Rick Rubin: Legendary Music Producer
音乐与艺术心理与人性生物与进化技术与编程AI 与机器学习
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AI 智能总结
传奇音乐制作人Rick Rubin谈创造力与艺术本质
这是 Lex Fridman 与传奇音乐制作人 Rick Rubin 的深度对话。Rubin 曾与 Johnny Cash、Red Hot Chili Peppers、Jay-Z、Adele 等无数艺术家合作，被认为是有史以来最伟大的音乐制作人之一。对话深入探讨了创造力的本质、艺术家与作品的关系，以及他独特的「空白」哲学。
音乐制作创造力艺术哲学冥想创作过程
Rick Rubin 是传奇音乐制作人，曾与 Johnny Cash、Red Hot Chili Peppers、Jay-Z、Adele、Kanye West 等无数艺术家合作，被《滚石》杂志评为有史以来最伟大的音乐制作人，著有《创造行为》（The Creative Act）。
📌 核心观点
- Rubin 的核心哲学是「以空白来临」（come blank）：他每次进入新项目都不带预设，不强加自己的风格，而是帮助艺术家找到他们自己最真实的声音——这与大多数制作人的做法截然相反。
- 他认为艺术中没有正确答案，一切都是实验：最好的作品往往来自于打破规则、拥抱不确定性，而不是遵循既定公式。
- 关于创造力的来源，Rubin 有一个神秘主义倾向的观点：也许我们只是「肉体载体」，在接收来自某个更大地方的想法——这种谦逊让他能够真正服务于艺术，而非自我表达。
- 他强调「不知道」的价值：承认我们对几乎一切都知之甚少，反而能让我们以更开放的心态去探索，获得更健康的人生体验。
- Rubin 分享了他的工作方式：极度专注于当下，不被商业压力左右，只问「这是最好的版本吗？」而不是「这会卖得好吗？」
✨ 金句摘录
Rubin：艺术中没有正确答案，我们都在做实验寻找出路。
Rubin：也许你只是一个肉体载体，在从某个地方接收想法。
Rubin：我相信我们对任何事情都知之甚少，非常非常少。如果我们拥抱这种不知道，我们会有更健康的人生体验。
📋 章节目录
暂无章节信息
🔑 关键词
donenemiespersonsongmusiclyricssongsdidngoinglistentogetherelseinterestingalbumdoingartjohnnybeautifulhumandoesn
💬 精彩语录
"spoken for 30 years and they realize that there's still love there and it could have been a different"
聊了 30 年，他们意识到爱仍然存在，而且本来可以是另一种方式
— Rick Rubin （1:03:56.440）
"sense and then all of a sudden it becomes something beautiful yeah we don't need to understand why it"
感觉然后突然它变得美丽是的我们不需要理解为什么它
— Rick Rubin （1:33:54.680）
"and it's also the taker is important i'm generally optimistic and hopeful so i i always like look for"
而且接受者也很重要，我总体上是乐观和充满希望的，所以我总是喜欢寻找
— Rick Rubin （33:40.360）
"what comes through of these these people i should also before i forget there is a lot of song choices"
这些人的经历我也应该在我忘记之前有很多歌曲选择
— Rick Rubin （1:12:49.800）
"the the psychic uh that made her fit into my world view and um and she recommended antidepressant which"
通灵呃让她融入了我的世界观，嗯，她推荐了抗抑郁药
— Rick Rubin （1:24:00.920）
🎙️ 完整对话（1301 条）
Lex Fridman (00:00.000)
There are no right answers for anything involved in art.
任何与艺术有关的事情都没有正确的答案。
Lex Fridman (00:03.120)
We're all trying experiments to find a way.
我们都在尝试寻找方法。
Lex Fridman (00:06.500)
And even for the things that I work on,
即使对于我正在做的事情，
Lex Fridman (00:08.320)
I don't have a set way that I do anything.
我做任何事情都没有固定的方式。
Lex Fridman (00:11.200)
I come to every project blank.
我对每个项目都是空白的。
Rick Rubin (00:13.960)
Maybe you're just a meat vehicle
也许你只是一辆肉车
Lex Fridman (00:16.220)
and you're channeling ideas from somewhere else.
你正在从其他地方传递想法。
Rick Rubin (00:18.560)
I believe we know close to nothing,
我相信我们几乎一无所知
Lex Fridman (00:22.300)
close to nothing, about anything.
几乎什么都没有，几乎什么都没有。
Rick Rubin (00:25.480)
If we embrace that not knowing,
如果我们拥抱未知，
Lex Fridman (00:27.760)
we'll have a healthier experience going through life.
我们将拥有更健康的人生经历。
Rick Rubin (00:34.320)
The following is a conversation with Rick Rubin,
以下是与 Rick Rubin 的对话，
Lex Fridman (00:36.860)
one of the greatest music producers of all time,
有史以来最伟大的音乐制作人之一，
Rick Rubin (00:40.320)
known for bringing the best out of anyone he works with,
因能激发与他共事的人的最佳能力而闻名，
Lex Fridman (00:43.640)
no matter the genre of music or even the medium of art,
无论音乐流派，甚至艺术媒介，
Rick Rubin (00:47.080)
or just the medium of creating
或者只是创造的媒介
Lex Fridman (00:48.720)
something beautiful in this world.
这个世界上有一些美丽的东西。
Lex Fridman (00:50.940)
And the list of musicians he produced includes many,
他制作的音乐家名单包括很多，
Lex Fridman (00:54.120)
many, many of the greats over the past 40 years,
过去40年里许许多多的伟人，
Rick Rubin (00:57.760)
including the Beastie Boys, Eminem, Metallica,
包括 Beastie Boys、Eminem、Metallica、
Lex Fridman (01:01.760)
LL Cool J, Kanye West, Slayer, Tom Petty,
Rick Rubin (01:04.640)
Johnny Cash, Dixie Chicks, Aerosmith, Adele,
Lex Fridman (01:08.240)
Danzig, Red Hot Chili Peppers,
Rick Rubin (01:10.360)
System of a Down, Jay Z, Black Sabbath.
Lex Fridman (01:13.660)
I can keep going for a very long time here.
Rick Rubin (01:16.520)
Most importantly, Rick is just an amazing human being.
Lex Fridman (01:20.600)
We became fast friends, which is surreal to say,
Lex Fridman (01:23.840)
and is just an incredible honor.
Lex Fridman (01:26.640)
I felt truly heard as a person
Rick Rubin (01:28.560)
when I spent the day with him
Lex Fridman (01:30.200)
eating some delicious Texas barbecue,
Rick Rubin (01:32.400)
talking about life, about music, about art, about beauty.
Lex Fridman (01:37.520)
This was a conversation and experience I will never forget.
Rick Rubin (01:42.240)
This is the Lex Friedman podcast.
Lex Fridman (01:44.320)
To support it, please check out our sponsors
Rick Rubin (01:46.520)
in the description.
Lex Fridman (01:47.760)
And now, dear friends, here's Rick Rubin.
Lex Fridman (01:51.240)
Are you nervous?
Lex Fridman (01:53.720)
I'm not shaky, but I would say I feel uneasy.
Lex Fridman (01:57.240)
And I feel like the sooner we start talking,
Lex Fridman (01:59.600)
the more relaxed we'll get.
Rick Rubin (02:01.320)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (02:02.200)
Well, maybe we should sit in this moment
Lex Fridman (02:03.920)
and enjoy the nervousness of it.
Lex Fridman (02:07.200)
Let me start with Nietzsche.
Rick Rubin (02:09.920)
He said, without music, life would be a mistake.
Lex Fridman (02:12.920)
What do you think he means by that?
Rick Rubin (02:14.660)
Let's talk some philosophy.
Lex Fridman (02:15.960)
Let's try to analyze Friedrich Nietzsche from a century ago.
Rick Rubin (02:22.020)
It seems like music has the ability
Lex Fridman (02:26.000)
to bring us so much depth in our soul
Rick Rubin (02:31.720)
that's hard to access any other way.
Lex Fridman (02:34.680)
And without it, there would be a loss
Rick Rubin (02:37.200)
beyond the pleasure of it.
Lex Fridman (02:41.560)
Feels like it's a window into something else.
Rick Rubin (02:45.160)
Something that no other medium
Lex Fridman (02:47.840)
can express quite the same way.
Rick Rubin (02:51.000)
I would say not as automatically.
Lex Fridman (02:53.040)
Something about music can do it automatically.
Rick Rubin (02:56.400)
Maybe poetry or maybe certain abstract forms
Lex Fridman (03:02.320)
can get us there.
Lex Fridman (03:04.620)
But there's something about music
Lex Fridman (03:06.840)
that really can get us there quickly.
Lex Fridman (03:09.340)
But it's also the time, the place, the history.
Lex Fridman (03:11.960)
There's something about, like a lot of my family's
Rick Rubin (03:15.160)
still in Philly, there's something about driving
Lex Fridman (03:18.800)
through Jersey and listening to Bruce Springsteen.
Lex Fridman (03:23.720)
And then you just, I'll get emotional.
Lex Fridman (03:27.160)
Like listening to I'm On Fire.
Rick Rubin (03:29.960)
That like, one of my favorite Bruce Springsteen songs,
Lex Fridman (03:33.840)
there's a haunting kind of strumming to it.
Rick Rubin (03:38.720)
It's not a strumming, it's actually picked.
Lex Fridman (03:41.720)
It has a country feel to it,
Rick Rubin (03:43.120)
almost like a Johnny Cash feel actually.
Lex Fridman (03:45.160)
And it, I don't know, makes me feel,
Lex Fridman (03:47.600)
so for people who don't know, I'm On Fire.
Lex Fridman (03:50.040)
That song is, I guess, a love song to a woman
Rick Rubin (03:56.860)
that you can't have because she's married
Lex Fridman (04:02.160)
or she's with somebody else,
Rick Rubin (04:03.760)
which I guess is quite a lot of love songs.
Lex Fridman (04:06.320)
But there's something about the haunting nature
Rick Rubin (04:08.480)
of the guitar and then it has to be driving through Jersey.
Lex Fridman (04:12.920)
And I feel like everyone has fallen in love
Rick Rubin (04:16.000)
with a Jersey girl at one point in their life.
Lex Fridman (04:18.920)
I don't know if that's true for her,
Lex Fridman (04:21.040)
but I feel like that.
Lex Fridman (04:22.440)
I haven't either, but I just feel like that.
Rick Rubin (04:25.640)
There's something about Bruce Springsteen is like,
Lex Fridman (04:27.080)
yeah, I've been there.
Lex Fridman (04:31.000)
And that just takes you to a place of emotion
Lex Fridman (04:33.680)
that you just, that captures love,
Rick Rubin (04:37.320)
that captures longing, that captures the heartbreak
Lex Fridman (04:40.880)
of just the way time flows in life
Lex Fridman (04:42.420)
and the fact that it's finite
Lex Fridman (04:43.560)
and just all of that in a single simple song.
Lex Fridman (04:47.520)
What else can capture that?
Lex Fridman (04:49.260)
Yeah, I don't know.
Lex Fridman (04:50.720)
But it's true that there's a connection
Lex Fridman (04:53.920)
both between time and place and music.
Lex Fridman (04:55.720)
And I, certain music growing up on the East Coast
Lex Fridman (05:02.000)
didn't really resonate with me
Rick Rubin (05:03.280)
until I spent time on the West Coast.
Lex Fridman (05:05.240)
Eagles being an example.
Rick Rubin (05:06.680)
When I lived in New York,
Lex Fridman (05:08.200)
the Eagles didn't really speak to me.
Rick Rubin (05:09.840)
ZZ Top didn't really speak to me.
Lex Fridman (05:12.400)
And then when I started spending time in California
Lex Fridman (05:14.640)
and driving through Laurel Canyon,
Lex Fridman (05:16.840)
all of a sudden the music of the Eagles felt
Rick Rubin (05:20.120)
appropriate somehow.
Lex Fridman (05:21.880)
And I started listening to it more.
Rick Rubin (05:23.840)
Got it.
Lex Fridman (05:24.680)
So not until you went out West
Lex Fridman (05:26.080)
can you understand the sounds of the West.
Lex Fridman (05:29.520)
So it's really like New York has a sound.
Lex Fridman (05:32.620)
What other places have a sound in the United States?
Lex Fridman (05:34.920)
I think every place does.
Lex Fridman (05:36.760)
And that said, sometimes we can get an experience
Lex Fridman (05:40.360)
through music of a place.
Rick Rubin (05:42.800)
Like we can resonate with the music and not understand why.
Lex Fridman (05:46.520)
And then maybe when we go to the place
Rick Rubin (05:47.840)
where it was created,
Lex Fridman (05:49.800)
it's almost like we have a knowingness of that place.
Rick Rubin (05:52.020)
It's not a strange place anymore.
Lex Fridman (05:54.960)
Yeah, Stevie Ray Vaughan with blues and Texas blues.
Rick Rubin (05:58.960)
You can just listen to Texas Flood and just,
Lex Fridman (06:01.640)
again, this is like a woman you're missing,
Rick Rubin (06:03.880)
a broken heart and somehow that connects to the place.
Lex Fridman (06:07.200)
The Eagles, what song with the Eagles connects with you?
Rick Rubin (06:11.400)
Are we talking about like Take It Easy
Lex Fridman (06:15.520)
or are we talking more like Hotel California?
Rick Rubin (06:18.440)
I'm thinking Take It Easy, but both are great.
Lex Fridman (06:22.080)
Yeah, there's certain songs
Rick Rubin (06:23.760)
when I started learning guitar when I was young
Lex Fridman (06:27.000)
that's like, I would like to be the kind of person
Rick Rubin (06:29.480)
that not only knows how to play this song,
Lex Fridman (06:31.920)
but understands the song and like have that song
Rick Rubin (06:36.720)
be something I played 20 years ago.
Lex Fridman (06:40.480)
And I've lived with that song for a while.
Rick Rubin (06:42.680)
Like Hotel California is an example.
Lex Fridman (06:45.480)
Obviously there's the solo,
Lex Fridman (06:47.480)
but there's also the soulfulness of the lyrics,
Lex Fridman (06:50.360)
which I still don't understand.
Lex Fridman (06:51.760)
And it could be about anything.
Lex Fridman (06:52.920)
And as you get older,
Rick Rubin (06:53.820)
I feel like the meaning of the song could be anything.
Lex Fridman (06:56.080)
Yeah, I think that's true.
Rick Rubin (06:57.720)
I think that's the beauty of them.
Lex Fridman (06:59.040)
I think when the person wrote them,
Rick Rubin (07:00.280)
they may have had one interpretation,
Lex Fridman (07:04.800)
but it's not contingent on us getting that interpretation
Rick Rubin (07:08.420)
to like it or resonate with it or feel it.
Lex Fridman (07:12.800)
In some ways, the best art is open enough
Rick Rubin (07:18.780)
where the artist gets to have their experience
Lex Fridman (07:21.660)
when they make it
Lex Fridman (07:22.500)
and then the audience gets to have their experience
Lex Fridman (07:24.480)
when they listen and they don't have to be the same.
Lex Fridman (07:26.880)
And then it connects thousands
Lex Fridman (07:28.360)
or millions of people together.
Rick Rubin (07:30.960)
There's a togetherness of music when you share that music,
Lex Fridman (07:34.180)
when you're listening to stuff together, like in a car.
Rick Rubin (07:36.840)
First of all, the car is a sacred place.
Lex Fridman (07:39.720)
So I work in part on autonomous vehicles.
Lex Fridman (07:43.000)
And you start to think, well,
Lex Fridman (07:44.600)
what are the things you lose
Lex Fridman (07:46.780)
when the car stops being the central part of American life?
Lex Fridman (07:53.080)
The car ownership.
Rick Rubin (07:54.880)
It just feels like the car, when you're alone,
Lex Fridman (07:57.780)
it's like a therapist thing, session,
Rick Rubin (08:01.080)
because you get angry at other humans
Lex Fridman (08:04.960)
and then you get to like sit in your own anger and emotion.
Rick Rubin (08:09.520)
You get to listen to the song on a long road trip
Lex Fridman (08:12.240)
and remember, like run through your memories, the heartbreak.
Rick Rubin (08:18.840)
I don't know, the one that got away,
Lex Fridman (08:20.280)
but also like the beautiful moments, all of it.
Rick Rubin (08:23.440)
Yeah, and all of that in the car.
Lex Fridman (08:27.960)
Yeah, driving also serves another purpose.
Lex Fridman (08:30.780)
And it's one of the things that we can do
Lex Fridman (08:34.200)
that we have to pay attention enough not to crash,
Lex Fridman (08:41.160)
but typically can essentially run on autopilot enough
Lex Fridman (08:45.640)
where we could be thinking about something else
Rick Rubin (08:47.560)
or concentrating on something else.
Lex Fridman (08:50.560)
And the difference between concentrating on something
Rick Rubin (08:53.440)
or trying to solve a problem
Lex Fridman (08:55.520)
when you're solely trying to solve a problem
Rick Rubin (08:57.560)
versus when you have some little task
Lex Fridman (08:59.600)
that's keeping you occupied,
Rick Rubin (09:01.920)
I find if I have something slight to take care of,
Lex Fridman (09:09.020)
it frees a more creative side of my mind
Rick Rubin (09:12.960)
to better solve problems.
Lex Fridman (09:15.520)
You know, I'm kind of jealous of people
Rick Rubin (09:17.220)
that found that in painting, for example.
Lex Fridman (09:19.700)
They'll be drawing or painting and listening to,
Lex Fridman (09:22.680)
so that's the small task you do.
Lex Fridman (09:25.080)
You're coloring in the lines.
Rick Rubin (09:27.400)
It's like this gentle, peaceful, slow process
Lex Fridman (09:31.600)
that requires just a small fraction of your mind
Lex Fridman (09:33.780)
and then you can listen.
Lex Fridman (09:34.780)
Some people listen to podcasts that way.
Rick Rubin (09:36.980)
Some people listen to music that way.
Lex Fridman (09:39.120)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (09:40.000)
How do you do it?
Lex Fridman (09:40.960)
How do you free your mind?
Rick Rubin (09:42.940)
Yeah, running is one of them.
Lex Fridman (09:51.940)
There's a process.
Lex Fridman (09:54.020)
So most freeing of the mind for me
Lex Fridman (09:57.100)
has to go through a process of a bit of pain for a bit.
Lex Fridman (10:01.380)
So doing something difficult,
Lex Fridman (10:04.020)
so it's like an airplane taking off or something.
Lex Fridman (10:06.940)
So that's like, for example, running.
Lex Fridman (10:09.060)
The first few miles would just be,
Rick Rubin (10:10.820)
just first of all, the physical aspect,
Lex Fridman (10:14.700)
which is like, ah, you're so fat.
Rick Rubin (10:16.340)
You're out of shape.
Lex Fridman (10:17.180)
You're, this is the getting old, this, that.
Rick Rubin (10:20.060)
Okay, that slowly dissipates.
Lex Fridman (10:21.860)
And then the demons come in who are like,
Rick Rubin (10:25.600)
you should be getting this and that and this done.
Lex Fridman (10:30.020)
You haven't gotten it done.
Rick Rubin (10:31.400)
You're like breaking promises,
Lex Fridman (10:33.580)
all those kinds of voices coming in.
Lex Fridman (10:35.980)
And after that, maybe mile four,
Lex Fridman (10:39.180)
it's like, fuck it.
Rick Rubin (10:40.980)
You just run, run with the wind at a very slow pace,
Lex Fridman (10:44.980)
but with the wind, and then you could think.
Lex Fridman (10:47.920)
So it's the footsteps, the physical activity.
Lex Fridman (10:50.900)
Then you could deeply think about stuff, ideas,
Rick Rubin (10:54.620)
sort of design, whether it's program design stuff
Lex Fridman (10:56.980)
or like high level life decisions, all those kinds of things.
Rick Rubin (11:00.260)
I would say running.
Lex Fridman (11:02.460)
I used to build bridges from toothpicks.
Rick Rubin (11:05.580)
I used to be a thing.
Lex Fridman (11:07.780)
It's an engineering.
Rick Rubin (11:08.860)
I guess some people like glue together airplanes
Lex Fridman (11:11.660)
and stuff like that.
Lex Fridman (11:13.060)
But the bridges, it's such deeply honest work
Lex Fridman (11:17.540)
because at the end of it,
Rick Rubin (11:18.980)
you're gonna have to test that bridge
Lex Fridman (11:21.380)
and you're gonna see how good your work was.
Rick Rubin (11:24.100)
The little details, but also the big picture.
Lex Fridman (11:26.660)
Do you use glue or no?
Rick Rubin (11:28.700)
Yeah, use glue.
Lex Fridman (11:30.740)
So it's not pure physics.
Rick Rubin (11:32.180)
It's materials engineering too.
Lex Fridman (11:36.760)
Because the way you want to do it is
Rick Rubin (11:40.260)
you actually split the wood as thin as possible
Lex Fridman (11:42.740)
and then glue it back together
Rick Rubin (11:43.940)
because the glue is really strong,
Lex Fridman (11:46.900)
except for the arches and things like that.
Lex Fridman (11:49.020)
So you're building arch bridges,
Lex Fridman (11:50.700)
which is a whole nother skill
Rick Rubin (11:52.260)
because you have to bend the wood.
Lex Fridman (11:54.420)
And it's so cool
Rick Rubin (11:55.260)
because the thing can hold thousands of times its weight.
Lex Fridman (11:58.860)
And then you get to watch it explode at a certain point
Rick Rubin (12:03.860)
from the pressure and when you do a really good job,
Lex Fridman (12:07.420)
it doesn't explode in a kind of some weak point
Rick Rubin (12:11.620)
that you didn't anticipate just kind of starts cracking.
Lex Fridman (12:14.660)
Everything cracks, everything explodes.
Rick Rubin (12:17.260)
It's just pieces fly everywhere.
Lex Fridman (12:20.420)
And it's literally hundreds of hours of work
Rick Rubin (12:23.500)
just explode in front of you.
Lex Fridman (12:26.580)
And that's a metaphor for life maybe.
Lex Fridman (12:29.380)
And it's all for nothing,
Lex Fridman (12:30.720)
except for the journey that you took to get there.
Lex Fridman (12:34.920)
And no one understands.
Lex Fridman (12:37.560)
Speaking of which, back to Nietzsche,
Rick Rubin (12:40.640)
these questions are ridiculous.
Lex Fridman (12:42.240)
So you're gonna have to try to figure out
Lex Fridman (12:46.000)
what the heck I'm trying to do here.
Lex Fridman (12:48.360)
So Nietzsche also said,
Rick Rubin (12:51.480)
a line I love, which is,
Lex Fridman (12:53.160)
and those who were seen dancing
Rick Rubin (12:54.960)
were thought to be insane
Lex Fridman (12:56.280)
by those who could not hear the music.
Lex Fridman (12:58.240)
Do you, Rick Rubin, ever feel crazy?
Lex Fridman (13:02.520)
Or maybe you're the one who's sane
Lex Fridman (13:05.860)
and everybody else is crazy.
Lex Fridman (13:07.280)
You know that the dancing, the joy of the music,
Rick Rubin (13:11.920)
of just feeling the music
Lex Fridman (13:13.960)
and everybody else just doesn't understand.
Lex Fridman (13:15.820)
And this doesn't have to be literally about music.
Lex Fridman (13:17.680)
This is about art, about creation.
Rick Rubin (13:21.240)
I would say I feel different
Lex Fridman (13:24.800)
and it's hard to say
Lex Fridman (13:28.640)
it's like which side of the equation is crazy, you know?
Lex Fridman (13:33.600)
Did you ever find a group of people
Lex Fridman (13:37.080)
that you get, they get you?
Lex Fridman (13:39.140)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (13:39.980)
Is that what producing is essentially?
Lex Fridman (13:42.080)
Is you try to find the moments
Lex Fridman (13:43.480)
when you just get each other?
Lex Fridman (13:45.520)
No.
Rick Rubin (13:46.360)
I would say there are definitely certain artists
Lex Fridman (13:56.640)
with certain temperaments.
Rick Rubin (13:58.380)
When you're around them,
Lex Fridman (13:59.560)
it feels like you can finish each other's sentences.
Rick Rubin (14:02.360)
You know, just see the world the same way.
Lex Fridman (14:04.840)
Comedians as well.
Lex Fridman (14:07.920)
And that's not essential for the two of you together
Lex Fridman (14:13.060)
creating something special.
Rick Rubin (14:14.700)
No, no.
Lex Fridman (14:16.120)
So it could be attention too?
Rick Rubin (14:18.120)
It could be anything.
Lex Fridman (14:18.960)
It could be any, there's no rules.
Rick Rubin (14:21.480)
It'd be like, think of it like a coach.
Lex Fridman (14:24.160)
A coach could bring what they have to bring
Rick Rubin (14:29.520)
to any talented individual
Lex Fridman (14:31.640)
and help them find their way.
Lex Fridman (14:36.900)
And sometimes the right coach for the right athlete
Lex Fridman (14:40.400)
really works and other times there's a mismatch.
Lex Fridman (14:44.080)
Have you seen the movie Whiplash?
Lex Fridman (14:46.640)
I did.
Rick Rubin (14:47.480)
I saw it when it came out
Lex Fridman (14:48.300)
so I don't really remember it well, but I did see it.
Lex Fridman (14:49.920)
So there's a coach type of figure.
Lex Fridman (14:51.640)
Yes.
Rick Rubin (14:52.480)
Who is pushing a drummer to create,
Lex Fridman (14:56.100)
to grow as a musician, but also to create something special.
Rick Rubin (15:00.120)
I don't know if it's even special music skill wise,
Lex Fridman (15:02.280)
it's a special moment.
Rick Rubin (15:04.040)
I don't know what he's trying to create.
Lex Fridman (15:06.020)
From one perspective, it's just an abusive,
Rick Rubin (15:08.120)
a person who selfishly gets off on being abusive
Lex Fridman (15:11.240)
to those he's with.
Lex Fridman (15:12.640)
But from another perspective, the way I saw that movie,
Lex Fridman (15:15.680)
is it's just the two right humans finding each other
Rick Rubin (15:20.360)
at the right moment in life
Lex Fridman (15:21.760)
and risking destroying each other in the process,
Lex Fridman (15:24.340)
but maybe something beautiful will come of it.
Lex Fridman (15:29.140)
Do you think that's a toxic relationship?
Rick Rubin (15:32.920)
Or is there, does some of that movie resonate with you
Lex Fridman (15:37.600)
as that sometimes is required to create art?
Rick Rubin (15:41.440)
That kind of suffering.
Lex Fridman (15:43.640)
Yeah, it doesn't.
Rick Rubin (15:44.920)
Well, there's suffering involved,
Lex Fridman (15:46.120)
but not that kind of suffering.
Rick Rubin (15:49.800)
Not for me.
Lex Fridman (15:50.640)
There are some people who that's their process
Lex Fridman (15:53.160)
and that's whatever works.
Lex Fridman (15:55.320)
There's no right answers for anything involved in art.
Rick Rubin (15:59.000)
We're all trying experiments to find a way.
Lex Fridman (16:02.400)
And even for the things that I work on,
Rick Rubin (16:04.220)
I don't have a set way that I do anything.
Lex Fridman (16:07.080)
I come to every project blank
Lex Fridman (16:10.400)
and see,
Lex Fridman (16:15.120)
I really listen to what the artist plays and says
Lex Fridman (16:18.960)
and through what they explain they wanna do,
Lex Fridman (16:26.840)
help find the best way to get there.
Rick Rubin (16:30.600)
Was it implicit in the movie
Lex Fridman (16:32.920)
that the mean teacher liked being a mean teacher?
Rick Rubin (16:37.920)
You said the way you described it was
Lex Fridman (16:41.440)
that he got off on treating people this way.
Lex Fridman (16:43.360)
Do we know that to be the case?
Lex Fridman (16:44.560)
I don't remember that in the movie.
Rick Rubin (16:45.400)
No, but we sometimes project that onto people,
Lex Fridman (16:47.960)
people who are really rough on students.
Rick Rubin (16:52.240)
You start to think, well, maybe,
Lex Fridman (16:58.760)
maybe that is fundamentally who they are
Lex Fridman (17:01.040)
and if it's fundamentally who they are,
Lex Fridman (17:03.520)
that there must be some pleasure in it
Rick Rubin (17:05.200)
or it's an addiction of some sort.
Lex Fridman (17:07.500)
But it could be also a deliberate choice
Rick Rubin (17:12.680)
made by the teacher.
Lex Fridman (17:14.040)
It also could be a lineage.
Rick Rubin (17:15.400)
Like in the Zen tradition,
Lex Fridman (17:18.040)
there are sort of the mean Roshi's
Rick Rubin (17:23.200)
who if you do something wrong, take a physical action.
Lex Fridman (17:27.400)
And it's just in the lineage,
Rick Rubin (17:30.760)
it's considered that's how you teach.
Lex Fridman (17:34.240)
I didn't come from that lineage.
Lex Fridman (17:37.560)
So I'm much more of a,
Lex Fridman (17:39.760)
I feel like it's more of a collaboration
Rick Rubin (17:43.060)
between people working together to make the best thing.
Lex Fridman (17:46.560)
It's not a boss slave relationship at all.
Rick Rubin (17:51.520)
It's much more of a let's find our way.
Lex Fridman (17:55.080)
And we agree at the beginning of the process
Rick Rubin (17:57.760)
that if either of us or any of us
Lex Fridman (18:02.160)
don't like what's happening, we say it.
Lex Fridman (18:04.480)
And the goal is to keep working
Lex Fridman (18:05.800)
till we get to a point where we're all really happy with it.
Rick Rubin (18:09.440)
It's like if we make something
Lex Fridman (18:11.040)
that an artist likes and I don't like,
Rick Rubin (18:13.080)
or that I like and they don't like,
Lex Fridman (18:14.820)
we haven't gone far enough.
Rick Rubin (18:17.600)
In terms of lineage,
Lex Fridman (18:19.040)
the ones that seek destruction
Lex Fridman (18:21.280)
and the ones that seek happiness
Lex Fridman (18:22.560)
all come from the same lineage.
Rick Rubin (18:23.760)
We all came from fish.
Lex Fridman (18:24.760)
So somewhere in you, deep down there,
Rick Rubin (18:28.500)
there's the other stuff too.
Lex Fridman (18:30.380)
It's just that you haven't been yet, by the way,
Rick Rubin (18:33.800)
because you said every new project,
Lex Fridman (18:35.280)
including maybe starting today,
Rick Rubin (18:39.560)
is an opportunity to channel, to plug into something
Lex Fridman (18:43.040)
that was always there
Lex Fridman (18:43.880)
and you haven't gotten a chance to plug into.
Lex Fridman (18:46.080)
You mentioned listening.
Lex Fridman (18:47.400)
How do you listen to a person?
Lex Fridman (18:49.600)
How do you hear a person?
Rick Rubin (18:51.440)
When you first come in, like we just met,
Lex Fridman (18:55.560)
what's the analysis happening?
Lex Fridman (18:57.720)
But I mean, with me is one thing.
Lex Fridman (18:59.800)
I'm an artist of sorts.
Rick Rubin (19:00.960)
I program and I'm just, I'm human, I guess.
Lex Fridman (19:06.680)
I guess we're all creating art.
Lex Fridman (19:08.680)
How do you see, like, how do I bring out?
Lex Fridman (19:10.680)
So for people who don't know,
Rick Rubin (19:14.820)
I mean, obviously everyone knows
Lex Fridman (19:16.520)
that you've produced some of the greatest records ever,
Lex Fridman (19:19.040)
but the way I see that is you just brought out the best
Lex Fridman (19:24.960)
in a lot of interesting artists.
Lex Fridman (19:27.520)
And so in order to bring out the best in them,
Lex Fridman (19:31.200)
you have to understand them.
Rick Rubin (19:33.540)
You have to hear the music of their soul,
Lex Fridman (19:38.120)
hopefully not being too romantic here,
Lex Fridman (19:39.800)
but just like, is there something you can say
Lex Fridman (19:45.580)
of how difficult that is, if there's a process,
Lex Fridman (19:48.600)
if there's tricks, if it's luck?
Lex Fridman (19:52.840)
I think it starts with this, again, coming in blank,
Rick Rubin (19:56.240)
like not having any preconceived ideas,
Lex Fridman (19:59.440)
being open and really listening,
Rick Rubin (1:00:00.760)
health and uh sometimes i would go to nashville and record with him at his house sometimes he
Rick Rubin (1:00:08.200)
would come to california but he was coming to california less regularly and because there was
Rick Rubin (1:00:14.600)
there were so many songs we wanted to try he would start sometimes recording just a straight
Rick Rubin (1:00:21.080)
acoustic version like you'd have someone play guitar he would sing and they would send those
Rick Rubin (1:00:27.160)
to me and we would discuss like is this one to build on um and that was when we said i don't
Rick Rubin (1:00:33.080)
want to record this one until we're together i feel like we should do this one together
Lex Fridman (1:00:37.000)
so on the next trip to california we recorded it at my at my old house
Lex Fridman (1:00:45.320)
and
Rick Rubin (1:00:51.000)
i mean all the songs we recorded felt special so i can't say this one felt special
Lex Fridman (1:00:55.240)
but lyrically it just it's more the the lyrics have such a profound
Rick Rubin (1:01:05.480)
sense of regret what have i become yeah and to hear when you're 20 years old talking about regret
Rick Rubin (1:01:13.800)
yeah it's heartbreaking but it's heartbreaking in a different way because you have your whole
Rick Rubin (1:01:17.480)
life to figure it out when you're looking back over your life at the end of your life with regret
Rick Rubin (1:01:23.160)
it's brutal yeah it's brutal so that was the initial spark of doing it and then we when we
Rick Rubin (1:01:30.840)
recorded it i believe it was um two guitar players if i remember correctly maybe even three um smoky
Rick Rubin (1:01:41.240)
hormel matt sweeney and mike campbell i believe and ben montench was playing the piano in my living
Rick Rubin (1:01:50.040)
room as we were doing it and we cut the basic track and with johnny singing and then johnny
Rick Rubin (1:01:59.000)
probably sang over that basic track a few more times and then we comped his vocal and then
Rick Rubin (1:02:08.840)
built up the drama and you didn't get to the part but at the end of the song it gets very loud the
Rick Rubin (1:02:13.240)
music gets very loud it's subtle because it's not anything that takes your ear and the vocal is so
Rick Rubin (1:02:20.440)
powerful that you don't really think about what's going on but it's building the whole time it's
Rick Rubin (1:02:23.880)
building and it even gets distorted at the end it gets really uh like over overpowering and that's
Rick Rubin (1:02:33.880)
part of the emotion of it you know it's uh i hear almost anger and frustration
Lex Fridman (1:03:11.560)
and it just rings out the clean vocal i mean it's so simple so incredible and it's interesting to
Rick Rubin (1:03:18.680)
have a young man's lyrics in in an old johnny cash voice and heart and mind i had um are you
Rick Rubin (1:03:29.080)
a fan of tom waits of course uh tom waits when he was younger had his this is a song called martha
Lex Fridman (1:03:36.360)
but there's a bunch of songs he's written when he was young it's like how does a young man
Rick Rubin (1:03:41.240)
have that like melancholy wisdom the song martha is about uh an older man calling a woman he used
Rick Rubin (1:03:51.000)
to love that she's now married and he's married and they're having that conversation they haven't
Rick Rubin (1:03:56.440)
spoken for 30 years and they realize that there's still love there and it could have been a different
Rick Rubin (1:04:02.120)
life a different world where they could have been together and here's like a 23 year old tom waits
Rick Rubin (1:04:07.960)
writing so beautifully about something that's very uh i've had a lot of people like tell me how
Rick Rubin (1:04:15.480)
real that uh as an older person looking back at that love that you had and realizing it wasn't
Rick Rubin (1:04:22.280)
it was really it's still there inklings of that love are still there i think there's a um
Rick Rubin (1:04:31.400)
when a young person writes a sad song
Lex Fridman (1:04:38.760)
they almost seem more willing to go to a more hopeless place
Rick Rubin (1:04:43.000)
because they have they have a so much time ahead and older artists tend to want to look at the
Rick Rubin (1:04:50.040)
bright side of things which which also i think comes from the wisdom of aging it's it's a more
Rick Rubin (1:04:55.080)
realistic position so it's not uncommon for younger people to write i think even in the
Rick Rubin (1:05:02.200)
beatles you'll see like they're very heavy lyrics um middle to late era beatles which is still you
Rick Rubin (1:05:11.400)
know they're in their 20s you know early 20s i guess wow that's hard to think about so much
Rick Rubin (1:05:17.080)
accomplished unbelievable and they they went through the full journey from fun to darkness
Rick Rubin (1:05:25.560)
in the span of a few years uh you mentioned lyrics um so you've obviously produced
Rick Rubin (1:05:33.560)
albums with incredible lyrics i think you've mentioned the interesting characteristics of
Rick Rubin (1:05:38.200)
hip hop of rap is that you're writing poetry to rhythm versus writing poetry to melody so
Rick Rubin (1:05:48.280)
that's like one way to think about it and i'm a fan i mean tom waits let it go i'm a fan of
Rick Rubin (1:05:53.880)
poetry period is there something um about highlighting the poetry of it the power of
Rick Rubin (1:06:02.760)
words as you did with with heart if uh like if i have to play it again it's one uh a tom waits song
Rick Rubin (1:06:11.720)
that's like less than a minute long that i always go back to it's one i really love and
Rick Rubin (1:06:17.080)
has just a few lines it's called i want you and all it is is him saying i want you
Rick Rubin (1:06:35.080)
i want you this is a 22 year old Tom Waits
Lex Fridman (1:06:47.640)
all i want is you
Rick Rubin (1:06:56.360)
give you stars above
Lex Fridman (1:06:57.960)
the sun on the brightest day
Rick Rubin (1:07:05.240)
giving you all my love
Lex Fridman (1:07:09.480)
if only you would see that i want you you you
Rick Rubin (1:07:15.400)
you all i want is you you you and then he hums for 20 more seconds beautiful so so
Rick Rubin (1:07:29.560)
simple man that young man like low and but for people who don't know tom waits you should
Rick Rubin (1:07:34.840)
definitely listen to him and his voice sounds very different now and it's interesting to see
Rick Rubin (1:07:39.000)
the evolution of a human voice the the artist over time because that's a young like boy like voice
Rick Rubin (1:07:48.040)
hopeful less clever less witty more simple that simplicity is there and he's not i mean that
Rick Rubin (1:07:55.080)
takes guts to be so simple i would say lyrically and uh musically is there um sort of laying that
Rick Rubin (1:08:05.240)
out on the table is there ways to that you like to highlight the voice the lyrics or there's no one
Rick Rubin (1:08:15.800)
rule so do you what is the thing that makes music special is it the rhythm the melody the
Rick Rubin (1:08:23.800)
uh or is ultimately the lyrics are always there or the idea you just asked me five different
Rick Rubin (1:08:29.480)
questions i don't care i'll just get that it's not about you you don't want the answers i'll listen
Rick Rubin (1:08:42.760)
uh i look forward to your comments the internet okay uh you have the greatest producer of all
Rick Rubin (1:08:49.480)
time in front of you and you can't shut the hell up that's right friends uh is but you do value
Rick Rubin (1:08:56.280)
lyrics is there a way to celebrate lyrics i value lyrics if the lyrics are important i'm not a lyric
Rick Rubin (1:09:02.680)
person i'm very much uh whatever the thing that makes the thing good is the thing that i'm drawn
Rick Rubin (1:09:09.880)
to for me um for a long time lyrics meant very little i would say from me really yes yes from
Rick Rubin (1:09:19.000)
the earliest days for your right to party beastie boys yeah it was it was fun i thought they were
Rick Rubin (1:09:24.280)
good lyrics but it wasn't what was important i mean it was in a in a almost a novelty way
Rick Rubin (1:09:31.000)
not in a serious way early in my career i was much more focused on the rhythm first the rhythm
Lex Fridman (1:09:41.560)
and i would if the lyrics weren't good enough i would be aware of it but it wasn't the driving
Rick Rubin (1:09:47.160)
force for me and eventually over time then melody became an important piece which it
Rick Rubin (1:09:52.440)
wasn't in the beginning and then uh lyrics became more important over time but it's always been a
Rick Rubin (1:10:01.880)
always changing what what draws me in and one of the things i found as it relates to lyrics that
Rick Rubin (1:10:08.440)
that can give a lyric a different power has to do with rhythm where if there's no drum
Lex Fridman (1:10:18.360)
um the lyrics tend to mean more
Lex Fridman (1:10:24.440)
so earlier what you were saying about if it was just acapella
Lex Fridman (1:10:28.680)
you felt you felt marvin gay in a different way hearing the acapella
Lex Fridman (1:10:32.440)
can you comment on i mean in terms of one of the greatest albums ever why does it sound so raw
Rick Rubin (1:10:51.240)
her voice she's just a great singer but this is that you're not doing anything else you're doing
Rick Rubin (1:10:56.760)
the uh there's there's there's strumming and then there's just a single beat
Lex Fridman (1:11:05.960)
and then it builds
Rick Rubin (1:11:14.040)
starting in my heart
Lex Fridman (1:11:25.080)
this gets simpler but it feels like it's a giant orchestra
Rick Rubin (1:11:29.320)
we almost had it all the scars of your love they leave me breathless i can't help feeling
Lex Fridman (1:11:38.040)
there's backing vocals
Rick Rubin (1:11:50.520)
the anger i love it
Rick Rubin (1:11:54.360)
i just there's something about uh such a powerful voice and the instruments not getting in the way
Rick Rubin (1:12:08.680)
i mean the same with the with hurt and johnny cash it is there um why does it sound so
Rick Rubin (1:12:17.400)
like raw it's the same as hurt there's a it feels like you're in the room with them it feels like
Rick Rubin (1:12:23.560)
they're not even singing they're like uh they're literally freshly mad and angry i think those are
Rick Rubin (1:12:30.680)
the things that make great singers sound like great singers it's not it's not anything that
Rick Rubin (1:12:35.400)
that's happening in the studio i mean we're i would say the only thing that us in the studio
Rick Rubin (1:12:41.240)
can do is kind of get out of the way and not not ruin it you know it's like that's that's
Lex Fridman (1:12:49.800)
what comes through of these these people i should also before i forget there is a lot of song choices
Rick Rubin (1:12:58.040)
on that cd i would love to see the full options on the cd that you sent to johnny cash that i love
Lex Fridman (1:13:03.560)
so solitary man is one of my favorite choices made there uh is it is that a neil damon song
Rick Rubin (1:13:11.160)
it's funny you talk about them as songs because i tend to i tend to listen more to albums than
Rick Rubin (1:13:16.760)
songs so if you really you're that's what you're doing your head you're pulling up the album
Rick Rubin (1:13:21.720)
essentially no i'm like i'm going to that song but i don't know i've never listened to that song
Lex Fridman (1:13:27.560)
but i know that when that when that song comes up in the sequence of the album
Rick Rubin (1:13:31.080)
um it has a really powerful effect in me let's see what it does if you just started
Rick Rubin (1:13:46.280)
if you could read my so interesting wow
Rick Rubin (1:13:59.480)
i could tell just like an old time movie about a ghost from a wishing well in a castle dark
Rick Rubin (1:14:13.960)
or a fortress strong with chains around my feet you know that ghost is me
Lex Fridman (1:14:23.640)
and i will never be set free as long as there's a ghost that you can see
Rick Rubin (1:14:39.000)
that's beautiful such a beautiful choice beautiful melody such a beautiful melody
Lex Fridman (1:14:44.120)
and haunting words sung so simply i i have to um i mean so uh i was born in the soviet union
Rick Rubin (1:14:56.120)
when when you when you're growing up uh there's a few bands that kind of i mean they're probably
Rick Rubin (1:15:06.360)
forbidden still but they seep in and you get like uh bootlegged and and they somehow take over the
Rick Rubin (1:15:14.600)
culture of the young of the young folk such as myself so uh on the metal side it was metallica
Lex Fridman (1:15:21.720)
and iron maiden and uh on the i don't know what you call them but beastie boys i remember hearing
Rick Rubin (1:15:31.000)
uh fight for your right and it was just like for some reason that stuck as it did for a lot of
Rick Rubin (1:15:37.960)
people in russia it's like wow america is when you get to say fuck you to the man the rebellion the
Rick Rubin (1:15:44.680)
freedom um i probably heard it uh a few years after it was released because it kind of it
Rick Rubin (1:15:51.720)
dissipates to the culture you get the bootlegged i mean it's hard to get your hands on but i just
Rick Rubin (1:15:56.200)
remember me i i wanted to kind of bring that up because it was such a personally important song
Rick Rubin (1:16:02.120)
to me and yet probably you didn't even think of that you probably thought of it as its role in
Rick Rubin (1:16:08.120)
the culture here in the united states like in terms of musically but i was you know 20 21 years old
Lex Fridman (1:16:15.880)
and we just well you were that kid too right we're just making fun songs for our friends there was
Rick Rubin (1:16:20.040)
no there was no uh expectation that's just a fun song yeah no one thought we never imagined anybody
Rick Rubin (1:16:26.680)
would like any of it one of the greatest albums ever yeah i have to it's i love this so much i
Rick Rubin (1:16:37.560)
just remember this is america i didn't even know i didn't even understand the lyrics to be honest
Lex Fridman (1:16:51.240)
and the lyrics are ridiculous
Lex Fridman (1:17:28.280)
so hearing that and hearing metallica master puppets i was like i knew i'm gonna have to end
Rick Rubin (1:17:34.120)
up in america one day i mean maybe now that i'm more mature or maybe a little bit more mature i
Rick Rubin (1:17:42.440)
realized like that was kind of the longing for freedom it felt like at least at the time if this
Rick Rubin (1:17:49.720)
is allowed that anything is allowed yeah and i think that uh the rebellion of it the uh is i
Rick Rubin (1:18:00.600)
guess it's also fun i just i just loved it is there if you look back to that because you're
Rick Rubin (1:18:05.800)
you're uh uh i mean you were that person not just the producer it feels like yes and no like it was
Rick Rubin (1:18:13.800)
even to us then it was still like satirical you know it wasn't oh absolutely but isn't like music
Rick Rubin (1:18:19.560)
in part like you're dancing in the line is part satirical part serious in in the sense like you're
Rick Rubin (1:18:26.120)
losing yourself in the satire like when you have anytime you go over the top isn't that part of the
Rick Rubin (1:18:34.840)
or is this is it explicitly satirical you make it fun i mean girls there's a lot of
Rick Rubin (1:18:39.640)
ridiculous songs in that album i don't know i just think it's it was definitely to make each
Rick Rubin (1:18:44.600)
other laugh like we were trying to make each other laugh we weren't trying to make a point we're
Rick Rubin (1:18:49.800)
trying to make each other laugh but that person how's that person different than the person today
Rick Rubin (1:18:57.080)
in you the the person that produced that i wouldn't say so different it's like it really is
Rick Rubin (1:19:01.960)
that that um i like things that make me laugh you know i like ridiculous things it's the same person
Rick Rubin (1:19:08.120)
still i think so that is a strange just how many incredible i mean i wouldn't i don't think i would
Rick Rubin (1:19:14.680)
make that today but i understand why we made it when we did it's uh in the vocabulary of of um
Rick Rubin (1:19:22.840)
ridiculous that would make sense to do you know for the right artist today could make something
Rick Rubin (1:19:28.520)
ridiculous and gives you that feeling i mean there's just a sense when you make so many
Rick Rubin (1:19:35.640)
many different albums then you look back at that creation and it can feel like a different person
Rick Rubin (1:19:43.720)
created that but you're making it seem like if you travel back in time or maybe do a memory replay
Rick Rubin (1:19:50.840)
you'll be able to hang out with the with a teenage and the 20s recruitment i think yeah i i don't
Rick Rubin (1:19:58.600)
i don't think i was so different honestly that's hilarious it's funny i ran into someone um recently
Rick Rubin (1:20:08.200)
in costa rica who i hadn't seen in a long time and who i knew from the new york days when
Rick Rubin (1:20:15.080)
those days and um and we spent a couple of hours talking and she said you're exactly
Rick Rubin (1:20:21.160)
the same person that you were then so i have a short you know a recent confirmation that that's
Rick Rubin (1:20:29.480)
the case that's beautiful was it tim ferris asked you about like who's the most successful person
Rick Rubin (1:20:34.440)
you know that's the definition of success i would say it's exactly the same person you haven't lost
Rick Rubin (1:20:40.200)
yourself and or rather you found yourself early on i would say there there are aspects of me that
Rick Rubin (1:20:46.120)
have changed for sure um but i but i can't say that it's that it's necessarily better it's
Rick Rubin (1:20:54.680)
different um at that i would say at that time i was more confident than i am now and i'm very
Rick Rubin (1:21:04.120)
confident now but then i had an unrealistic um confidence and i think now it's a little more
Rick Rubin (1:21:11.480)
um based in reality at that point in time i had never been depressed and then once you go through
Rick Rubin (1:21:18.120)
a depression you well some people i know in my case and when i went through depression afterwards
Rick Rubin (1:21:25.240)
i was a different person than i was before and i and i feel more um grounded now than i did then
Lex Fridman (1:21:33.800)
and i probably relate to the artists who so many of the artists i work with suffer so many artists
Rick Rubin (1:21:40.920)
suffer because that's part of what makes an artist great is their level of sensitivity
Rick Rubin (1:21:47.080)
that this the same thing that makes uh an artist uncomfortable other people don't feel at all
Rick Rubin (1:21:53.160)
people don't feel at all the time you were depressed what was the darkest moments of your
Rick Rubin (1:22:02.600)
life what took you there how did you get out it was triggered by a person making a comment about
Rick Rubin (1:22:10.600)
something to do with work that didn't matter you know it was like uh to anyone else they would
Rick Rubin (1:22:17.240)
hear that and it would just be like okay we'll deal with it next week whatever but for some
Rick Rubin (1:22:21.320)
reason i took it in a way that um i felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me even beyond
Rick Rubin (1:22:28.920)
the rational part of it of understanding you know even after the problem that came up was solved
Rick Rubin (1:22:36.120)
it somehow undermined something in me and made me feel very vulnerable in a way that i hadn't felt
Rick Rubin (1:22:42.760)
before and it spiraled how did you get out i did a lot of different kinds of therapy i did um
Rick Rubin (1:22:52.840)
starting with alternative therapies i was seeing i would say between seven and eight
Rick Rubin (1:23:00.280)
doctors and or therapists a week um acupuncture uh talk therapy um herbs or any any possible
Rick Rubin (1:23:16.040)
modality tried everything for a long time and um and and nothing seemed to have an impact and then
Rick Rubin (1:23:26.920)
finally um i'm wary of taking any western medicine i'm not a drug taker and or drinker
Rick Rubin (1:23:39.880)
partier in any way and um i found a a psychopharmacologist who was a psychic
Lex Fridman (1:23:50.280)
but because she was a psychic i was okay to see her because she's like i'll i'll do i'll listen
Rick Rubin (1:23:55.160)
to a psychic yeah but i'm not going to listen to a psychopharmacologist but the fact that she had
Rick Rubin (1:24:00.920)
the the psychic uh that made her fit into my world view and um and she recommended antidepressant which
Rick Rubin (1:24:10.680)
went terribly wrong in the first night that i took it and then i that set me on a journey
Rick Rubin (1:24:15.560)
of looking for the right antidepressant which was a long and painful process heck of a journey
Rick Rubin (1:24:21.080)
every one that i took made me sick everyone and then finally i don't know five months later six
Rick Rubin (1:24:27.560)
months later i found the magic one that worked for me and it um it shifted me out of the depression
Rick Rubin (1:24:36.920)
i took it for my camera was six months or a year and then weaned off and was okay and then i had
Rick Rubin (1:24:43.960)
another event some years later i think i took it again for a short period of time and got out of it
Lex Fridman (1:24:50.760)
and i've not needed it since were you able to kind of introspect the triggers that led to the events
Lex Fridman (1:24:58.360)
is there something or is it random events of life i think it's more that um
Rick Rubin (1:25:05.480)
because of the way that i grew up i never had to deal with much controversy
Rick Rubin (1:25:12.280)
ah and um when i when i was challenged i didn't have any ability to deal with it
Rick Rubin (1:25:21.720)
it's like um you know jonathan hight talks about it's like that so you've actually also mentioned
Rick Rubin (1:25:27.960)
like business sometimes gives you stress so these this was business related stuff yeah
Rick Rubin (1:25:33.960)
it was a business related thing it just made me feel bad it's one of the sadder things about art
Lex Fridman (1:25:39.560)
and music is that it's often interleaved with business folk i suppose that's the way of the
Rick Rubin (1:25:47.160)
world if you have a capitalist system but it makes that business folks rubbing up against artists
Rick Rubin (1:25:55.960)
um can sometimes destroy a fragile mind and soul like uh to me like one of the best representations
Rick Rubin (1:26:06.360)
of an artist honestly johnny i have the designer from apple and he's just so fragile with his
Rick Rubin (1:26:12.040)
ideas and you talked about like when he has ideas he really wouldn't show it to steve jobs or anybody
Rick Rubin (1:26:17.480)
except for a small design team because he was so nervous that it would it would break let's give
Rick Rubin (1:26:22.760)
it a chance let it give it a chance to grow and it seems like the outside world uh business people
Rick Rubin (1:26:30.120)
pr people people kind of um have not lost themselves in the passion of creating but instead
Rick Rubin (1:26:37.480)
of kind of representing or like making deals all that kind of stuff they they can kind of trample
Rick Rubin (1:26:43.400)
on those little ideas and it's it's sad to see yeah it's really it's really heartbreaking to
Rick Rubin (1:26:49.880)
see because you know how much trampling there's going on it's one of the main jobs my jobs as a
Rick Rubin (1:26:55.240)
record producer is to um keep the keep the voices away from the artist from all the people who are
Rick Rubin (1:27:04.600)
really on their side but don't know you know like the uh whether it be people um anyone on the
Rick Rubin (1:27:11.160)
business side who doesn't make things they're excited to do their part you know they're excited
Rick Rubin (1:27:17.880)
if when you deliver the thing the the art that you make to me then we can start the project yeah um
Lex Fridman (1:27:25.160)
but there's nothing to sell if the art doesn't happen in the right way and it has to be protected
Lex Fridman (1:27:31.400)
and it can't happen on the same kind of a timetable that um that business can it's just a
Rick Rubin (1:27:39.400)
different thing it doesn't art doesn't come in a quarterly way and that doesn't apply just to music
Rick Rubin (1:27:45.640)
or it applies to art it applies to all creative pursuits like this is generally the case like at
Rick Rubin (1:27:51.560)
mit it's just there's the administration and then there is the professors and students and the
Rick Rubin (1:28:00.520)
professors students are the creative folk yeah they create stuff they dream they have wild ideas
Rick Rubin (1:28:06.280)
that go on tangents and so on they they uh they have hopes and they they go with those and they
Rick Rubin (1:28:11.320)
get like on these weird passionate pursuits and then the administration can often just trample on
Rick Rubin (1:28:16.760)
that um and they they set up bars on all kinds of in all kinds of ways that you think you're not
Rick Rubin (1:28:25.000)
actually hurting um but you really are and you know i won't mention why but because this happens
Rick Rubin (1:28:34.120)
to everybody and i have a large amount of leverage at mit now but even i get a little bit of pressure
Rick Rubin (1:28:39.800)
in such stupid ways to like don't like be careful be careful like we really want your career to
Rick Rubin (1:28:48.920)
succeed be careful and that little pressure to an artist you know do you want to go acapella
Lex Fridman (1:28:55.160)
do you want to go do you want to do a country record like be careful like you're already a
Rick Rubin (1:29:00.280)
superstar be careful yeah and then in that way you kind of push people like flock of fish into
Rick Rubin (1:29:06.920)
one fish tank where they're all the same and it's it's sad to see and it's obviously in the modern
Rick Rubin (1:29:13.080)
world there's nice mechanism to protect to let artists flourish a little bit more because they
Rick Rubin (1:29:18.680)
get to put themselves to the world and get a little bit more confidence maybe different funding
Rick Rubin (1:29:23.080)
mechanisms all that kind of stuff but tremendous problem that the the voices that don't understand
Rick Rubin (1:29:29.320)
interfering with the process is huge the other side of it is in success there can be a lack of
Rick Rubin (1:29:35.560)
there can be a lack of reality where all of the people around the successful person just tell
Rick Rubin (1:29:41.000)
them everything they do is great and then they they don't have anything to bump up against anymore
Rick Rubin (1:29:47.000)
have a realistic uh sense of what's what how things work or how how it how the how things measure you
Rick Rubin (1:29:57.240)
know um so both sides are really important both both avoiding the voices getting in the way
Lex Fridman (1:30:06.920)
and having a trusted group of you know a sangha a group of people who can say you know i don't
Rick Rubin (1:30:15.080)
know if that's as good and you can still you know say i don't care what you think that's fine
Lex Fridman (1:30:20.040)
but it helps to hear it you know it helps to have if someone who you respect tells you something
Rick Rubin (1:30:29.400)
isn't good enough it's helpful when you know it comes from a place of love when it comes from a
Rick Rubin (1:30:34.280)
place of wisdom 100 percent and not from a place of fear not from a place of oh this doesn't sound
Rick Rubin (1:30:40.200)
like it's going to do as well as your last thing that's yeah that's not the point the point is on
Rick Rubin (1:30:46.520)
this uh quest for greatness are you living up to your ability by the way is there something
Rick Rubin (1:30:55.960)
interesting to say about your world view because you mentioned psychic and instead of the ways
Rick Rubin (1:31:02.120)
we can be healthy the ways we can grow and how much maybe medicine or science or has
Rick Rubin (1:31:11.160)
um has the answers is there is there some interesting way to describe that world view
Rick Rubin (1:31:17.960)
i would just say i'm open mind i believe anything's possible
Lex Fridman (1:31:22.520)
and if i was going to trust in any practical information it would be something thousands
Rick Rubin (1:31:28.040)
of years old there's wisdom in that history yeah well it's it's more tested it's not always right
Lex Fridman (1:31:37.320)
but it's at least it's been somewhat tested so science is also tested the thing i'm a little
Rick Rubin (1:31:44.760)
bit skeptical of sometimes is just the hubris that often comes with the modern with the latest
Rick Rubin (1:31:49.560)
the newest the this this feeling like you figured it all out everything that's been done in the past
Rick Rubin (1:31:55.080)
has no wisdom and uh we basically solved every problem uh you know there's nothing else to be
Lex Fridman (1:32:01.160)
solved this i mean that's the defining characteristic of any age is like we've
Rick Rubin (1:32:05.160)
solved all the problems there are we have the final answers and our parents are all stupid
Rick Rubin (1:32:11.560)
that kind of energy yeah and that you have to be extremely extremely careful with that when it
Rick Rubin (1:32:15.480)
talks about when you think about something as complex as the human body or the human mind
Rick Rubin (1:32:19.800)
you have to be very very very we know close to nothing yeah exactly close to nothing that's about
Rick Rubin (1:32:27.560)
anything about anything about anything that place of humility is a good place to start to figure
Rick Rubin (1:32:33.000)
to figure it all out and in the end we'll still know almost nothing yeah i don't think we need to
Rick Rubin (1:32:38.200)
know it's like we need to see what works and we need to see what works for us it's interesting to
Rick Rubin (1:32:44.280)
know i i know on the art side knowing how it works isn't what makes it work you know isn't the magic
Rick Rubin (1:32:52.360)
of it isn't how it works the magic is the magic and the magic happens in a way that's intuitive
Lex Fridman (1:33:00.040)
and accidental at times or uh incidental where you're trying many things all of a sudden something
Rick Rubin (1:33:06.440)
works and um and you don't know why and it's okay not to know why it doesn't matter it doesn't
Rick Rubin (1:33:13.160)
really matter why as long as it does the thing that you want it to do whatever that is yeah
Rick Rubin (1:33:19.560)
that's so weird when you know the components you don't you still yeah the magic what's the magic
Rick Rubin (1:33:25.240)
where's the magic like we know the components for stuff i care about artificial intelligence we know
Rick Rubin (1:33:29.880)
the components of a powerful computing machinery where does consciousness come from what is that
Rick Rubin (1:33:39.320)
uh where does the uh brilliant moments of insight come from what's that when uh even in simple games
Rick Rubin (1:33:47.960)
of chess or in simple where do those breakthrough ideas of taking the big risk that doesn't make any
Rick Rubin (1:33:54.680)
sense and then all of a sudden it becomes something beautiful yeah we don't need to understand why it
Rick Rubin (1:33:58.840)
just happens it just happens and often the things that end up breaking through don't break through
Rick Rubin (1:34:05.320)
in the way we thought or turn out to be a third iteration of something that we thought was an
Rick Rubin (1:34:10.680)
entirely different thing or we don't know you know it's and i i think it's if we embrace that not
Rick Rubin (1:34:17.800)
knowing we'll have a healthier experience going through life you made a lot it's not just music
Rick Rubin (1:34:25.000)
everything rearranging the chairs the furniture as well you've done like i said the documentary
Rick Rubin (1:34:30.600)
i guess you would say with paul mccartney and um you've done a podcast yourself uh broken
Rick Rubin (1:34:38.920)
record podcast and just you've done conversation too so what have you learned from that process
Rick Rubin (1:34:45.080)
about the art of conversation and also maybe what advice would you give to this uh to me about how
Lex Fridman (1:34:54.680)
what to do with conversation like what is interesting to you about conversation one of the
Rick Rubin (1:34:59.080)
things that i i like is to not feel like it's there is any stakes or that it's actually almost
Rick Rubin (1:35:09.080)
that it's not happening like the fact that when i came in you were setting up cameras made it less
Rick Rubin (1:35:16.200)
good from for me i knew that that would impact the conversation in a negative way the best version
Rick Rubin (1:35:21.160)
of it would be if we didn't see the cameras and if we were and we didn't see any technology
Lex Fridman (1:35:27.320)
and we didn't see any technology and we were just sitting at this table having a conversation
Rick Rubin (1:35:31.880)
maybe even if we were miked beforehand would be okay if it was necessary but then we were just
Rick Rubin (1:35:38.040)
sitting here having a conversation no people in the room nothing and feeling like we're just
Rick Rubin (1:35:41.960)
having a conversation i feel like it would get closer to um closer to the relaxed feeling same
Rick Rubin (1:35:53.800)
thing we do in the studios like you know you've heard of red light fever you know when uh artists
Rick Rubin (1:35:58.120)
get nervous when like they play a song great and then the tape starts rolling and they can't play
Rick Rubin (1:36:02.280)
it and it's we're all we're all to some degree like that when you were with paul mccartney i mean
Rick Rubin (1:36:08.280)
you're did were you cognizant of cameras we had the room black everybody who was working there
Rick Rubin (1:36:16.200)
was dressed in black everything was invisible that we were lit in a way where even though
Rick Rubin (1:36:22.680)
there were probably 20 people between 12 and 20 people working in the room within three minutes
Rick Rubin (1:36:31.000)
of starting the conversation paul and i were alone in the room so it that was the the feeling
Rick Rubin (1:36:36.360)
on occasion you'd hear a noise and it would be weird people we also had nobody was allowed to
Rick Rubin (1:36:41.080)
wear shoes because it had to we were trying to create this intimate space and and i know from
Rick Rubin (1:36:48.360)
in the recording studio when we're recording if even one person is there that's just watching
Lex Fridman (1:36:56.760)
and not working you know like does like there's usually i'm usually there and an engineer is there
Rick Rubin (1:37:01.960)
technically making it happen if anyone else is in the room it's different because then it goes from
Rick Rubin (1:37:08.520)
this moment where the person's doing a performance to the sense or where the person is
Rick Rubin (1:37:13.560)
is feeling something internally and we're capturing it to the the other version is
Rick Rubin (1:37:23.240)
they're performing for someone it's so interesting so like to push back in the alternatives here so
Rick Rubin (1:37:29.080)
one about the third person not to make people self conscious but i find that i'm so torn on that
Rick Rubin (1:37:37.000)
because sometimes when that person uh like um so evan is in the room here he's been in the
Rick Rubin (1:37:42.360)
room before he's a huge fan of yours by the way uh so he'll he'll nod yeah he'll get excited he's
Rick Rubin (1:37:51.800)
like and you can see that nodding and for some reason for me he's like yeah yeah you get it like
Rick Rubin (1:37:58.120)
yeah you get excited together i mean that's that third person can be like a really special so
Rick Rubin (1:38:04.120)
having an audience uh when it's a friend or somebody that has that love in them it depends
Rick Rubin (1:38:10.760)
on the performer right yeah some people really thrive in front of an audience and you're saying
Rick Rubin (1:38:17.720)
you like that simple intimacy well i like the reality of it not being i want it to be as far
Rick Rubin (1:38:23.400)
from a performance as possible got it and if if someone i'll tell you a story a story that just
Rick Rubin (1:38:30.600)
happened and it was viewed as kind of a it seemed uncool in the moment to the person that it happened
Rick Rubin (1:38:36.280)
to it wasn't at all um we were recording the new chili peppers album which is coming out i think
Rick Rubin (1:38:43.560)
any day now like uh i don't know what today's date is but within the next it maybe by the
Rick Rubin (1:38:48.280)
time this airs it will be out and um the band was playing in the studio and it was ripping
Rick Rubin (1:38:56.200)
because they play they're incredible and um one of the members walked through the control room
Rick Rubin (1:39:04.120)
after a particularly great performance and um the engineer said wow that solo is really great
Lex Fridman (1:39:13.640)
and the person who heard this said please don't say that and walked away it's like it it was
Rick Rubin (1:39:21.240)
not it it just changed yeah this feeling of we're in this place where we're doing this thing and
Rick Rubin (1:39:28.120)
there's there is no outside world yeah you know we're doing this for us we're going as deep as
Rick Rubin (1:39:33.880)
we can for us and as soon as there's an acknowledgement to someone else in a way
Rick Rubin (1:39:39.400)
it breaks the concentration of being inside of it that's so well told and but it's something
Rick Rubin (1:39:48.680)
about saying wow that's always great is is uh shows the it reminds you that there's an outside
Rick Rubin (1:39:54.440)
world but i feel like there's a way to enter the inside world as an audience so you just have to
Rick Rubin (1:40:01.800)
do that so it matters what you say it matters how you look it matters uh so there's like these
Rick Rubin (1:40:10.600)
generic compliments not generic but they they sound in the way an outside world would interact
Rick Rubin (1:40:17.800)
as opposed to in that creative thing where you're dancing around the fire together or something
Rick Rubin (1:40:22.760)
it was actually i can tell you there's another interesting one that happened to me and i didn't
Rick Rubin (1:40:26.280)
know this until i saw the film of it which was a strange one um we were recording with the avid
Rick Rubin (1:40:32.680)
brothers and um the song was called no hard feelings and it was this recording of no hard
Rick Rubin (1:40:40.120)
feelings
Lex Fridman (1:41:02.360)
when my body won't hold me anymore
Rick Rubin (1:41:05.800)
it finally lets me free well i'll be ready
Lex Fridman (1:41:17.480)
when my feet won't walk another such a great voice so beautiful
Rick Rubin (1:41:23.160)
kissed goodbye will my hands be steady when i lay down my fears my hopes and my doubts
Lex Fridman (1:41:36.440)
the rings on my fingers and the keys to my house with no hard feelings
Rick Rubin (1:41:47.080)
when the sun hangs low in the west and the light in my chest won't be kept
Lex Fridman (1:42:02.520)
hell today any longer
Rick Rubin (1:42:04.680)
when the jealousy fades away so bright so hopeful so lighthearted
Lex Fridman (1:42:17.720)
and it's just hallelujah and love involved love in the words
Rick Rubin (1:42:25.640)
love in the songs they sing in the church and no hard feelings
Lex Fridman (1:42:39.480)
Lord knows they have it done
Rick Rubin (1:42:45.480)
much good for anyone kept me afraid and cold
Lex Fridman (1:42:57.320)
with so much to have and more
Rick Rubin (1:43:03.320)
when my body won't hold me anymore it finally lets me free
Lex Fridman (1:43:21.160)
is he sound as good as good, yeah? yes, every bit
Rick Rubin (1:43:37.160)
of snow from the heavens will i join with the ocean blue or run into the savior true
Lex Fridman (1:43:55.160)
and shake hands laughing and walk through the night straight to the light
Rick Rubin (1:44:05.160)
holding the love i've known in my life and no hard feelings
Lex Fridman (1:44:17.160)
Lord knows they have it done much good for anyone kept me afraid and cold
Rick Rubin (1:44:37.160)
with so much to have and more
Lex Fridman (1:44:43.160)
under the burning sky i'm finally learning why
Rick Rubin (1:44:57.160)
it matters for me and you to say it and mean it too
Lex Fridman (1:45:09.160)
life is loneliness
Rick Rubin (1:45:17.160)
it's loneliness
Lex Fridman (1:45:21.160)
good as it's been to me
Rick Rubin (1:45:27.160)
i have no enemies
Lex Fridman (1:45:33.160)
i have no enemies
Rick Rubin (1:45:39.160)
i have no enemies
Lex Fridman (1:45:45.160)
i have no enemies
Rick Rubin (1:45:51.160)
i have no enemies
Lex Fridman (1:46:07.160)
i have no enemies
Rick Rubin (1:46:25.160)
i have no enemies
Lex Fridman (1:46:41.160)
i have no enemies
Rick Rubin (1:46:57.160)
i have no enemies
Lex Fridman (1:47:15.160)
i have no enemies
Rick Rubin (1:47:35.160)
i have no enemies
Lex Fridman (1:47:45.160)
i have no enemies
Rick Rubin (1:48:05.160)
i have no enemies
Lex Fridman (1:48:15.160)
i have no enemies
Rick Rubin (1:48:35.160)
i have no enemies
Lex Fridman (1:48:45.160)
i have no enemies
Rick Rubin (1:48:55.160)
i have no enemies
Lex Fridman (1:49:05.160)
i have no enemies
Rick Rubin (1:49:25.160)
i have no enemies
Lex Fridman (1:49:35.160)
i have no enemies
Rick Rubin (1:49:55.160)
i have no enemies
Lex Fridman (1:50:05.160)
i have no enemies
Rick Rubin (1:50:15.160)
i have no enemies
Lex Fridman (1:50:25.160)
i have no enemies
Rick Rubin (1:50:49.160)
i have no enemies
Lex Fridman (1:50:59.160)
i have no enemies
Rick Rubin (1:51:09.160)
i have no enemies
Lex Fridman (1:51:19.160)
i have no enemies
Rick Rubin (1:51:43.160)
i have no enemies
Lex Fridman (1:51:53.160)
i have no enemies
Rick Rubin (1:52:17.160)
i have no enemies
Lex Fridman (1:52:37.160)
i have no enemies
Rick Rubin (1:52:57.160)
i have no enemies
Lex Fridman (1:53:17.160)
i have no enemies
Rick Rubin (1:53:37.160)
i have no enemies
Lex Fridman (1:53:57.160)
i have no enemies
Rick Rubin (1:54:17.160)
i have no enemies
Lex Fridman (1:54:37.160)
i have no enemies
Rick Rubin (1:54:57.160)
i have no enemies
Lex Fridman (1:55:17.160)
i have no enemies
Rick Rubin (1:55:37.160)
i have no enemies
Lex Fridman (1:55:57.160)
i have no enemies
Rick Rubin (1:56:17.160)
i have no enemies
Lex Fridman (1:56:37.160)
i have no enemies
Rick Rubin (1:56:57.160)
i have no enemies
Lex Fridman (1:57:17.160)
i have no enemies
Rick Rubin (1:57:37.160)
i have no enemies
Lex Fridman (1:57:57.160)
i have no enemies
Rick Rubin (1:58:17.160)
i have no enemies
Lex Fridman (1:58:37.160)
i have no enemies
Rick Rubin (1:58:57.160)
i have no enemies
Lex Fridman (1:59:17.160)
i have no enemies
Rick Rubin (1:59:37.160)
i have no enemies
Lex Fridman (1:59:57.160)
i have no enemies
Rick Rubin (20:01.840)
listening and not thinking about what you're gonna say next
Lex Fridman (20:05.960)
or what your opinion is or any, you know,
Rick Rubin (20:08.140)
not basically being a recorder
Lex Fridman (20:12.040)
and just hearing what comes in.
Lex Fridman (20:14.040)
And then once you hear what comes in,
Lex Fridman (20:16.180)
processing that information
Lex Fridman (20:19.160)
and trying our best to do that
Lex Fridman (20:22.160)
without any of the beliefs that we might have
Rick Rubin (20:25.780)
to impact what that is.
Lex Fridman (20:28.720)
If I ask you a question, I don't wanna hear what,
Rick Rubin (20:32.000)
I don't wanna listen to you
Lex Fridman (20:34.080)
and have any reaction happening when you're speaking.
Rick Rubin (20:38.000)
I wanna be as neutral as possible.
Lex Fridman (20:41.120)
For me, my goal is not to form an opinion,
Rick Rubin (20:46.960)
it's to understand.
Lex Fridman (20:48.920)
So if anything, I would draw you out further
Lex Fridman (20:52.440)
and just ask questions to really understand.
Lex Fridman (20:56.960)
And if you say, or if you say something
Rick Rubin (20:58.800)
that somehow triggers me in a way that that's, you know,
Lex Fridman (21:05.560)
I wonder how he came to that.
Rick Rubin (21:08.200)
I wouldn't challenge you, I would ask,
Lex Fridman (21:11.080)
like, how did you find that?
Lex Fridman (21:12.480)
You know, how did you get to that place?
Lex Fridman (21:14.920)
From a place of curiosity, you would try to figure out.
Rick Rubin (21:17.360)
Yeah, I wanna understand who the person is.
Lex Fridman (21:20.360)
And through questioning, we can usually get there.
Rick Rubin (21:22.680)
Or through just spending time together,
Lex Fridman (21:26.240)
you find out who the person is.
Lex Fridman (21:29.280)
What about finding out and figuring out
Lex Fridman (21:31.760)
how to then take the next steps
Lex Fridman (21:33.520)
of bringing out the best in them?
Lex Fridman (21:37.800)
Like, is it just trial and error?
Rick Rubin (21:40.060)
Like, let's try this.
Lex Fridman (21:41.280)
It's definitely trial and error.
Rick Rubin (21:42.840)
It's always trial and error.
Lex Fridman (21:45.200)
Are you afraid of making a mistake?
Rick Rubin (21:46.720)
Like, let's add this instrument,
Lex Fridman (21:48.760)
let's remove this instrument.
Rick Rubin (21:50.440)
Let's add this line, let's remove this line.
Lex Fridman (21:52.560)
Let's try.
Lex Fridman (21:53.380)
And let's be open.
Lex Fridman (21:55.400)
So one of the, we don't really have rules,
Lex Fridman (21:59.840)
but one of the agreements in the studio is
Lex Fridman (22:03.000)
any idea that anyone has will always demonstrate it,
Rick Rubin (22:07.820)
will always try it.
Lex Fridman (22:09.640)
Because I can describe to you an idea
Lex Fridman (22:12.000)
and you can think, that's a terrible idea,
Lex Fridman (22:14.520)
let's not do that.
Lex Fridman (22:16.380)
And then I can play you the idea
Lex Fridman (22:18.080)
and then you can say, oh, that's really good.
Lex Fridman (22:19.560)
And it's completely different because we,
Lex Fridman (22:22.020)
when we hear, when we're told something,
Rick Rubin (22:25.080)
we have to imagine what that is
Lex Fridman (22:28.840)
and the way you see something and imagine it
Lex Fridman (22:30.920)
and the way I see something and imagine it
Lex Fridman (22:32.280)
are completely different.
Lex Fridman (22:33.480)
So you say a thing and now there's two humans
Lex Fridman (22:36.400)
that play that thing in their mind differently,
Rick Rubin (22:39.200)
in their imagination, and then there's a cool creative step
Lex Fridman (22:43.060)
and when you actually do it,
Rick Rubin (22:44.640)
to see how it differs in the imagination,
Lex Fridman (22:46.640)
and then the difference or the commonality
Rick Rubin (22:49.200)
will be like an exciting little discovery together.
Lex Fridman (22:52.040)
Well, so many groups of people
Rick Rubin (22:55.020)
making things together in a room,
Lex Fridman (22:57.180)
one person will suggest something
Lex Fridman (22:59.220)
and someone else in the room say,
Lex Fridman (23:00.200)
ah, that doesn't sound like a good idea,
Rick Rubin (23:01.840)
let's not do that, and then they move on.
Lex Fridman (23:05.200)
The testing of every idea is really important
Lex Fridman (23:07.780)
and that's how you get to see,
Lex Fridman (23:09.760)
oh, that's not at all what I thought it was gonna be.
Rick Rubin (23:11.640)
Happens to me all the time, I know,
Lex Fridman (23:13.420)
because someone will suggest, why don't we do it like this?
Lex Fridman (23:16.760)
And I'll think, that sounds bad,
Lex Fridman (23:19.760)
and then I'll think, okay, let's try it,
Lex Fridman (23:21.280)
and then we hear it, and then eight times out of 10,
Lex Fridman (23:24.560)
it's nothing like I imagined and great.
Lex Fridman (23:28.160)
And then you try not to have an ego
Lex Fridman (23:29.480)
about the fact that you thought
Rick Rubin (23:31.260)
it was not a good idea in your head.
Lex Fridman (23:33.520)
There can't be any ego in this.
Rick Rubin (23:36.860)
It doesn't, if everyone's there
Lex Fridman (23:41.860)
with the purpose of making the best thing we can,
Rick Rubin (23:47.980)
there's nothing else.
Lex Fridman (23:49.260)
There are no, there can't be any boundaries to that.
Lex Fridman (23:53.580)
So there's a moment I saw with,
Lex Fridman (23:56.020)
I know you don't love talking
Rick Rubin (23:58.220)
about previous things you've done,
Lex Fridman (24:00.900)
but it's cool to dive in there every once in a while.
Rick Rubin (24:02.820)
I'm fine to talk about anything.
Lex Fridman (24:04.060)
To sample it, anything?
Rick Rubin (24:06.900)
We'll see.
Lex Fridman (24:07.740)
I have this pain I gotta talk now.
Rick Rubin (24:09.140)
I'll think of something ridiculous
Lex Fridman (24:12.540)
that would make you change your mind.
Rick Rubin (24:16.460)
You mentioned, I saw a video of you with Jay Z
Lex Fridman (24:19.820)
at Workaround 99 Problems where you suggested acapella,
Rick Rubin (24:23.400)
opening the song with acapella,
Lex Fridman (24:25.380)
just no instruments, just voice.
Rick Rubin (24:28.140)
That to me, I mean, that's one of the characteristics
Lex Fridman (24:33.380)
of the things, of the ways you've brought out
Rick Rubin (24:36.380)
the best in artists is doing less.
Lex Fridman (24:38.680)
Sort of the tending towards simplicity in some kind of way.
Lex Fridman (24:43.140)
So that choice of acapella is really interesting
Lex Fridman (24:45.620)
because I could see a lot of people think
Rick Rubin (24:47.580)
that that's a bad idea,
Lex Fridman (24:50.180)
but it turned out to be a really powerful idea.
Lex Fridman (24:52.260)
Can you maybe talk about the simplicity,
Lex Fridman (24:55.380)
how to find simplicity, why you find simplicity is beautiful.
Rick Rubin (24:58.900)
It does appear to be beautiful.
Lex Fridman (25:00.820)
What is that?
Rick Rubin (25:01.840)
Yeah, I don't know where it comes from.
Lex Fridman (25:04.180)
It has been with me from the beginning of my work,
Rick Rubin (25:07.420)
the very first album I ever produced,
Lex Fridman (25:10.800)
the credit I took was reduced by me
Rick Rubin (25:12.820)
instead of produced by me for that reason.
Lex Fridman (25:16.540)
I like the idea of getting to the essential
Lex Fridman (25:19.460)
and I have a better idea now that I've done it for a while,
Lex Fridman (25:24.580)
but at the time it was purely an instinctual thing.
Lex Fridman (25:28.900)
And part of it is a sonic, there's a sonic benefit,
Lex Fridman (25:33.060)
which is the less elements you have, you can hear each
Rick Rubin (25:39.020)
of the ones that are there and they can sound better.
Lex Fridman (25:42.900)
And the less there are, the more space they could have
Rick Rubin (25:47.180)
around them and the more you can hear their personality.
Lex Fridman (25:49.860)
If you were to record 10 people playing the same guitar part
Lex Fridman (25:55.400)
and you listened to it, it would sound like guitar.
Lex Fridman (25:58.660)
And if you record one person playing a guitar part,
Rick Rubin (26:02.740)
it sounds like a person playing the guitar.
Lex Fridman (26:05.580)
It's different than just guitar.
Lex Fridman (26:08.300)
And often in the studio, the idea of building upon things
Lex Fridman (26:14.500)
and adding layers to thicken, to make it sound bigger,
Rick Rubin (26:18.440)
sometimes the more things you add, the smaller it gets.
Lex Fridman (26:24.000)
So a lot of it is counterintuitive
Rick Rubin (26:27.460)
until you just in practice see what works.
Lex Fridman (26:30.940)
Try it, to try removing stuff until it's just right.
Rick Rubin (26:33.740)
It's the Einstein thing, make it as simple as possible,
Lex Fridman (26:39.260)
but not simpler.
Rick Rubin (26:40.820)
That's such a, like finding a stopping place,
Lex Fridman (26:44.460)
just keep chopping away and chopping away.
Rick Rubin (26:47.460)
Yeah, there's something we also like to do
Lex Fridman (26:49.580)
called the ruthless edit, which is,
Rick Rubin (26:51.460)
let's say you're at a point where it can work for anything,
Lex Fridman (26:55.100)
but I'll give you the example with an album.
Rick Rubin (26:57.300)
We've recorded 25 songs.
Lex Fridman (27:02.580)
We think the album is gonna have 10.
Rick Rubin (27:05.100)
Instead of picking our favorite 10,
Lex Fridman (27:08.080)
we limit it to what are the five or six
Rick Rubin (27:11.900)
that we can't live without.
Lex Fridman (27:14.300)
So going past even the goal to get to the real heart of it
Lex Fridman (27:20.780)
and then see, okay, we have these five or six
Lex Fridman (27:22.500)
that we can't live without.
Rick Rubin (27:24.260)
Now, what would we add to that
Lex Fridman (27:28.220)
that makes it better and not worse?
Rick Rubin (27:34.780)
It's just, it puts you in a different frame
Lex Fridman (27:38.540)
when you start with building instead of removing.
Lex Fridman (27:42.860)
And you might find that there's nothing you need to add.
Lex Fridman (27:45.380)
Sometimes, sometimes something happens
Rick Rubin (27:48.900)
when you get to the real essence.
Lex Fridman (27:51.360)
Then when you start adding things back,
Rick Rubin (27:52.720)
it becomes clear that it was just supposed to be
Lex Fridman (27:56.820)
this tight little thing.
Lex Fridman (28:00.140)
Can I ask you like a therapy session question?
Lex Fridman (28:02.220)
So you mentioned somewhere that one way
Rick Rubin (28:05.660)
to kind of think about music to get into music
Lex Fridman (28:09.940)
is to look at the top like 100 albums of all time
Lex Fridman (28:12.920)
and just go down the list and like,
Lex Fridman (28:14.940)
just take it all in like one piece of artwork.
Lex Fridman (28:17.620)
So I was doing that for a while.
Lex Fridman (28:20.100)
It's a cool experiment,
Rick Rubin (28:21.500)
because unfortunately I have to admit
Lex Fridman (28:23.420)
I've gotten lazy and stopped taking in albums as albums.
Lex Fridman (28:29.700)
And I looked at one interesting top 100 list,
Lex Fridman (28:32.780)
top 500 actually, which is put together by Rolling Stone.
Lex Fridman (28:36.860)
And they put, this is the therapy session part,
Lex Fridman (28:39.780)
and this has to do with simplicity too.
Rick Rubin (28:41.300)
They put Marvin Gaye's What's Going On at number one.
Lex Fridman (28:44.100)
Spoiler alert.
Lex Fridman (28:46.100)
So I'd like to maybe get your opinion on that choice.
Lex Fridman (28:50.940)
The reason that Marvin Gaye is really interesting,
Rick Rubin (28:54.540)
it'd actually be cool to play What's Going On in a second,
Lex Fridman (28:57.780)
but when you just listen to his like acapella,
Rick Rubin (29:02.660)
just listen to his voice, it is really good.
Lex Fridman (29:06.080)
Like people, it makes me wonder if it's possible
Rick Rubin (29:09.580)
to pull off like most of his songs with no instruments.
Lex Fridman (29:13.220)
Like in many parts, there's so much soul
Rick Rubin (29:17.800)
in just Mercy, Mercy, Me, What's Going On.
Lex Fridman (29:21.820)
There's so many songs that you could just be like,
Rick Rubin (29:23.700)
I wonder if you could just like, just go raw,
Lex Fridman (29:28.180)
or maybe in parts, or maybe do what you do with Jay Z,
Rick Rubin (29:30.380)
just open up with nothing.
Lex Fridman (29:31.420)
Anyway, there's something so powerful
Rick Rubin (29:33.740)
to a great soulful voice.
Lex Fridman (29:36.180)
Do you mind if I play it real quick?
Rick Rubin (29:37.800)
No, please.
Lex Fridman (29:38.640)
What's going on?
Rick Rubin (29:39.480)
This is probably one of my favorite songs.
Lex Fridman (29:41.340)
I mean, it's up there.
Lex Fridman (29:43.540)
Hey, what's happening?
Lex Fridman (29:44.380)
What's up, brother?
Lex Fridman (29:45.200)
What's up?
Lex Fridman (29:46.040)
Hey, how you doing?
Rick Rubin (29:46.880)
Hey man.
Lex Fridman (29:49.280)
Wow.
Rick Rubin (29:54.020)
Hey man.
Lex Fridman (29:58.860)
Mother, mother,
Rick Rubin (2:00:17.160)
i have no enemies
Lex Fridman (2:00:37.160)
i have no enemies
Rick Rubin (2:00:57.160)
i have no enemies
Lex Fridman (2:01:17.160)
i have no enemies
Rick Rubin (2:01:37.160)
i have no enemies
Lex Fridman (2:01:57.160)
i have no enemies
Rick Rubin (2:02:17.160)
i have no enemies
Lex Fridman (2:02:37.160)
i have no enemies
Rick Rubin (2:02:57.160)
i have no enemies
Lex Fridman (2:03:17.160)
i have no enemies
Rick Rubin (2:03:37.160)
i have no enemies
Lex Fridman (2:03:57.160)
i have no enemies
Rick Rubin (2:04:15.160)
you
Lex Fridman (30:00.820)
That voice.
Rick Rubin (30:02.620)
There's too many of you to cry.
Lex Fridman (30:08.660)
Brother, brother, brother.
Rick Rubin (30:11.660)
There's far too many of you to die.
Lex Fridman (30:14.440)
there's some just very subtle backing vocals
Rick Rubin (30:29.880)
this one hurts
Lex Fridman (30:33.400)
father father we don't need to escalate
Rick Rubin (30:35.160)
i wonder who the father he's talking about is
Rick Rubin (30:46.920)
oh that's interesting i mean i have so for people who don't know his his own father ended up
Rick Rubin (30:53.240)
uh killing marvin gay yeah i mean that one is really pain i mean for a lot of people your
Rick Rubin (30:59.880)
relationship with your father your mother i mean there's different dynamics but there's
Rick Rubin (31:03.880)
it's almost like part of life is resolving some kind of complex puzzle you have
Rick Rubin (31:08.600)
or the people you love the people close to you or the people who are not there all those kinds
Rick Rubin (31:12.600)
of things that's so much pain in that we don't need to escalate father father i never thought
Rick Rubin (31:18.600)
if it's i always thought it's his father directly yeah i don't get that it could be but i don't i
Rick Rubin (31:24.760)
feel like it's a more um masculine spirituality like a father figure or just broadly some kind
Rick Rubin (31:36.120)
of spirituality could be like god father god mother god you know like could be i don't know
Lex Fridman (31:43.880)
but there's there's so much it's like both hope and melancholy you seeing war is not the answer
Rick Rubin (31:51.080)
it's like you you don't tell your father war is not your your blood father war is not the answer
Rick Rubin (31:56.200)
it's strange conversation it's a bigger conversation they're not personal don't you
Rick Rubin (32:01.240)
think it feels like war if one is personal what's the difference between is the war is personal too
Rick Rubin (32:10.920)
it's only leaders think about war in a geopolitical sense yeah when people that fight wars you lose
Rick Rubin (32:17.800)
your brothers you lose i mean you death is just right there so it might feel just like that but
Rick Rubin (32:22.760)
yeah there is a dance between like the personal and like talking to the entirety of the society
Rick Rubin (32:28.520)
it's like john lennon imagine like also a song where is that is that a hopeful is that cynical
Rick Rubin (32:39.000)
is it like melancholy like heartbroken like you you hope you wish things would be a certain way
Lex Fridman (32:46.920)
and they're not yeah i don't know i don't know john lennon is giving up on the world in imagine
Rick Rubin (32:52.680)
yeah i don't know you know it's a it's an interesting question there's another uh
Lex Fridman (32:56.600)
john lennon lyric um in let me think of what it is take me a second
Lex Fridman (33:08.840)
and different songs keep coming into my head the one that i'm looking and you keep pressing next
Rick Rubin (33:13.960)
um across the universe um nothing's going to change my world and when i hear that
Rick Rubin (33:29.560)
i hear it as hopeless but i don't think i don't believe that that's
Lex Fridman (33:36.200)
well it may be how he meant it but i don't think that's how it's normally taken
Lex Fridman (33:40.360)
and it's also the taker is important i'm generally optimistic and hopeful so i i always like look for
Rick Rubin (33:46.280)
the hope and the actually the harshest love uh heartbreak songs are always somehow hopeful to me
Rick Rubin (33:52.840)
that's a love song uh to me like a song about losing love is is a song about the great capacity
Rick Rubin (34:02.760)
for love in the human heart that's what i hear so to me losing love is exciting because it's
Rick Rubin (34:07.880)
like that means you really cared that means you felt something you feel something you can sit in
Rick Rubin (34:12.840)
that pain and that pain is a reminder what it means to be human when you're that um what is it uh
Rick Rubin (34:20.680)
we're just listening uh the only man who could have reached me was the son of a preacher man
Lex Fridman (34:25.320)
so see um it's like that early love or something or partially sexual or whatever that's not as
Rick Rubin (34:30.600)
interesting to me it's fun it's great but it's not as interesting to me as it is to me
Rick Rubin (34:36.440)
it's fun it's great but it's that heartbreak that's the reminder that it can go deep
Rick Rubin (34:41.240)
although that's a damn good song have you ever heard the uh detroit mix of the marvin gay album
Rick Rubin (34:48.120)
no call it up how by far better mind blowing i just heard it recently blew my mind
Rick Rubin (34:57.000)
oh wow reverb distant
Lex Fridman (35:04.840)
interesting
Rick Rubin (35:06.840)
there's
Lex Fridman (35:08.840)
there's far too many of you
Rick Rubin (35:16.840)
it feels like it's all around the room more
Lex Fridman (35:18.840)
to bring some loving here today
Rick Rubin (35:36.840)
more voices more voices
Lex Fridman (35:38.840)
he's layering his own vocals
Rick Rubin (35:52.840)
just like there's multiple people singing
Rick Rubin (36:08.840)
don't punish me with brutality talk to me so you can see oh what's going on that's beautiful yeah
Rick Rubin (36:22.840)
seems to have more energy if you if you listen to the whole album even even though you just said
Rick Rubin (36:27.480)
you don't listen albums anymore the detroit mix of the whole album changes the album a lot
Rick Rubin (36:33.000)
i mean that that felt uh so that's the opposite of a cappella i would say yes because it's saying
Rick Rubin (36:39.160)
it's it's um there's layers there's um and that maybe i don't know if you remember but
Rick Rubin (36:47.800)
if memory serves me uh correct here he produces this own album here marvin gay was the producer
Rick Rubin (36:53.720)
on this i believe i believe so and this one sounds more like it's a get together and the
Rick Rubin (36:59.080)
whole album sounds more like a get together where it's a group of people in a room playing music
Rick Rubin (37:04.280)
together whereas the album version sounds more like an out like a recording this sounds less
Rick Rubin (37:11.480)
like a recording and a little more like a party now you had a series of conversations with paul
Rick Rubin (37:16.360)
mccartney which is amazing that people should should watch but is is there this is continuing
Rick Rubin (37:22.120)
our therapy session is there a case to be made that uh what's going on is number one album above
Rick Rubin (37:29.240)
the beatles uh white album or abbey road above pet sounds can you still manage case there's
Rick Rubin (37:36.920)
there's always a case i mean there's always a case every there's no uh in reality in art there is no
Rick Rubin (37:43.000)
um there's no metric that makes sense so um you could put numbers on things but it's like
Rick Rubin (37:50.680)
is this apple better than this peach like it's not really a fair comparison but if you just had
Rick Rubin (37:58.280)
to keep one to represent the human species that's the way i think to the aliens so i think it's a
Rick Rubin (38:04.440)
very personal decision i don't i think you can make you can make your choice to represent the
Rick Rubin (38:09.320)
human species and i'll make mine you know well i would pick the beatles over the beach boys so
Rick Rubin (38:14.440)
that's my if i became dictator of the world i was talking to the aliens but i do think that
Rick Rubin (38:19.320)
aliens but i don't know the full historical context to the impact of the music i don't
Rick Rubin (38:24.360)
know if that's something to consider like this kind of thought experiment of imagine what it was
Rick Rubin (38:30.200)
like back then to create to go into the studio to do such interesting work in the studio
Rick Rubin (38:39.240)
as opposed to like listening to just as a pop song almost from because i've never been able
Rick Rubin (38:45.000)
to understand uh beach boys god only knows the song god only knows god only knows but all of
Rick Rubin (38:54.200)
it the album the pet sounds just in my room was uh in my room that's all um is that what's your
Rick Rubin (39:03.080)
favorite on the album that sounds album that sounds um the opening track do you mind if i
Rick Rubin (39:09.880)
play it please it's it's it's too fun that's part of their trip though the you uh you open
Rick Rubin (39:21.480)
the heart with the fun it's possible original mono and stereo mix versions i don't know what's
Rick Rubin (39:32.840)
the opening song wouldn't it be nice yeah that's the song
Rick Rubin (40:14.040)
we could say good night and stay together wouldn't that be nice wouldn't it be nice
Rick Rubin (40:18.120)
wake up together but we're not there's heartbreak in this one too
Rick Rubin (40:24.520)
still to me like george harris like um uh is that the way that album while my guitar gently weeps
Rick Rubin (40:30.920)
i mean that um with the beatles it's so hard to depending on the day i'll i'll say a very different
Rick Rubin (40:38.440)
song that's my favorite song but i often return to while my guitar gently weeps is my favorite song
Rick Rubin (40:43.720)
spectacular spectacular anything george harrison honestly something something in the way she moves
Rick Rubin (40:51.160)
the bet i what would you classify that there's like several beatle songs categories of beatles
Rick Rubin (40:55.800)
categories of beatles songs so that's like the melancholy love songs or ballads or something like
Rick Rubin (41:01.000)
that um yesterday let it be what's do you have favorites so from your like how have you changed
Rick Rubin (41:10.280)
as a man as a human being as a musician and music producer ever having done that lengthy interaction
Rick Rubin (41:17.320)
with with mccartney hmm anytime you're around someone who's such a hero and you spend time
Rick Rubin (41:27.880)
with them and they're a human being it helps put perspective on everything you know that they're
Rick Rubin (41:33.160)
just human that well obviously i mean every everyone's just human and um but i remember
Rick Rubin (41:39.400)
the first time i got to see paul mccartney play live it was in a stadium of 70 000 people
Lex Fridman (41:44.680)
and he started playing and i started crying and i couldn't believe i was in even with 70 000 people
Rick Rubin (41:51.320)
i couldn't believe i that this man walks the earth and that i'm in the same place as him
Lex Fridman (41:57.720)
and he's the person who wrote that and played that and now he's here playing it for us
Rick Rubin (42:03.240)
it's mind blowing that's the voice that's the it's overwhelming is it inspiring or is it um
Rick Rubin (42:15.080)
like because sometimes when you have and i've gotten a chance to me i mean i love people in
Rick Rubin (42:21.240)
general like every every person is fascinating to me but yeah when you've been a fan for a long time
Lex Fridman (42:26.360)
and you meet a person uh sort of uh i'll just remove present company is you um it's like oh
Rick Rubin (42:35.960)
they're just human so there's both it's both inspiring that just a simple human can achieve
Rick Rubin (42:42.360)
such beautiful things but it's also like almost wishing there were gods moving in around us it's
Rick Rubin (42:50.760)
it's somehow peaceful this is it's more uh comforting to know that there's you know uh
Rick Rubin (42:58.680)
there's bigger fish i'm just a small fish and then there's bigger fish and it will take care
Rick Rubin (43:04.440)
of the ocean for us i think we're all capable of being big fish i don't think that there are
Rick Rubin (43:10.040)
special people i don't think it it's like that i i would make a case so the variety
Rick Rubin (43:17.320)
of artists that you worked with and brought the best out of it does seem the year out of this
Rick Rubin (43:24.520)
world so do you think you would know like if you're the same kind of species maybe you're
Rick Rubin (43:35.320)
just a meat vehicle and you're channeling ideas from somewhere else i feel like i'm channeling
Rick Rubin (43:41.080)
ideas from somewhere else 100 but i think have you asked questions about where from i believe
Rick Rubin (43:46.520)
we i believe we all are though you know i believe we are um we're vehicles for information that when
Rick Rubin (43:57.160)
it's ready to come through it comes through and the people who have good antennas pick up the
Rick Rubin (44:01.560)
signal but um if i'm sure you've had an experience in your life where you've had an idea for something
Lex Fridman (44:08.120)
and you've not acted on it and eventually someone else does it and it's not because they're doing
Lex Fridman (44:13.320)
and it's not because they're doing it because you had the idea and they stole your idea it's because
Rick Rubin (44:17.880)
the time has come for that idea and if you don't do it someone else is going to it's
Rick Rubin (44:22.840)
being broadcast by whatever the source whatever the source is uh yeah i tend to
Rick Rubin (44:30.440)
i tend to see humans as not quite special in that way yeah it's it's different kinds of antennas
Rick Rubin (44:35.160)
walking around listening to ideas and ideas that are i like the the notion of uh richard dawkins of memes
Rick Rubin (44:43.800)
or it's kind of the ideas of the organisms and they're just using our brains to multiply to
Rick Rubin (44:49.480)
to select to compete to to evolve and humans we really want to hold on to the
Rick Rubin (44:55.160)
specialness of our body of our mind but it's it's really the ideas so for a group when was born
Rick Rubin (45:00.760)
two centuries ago you wouldn't be a music producer you'd be or i mean maybe but you have an antenna
Lex Fridman (45:10.440)
and if no signal is coming in uh or you'd be hearing a potentially a different signal
Rick Rubin (45:17.960)
is there um i think we all have our own antenna for whatever it is that we you know maybe not
Rick Rubin (45:24.200)
everyone has tuned into their antenna to see what it is that their strength and bringing through is
Rick Rubin (45:31.080)
i'm lucky in that it found me because i didn't know that it was a i didn't even know this was a job
Rick Rubin (45:36.920)
i sometimes wonder i mean a lot of young people a lot of people wonder like what's the purpose
Lex Fridman (45:44.680)
and the the specs of my antenna what am i put on this earth to do like if um you know i i
Rick Rubin (45:56.280)
can live a thousand lives there's so many trajectories and imagine the greatest possible
Rick Rubin (46:02.600)
trajectory that reveals the the most beautiful thing i can possibly create in this world live
Rick Rubin (46:09.080)
the most beautiful way uh what is that i feel like that's a good exercise to think about
Rick Rubin (46:17.080)
um because it's also liberating to think that you can do anything i mean that
Rick Rubin (46:24.200)
um more and more i suppose that's kind of life it's like society is pushing conformity on you
Rick Rubin (46:30.760)
you know i thought i i had my own flavor of conformity i thought i'm supposed to be following
Lex Fridman (46:36.120)
and then early on i would say like in the late 20s you realize wait a minute you don't have to
Rick Rubin (46:42.280)
tell you don't have to do what teachers tell you to do what parents tell you to do what
Rick Rubin (46:47.880)
society tells you do you can like um i would never wear a suit if i listened to like my colleagues
Lex Fridman (46:55.400)
and community who think a suit is like the symbol of uh what is it a symbol of conformity actually
Rick Rubin (47:04.440)
which is hilarious but uh it's actually a kind of rebellion and everything else like of that nature
Rick Rubin (47:09.880)
doing doing these silly podcasts like um i have a question i have to ask sure because you brought
Rick Rubin (47:17.480)
up the suit yeah uh do you wear the suit is this your daily uniform outside of podcasting so uh for
Rick Rubin (47:26.520)
the longest time it was some kind of suit and then recently i mean coinciding with going to texas
Rick Rubin (47:33.640)
there's a i'm such a loner i'm an introvert and there's a bit of a hiding from the world when i
Rick Rubin (47:42.040)
wear other stuff i really want to um to not make fame recognition
Rick Rubin (47:53.080)
money all those things a motivation at all and the world kind of wants you to make those motivations
Rick Rubin (48:01.400)
not not the world but i would say maybe the western world and maybe america maybe a capitalist system
Rick Rubin (48:06.840)
does but that's a choice to buy into that or not right it takes a brave person a person of character
Rick Rubin (48:16.600)
to not buy in and i'm i'm like a like a baby deer trying to find his legs you don't have to
Rick Rubin (48:23.320)
buy in because i love people and i think i'm kind of an idiot and so when other people
Rick Rubin (48:28.120)
say do this and do that it uh there's a there is a pressure there it's actually very difficult to
Rick Rubin (48:36.600)
not listen necessarily to the advice of others and yet keep yourself fragile and open to the world
Rick Rubin (48:44.440)
it's easy to be like i'm always right you know just kind of sticking a ground but if you want
Rick Rubin (48:50.600)
to be like vulnerable if you want to connect with people and just wear your heart on your sleeve
Rick Rubin (48:55.640)
then you're going to listen to them i mean that's the double edged sword of it and uh but then again
Rick Rubin (49:01.800)
that pain like if you don't let it destroy you can grow grow from that has fame affected you at all
Rick Rubin (49:08.600)
did you unplug from the system at some point same i've always been sort of removed i don't
Rick Rubin (49:14.680)
feel like i'm part of any system do you feel famous um i'm aware that when i go out people
Rick Rubin (49:22.920)
will you know say nice things to me which is great but that's about it that's about as far as
Lex Fridman (49:29.720)
but it doesn't affect your art about your creativity or your thoughts like when you're
Rick Rubin (49:34.040)
sitting alone and thinking about the world it can't it's a destructive force the the thing
Rick Rubin (49:43.240)
the reason that you're who you are and the reason that you're finding the success you're finding
Rick Rubin (49:49.400)
is because you've been true to yourself to get to that stage so to start changing that
Lex Fridman (49:55.240)
to conform to either conform to someone else's idea what you should be doing
Rick Rubin (50:01.000)
it just seems like uh it doesn't make sense do you have a sense of who you are because i don't
Rick Rubin (50:06.840)
necessarily have a i don't know i i know that i really like making good things and i know that i'm
Rick Rubin (50:13.640)
um crazy about it in that um it's like an obsession and i want things to be as good as
Rick Rubin (50:22.280)
they could be whatever it is and if i'm if i finish a music project and i have a window of
Rick Rubin (50:28.360)
time where i'm not working on music i might be moving the furniture around in the house you know
Rick Rubin (50:33.640)
i'm always looking for a prod a creative outlet to find a way to make something better or there
Rick Rubin (50:41.640)
was a period of time where i was in a weird corporate situation that was uh
Rick Rubin (50:49.480)
that didn't allow me to flourish and i turned i focused the creativity and on myself and i
Rick Rubin (50:57.240)
lost a bunch of weight and changed my life and so that was the kind of art like the you've gone
Rick Rubin (51:01.720)
through a whole process of losing weight getting in shape getting healthy that was a kind of creative
Rick Rubin (51:06.680)
act it certainly was it wasn't an intentional creative act but i had a lot of energy and i just
Rick Rubin (51:13.800)
a series of events happened i read a book at the time that was my heaviest i weighed about 318
Rick Rubin (51:20.680)
pounds yeah and i'd never been i'd been sedentary my whole life basically laying on a couch working
Rick Rubin (51:25.640)
on music so i've never been physically active in my life and i read a book about a guy named stew
Rick Rubin (51:32.920)
middleman a runner who ran a thousand miles in 11 days and i thought wow i you know get out of
Rick Rubin (51:38.920)
breath walking to the corner and another human being can run a thousand miles in 11 days i feel
Rick Rubin (51:45.160)
like i have bad information you know i'm doing clearly i'm doing something wrong and um and i
Rick Rubin (51:50.920)
reached out to a person that stew mentioned in the book phil maffatone who's a legend i i really
Rick Rubin (51:56.680)
appreciate him as well he's math 180 method too he's such an interesting i think he focuses on
Rick Rubin (52:03.240)
heart rate uh training and he was the first person to talk about um essentially a
Rick Rubin (52:12.760)
low carbs paleo yeah keto diet 40 40 years ago for a person who's going to be healthy who can
Rick Rubin (52:22.120)
exercise and actually perform at an early level he's the first person when i um you know talked
Rick Rubin (52:29.480)
about heart rate training him and other endurance athletes he influenced he gave me permission to
Rick Rubin (52:35.080)
like run slower yeah it's the first time i realized oh i can run long distances if i just
Rick Rubin (52:41.640)
run slower and then take that seriously and i actually fell in love with running very much so
Rick Rubin (52:48.520)
because for me everyone's different but for me the love of running happens in the longer distances
Rick Rubin (52:54.360)
yeah did you read born to run great book amazing book there is something special about running
Lex Fridman (53:01.080)
and everybody has their own their own journey with it and even ultra marathon running those
Rick Rubin (53:06.520)
kinds of things it's a it is like many journeys one that can pull you in like you won't be the
Rick Rubin (53:16.200)
same person after and i i try to be deliberate about making deliberate about making choices
Rick Rubin (53:23.000)
after which you'll not be the same person and so i'm nervous about like the ultra marathon running
Lex Fridman (53:29.000)
world i have to talk to you about johnny cash i mean when people ask me what my
Rick Rubin (53:39.880)
favorite musical thing is of all time i'm
Rick Rubin (53:51.400)
you know it's a very difficult question to answer of course but i'm pretty quick
Rick Rubin (53:55.720)
if i'm not allowed to pick anything by tom ways i'm pretty quick to say hurt by johnny cash
Rick Rubin (54:03.960)
the performance the whatever you call it whatever the heck that is because that's
Rick Rubin (54:08.120)
not just a song covered by an artist that's a human being at the end of their life
Rick Rubin (54:18.840)
that the rawness of that the i mean just the there's also a music video which for a lot of
Rick Rubin (54:26.920)
people adds a lot to it uh for me just the music alone is i mean the guitar every choice on that
Rick Rubin (54:36.600)
see the the few things i've heard about it it seemed like almost accidental i mean like little
Rick Rubin (54:41.800)
subtle choices here and there can you maybe comment on that um to to the degree i i think
Rick Rubin (54:50.280)
you had a huge role in sort of bringing johnny cash back from from a different part of his life
Rick Rubin (54:56.440)
it's like bringing something out that wasn't there before and it was it was it was incredible
Rick Rubin (55:01.560)
it was a celebration of a really special musician and a totally new kind of celebration now hurt is
Rick Rubin (55:08.440)
just one of the songs that's that's a that's an amazing celebration of johnny cash but hurt is
Rick Rubin (55:13.720)
like at the at the at the peak of that so what was that like putting that song together okay maybe
Rick Rubin (55:21.960)
maybe uh it might be nice to listen to it because i freaking love that song and as a guitarist
Rick Rubin (55:27.240)
i just the simplicity of it uh it seems like every choice contributes to the greatness of the song
Rick Rubin (55:48.440)
simple it's crisp but it's dark too
Lex Fridman (55:51.080)
i hurt myself today it's one of the greatest opening lines of any song
Rick Rubin (56:01.640)
to see if i still feel yeah i'm talking about the lyrics i don't even mean the performance the words
Lex Fridman (56:15.480)
but those words out of Trent Reznor are not the same they have a different meaning
Rick Rubin (56:20.040)
coming out of johnny cash's mouth
Lex Fridman (56:23.000)
try to kill it all away but i remember everything
Lex Fridman (56:31.560)
what have i become what have i become my sweetest friend
Lex Fridman (56:42.200)
written probably for a young man i think he was 20 when he wrote it
Rick Rubin (57:01.160)
the way the guitarist played the choice of instrument the layers there
Rick Rubin (57:22.680)
the uh the freedom to give him to use the voice that's um fading it's not fading it's changing
Rick Rubin (57:34.040)
maybe he's losing some aspects of his voice and it's it's almost like shaking a little bit
Lex Fridman (57:42.920)
and it's a little bit out of tune in parts
Rick Rubin (57:45.640)
uh how much of that was deliberate how much was like how do you give johnny castor freedom to
Rick Rubin (57:54.360)
to do that how do you find that together is there any insights you can give i think it's a it's a
Rick Rubin (58:01.480)
case almost of like the right pairing the right role with the right actor you could say the the
Rick Rubin (58:10.440)
song lyrics that the reason we chose the song was because the lyrics purely about the lyrics
Lex Fridman (58:17.160)
and at that point in time both johnny and i would send each other songs of possible
Rick Rubin (58:21.240)
ideas to record and um that was one that i sent him and he didn't respond to initially i sent i
Rick Rubin (58:29.080)
would send him see at that time we would burn cds and i would send him like cd of 20 songs or 25
Rick Rubin (58:34.120)
songs and then and he would send them to me he burned a cd for johnny cash and you sent him
Rick Rubin (58:38.520)
uh of different songs of like songs to consider recording yeah um and we would send these back
Lex Fridman (58:44.920)
and forth and then that i had hurt on one of the ones that i sent him and he didn't respond and
Rick Rubin (58:51.800)
usually if he didn't respond we didn't go back to it you know and that one i remember i sent it
Rick Rubin (58:58.680)
again and i put it first on the next on the next cd and um and when when we spoke about when he
Rick Rubin (59:05.880)
listened to cd again he didn't respond i said check out that first song and i really feel like that one
Rick Rubin (59:10.440)
could be good what did you see in that song it's the lyrics it's the lyrics because i feel like
Rick Rubin (59:15.800)
nobody there's very few people in the world that would see these lyrics in johnny cash's mouth and
Rick Rubin (59:25.400)
think this is a good idea including for president yeah i know that trant was trant had trepidations
Rick Rubin (59:32.040)
in the evening um but if you listen to the words if you forget the music and if you get what if
Rick Rubin (59:38.280)
you forget what nine ish nail sounds like and you just read it like a poem and then you imagine
Rick Rubin (59:45.480)
a 70 year old man reading these lyrics it'll be it'll be profound it's profound so that was the
Rick Rubin (59:55.480)
based on lyrics that started the journey and then at this point in time johnny was not in great
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