell up.

01:08:52.000 | That's right, friends.

01:08:54.540 | Is, but you do value lyrics.

01:08:57.060 | Is there a way to celebrate lyrics?

01:08:59.460 | - I value lyrics if the lyrics are important.

01:09:01.660 | I'm not a lyric person.

01:09:03.460 | I'm very much, whatever the thing that makes the thing good

01:09:08.460 | is the thing that I'm drawn to, for me.

01:09:11.260 | For a long time, lyrics meant very little.

01:09:14.500 | I would say from the--

01:09:16.540 | - Really?

01:09:17.380 | - Yes. - In the beginning?

01:09:18.220 | - Yes.

01:09:19.060 | From the earliest days--

01:09:19.880 | - Fight for your right to party, Beastie Boys?

01:09:22.540 | - Yeah, it was fun.

01:09:23.900 | I thought they were good lyrics,

01:09:25.180 | but it wasn't what was important.

01:09:27.960 | I mean, it was in a, almost a novelty way,

01:09:31.060 | not in a serious way.

01:09:33.220 | Early in my career, I was much more focused on the rhythm,

01:09:38.220 | first the rhythm.

01:09:40.240 | And I would, if the lyrics weren't good enough,

01:09:44.980 | I would be aware of it,

01:09:45.900 | but it wasn't the driving force for me.

01:09:48.980 | And eventually over time,

01:09:50.340 | then melody became an important piece,

01:09:52.280 | which it wasn't in the beginning.

01:09:54.340 | And then lyrics became more important over time,

01:09:58.820 | but it's always been a,

01:10:00.540 | always changing what draws me in.

01:10:05.100 | And one of the things I found as it relates to lyrics

01:10:08.140 | that can give a lyric a different power

01:10:13.140 | has to do with rhythm, where if there's no drum,

01:10:20.040 | the lyrics tend to mean more.

01:10:22.360 | So earlier what you were saying about

01:10:26.220 | if it was just acapella,

01:10:27.800 | you felt Marvin Gaye in a different way

01:10:31.220 | hearing the acapella.

01:10:32.500 | - Can you comment on, I mean,

01:10:35.260 | in terms of one of the greatest albums ever,

01:10:39.180 | ♪ There's a fire starting in my heart ♪

01:10:48.340 | - Why does it sound so raw, her voice?

01:10:52.260 | - She's just a great singer.

01:10:53.700 | - But this is, you're not doing anything else.

01:10:56.460 | You're doing the, there's strumming,

01:11:01.460 | and then there's just a single beat.

01:11:03.220 | And then it builds.

01:11:07.180 | ♪ Don't underestimate the things that I will do ♪

01:11:12.500 | ♪ There's a fire starting in my heart ♪

01:11:17.060 | ♪ I'm reaching a fever ♪

01:11:18.980 | ♪ Pigeon is bringing me out the door ♪

01:11:22.660 | ♪ The scars of your love remind me ♪

01:11:25.380 | - This is getting simpler,

01:11:26.220 | but it feels like it's a giant orchestra.

01:11:28.340 | ♪ I'm reaching a fever ♪

01:11:29.160 | ♪ And look, we almost had it all ♪

01:11:31.700 | ♪ The scars of your love, they leave me breathless ♪

01:11:36.260 | ♪ I can't help feeling ♪

01:11:38.620 | ♪ We couldn't have it all ♪

01:11:43.620 | - There's back and vocals.

01:11:46.660 | ♪ Rolling in, you have my heart ♪

01:11:48.860 | ♪ I'm loving when she's mad at me ♪

01:11:50.700 | - The anger.

01:11:51.540 | ♪ Never let me be ♪

01:11:53.860 | - I love it.

01:11:54.700 | ♪ I never could have been ♪

01:11:58.260 | ♪ Baby, I have no ♪

01:12:01.420 | - It just, there's something about such a powerful voice

01:12:06.180 | and the instruments not getting in the way.

01:12:08.860 | I mean, the same with her and Johnny Cash.

01:12:12.900 | Is there, why does it sound so like raw?

01:12:17.900 | It's the same as her.

01:12:19.380 | There's a, it feels like you're in the room with them.

01:12:22.820 | It feels like they're not even singing.

01:12:25.220 | They're like, they're literally freshly mad and angry.

01:12:30.020 | - I think those are the things

01:12:31.220 | that make great singers sound like great singers.

01:12:33.700 | It's not anything that's happening in the studio.

01:12:37.900 | I mean, I would say the only thing

01:12:40.100 | that us in the studio can do

01:12:41.620 | is kind of get out of the way and not ruin it.

01:12:46.620 | You know, it's like, that's what comes through

01:12:51.580 | of these people.

01:12:53.220 | - I should also, before I forget,

01:12:56.140 | there is a lot of song choices on that CD.

01:12:59.380 | I would love to see the full options on the CD

01:13:01.900 | that you sent to Johnny Cash that I love.

01:13:03.660 | So "Solitary Man" is one of my favorite choices made there.

01:13:07.860 | Is that a Neil Diamond song?

01:13:11.380 | - It's funny you talk about them as songs

01:13:12.820 | 'cause I tend to listen more to albums than songs.

01:13:17.500 | So.

01:13:18.340 | - That's what you're doing in your head.

01:13:20.780 | You're pulling up the album, essentially.

01:13:23.140 | - No, I'm like, I'm going to that song,

01:13:25.140 | but I don't know, I've never listened to that song.

01:13:27.720 | But I know that when that song comes up

01:13:29.940 | in the sequence of the album,

01:13:32.020 | it has a really powerful effect in me.

01:13:34.020 | Let's see what it does if you just start it.

01:13:36.220 | (gentle music)

01:13:38.800 | (gentle music)

01:13:41.380 | ♪ If you could read my mind ♪

01:13:56.440 | - Oh, so interesting.

01:13:58.200 | Wow.

01:14:00.200 | ♪ Just like an old time movie ♪

01:14:06.720 | ♪ About a ghost from a wishing well ♪

01:14:11.160 | ♪ In a castle dark ♪

01:14:14.200 | ♪ Or a fortress strong ♪

01:14:16.800 | ♪ With chains around my feet ♪

01:14:21.300 | ♪ You know that ghost is me ♪

01:14:25.600 | ♪ And I will never be set free ♪

01:14:30.000 | ♪ As long as there's a ghost that you can't see ♪

01:14:35.000 | (gentle music)

01:14:37.580 | - That's beautiful.

01:14:40.000 | - If I could. - Such a beautiful choice.

01:14:41.800 | - Beautiful melody. - Try.

01:14:43.000 | - Such a beautiful melody in "Haunting Words".

01:14:46.360 | - It's sung so simply.

01:14:48.680 | I have to, I mean, so I was born in the Soviet Union.

01:14:53.680 | When you're growing up,

01:15:01.840 | there's a few bands that kinda,

01:15:05.680 | I mean, they're probably forbidden still,

01:15:07.400 | but they seep in and you get like bootlegged

01:15:12.400 | and they somehow take over the culture

01:15:15.240 | of the young folks such as myself.

01:15:18.760 | So on the metal side, it was Metallica and Iron Maiden.

01:15:22.760 | And on the, I don't know what you call them,

01:15:27.960 | but Beastie Boys, I remember hearing "Fight for Your Right"

01:15:32.960 | and it was just like, for some reason that stuck

01:15:37.200 | as it did for a lot of people in Russia.

01:15:39.000 | It's like, wow, America is when you get to say fuck you

01:15:42.080 | to the man, the rebellion, the freedom.

01:15:45.680 | I probably heard it a few years after it was released

01:15:50.440 | because it kinda, it dissipates to the culture.

01:15:52.920 | You get the bootleg, I mean, it's hard to get your hands on.

01:15:55.960 | I just remember, I wanna kinda bring that up

01:15:58.760 | because it was such a personally important song to me.

01:16:03.240 | And yet probably you didn't even think of that.

01:16:06.160 | You probably thought of it as its role in the culture here

01:16:09.080 | in the United States, like in terms of musically.

01:16:12.000 | - But I was 20, 21 years old and we just--

01:16:16.440 | - Well, you were that kid too, right?

01:16:17.280 | - Yeah, we were just making fun songs for our friends.

01:16:19.840 | There was no expectation.

01:16:22.920 | - That's just a fun song.

01:16:24.160 | - Yeah, no one thought, we never imagined

01:16:26.360 | anybody would like any of it.

01:16:28.720 | - One of the greatest albums ever.

01:16:30.720 | ♪ Yeah ♪

01:16:32.560 | I have to, I love this so much.

01:16:37.600 | I just remember, this is America.

01:16:41.720 | I didn't even know, I didn't even understand the lyrics

01:16:50.840 | to be honest.

01:16:51.680 | ♪ You wake up like a school man ♪

01:16:55.280 | ♪ You don't wanna go ♪

01:16:57.680 | And the lyrics are ridiculous.

01:16:59.640 | - Ridiculous.

01:17:00.960 | ♪ Yeah, I get my way ♪

01:17:02.320 | ♪ But you still said no ♪

01:17:07.320 | ♪ You missed two classes and no homework ♪

01:17:13.000 | ♪ But your teacher brings you to life ♪

01:17:16.640 | ♪ Like you're some kind of jerk ♪

01:17:21.480 | ♪ You gotta fight for your right to party ♪

01:17:26.480 | - So hearing that and hearing Metallica, Master of Puppets,

01:17:31.760 | I was like, I knew I'm gonna have to end up

01:17:34.360 | in America one day.

01:17:35.560 | I mean, maybe now that I'm more mature

01:17:40.360 | or maybe a little bit more mature,

01:17:42.440 | I realized that was kind of the longing for freedom.

01:17:46.360 | It felt like, at least at the time,

01:17:49.400 | if this is allowed, then anything is allowed.

01:17:51.720 | - Yeah.

01:17:52.840 | - And I think that the rebellion of it,

01:17:57.840 | I guess it's also fun.

01:18:01.880 | I just loved it.

01:18:04.000 | If you look back to that, 'cause you were,

01:18:06.080 | I mean, you were that person, not just the producer.

01:18:11.400 | It feels like--

01:18:12.240 | - Well, yes and no.

01:18:13.080 | Like it was, even to us then, it was still satirical.

01:18:16.680 | You know, it wasn't just-- - It was.

01:18:17.640 | - Oh, absolutely.

01:18:18.640 | But isn't music in part, like you're dancing in the line,

01:18:22.240 | it's part satirical, part serious in the sense,

01:18:25.640 | like you're losing yourself in the satire?

01:18:27.960 | Anytime you go over the top, isn't that part of the,

01:18:32.840 | or is it explicitly satirical?

01:18:37.600 | You're making fun, I mean, "Girls,"

01:18:39.280 | there's a lot of ridiculous songs in that album.

01:18:41.200 | - I don't know, I just think it was definitely

01:18:43.920 | to make each other laugh.

01:18:45.360 | Like we were trying to make each other laugh.

01:18:47.560 | We weren't trying to make a point.

01:18:49.760 | We were trying to make each other laugh.

01:18:51.840 | - But that person, how's that person different

01:18:55.600 | than the person today in you?

01:18:57.800 | The person that produced that record?

01:18:59.600 | - I wouldn't say so different.

01:19:01.000 | It's like, it really is that,

01:19:02.600 | I like things that make me laugh.

01:19:06.040 | You know, I like ridiculous things.

01:19:07.560 | - It's the same person still.

01:19:08.880 | - I think so.

01:19:10.120 | - Is it strange, just how many incredible--

01:19:13.440 | - I mean, I don't think I would make that today,

01:19:15.480 | but I understand why we made it when we did.

01:19:18.360 | It's in the vocabulary of ridiculous

01:19:23.360 | that would make sense to do.

01:19:26.160 | You know, for the right artist today,

01:19:27.920 | could make something ridiculous and gives you that feeling.

01:19:31.600 | - I mean, there's just a sense when you make

01:19:35.200 | so many different albums,

01:19:39.280 | then you look back at that creation,

01:19:41.080 | and it can feel like a different person created that.

01:19:44.960 | But you're making it seem like if you travel back in time,

01:19:48.480 | or maybe do a memory replay,

01:19:50.280 | you'd be able to hang out with a teenage

01:19:54.520 | and then a 20s recruitment.

01:19:56.320 | - I don't think I was so different, honestly.

01:20:01.640 | - That's hilarious.

01:20:02.600 | - It's funny, I ran into someone recently in Costa Rica,

01:20:07.600 | who I hadn't seen in a long time,

01:20:11.440 | and who I knew from the New York days

01:20:13.800 | when those days, and we spent a couple of hours talking

01:20:18.800 | and she said, "You're exactly the same person

01:20:22.360 | that you were then."

01:20:23.680 | So I have a short, you know, a recent confirmation

01:20:28.680 | that that's the case.

01:20:30.160 | - That's beautiful.

01:20:31.280 | Was it, Tim Ferriss asked you about like,

01:20:33.320 | who's the most successful person you know?

01:20:35.080 | That's the definition of success, I would say.

01:20:37.920 | You're exactly the same person.

01:20:39.720 | You haven't lost yourself,

01:20:41.240 | or rather you found yourself early on.

01:20:43.840 | - I would say there are aspects of me

01:20:46.080 | that have changed for sure,

01:20:47.840 | but I can't say that it's necessarily better.

01:20:53.720 | It's different.

01:20:55.600 | I would say at that time,

01:20:59.600 | I was more confident than I am now,

01:21:03.320 | and I'm very confident now,

01:21:05.560 | but then I had an unrealistic confidence.

01:21:10.280 | And I think now it's a little more based in reality.

01:21:13.920 | At that point in time, I had never been depressed.

01:21:17.240 | And then once you go through a depression,

01:21:19.560 | well, some people I know in my case,

01:21:23.400 | when I went through depression afterwards,

01:21:25.480 | I was a different person than I was before.

01:21:27.640 | And I feel more grounded now than I did then.

01:21:33.520 | And I probably relate to the artists who,

01:21:39.480 | so many of the artists I work with suffer.

01:21:41.360 | So many artists suffer because that's part

01:21:43.520 | of what makes an artist great,

01:21:44.560 | is their level of sensitivity.

01:21:47.240 | That the same thing that makes an artist uncomfortable,

01:21:53.040 | other people don't feel at all.

01:21:54.600 | - The time you were depressed,

01:22:01.000 | what was the darkest moments of your life?

01:22:03.400 | What took you there?

01:22:04.240 | How did you get out?

01:22:06.040 | - It was triggered by a person making a comment

01:22:10.320 | about something to do with work that didn't matter.

01:22:14.400 | It was like to anyone else, they would hear that

01:22:17.880 | and it would just be like,

01:22:18.720 | "Okay, we'll deal with it next week, whatever."

01:22:20.920 | But for some reason, I took it in a way that I felt

01:22:25.760 | like the rug had been pulled out from under me.

01:22:28.120 | Even beyond the rational part of it, of understanding,

01:22:33.520 | even after the problem that came up was solved,

01:22:36.240 | it somehow undermined something in me

01:22:40.320 | and made me feel very vulnerable

01:22:41.840 | in a way that I hadn't felt before.

01:22:44.320 | - And it spiraled, how did you get out?

01:22:47.120 | - I did a lot of different kinds of therapy.

01:22:50.880 | I did, starting with alternative therapies,

01:22:54.520 | I was seeing, I would say,

01:22:58.960 | between seven and eight doctors and or therapists a week.

01:23:03.560 | Acupuncture, talk therapy, herbs,

01:23:12.080 | or any possible modality, tried everything for a long time.

01:23:19.160 | And nothing seemed to have an impact.

01:23:26.720 | And then finally, I'm wary of taking any Western medicine.

01:23:31.720 | I'm not a drug taker or drinker or partier in any way.

01:23:40.760 | And I found a psychopharmacologist who was a psychic,

01:23:48.040 | but because she was a psychic, I was okay to see her

01:23:52.840 | 'cause like, I'll listen to a psychic,

01:23:56.600 | but I'm not gonna listen to a psychopharmacologist.

01:23:59.680 | But the fact that she had the psychic,

01:24:02.340 | that made her fit into my worldview.

01:24:05.920 | And she recommended antidepressant,

01:24:09.880 | which went terribly wrong in the first night that I took it.

01:24:13.960 | And then that set me on a journey

01:24:15.720 | of looking for the right antidepressant,

01:24:17.440 | which was a long and painful process.

01:24:20.120 | - That's a heck of a journey.

01:24:21.200 | - Every one that I took made me sick, every one.

01:24:24.360 | And then finally, so I don't know, five months later,

01:24:27.480 | six months later, I found the magic one that worked for me.

01:24:31.880 | And it shifted me out of the depression.

01:24:36.880 | I took it for, I can't remember, it was six months

01:24:40.000 | or a year, and then weaned off and was okay.

01:24:43.520 | And then I had another event some years later.

01:24:46.120 | I think I took it again for a short period of time

01:24:50.160 | and got out of it and I've not needed it since.

01:24:52.880 | - Were you able to kind of introspect the triggers

01:24:56.280 | that led to the events?

01:24:57.700 | Or is it random events of life?

01:25:02.680 | - I think it's more that because of the way that I grew up,

01:25:07.680 | I never had to deal with much controversy.

01:25:12.740 | And when I was challenged,

01:25:18.840 | I didn't have any ability to deal with it.

01:25:21.960 | It's like Jonathan Haidt talks about, it's like that.

01:25:26.240 | - So you've actually also mentioned

01:25:28.080 | like business sometimes gives you stress.

01:25:30.720 | So this was business-related stuff.

01:25:33.440 | - Yeah, it was a business-related thing.

01:25:35.360 | It just made me feel bad.

01:25:37.080 | - It's one of the sadder things about art and music

01:25:40.320 | is that it's often interleaved with business folk.

01:25:44.680 | I suppose that's the way of the world

01:25:47.720 | if you have a capitalist system,

01:25:49.320 | but it makes that business folks rubbing up against artists

01:25:54.320 | can sometimes destroy a fragile mind and soul.

01:26:01.920 | To me, like one of the best representations of an artist,

01:26:07.120 | honestly, is Johnny Ive, the designer from Apple.

01:26:09.760 | And he's just so fragile with his ideas.

01:26:12.640 | And you talked about like when he has ideas,

01:26:14.800 | he really wouldn't show it to Steve Jobs or anybody

01:26:17.600 | except for the small design team

01:26:19.440 | 'cause he was so nervous that it would break.

01:26:22.520 | Let's give it a chance, let it give it a chance to grow.

01:26:25.880 | And it seems like the outside world,

01:26:28.240 | business people, PR people,

01:26:31.080 | people that kind of have not lost themselves

01:26:35.360 | in the passion of creating,

01:26:37.120 | but instead are kind of representing

01:26:38.760 | or like making deals, all that kind of stuff.

01:26:42.040 | They can kind of trample on those little ideas.

01:26:45.120 | And it's sad to see.

01:26:47.400 | It's really heartbreaking to see

01:26:50.280 | 'cause you know how much trampling there's going on.

01:26:53.080 | - It's one of the main jobs,

01:26:54.560 | my jobs as a record producer is to keep the voices

01:26:59.560 | away from the artist,

01:27:03.080 | from all of the people who are really on their side,

01:27:06.040 | but don't know, like the, whether it be people,

01:27:10.360 | anyone on the business side who doesn't make things

01:27:15.560 | they're excited to do their part.

01:27:17.200 | You know, they're excited.

01:27:18.040 | If when you deliver the thing, the art that you make to me,

01:27:21.760 | then we can start the project.

01:27:23.680 | But there's nothing to sell

01:27:27.600 | if the art doesn't happen in the right way

01:27:30.040 | and it has to be protected and it can't happen

01:27:33.120 | on the same kind of a timetable that business can.

01:27:37.120 | It's just a different thing.

01:27:40.080 | It doesn't, art doesn't come in a quarterly way.

01:27:43.840 | - And that doesn't apply just to music or it applies to art,

01:27:47.400 | it applies to all creative pursuits.

01:27:49.000 | Like this is generally the case, like at MIT,

01:27:52.500 | it's just, there's the administration

01:27:56.800 | and then there is the professors and students.

01:28:00.400 | And the professors and students are the creative folk.

01:28:03.240 | They create stuff, they dream,

01:28:04.800 | they have wild ideas that go on tangents and so on.

01:28:07.720 | They have hopes and they go with those

01:28:11.160 | and they get like on these weird, passionate pursuits

01:28:13.640 | and then the administration can often just trample on that.

01:28:17.320 | And they set up bars on all kinds of,

01:28:22.920 | in all kinds of ways

01:28:24.320 | that you think you're not actually hurting,

01:28:26.480 | but you really are.

01:28:30.140 | And I won't mention why, but,

01:28:33.600 | 'cause this happens to everybody

01:28:35.120 | and I have a large amount of leverage at MIT now,

01:28:38.320 | but even I get a little bit of pressure

01:28:40.520 | in such stupid ways to like, don't,

01:28:43.880 | like be careful, be careful, Lex.

01:28:47.360 | Like we really want your career to succeed, be careful.

01:28:50.880 | And that little pressure to an artist,

01:28:53.400 | do you wanna go acapella?

01:28:55.920 | Do you wanna go, do you want to do a country record?

01:28:59.020 | Like be careful, like you're already a superstar,

01:29:01.680 | be careful.

01:29:02.800 | And then in that way, you kinda push people,

01:29:05.880 | like flock of fish into one fish tank

01:29:08.880 | but they're all the same.

01:29:10.680 | And it's sad to see.

01:29:12.280 | And it's obviously in the modern world,

01:29:14.560 | there's nice mechanism to protect,

01:29:17.400 | to let artists flourish a little bit more

01:29:19.440 | 'cause they get to put themselves to the world

01:29:21.240 | and get a little bit more confidence,

01:29:23.220 | maybe different funding mechanisms, all that kind of stuff.

01:29:26.260 | - Tremendous problem.

01:29:27.760 | The voices that don't understand

01:29:30.480 | interfering with the process is huge.

01:29:32.440 | The other side of it is in success,

01:29:35.760 | there can be a lack of reality

01:29:37.600 | where all of the people around the successful person

01:29:40.840 | just tell them everything they do is great.

01:29:43.000 | And then they don't have anything to bump up against anymore

01:29:47.040 | or have a realistic sense of how things work

01:29:52.040 | or how things measure.

01:29:57.360 | So both sides are really important,

01:30:01.360 | both avoiding the voices getting in the way

01:30:07.040 | and having a trusted group of, a sangha,

01:30:11.560 | a group of people who can say,

01:30:15.000 | I don't know if that's as good.

01:30:16.040 | And you can still say, I don't care what you think,

01:30:19.280 | that's fine, but it helps to hear it.

01:30:21.960 | It helps to have, if someone who you respect

01:30:26.960 | tells you something isn't good enough, it's helpful.

01:30:31.860 | - When you know it comes from a place of love,

01:30:33.760 | when it comes from a place of wisdom.

01:30:35.400 | - 100%, and not from a place of fear,

01:30:37.880 | not from a place of, oh, this doesn't sound like

01:30:40.560 | it's gonna do as well as your last thing.

01:30:42.440 | That's not the point.

01:30:45.660 | The point is on this quest for greatness,

01:30:49.620 | are you living up to your ability?

01:30:55.180 | - By the way, is there something interesting to say

01:30:56.960 | about your worldview?

01:30:58.200 | 'Cause you mentioned psychic

01:30:59.400 | and sort of the ways we can be healthy,

01:31:04.920 | the ways we can grow in how much maybe medicine

01:31:09.920 | or science has the answers.

01:31:14.480 | Is there some interesting way to describe that worldview?

01:31:18.120 | - I would just say I'm open-minded.

01:31:19.960 | I believe anything's possible.

01:31:21.620 | And if I was gonna trust in any practical information,

01:31:26.960 | it would be something thousands of years old.

01:31:29.200 | - There's wisdom in that history, yeah.

01:31:33.040 | - Well, it's more tested.

01:31:35.180 | It's not always right,

01:31:38.360 | but at least it's been somewhat tested.

01:31:42.240 | - Though science is also tested.

01:31:44.760 | The thing I'm a little bit skeptical of sometimes

01:31:47.200 | is just the hubris that often comes with the modern,

01:31:50.080 | with the latest, the newest,

01:31:51.440 | this feeling like you figured it all out.

01:31:54.680 | Everything that's been done in the past has no wisdom.

01:31:57.680 | And we basically solved every problem.

01:32:00.460 | There's nothing else to be solved.

01:32:02.880 | I mean, that's a defining characteristic of any age

01:32:05.400 | is like we've solved all the problems there are,

01:32:07.760 | we've had the final answers,

01:32:09.680 | and our parents are all stupid.

01:32:11.880 | That kind of energy, yeah.

01:32:14.280 | And you have to be extremely, extremely careful with that

01:32:16.720 | when it talks about,

01:32:17.840 | when you think about something as complex

01:32:19.560 | as the human body or the human mind,

01:32:21.360 | you have to be very, very, very careful.

01:32:23.400 | - I believe we know close to nothing.

01:32:26.280 | - Yeah, exactly. - Close to nothing.

01:32:28.320 | - That's-- - About anything.

01:32:30.200 | - About anything. - About anything.

01:32:31.440 | - That place of humility is a good place

01:32:33.440 | to start to figure it all out.

01:32:36.000 | And in the end, we'll still know almost nothing.

01:32:38.600 | - Yeah, I don't think we need to know.

01:32:41.000 | It's like we need to see what works,

01:32:42.560 | and we need to see what works for us.

01:32:44.560 | It's interesting to know.

01:32:46.520 | I know on the art side,

01:32:48.100 | knowing how it works isn't what makes it work.

01:32:53.120 | Isn't the magic of it, isn't how it works.

01:32:55.800 | The magic is the magic.

01:32:57.800 | And the magic happens in a way that's intuitive

01:33:02.240 | and accidental at times,

01:33:04.920 | or incidental where you're trying many things,

01:33:07.680 | all of a sudden something works,

01:33:09.880 | and you don't know why.

01:33:12.480 | And it's okay not to know why.

01:33:14.240 | It doesn't really matter why,

01:33:16.400 | as long as it does the thing that you want it to do,

01:33:19.360 | whatever that is.

01:33:21.000 | - Yeah, that's so weird.

01:33:22.720 | When you know the components,

01:33:24.280 | you don't, you still, yeah, the magic.

01:33:26.560 | What's the magic, where is the magic?

01:33:28.360 | We know the components for stuff I care about,

01:33:30.680 | artificial intelligence.

01:33:31.640 | We know the components of a powerful computing machinery.

01:33:36.520 | Where does consciousness come from?

01:33:38.320 | What is that?

01:33:40.480 | Where does the brilliant moments of insight come from?

01:33:46.480 | What's that?

01:33:48.880 | Even in simple games of chess, or in simple,

01:33:52.000 | where do those breakthrough ideas

01:33:54.520 | of taking the big risk that doesn't make any sense,

01:33:56.920 | and then all of a sudden it becomes something beautiful.

01:33:59.200 | Yeah, we don't need to understand why.

01:34:00.680 | It just happens.

01:34:01.680 | - It just happens.

01:34:02.520 | And often the things that end up breaking through

01:34:05.680 | don't break through in the way we thought,

01:34:08.400 | or turn out to be a third iteration of something

01:34:11.680 | that we thought was an entirely different thing.

01:34:14.120 | We don't know.

01:34:16.440 | And I think it's, if we embrace that not knowing,

01:34:20.240 | we'll have a healthier experience going through life.

01:34:24.520 | - You made a lot, it's not just music, everything.

01:34:27.480 | Rearranging the chairs, the furniture as well.

01:34:30.560 | You've done, like I said, the documentary,

01:34:32.440 | I guess you would say, with Paul McCartney.

01:34:35.040 | And you've done a podcast yourself,

01:34:39.440 | Broken Record podcast,

01:34:41.600 | and you've done conversation too.

01:34:44.680 | So what have you learned from that process

01:34:46.920 | about the art of conversation?

01:34:48.680 | And also maybe what advice would you give to this,

01:34:53.160 | to me about how, what to do with conversation?

01:34:57.880 | Like what is interesting to you about conversation?

01:35:00.600 | - One of the things that I like

01:35:03.040 | is to not feel like it's,

01:35:06.720 | there is any stakes,

01:35:09.240 | or that it's actually, almost that it's not happening.

01:35:12.320 | Like the fact that when I came in,

01:35:14.880 | you were setting up cameras,

01:35:17.160 | made it less good for me.

01:35:19.160 | I knew that that would impact the conversation

01:35:21.040 | in a negative way.

01:35:22.120 | The best version of it would be

01:35:24.160 | if we didn't see the cameras,

01:35:26.600 | and we didn't see any technology,

01:35:29.480 | and we were just sitting at this table

01:35:30.840 | having a conversation.

01:35:31.960 | Maybe even if we were mic'd beforehand,

01:35:34.760 | would be okay if it was necessary.

01:35:37.580 | But then we were just sitting here having a conversation,

01:35:39.560 | no people in the room, nothing,

01:35:41.160 | and feeling like we're just having a conversation.

01:35:43.600 | I feel like it would get closer to,

01:35:47.160 | closer to the relaxed feeling.

01:35:52.160 | Same thing we do in the studios.

01:35:54.960 | Like you've heard of red light fever,

01:35:56.920 | you know when artists get nervous

01:35:58.760 | when like they play a song great,

01:36:00.480 | and then the tape starts rolling,

01:36:01.680 | and they can't play it.

01:36:03.080 | And it's, we're all to some degree like that.

01:36:06.320 | - When you were with Paul McCartney,

01:36:08.120 | I mean, were you cognizant of cameras?

01:36:12.680 | - We had the room black.

01:36:14.800 | Everybody who was working there was dressed in black.

01:36:17.960 | Everything was invisible.

01:36:19.640 | We were lit in a way where,

01:36:21.260 | even though there were probably 20 people,

01:36:26.360 | between 12 and 20 people working in the room,

01:36:29.400 | within three minutes of starting the conversation,

01:36:32.700 | Paul and I were alone in the room.

01:36:34.640 | So that was the feeling.

01:36:36.460 | On occasion you'd hear a noise, and it would be weird.

01:36:39.240 | People, we also had, nobody was allowed to wear shoes,

01:36:42.280 | because it had to, we were trying to create

01:36:45.040 | this intimate space.

01:36:47.160 | And I know from in the recording studio,

01:36:50.480 | when we're recording, if even one person is there,

01:36:55.480 | that's just watching and not working,

01:36:57.680 | you know, like there's usually,

01:37:00.060 | I'm usually there, and an engineer is there

01:37:02.000 | technically making it happen.

01:37:04.440 | If anyone else is in the room, it's different,

01:37:06.520 | because then it goes from this moment

01:37:09.440 | where the person's doing a performance,

01:37:11.560 | to the sense, or where the person is

01:37:14.000 | feeling something internally, and we're capturing it,

01:37:21.040 | to the other version is, they're performing for someone.

01:37:25.320 | - It's so interesting.

01:37:26.160 | So like to push back in the alternatives here.

01:37:29.000 | So one, about the third person,

01:37:32.000 | not to make people self-conscious,

01:37:33.760 | but I find that I'm so torn on that,

01:37:37.160 | 'cause sometimes when that person,

01:37:40.400 | so Evan is in the room here,

01:37:41.840 | he's been in the room before,

01:37:42.960 | he's a huge fan of yours, by the way.

01:37:45.520 | So he'll nod, yeah, yeah, he'll get excited.

01:37:50.520 | He's like, and you can see that nodding,

01:37:53.800 | and for some reason for me, it's like, yeah,

01:37:56.760 | you get it, like, yeah, you get excited together.

01:38:00.020 | I mean, that third person can be like a really special,

01:38:03.760 | so having an audience, when it's a friend,

01:38:08.600 | or somebody that has that love in them.

01:38:10.440 | - It depends on the performer.

01:38:11.720 | It's all positive, yeah.

01:38:12.560 | Yeah, some people really thrive in front of an audience.

01:38:17.280 | - And you're saying you like that simple intimacy

01:38:19.840 | of everything just evades.

01:38:20.680 | - Well, I like the reality of it not being,

01:38:22.440 | I want it to be as far from a performance as possible.

01:38:24.760 | - Got it.

01:38:25.600 | - And if someone, I'll tell you a story,

01:38:29.660 | a story that just happened, and it was viewed as kind of a,

01:38:33.520 | it seemed uncool in the moment

01:38:35.080 | to the person that it happened to.

01:38:37.180 | It wasn't at all.

01:38:38.460 | We were recording the new "Chili Peppers" album,

01:38:42.120 | which is coming out, I think, any day now.

01:38:44.560 | Like, I don't know what today's date is,

01:38:46.600 | but within the next, maybe by the time this airs,

01:38:49.080 | it will be out.

01:38:50.720 | And the band was playing in the studio,

01:38:55.360 | and it was ripping 'cause they're incredible.

01:38:58.720 | And one of the members walked through the control room

01:39:04.200 | after a particularly great performance,

01:39:08.300 | and the engineer said, "Wow, that solo's really great."

01:39:12.740 | And the person who heard this said,

01:39:16.560 | "Please don't say that," and walked away.

01:39:19.980 | It's like, it was not, it just changed

01:39:23.940 | this feeling of we're in this place

01:39:27.140 | where we're doing this thing,

01:39:28.100 | and there is no outside world.

01:39:31.140 | You know, we're doing this for us.

01:39:33.100 | We're going as deep as we can for us.

01:39:35.720 | And as soon as there's an acknowledgement to someone else,

01:39:38.280 | in a way, it breaks the concentration of being inside of it.

01:39:43.280 | - That's so well told.

01:39:47.980 | But something about saying, "Wow, that solo's great,"

01:39:51.100 | is shows the, it reminds you that there's an outside world,

01:39:55.140 | but I feel like there's a way to enter the inside world

01:39:59.920 | as an audience.

01:40:01.220 | So you just have to do that.

01:40:02.900 | (laughing)

01:40:04.300 | So it matters what you say.

01:40:06.460 | It matters how you look.

01:40:08.740 | It matters, so there's these generic compliments,

01:40:11.940 | not generic, but they sound in the way

01:40:15.940 | an outside world would interact,

01:40:18.020 | as opposed to in that creative thing

01:40:20.380 | where you're dancing around the fire together or something.

01:40:22.980 | - There's actually, I can tell you,

01:40:23.820 | there's another interesting one that happened to me,

01:40:25.980 | and I didn't know this until I saw the film of it,

01:40:27.900 | which was a strange one.

01:40:31.200 | We were recording with the Avett brothers,

01:40:34.400 | and the song was called "No Hard Feelings,"

01:40:38.720 | and it was this recording of "No Hard Feelings."

01:40:41.460 | (gentle music)

01:40:44.040 | ♪ No hard feelings ♪

01:40:49.040 | ♪ When my body won't hold me anymore ♪

01:41:06.020 | ♪ And it finally lets me free ♪

01:41:12.780 | ♪ Will I be ready ♪

01:41:17.780 | ♪ When my feet won't walk another mile ♪

01:41:20.780 | - Such a great voice.

01:41:22.620 | - So beautiful.

01:41:23.460 | ♪ Kiss goodbye ♪

01:41:27.900 | ♪ Will my hands be steady ♪

01:41:31.500 | ♪ When I lay down my fears ♪

01:41:34.100 | ♪ My hopes and my doubts ♪

01:41:36.620 | ♪ The rings on my fingers ♪

01:41:38.940 | ♪ And the keys to my house ♪

01:41:41.620 | ♪ With no hard feelings ♪

01:41:46.620 | ♪ When the sun hangs low in the west ♪

01:41:56.540 | ♪ And the light in my chest ♪

01:41:59.980 | ♪ Won't be kept held a day any longer ♪

01:42:04.980 | ♪ When the jealousy fades away ♪

01:42:11.220 | - So bright, so hopeful, so lighthearted.

01:42:14.940 | ♪ For cash and lust ♪

01:42:17.940 | ♪ And it's just hallelujah ♪

01:42:21.940 | ♪ And love and thought ♪

01:42:24.620 | ♪ Love and the words ♪

01:42:27.140 | ♪ Love and the songs they sing in the church ♪

01:42:32.020 | ♪ And no hard feelings ♪

01:42:41.060 | ♪ God knows they haven't done ♪

01:42:46.060 | ♪ Much good for anyone ♪

01:42:52.300 | ♪ Kept me afraid and cold ♪

01:42:58.620 | ♪ With so much to have and hold ♪

01:43:06.340 | ♪ Mm-mm-mm ♪

01:43:11.340 | ♪ When my body won't hold anymore ♪

01:43:17.380 | ♪ And if I'm weak ♪

01:43:20.660 | ♪ Let's be free ♪

01:43:24.060 | ♪ Where will I go ♪

01:43:25.780 | - Does he sound as good in the studio?

01:43:28.220 | - Yes, every bit.

01:43:29.620 | ♪ But the straight winds take me south ♪

01:43:32.780 | ♪ Through Georgia plain ♪

01:43:35.660 | ♪ And tropical rain ♪

01:43:39.060 | ♪ Or snow from the heavens ♪

01:43:44.060 | ♪ Will I join with the ocean blue ♪

01:43:50.580 | ♪ Or run into a savior true ♪

01:43:55.580 | ♪ And shake hands laughing ♪

01:44:00.700 | ♪ And walk through the night ♪

01:44:03.340 | ♪ Straight to the light ♪

01:44:05.940 | ♪ Holding the love I've known in my life ♪

01:44:10.820 | ♪ And no hard feelings ♪

01:44:15.820 | ♪ Lord knows they haven't done ♪

01:44:24.820 | ♪ Much good for anyone ♪

01:44:32.460 | ♪ Kept me afraid and cold ♪

01:44:37.460 | ♪ With so much to have and hold ♪

01:44:43.500 | ♪ Under the burning sky ♪

01:44:49.900 | ♪ I'm finally learning why ♪

01:44:55.980 | ♪ It matters for me and you ♪

01:45:03.260 | ♪ To stay and be here too ♪

01:45:08.260 | ♪ The life that it's all we get ♪

01:45:14.420 | - It's building and building and building.

01:45:16.340 | ♪ Oh, it's all we get ♪

01:45:21.340 | ♪ Good as it's been to me ♪

01:45:28.660 | ♪ I have no enemies ♪

01:45:33.660 | ♪ I have no enemies ♪

01:45:40.140 | ♪ I have no enemies ♪

01:45:46.540 | ♪ I have no enemies ♪

01:45:50.980 | - Wow.

01:45:51.820 | He's got the power of like Jeff Buckley

01:45:55.860 | with more like so much more sort of flavor to the voice.

01:46:00.860 | He's go so many different places.

01:46:04.260 | It's cool when it's like acappella just mostly him.

01:46:07.540 | You could do like "Hallelujah"

01:46:09.540 | the Jeff Buckley way I could tell.

01:46:11.860 | It's incredible.

01:46:12.700 | That's an incredible song.

01:46:14.540 | Is this a new record?

01:46:15.980 | - This was, I don't know, four or five years ago,

01:46:18.740 | something like that.

01:46:19.580 | But what happened with this, that happened.

01:46:22.820 | And I mean, they're great and it's always good.

01:46:26.940 | But that performance in that moment

01:46:29.100 | was felt like the sky opened up.

01:46:32.020 | It was unbelievable.

01:46:32.860 | - But this was a single take?

01:46:33.900 | - This was a single take.

01:46:35.340 | - Oh, wow.

01:46:36.180 | - That was just like--

01:46:37.020 | - That was incredible.

01:46:37.840 | Yeah, that was perfect.

01:46:38.680 | That was perfect, yeah.

01:46:39.700 | - When it ended, I said, "Great, what do you wanna do next?"

01:46:44.700 | And they said, "We just need a few minutes."

01:46:50.340 | And they walked out and that's all I know.

01:46:53.060 | It's like, okay, I'm laying down,

01:46:54.940 | waiting until they're ready to start again.

01:46:56.940 | And in the film, there was a film made

01:46:59.100 | of the sessions of this.

01:47:01.500 | They went out and they're like,

01:47:02.620 | what was that like?

01:47:03.620 | Like, didn't he get what just happened?

01:47:06.900 | Like, because it was so heavy.

01:47:11.700 | - Yeah.

01:47:12.780 | - And it was just as heavy for me.

01:47:18.660 | And in the spirit of we're here to make

01:47:20.380 | the most great stuff we can,

01:47:22.420 | we're not gonna like open champagne.

01:47:24.420 | Like, that's not, it's like, great,

01:47:27.180 | what do you wanna do next?

01:47:28.380 | It's like, let's not revel in this.

01:47:33.380 | But they took it as like,

01:47:37.380 | this guy just like doesn't even understand

01:47:40.500 | what we're doing.

01:47:41.340 | (laughing)

01:47:42.540 | But I had no idea until I saw the film.

01:47:44.300 | - That's funny.

01:47:45.140 | - Whoa, that was the reaction.

01:47:46.700 | - Yeah, but I think your response

01:47:48.580 | is the right risk to take, right?

01:47:50.540 | 'Cause it's the celebration at the end of a,

01:47:54.180 | you wanna keep like, people celebrate too early.

01:47:57.740 | - Yes, great.

01:47:58.860 | And now let's use that momentum.

01:48:01.180 | We're in the zone.

01:48:02.380 | What's next?

01:48:04.700 | - Yeah.

01:48:05.940 | But you, yourself in conversation.

01:48:08.780 | So you said that you wanna create this,

01:48:12.260 | would you use the word intimacy?

01:48:13.780 | Like, is it to create, or just the most real?

01:48:16.300 | Like there's no cameras, there's no mics.

01:48:19.140 | - I would say a place where you're comfortable to be naked.

01:48:21.740 | You know, a place where you can be your most vulnerable

01:48:25.860 | without questioning it.

01:48:27.620 | You wanna really be able to let your guard down

01:48:32.100 | and to, you know, if you wanna start crying

01:48:34.060 | when you're singing, whatever it is, whatever it is.

01:48:37.140 | And it's hard to get to that place.

01:48:39.420 | And again, just the idea of someone, you know,

01:48:41.500 | like, hey, that was good.

01:48:42.940 | That could take you right out of that going in,

01:48:46.860 | you know, going in.

01:48:47.940 | - It's so interesting to think about how to achieve that

01:48:51.140 | and still have mics.

01:48:53.300 | - Yeah.

01:48:54.180 | - That.

01:48:55.020 | - It's hard, it's harder, it's harder.

01:48:59.220 | - Some of it is space,

01:49:00.260 | some of it is raw conversational skill.

01:49:03.620 | Like there's something about certain,

01:49:07.340 | well, some of that is also just like,

01:49:09.540 | you have that, as I'm sure you are,

01:49:11.740 | there's a legend to Rick Rubin.

01:49:14.620 | And there's like my now friend Joe Rogan,

01:49:16.980 | there's a legend to him.

01:49:18.540 | And when you show up into Joe Rogan's studio,

01:49:21.380 | the legend creates an aura.

01:49:24.860 | And he, I think, subconsciously or consciously uses it.

01:49:28.660 | To like, this is somehow, it's nervous, nervous, nervous.

01:49:34.380 | And then you realize, oh, he's just human or something.

01:49:39.140 | There's a relief.

01:49:40.420 | And then, yeah, you could be yourself.

01:49:43.620 | And that, so it's that nervousness, nervousness, nervousness

01:49:46.420 | and it's like, oh, it's not that,

01:49:48.900 | this legend is just a human and it's just, it's normal.

01:49:51.940 | So I don't know how that's done.

01:49:53.540 | But it's so interesting to think about how that's,

01:49:57.500 | because I forget recording,

01:50:00.900 | I just enjoy it when it's real.

01:50:02.980 | Like this microphone gives us an excuse

01:50:05.460 | to connect on a human level and forget,

01:50:07.980 | and nobody's listening, it doesn't matter.

01:50:09.620 | - I would say I felt maybe in the last 15 minutes,

01:50:12.660 | I was less aware of anybody else being in the room

01:50:14.740 | or any equipment here.

01:50:16.100 | - Yeah. - But it took that long.

01:50:17.740 | - That's so interesting.

01:50:19.700 | I didn't have that at all.

01:50:21.340 | All I had, I mean, the wind calmed down outside,

01:50:25.420 | but there was a wind before.

01:50:27.300 | And there's something about the wind,

01:50:29.860 | that you can think of it

01:50:30.940 | from an audio engineering perspective.

01:50:33.100 | Like, oh, I wonder if the wind creates sound

01:50:35.580 | or whatever that you hear.

01:50:36.860 | But I was thinking like, none of this matters.

01:50:39.460 | (laughing)

01:50:41.260 | Like the wind is like nature will be here before us,

01:50:46.220 | after us, and all of this will be dead and forgotten.

01:50:49.460 | That's what the wind was reminding me of.

01:50:51.100 | It's almost like laughing at the fact

01:50:52.980 | that we could even consider ourselves important enough

01:50:56.700 | to put on clothes and talk.

01:51:01.540 | You love it, you love talking.

01:51:03.900 | You love the podcast and just that.

01:51:07.700 | Why did you dive into that?

01:51:09.060 | Like why?

01:51:09.900 | - It was a strange occurrence.

01:51:13.820 | My friend Malcolm said he wanted to start doing a podcast

01:51:16.540 | about music and asked if I would do it with him.

01:51:18.140 | He's like, I like Malcolm.

01:51:19.780 | And I thought it would be more like his podcast,

01:51:22.260 | which is, it's not an interview podcast.

01:51:24.780 | I thought it was gonna be telling stories

01:51:27.660 | in the music world using audio stories.

01:51:33.500 | And then it just started being interviews.

01:51:37.060 | Not again, it wasn't intentional,

01:51:39.020 | just started that way and ended up being that.

01:51:42.300 | But I love it.

01:51:43.300 | And I love both because I get to talk to people

01:51:46.940 | that I don't know, but also when I get to talk to people

01:51:48.900 | that I know and ask them about things

01:51:51.140 | that we would never talk about ever.

01:51:53.580 | I don't know the origin stories of any of the people,

01:51:55.540 | any of my friends.

01:51:57.100 | So to get to hear their perspective,

01:51:59.860 | another like relating to Chili Peppers,

01:52:01.740 | their album's coming out now.

01:52:04.060 | I interviewed all four members of the band individually.

01:52:08.940 | I interviewed John and midway through Anthony came in

01:52:13.780 | and then I interviewed Flea separately

01:52:15.300 | and I interviewed Chad separately.

01:52:17.340 | And it was fascinating.

01:52:19.220 | I know them for 30 years and I learned a tremendous amount

01:52:22.580 | because you don't ask people about themselves

01:52:25.340 | when you're just workmates or friends.

01:52:30.500 | I do this sometimes, I'll just set up my microphones

01:52:33.340 | and I'll record a thing for private consumption

01:52:36.060 | from with friends or loved ones.

01:52:38.100 | - Yeah. - It's fascinating.

01:52:38.940 | - Good idea.

01:52:39.780 | - 'Cause you get to ask those ridiculous questions.

01:52:42.460 | First of all, about life, about the future,

01:52:44.060 | about the past, about little fears and the things you miss.

01:52:48.460 | And yeah, there's something people just reveal.

01:52:51.200 | First loves, all those kinds of things.

01:52:55.700 | Your view on love, your view on,

01:52:58.100 | and those are things don't come up in regular conversations.

01:53:01.700 | It's so nice that that's something about,

01:53:04.100 | see, that's the pushback.

01:53:06.060 | There's something about this microphone

01:53:07.540 | or maybe it's just the deliberate nature of sitting down

01:53:10.300 | and let's just talk.

01:53:11.780 | There is something about the microphone that for me thinks,

01:53:16.460 | just same with the suit.

01:53:18.000 | I'm gonna take this moment seriously.

01:53:20.260 | I've long forgotten that anyone is listening.

01:53:23.260 | I'm gonna try to really listen to another human,

01:53:27.220 | first of all, and to also ask the questions

01:53:32.220 | that are really interesting.

01:53:35.180 | I feel like when I talk to normal people out on the street,

01:53:38.060 | I'm not allowed to ask anything.

01:53:40.940 | I'm allowed to ask only the more generic things.

01:53:44.460 | - I think you can ask anything.

01:53:46.420 | - I'm starting to think that.

01:53:47.980 | - I think you're allowed to ask anything.

01:53:50.020 | - I think you're allowed to basically do anything,

01:53:54.300 | especially in Texas.

01:53:55.980 | - Yeah, I think it's okay to ask people

01:53:57.460 | and I think people like it when you ask them.

01:54:00.220 | People like to be seen and like to show who they are.

01:54:05.280 | - As the wind blows again,

01:54:08.100 | do you have advice for young people?

01:54:10.540 | You have a fascinating life journey.

01:54:14.880 | Is there advice you can give to people in high school

01:54:19.220 | and college about how to have a life like yours

01:54:25.620 | in whatever pursuit in terms of,

01:54:28.340 | success is such a silly word,

01:54:32.740 | but just find success or maybe happiness in career

01:54:37.740 | or just in life in general?

01:54:40.580 | - Yeah, the only advice I would have

01:54:43.580 | would be to not listen to anyone

01:54:46.220 | and to do what you love and to make things that you love,

01:54:50.140 | whatever it is, make your favorite things.

01:54:53.260 | Be the audience, you be the audience.

01:54:54.980 | Make the thing for you, the audience.

01:54:57.900 | And it doesn't really matter what anyone else thinks

01:55:02.900 | and if you have to get a job to support yourself

01:55:04.980 | so that you can make your art, that's fine.

01:55:07.140 | You can't make art for someone else,

01:55:10.220 | you can't make art with someone else in mind,

01:55:12.100 | I don't believe, I don't believe it can be good.

01:55:14.460 | - So what does success feel like?

01:55:16.500 | Are you grateful, are you proud of the work

01:55:21.500 | you've done in the past

01:55:22.780 | or is there some engine of constant dissatisfaction,

01:55:26.540 | like self-criticism of I could have done better?

01:55:30.060 | - No, I'm pleased with the work that we did,

01:55:33.540 | excited to keep working, it's fun.

01:55:36.020 | I don't know what else I would do with myself

01:55:37.780 | 'cause I like making things, it's fun.

01:55:42.060 | I feel like it's my reason to be on the planet

01:55:44.700 | so I just keep doing it.

01:55:45.900 | - Whatever ideas are actually coming from elsewhere

01:55:50.540 | and are using your mind as a temporary vehicle,

01:55:54.540 | that's their purpose to be on this planet.

01:55:56.620 | Your purpose is to procreate and not die

01:56:00.780 | and eat regularly enough such that the brain is alive,

01:56:05.660 | it's a biological purpose.

01:56:07.180 | - Yeah, and anything I can do to keep the channel open

01:56:09.980 | to allow what wants to come through to come through,

01:56:12.180 | I'm a willing channel.

01:56:15.380 | - It's so interesting 'cause I'm extremely self-critical

01:56:17.860 | so you don't have that self-criticism harsh,

01:56:21.300 | like this could have been better, this--

01:56:25.140 | - If it could have been better, I would keep working on it.

01:56:27.940 | It's like if it could be better, it's not done.

01:56:32.180 | - So when it's done, it's done.

01:56:37.860 | - Well, it's the best it can be.

01:56:39.940 | I've done everything I can to make it the best it can be

01:56:43.540 | and I can't do more than that

01:56:45.660 | so there's nothing to be critical of.

01:56:47.300 | I did my very, if you always give all of yourself

01:56:51.980 | and do your best, which you're capable of doing,

01:56:54.820 | I'm not suggesting that you're capable

01:56:57.820 | of doing more than you can do,

01:56:59.500 | but whatever it is that you can do,

01:57:01.180 | if you've given all of yourself to it,

01:57:03.420 | you've done your best, where could there be regret?

01:57:07.420 | - Yeah, there could be, you re-listen to an album,

01:57:11.500 | you re-listen to anything you've created

01:57:14.020 | and think, oh, there's so many interesting ideas missed.

01:57:17.860 | - It's fine though, but that was that moment.

01:57:19.860 | It's like everything is like a,

01:57:22.820 | it's almost like a diary entry.

01:57:25.060 | Everything we make is a reflection of a moment in time,

01:57:28.980 | a window in time.

01:57:30.220 | Could be a day, it could be a year,

01:57:32.820 | it could be whatever window you decide that it is.

01:57:37.180 | But if you give it all of yourself

01:57:40.860 | and you know if you're not interested

01:57:42.740 | in working on it anymore, it's done.

01:57:46.180 | Now you may decide it's not good enough

01:57:47.620 | to share with people and that's fine,

01:57:50.580 | but if it's good enough to share with people,

01:57:51.980 | there's no regret looking back.

01:57:54.580 | - That's funny, 'cause like think of it as a diary entry.

01:57:58.500 | It's hard to look back at a diary entry and say, you know--

01:58:01.580 | - I did it wrong. - I did it wrong.

01:58:03.180 | - It's impossible.

01:58:04.260 | - Yeah, and even if it's read by 100 people,

01:58:09.700 | a thousand people, a million people,

01:58:11.420 | it's just a diary entry. - Doesn't matter.

01:58:14.340 | - Speaking of doesn't matter, this life is finite.

01:58:17.480 | All of us, even recruitment, will be forgotten one day.

01:58:22.620 | Do you think about your mortality--

01:58:25.420 | - Tomorrow. - Tomorrow, yes.

01:58:27.420 | Do you think about the finiteness of this thing?

01:58:33.700 | Do you think about mortality, about your mortality?

01:58:36.660 | Does it make any sense to you?

01:58:37.900 | Do you think about death?

01:58:38.980 | Are you afraid of death?

01:58:41.180 | - I don't think about it very much.

01:58:44.380 | - Are you afraid?

01:58:45.260 | - I don't think I'm afraid.

01:58:48.620 | I mean, I don't wanna die,

01:58:50.860 | but I know that that's in the cards,

01:58:53.740 | and when it happens, it happens.

01:58:55.740 | - Your nature of not wanting to die is kinda like,

01:58:59.000 | you don't wanna go to a shitty restaurant.

01:59:01.260 | You'd like to go to a nicer one.

01:59:02.620 | So it's just a preference thing.

01:59:03.860 | - Well, I wanna keep living

01:59:05.860 | because I wanna do what I like to do.

01:59:07.780 | So whatever, now who knows?

01:59:11.200 | Whatever comes next may be even better.

01:59:14.000 | Maybe we're, I don't know.

01:59:16.180 | I can't, I haven't experienced it yet, so who knows?

01:59:20.680 | - What do you think happens after we die?

01:59:23.220 | - I believe we go on in some capacity.

01:59:26.540 | I don't know what that means,

01:59:27.540 | but in the same way that everything recycles,

01:59:30.780 | everything comes around.

01:59:32.620 | I don't know why we would be different.

01:59:37.180 | - In some way.

01:59:38.220 | - In some way.

01:59:39.060 | I don't know what that way is,

01:59:39.940 | and I don't know that it's in the same being,

01:59:42.620 | or in the same grouping of information, whatever that is.

01:59:47.140 | But the thing that makes us us,

01:59:49.620 | that information, I imagine, goes on.

01:59:52.960 | - Yes, it does seem like our world here,

01:59:55.100 | at least on Earth, has a memory.

01:59:57.860 | And just like history, it kinda rhymes.

02:00:00.900 | It brings back creations of the past and riffs on them,

02:00:06.700 | improvises on top of them,

02:00:07.980 | and in that way, humanity propagates.

02:00:11.420 | - I mean, you see it with garbage.

02:00:12.700 | You see the mountains of garbage.

02:00:15.540 | It's like it doesn't really go anywhere.

02:00:17.140 | Even when it breaks up, it disintegrates,

02:00:19.540 | but it's never really gone.

02:00:22.140 | Same.

02:00:23.740 | - Is there anything in this world you're afraid of?

02:00:27.020 | - A lot of things.

02:00:28.700 | - But not death.

02:00:29.540 | - I mean, I don't know.

02:00:33.180 | I don't know.

02:00:34.020 | - What are you afraid of?

02:00:35.340 | - Death is more of a question mark.

02:00:36.860 | Again, I'm not in any--

02:00:38.980 | - To be answered.

02:00:39.820 | - Yeah, I'm not in any hurry for that to happen,

02:00:42.940 | but it will happen, and when it does,

02:00:45.700 | we get to experience what that is.

02:00:47.380 | - Well, okay, then the big question mark,

02:00:50.220 | what's the meaning of this whole thing?

02:00:52.380 | It's the meaning of life, Rick Rubin.

02:00:55.000 | - Putting my name on it makes it harder to answer.

02:00:59.700 | - It's just a diary entry, like we said.

02:01:03.340 | - It's true, it's true.

02:01:04.180 | - You will get a different answer tomorrow.

02:01:05.860 | Let's see, what's the meaning of life today?

02:01:07.540 | - Late and later today.

02:01:08.800 | It could be, so for people who don't know,

02:01:14.220 | we were maybe thinking of maybe meeting in Austin,

02:01:18.180 | have some barbecue, and now we're in the middle of nowhere

02:01:21.300 | in beautiful West Texas, and this is basically

02:01:26.300 | a glorified delivery of barbecue, of my favorite barbecue,

02:01:31.340 | maybe one of your top favorite barbecues,

02:01:34.420 | to one of my favorite humans,

02:01:36.620 | so we get to eat some barbecue today.

02:01:38.420 | Maybe that's the meaning.

02:01:39.660 | Do you have something bigger than barbecue?

02:01:44.220 | - Barbecue's pretty big.

02:01:45.460 | (Lex laughing)

02:01:46.300 | Barbecue's pretty good.

02:01:47.140 | - Where's your love for barbecue come from, by the way?

02:01:49.140 | Do you, is this--

02:01:49.980 | - Well, I was a vegan for 20-something years,

02:01:53.760 | and once I found my way back into eating meat,

02:01:58.260 | I think barbecue's my favorite of any of the things

02:02:01.780 | that I didn't eat for so long.

02:02:03.800 | - I have to ask you, I almost forgot.

02:02:09.340 | So there's an SNL skit with Will Ferrell that he wrote

02:02:13.540 | about "Don't Fear the Reaper,"

02:02:16.180 | where it's Bruce Dickinson as the producer.

02:02:19.860 | I always think about you when I see that skit.

02:02:21.740 | I don't know why, people should definitely watch it,

02:02:23.820 | and he demands more cowbell into the mix,

02:02:27.980 | and the whole band,

02:02:29.660 | this is how I imagine people interact with you.

02:02:31.260 | The whole band is really impressed.

02:02:32.660 | We get to work with the great Bruce Dickinson,

02:02:35.580 | and then it's played by Christopher Walken,

02:02:37.980 | and he says, "Fellas, fellas,

02:02:41.140 | I put on my pants one leg at a time,

02:02:44.540 | just like the rest of you,

02:02:46.380 | but once my pants are on, I make gold records."

02:02:49.820 | (Lex laughing)

02:02:50.860 | And I just, and then the whole skit continues,

02:02:54.460 | and he wants to add more and more cowbell,

02:02:56.140 | and Will Ferrell said he wrote that skit

02:02:58.260 | 'cause he always heard the song "Don't Fear the Reaper,"

02:03:00.620 | and there's a distant cowbell.

02:03:02.220 | It's very light in the mix,

02:03:04.060 | and he's like, "I wonder what the story of that cowbell is.

02:03:09.060 | Like, if we just look at that one layer,

02:03:11.180 | who's that guy that was in there?"

02:03:13.300 | - That's me.

02:03:14.900 | - So is that basically exactly how your life is,

02:03:18.220 | is Bruce Dickinson from the cowbell?

02:03:20.620 | I don't know if you've seen that skit.

02:03:22.520 | - I don't think it's like that.

02:03:25.460 | - It's not, okay, all right.

02:03:27.540 | I'm just gonna pretend then.

02:03:28.980 | Rick, this is a huge honor that you sit with me.

02:03:32.060 | I mean, what can I say about how incredible of a human you are?

02:03:37.060 | You truly are out of this world,

02:03:40.100 | and thank you so much for talking today.

02:03:42.020 | - I'm a great fan.

02:03:42.980 | I'm so happy that you agreed to do this with me.

02:03:46.780 | - Thanks for listening to this conversation

02:03:49.300 | with Rick Rubin.

02:03:50.460 | To support this podcast,

02:03:51.740 | please check out our sponsors in the description.

02:03:54.540 | And now, let me leave you with some words

02:03:56.580 | from Albert Einstein.

02:03:58.580 | Imagination is everything.

02:04:01.220 | It is the preview of life's coming attractions.

02:04:04.120 | Thank you for listening, and hope to see you next time.

02:04:07.880 | (upbeat music)

02:04:10.460 | (upbeat music)

02:04:13.040 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Rick Rubin: Legendary Music Producer | Lex Fridman Podcast #275

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