The Diary of a CEORick Rubin: The Only Skill That Matters Now Is The One Thing AI Can Never Steal!
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
140 min read · 28,257 words- 0:00 – 2:38
Intro
- RRRick Rubin
Jay-Z wrote in a way that no one else wrote. All the other rappers that I worked with spent a lot of time writing lyrics, and I never saw Jay write lyrics. And when I played him the beat for 99 Problems, he said, "Okay, just keep playing it over and over again." And he sat in the back of the room. You could hear him mumbling or humming. After twenty or thirty minutes, he's like, "Okay, I got it," and ran into the other room and did the first verse. He did, let's say, three takes, and then he came in, we listened to them. He's like, "Oh yeah, I think the second one's good." It just happens in his mind.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And then this big list of people that you've worked with, I mean, it's just this unbelievable list: Jay-Z, Kanye, Adele, Justin Timberlake, and Mick Jagger, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Why do you think these people call you?
- RRRick Rubin
Because I've been making things for forty years, and I started making music as a hobby. It ended up taking on a life of its own and becoming a business. And that list, they're not special. I would say they're ordinary people who made a decision. I think of Eminem as a good example. Eminem is someone who's always writing because he wants to be the best he could possibly be, and he's insanely obsessive about that.
- SBSteven Bartlett
It appears that some people are just, like, inherently more creative than others.
- RRRick Rubin
Well, creativity is beaten out of us over the course of our lives. We go to school. We're taught to follow rules. The rules are not there to help us. The rules are there to control us. We're not taught to be free, creative thinkers. So I'm suggesting we break free and express ourselves freely.
- SBSteven Bartlett
How?
- RRRick Rubin
Well, all of the best things involve risk. It's only through the risk that the greatness is shown, and so something needs to die. That lifestyle and that moment, that career path, that relationship, that's what needs to die.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Is there a step one in that direction for people that want to hit the reset button?
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah. First one I, I'll say is-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Your early thirties, you had a depressive episode yourself.
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah. It was really a tough time. I felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me. Started having panic attacks and couldn't sleep, and got really sick, and it felt like I was shot with a poison arrow.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Take me into that part of your life.
- RRRick Rubin
So, um...
- SBSteven Bartlett
Here is a strange fact. Most of the people watching this right now, about fifty-eight percent of you, aren't yet subscribed to this channel. Statistically, that is probably you. So could I ask you a small favor? If this channel has ever given you any value at all, please could you do me a favor and hit the subscribe button? It costs nothing, it helps us more than you could know, and the bigger the channel gets, as you've seen, the more we can invest in the guests and the production. So thank you so much, and I hope you enjoy this episode. I'm gonna start, Rick, where my curiosity is.
- RRRick Rubin
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
How would you sort of self-categorize or self-identify
- 2:38 – 4:00
Why the Greatest Artists Call Rick Rubin
- SBSteven Bartlett
in terms of, like, your profession?
- RRRick Rubin
Hmm. I would say I'm involved in art and creativity.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And what is your involvement in art and creativity?
- RRRick Rubin
Might be as a coach. It might be as a, uh, collaborator.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- RRRick Rubin
It might come up in a film project, or it might come up in someone who's-- has a startup who wants to talk about what are the things-- i-it-- creative solutions. An-any problem that we have or any-anything we want to get better at, there's usually a creative path to improve or at least to test to see if there are other ways around. Often the accepted version of how to move forward is another limitation.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I'm very curious about your principles as it relates to finding the solution, whether that's in business or whether it's in music. Um, and I'm, I'm really interested in if there's any similarities in the process of finding a solution, because I'm an entrepreneur. I guess I'm a podcaster as well. I do investments all day, every day. I'm in the pursuit of a solution to a problem, a people problem, a creative problem. Do you have any high-level principles that are broadly applicable irrespective of the type of problem you're solving?
- RRRick Rubin
I'll tell you an interesting one. A word I've been thinking about lately is indefensible. Indefensible is
- 4:00 – 5:33
The Power of the Indefensible: Taking Creative Risks
- RRRick Rubin
a funny word because it's a, it's a really pejorative word. It's a strong pejorative. If something is indefensible, it's not just bad. Indefensible is, is really extreme. And I'm thinking that in making art, indefensible's actually a good thing. Maybe not only a good thing, maybe a necessary thing, that you take things to the extreme that are indefensible. I can't tell you why. I can't tell you why because it's beyond reason. So I'm, I'm in that camp of reason is a, is a tiny sliver of how decisions get made. And I, I would be much more in the camp of intuition or maybe some sort of a gui-guidance from the universe, openness to being guided by something more-- something-- the creative force of the universe. You could call it God. I call it God. You're not required to.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What art that you've been involved in creating would you def- would you define in the moment as being indefensible?
- RRRick Rubin
A little over a year ago, there was a meme about vibe coding.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- 5:33 – 9:03
The Vibe Coding Story: Following the Universe's Call
- RRRick Rubin
The way it started was, if something new happened, a guy named Andrey Karpathy coined the term vibe coding. I didn't know what it was. That same day that he coined the term and tweeted about it, someone put a picture of me with my-- wearing headphones with my eyes closed, hand on a mouse, and that image became associated with vibe coding. Had nothing to do with me. I saw it, I didn't know what it meant. But then over the next few days, friends started sending me hundreds of this image associated with vibe coding in all different ways. And I thought, "Hmm." Now, the, the old me, pre-Creative Act me, would've laughed and moved on with my life. And one of the things that I learned through working on The Creative Act, one of the things it talks about a lot is we're given information all the time around us. There are all these, uh, opportunities or invitations being made all the time. In the past, if someone told me about a movie that sounded like I didn't wanna see it, th- that doesn't sound like it's for me, I would, I would ignore it. But if two or three people say, "You might wanna see this movie," I might, uh, even if it's not interesting to me, it's almost like the universe, some too much energy behind this. So this was an example of a lot of energy coming towards me relating to vibe coding. I don't know what it is. And I thought, "Okay, how do I participate? If I wanna participate in this thing that's going on, an experiment, creative experiment." And I thought, "Okay, I'm gonna write a joke tweet related to vibe coding." And thought about it and came up with, "Tools will come, tools will go. Only the vibe coder remains." And typically, the tweets get 10,000, 20,000 views. I look the next day, and this joke tweet has a million and a half views. It's like, something's going on. It was an indefensible act. There was no reason for me to do it, but I'm feeling this energy coming at me from all of these different directions. I participate. I, I answer the invitation, comes back, there's interest. It's like, "Hmm, what would be the next step?" And the next step is, well, I still don't really know what vibe coding is. Maybe I'll write a book about vibe coding. I put aside all of my real work, my professional work, to dedicate myself to this book on vibe coding, and again, I couldn't explain it. I couldn't tell you why. I can't say it was a good idea. None of those things. I was following a calling, feeling like I was being invited to participate in this thing, and this is the way that I could answer the call. So I did.
- SBSteven Bartlett
In so many parts of our life, we might get that invitation to participate in something that is none of our business.
- RRRick Rubin
Yes. All the time.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah. And we, and we usually say no because it's not what's on our business card. It's not what we've done in the past.
- RRRick Rubin
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And we are-- You know, the more successful we become, the more narrow we become in many respects.
- RRRick Rubin
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I'm thinking about this idea of, like, how one resists their label so they can capitalize on all the callings or, you know, the-- so they don't miss-
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah
- SBSteven Bartlett
... important callings.
- RRRick Rubin
Any label that you put on yourself or that's put on you makes you smaller.
- 9:03 – 10:45
Why Labels Make You Smaller
- RRRick Rubin
No labels apply. No labels apply. We are beyond labels.
- SBSteven Bartlett
It's tempting though, isn't it? Because labels are nice shortcuts at cocktail parties.
- RRRick Rubin
There are also no shortcuts. [chuckles] And I hope you don't spend too much time in cocktail parties.
- SBSteven Bartlett
No, I don't. Don't worry. [chuckles] I'm guessing what goes on there.
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay, so that's interesting, this idea of sometimes following the indefensible.
- RRRick Rubin
Well, if you feel a call, even if it doesn't make sense, if you, uh-- for, for an artist to write a song and you really feel like this is really, this is some- this is really meaningful to me, I think no one's gonna like it, but I really feel it. I can't defend it. That's the best thing you can do. If you make something where you think this is for everyone or they're gonna love it, it's like, uh, it's too easy. The most interesting things are challenging. It's challenging to you. It's challenging to the people who see it. The things that are revolutionary. I-- Most of the things that I've fallen in love with over my life, creatively, art, when I first see it often or first hear it, I might not like it at first because it's, it's too much or I don't have any context for it. The true revolutionary works we don't have context for.
- SBSteven Bartlett
It appears to me, Rick, that sometimes things that are more of the same do bigger numbers. So I'm thinking about-
- RRRick Rubin
Maybe for a period of time
- SBSteven Bartlett
... I was thinking about two artists. One of them is Drake, who, listen, makes great
- 10:45 – 11:51
The Yeezus Album: Creating Anti-Hip-Hop with Kanye
- SBSteven Bartlett
music, makes hits. Everybody loves him. They come out, we dance in the clubs to them, et cetera. Then I was thinking about, I think a record that you worked on with Kanye, Yeezus.
- RRRick Rubin
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Um, I remember where I was when I first heard that. As a huge Kanye fan, I thought, "Here we go. We're gonna get more College Dropout. Here we go."
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And I put it on and I was like, "What the fuck is this?"
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
But then I loved it. [chuckles]
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And in my little group of six-
- RRRick Rubin
How long did it take? A while?
- SBSteven Bartlett
A while. [chuckles]
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
It took a while. I mean, it, you know, with Drake's stuff, I, I tend to like it on first listen.
- RRRick Rubin
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
But with that Yeezus album, I had to really, like, persevere, and then I thought it was, was genius because it was a new paradigm. Um, you worked on that album.
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah. And that, that's a, a good example of, like, it was a sort of an anti-hip-hop album, and that was done intentionally, and it definitely we went as far as we could into, uh, into an indefensible realm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
But what about the numbers? What about the sales? What about the record label?
- RRRick Rubin
Do you-- Is it an important album to you now?
- 11:51 – 12:46
Why Near-Term Success Doesn't Matter
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- RRRick Rubin
Okay. Did its job.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Those near-term incentives though, listen, we need Drake, we need you to make another-
- RRRick Rubin
We never consider near-term incentive ever at any point in time. Never once. Never a consideration. It doesn't exist. We're making things Forever. We're making things that are truly personal to us, and if it's truly personal to us, if someone doesn't get it, that's-- they just don't get it yet. Or maybe they'll never get it, and it's fine because I know this is my diary entry. Can someone else read your diary entry and tell you it's wrong, it's not good enough, or it's not true, it's not how you see the world? Everything we make is a diary entry. Everything we make is our
- 12:46 – 13:30
Everything We Make Is a Diary Entry
- RRRick Rubin
personal true expression. The reason we're saying it is to show you see it like that, we see it like this, or I see it like this. This is how I see it. And with that information, you can see it's like, "Ah, I never considered that before." There's more. The world is bigger than I thought. It's not just more of the same. It's not just more numbers. And it's also the, the more numbers game is a shorter-term game. I remember I made an album with Linkin Park, who at the time were probably one of the biggest bands in the world, and they had made three albums that were, I would say, stylistically
- 13:30 – 19:33
The Linkin Park Experiment: Reinvention Over Repetition
- RRRick Rubin
very similar. They were rap-rock.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- RRRick Rubin
And they were-- There was this, there was a rap-rock movement. Korn, I guess Rage Against the Machine was first, Korn, Limp Bizkit, all these bands, and Linkin Park was probably the last of that wave of music, and they were wildly successful doing that music. And when we started working together, there was a choice. We could continue and do the next in that same style, which the audience would love, and it would be easy to do. Or we could be true to where the band was in this moment of time, 10 years after they started about, probably eight, 10 years after they started, and be free to find the new sound, the next sound. And when we did that, probably half of the audience didn't like it, and half of the audience loved it, and new people came along, and they set themselves up to have a much longer career of making the things that they wanted to make. Whereas they were already on the tail end of a genre that had they made another one, maybe it would've been-- it probably would've been, you know, as successful as what they had done. But long term, the genre was dying.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- RRRick Rubin
Again, none of this was thought about at the time. Another example I think of is, um, Radiohead's Kid A. I remember when Kid A came out, I didn't like it at all. I loved The Bends and OK Computer. They were my favorite band, and then they made this album, Kid A, and it was totally different, and it really alienated me. And today that might be my favorite Radiohead album.
- SBSteven Bartlett
It feels like a risk.
- RRRick Rubin
Yes, but that's all of the best things involve risk.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Because I'm sure you've also got examples where someone followed that thesis of listening to what they wanted to make or doing it for themselves and not thinking too much about the audience-
- RRRick Rubin
Mm-hmm
- SBSteven Bartlett
... and it didn't work.
- RRRick Rubin
Of course.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And they could have just made, you know, a hit and paid off their mortgage and-
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah. It's not so interesting. I, I know it's not so interesting to me. I think that's-- it's a different game. That's the, you know, that's the investment commerce game, and I'm in the art game. It's just a different thing. There's nothing wrong with that other game. It's just not my game.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Which one leads to more success over the long term? Defined by, let's say, if we define success in this context by the subjective opinion of people that that was good and money.
- RRRick Rubin
All I can say is that I've been making things for 40 years. I have never done it the way you're suggesting. [chuckles]
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- RRRick Rubin
I have always taken the risk. I've always made my favorite thing. I've always supported the artists in making their favorite thing. And luckily, a lot of revolutionary things have happened from that, and I would say things that probably inspired other artists to be more free and more true and more honest and take bigger risks to make something more interesting, made the world a more interesting place.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Why do you think these people call you?
- RRRick Rubin
I think it's probably different for different artists.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Why did Jay-Z call you?
- RRRick Rubin
The time that I first met Jay was when he was making The Black Album, and he wanted to-- He was planning on retiring, and this was gonna be his swan song, his final album. The Black Album was the-- Jay-Z's last album. Turned out not to be, but that was the plan. And he asked his 10 favorite producers to each make one track with him, and ours was called "99 Problems," and it was a really fun experience to make.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I mean, what an iconic record that is. What was your contribution to that record? Everybody knows that record. Everybody.
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah. We created the track, and we played it for Jay, and he liked it, and then he wrote the words and rapped on top of it.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So you, you produced the music?
- RRRick Rubin
Made the music. Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Made the music. I read that you gave him direction in terms of the lyrics as well.
- RRRick Rubin
Well, my friend Chris Rock had the idea of, um... Ice T had a song called "99 Problems" that was the opposite. It was, "I have 99 problems and a bitch ain't one," and then it's a story about the girls.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Uh-huh.
- RRRick Rubin
And Chris said, "You know, '99 problems' would be a great hook, and it doesn't have to be about the girls." And then I suggested to Jay, "Make it about the problems." And then that's what it was.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And business people, startups, they seek your advice as well, entrepreneurs?
- 19:33 – 20:54
The System of a Down Rejection That Became Success
- RRRick Rubin
but in a club, the club would sell out. Good sign. And I brought, I think the song was called Sugar, and I brought it to Kevin Weatherly, and I played it for him, and he said, "Not only will we not play this record, we will never play this band on our station," because it sounded insane. It didn't sound like anything else on the station. One year later, number one song on the station, most requested, and two weeks ago, I saw System of a Down sell out 80,000 seats in a stadium in Paris. They sold it out two nights in a row. I can't tell you how or why this, this works. I can't tell you that there's anything to follow. But I will say we made the things that we loved. We never questioned if anyone else was gonna like it. We never questioned what the audience was gonna think. We never questioned where does it fit in the market. None of the, none of those normal conversations. We made our favorite thing. We took it to an indefensible level as far as we could go. And luckily, it worked out.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Is there a way to get clearer on what you love? This sounds like a strange question, but, um-
- RRRick Rubin
Meditate.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Meditate.
- RRRick Rubin
I learned to meditate when I was 14, and I think having
- 20:54 – 29:32
Meditation: The Practice That Changed Everything
- RRRick Rubin
a TM as a grounding element in my life-
- SBSteven Bartlett
TM?
- RRRick Rubin
T- uh, transcendental meditation. That was the f-first type of meditation I learned when I was 14. It, it, it changed me. I know this because I stopped meditating when I went to college, and then when I moved to California right after college, I started meditating again. Somewhere I knew it was a big decision, and somewhere I knew there would be a right moment to start. And it took several months before I actually sat for the first meditation after not doing it for several years. And in that first meditation, I realized, oh, this is, this is very familiar to me. This is a big part of who I am, even though I haven't done it in five years. It's a big part of how I see the world, the fact that I got to do that from a young age.
- SBSteven Bartlett
To understand who you are with it, I, I'm gonna ask you who you would be without it.
- RRRick Rubin
I don't know. It'd, it'd be-- I'm curious. I'm happy that I don't know because I like having the practice. But whether I continue a practice or not, I've done enough of it over the course of my life that I'm there. I'm-- When I meditate more, it gets deeper. But even if I don't meditate, it's like, um, Maharishi, the teacher of transcendental meditation, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, says every time you meditate, it's like making a deposit in the bank. So it, it builds up. And again, that was rhetoric before, but in my experience, I got to see, oh, it's not rhetoric. Like, I, I actually had this experience, and it changed the way I saw the world. And, and I'll say, you see beyond the surface. You can see the depth underneath. And for me, the things on the surface are not so interesting. I'm interested in the depth, the, the, the depth behind it.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So my first question would be, what is transcendental meditation?
- RRRick Rubin
It's a mantra practice that's done silently. You do it sitting with your eyes closed. You learn it from a TM teacher. I can't teach it to you.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay.
- RRRick Rubin
We close our eyes, and then the mantra is a sound vibration that gets given to you. I was given mine at-- when I was 14. I have never uttered it out loud since that time. I've never shared it with anyone, and that's part of the training. It, it's like a, a private sound, and you engage with this sound in the way that you're taught, 20 minutes at least once a day, typically twice a day. I would do it right when I woke up in the morning and then again before dinner. Those would be the two, the two windows. I-- When I lived in California and I was working in different recording studios, I meditated with Tom Petty and Johnny Cash and different artists before sessions. That would be part of our practice. Red Hot Chili Peppers, we would sit and meditate together before sessions. So I've had this experience for a while in my life, and it's, uh, it's probably the most profound thing I can mention. We, we'll get to others, but that, that, that's one that's a learnable, practicable action that really ch-changed who I am.
- SBSteven Bartlett
How did you know it was efficacious? How did you know it was working? What is the measure that this practice is worth that investment in time, in your view?
- RRRick Rubin
The only proof that I had was getting away from it and coming back to it.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay.
- RRRick Rubin
That was-- I, I recognized it in that first meditation back how deep and connected I was to this thing.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And I'm guessing this unlocks a, you said a deeper level, a deeper level of creativity and ideas of-
- RRRick Rubin
Everything.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Oh.
- RRRick Rubin
Everything. Deeper understanding.
- SBSteven Bartlett
People often hear that meditation in various forms is beneficial. Very successful people sit here all the time and say, "It's so, it's so central to why I've been able to do what I've done." And then there'll be people, you know, that think, "Well, I was sitting there for 10 minutes. My brain is very, very busy. I've tried it once. It didn't really work," and then they move on. And then I study some of the greats, some of the great creatives in the world, the great visionaries, people that I thought could see around corners in an atypical way, like Steve Jobs, and there's always a practice, a meditation practice, well, so often at the very heart of, of their brilliance. So I've-- I don't currently have a meditation practice. My wonderful fiancée does. She does it every morning for 20 minutes. She's a breath, breathwork practitioner, so I mean, it's her whole world.
- RRRick Rubin
And w- tell me what she says about it.
- SBSteven Bartlett
She says it unlocks a deeper level of, um, calm, and I don't mean calm as in, like, stress. I mean a deeper level of, like, groundedness. And she says she feels more connected. N-now, in her context, I think that's more of, like, a spiritual thing. She feels more connected to the universe and, and others.
- RRRick Rubin
As far as the creative experience goes, a spiritual connection is a big part of that.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- RRRick Rubin
It's just the nature of, it's the nature of how it works. It's not an intellectual process. It's a spiritual process.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What is the mechanism that is causing these results that you see? What-- From a biological perspective or-
- RRRick Rubin
I'm-- I, I couldn't answer that in the way that you would hope, but I will say I think it, it allows you to let go of all of the ordinary concerns. I, I also have a question, which is, if you live with a person who says this practice is so impactful on her life, I'm questioning why you at least haven't tried it with her for a month to see how it would affect you. [laughs]
- SBSteven Bartlett
That's a great question. Are you gonna get me into a lot of trouble? [laughs] No, it's a good question.
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I have no good answer for it.
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, because it's-- what it has to do with it, it's you're not looking for cues from the outside. You're looking for cues on the inside. What lights you up? What are you excited to play for your friend? Not what are you excited to play for your friend of like, "What do you think this will do?" You're playing it for your friend like, "Wow, can you believe something like this exists in the world? How cool is that?"
- SBSteven Bartlett
The distinction that I'm trying to make is often if you read business books or entrepreneurship books, when they're talking about innovation, when they're talking about the great companies like Amazon or I heard S-Sebastian, who's the CEO of Klarna, say the other day, who's a tech founder, they spend a lot of time thinking about the customer, the customer's problem, and they work backwards, they call it, to the answer. So they'll zoom in on Rick's world and say, "Rick has these problems. He's da, da, da, da," and they'll work backwards from there to a answer. That's how Amazon say they built the platform.
- 29:32 – 33:51
The Belief That Creativity Is Beaten Out of Us
- RRRick Rubin
w-we go to school. We're told to repeat back what we're told. We're told to sit in a chair all day. We're, we're-- Our spirits are broken by institutions. We're not taught to be free creative thinkers. We're taught to follow rules. The rules are not there to help us. The rules are there to control us. I'm suggesting we break free and be free and express ourselves freely, and that's our purpose here on the planet, is to express ourselves freely. That's why we're here.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What you're saying links to something we were talking about earlier, which is at a very young age, we're taught that the things we make are a means to a particular end, and that end is promotions, pay rises, capital, success, job titles.
- RRRick Rubin
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
In the creative process, are, are you saying that it's never productive to talk about how we'll measure success and to try and optimize for that measurement?
- RRRick Rubin
In the creative process, I, I would-- I tend not to think about those things I can't think of an example where we would wanna use data. I think it's, it's much more about this internal feeling and then the feeling we have when you play it for someone, when you share it with someone, whether it lights someone up. You can tell when someone really resonates with something. Sometimes the numbers don't show-- the numbers can't reflect that. You know, you can have two things that are kind of on equal footing commercially, yet one of them lights you up and the other one is, "Well, this gets the job done." They're different. And long term, chances are the one that lights you up is gonna have more value to you, and you'll be more willing to support that thing over time.
- SBSteven Bartlett
In your book here, um, The Creative Act: A Way of Being, you talk about the things that block creativity. Thoughts and habits not conducive to the work. Believing you're not good enough.
- RRRick Rubin
That's a big one. Someone at some point in time, you were singing and someone's like, "Ah, you can't sing," at-- when you're a kid, and that gets lodged in you. Singing's not something I can ever do. Or you're a terrible cook, or you're not smart enough. So often the gifts that we have are stifled and smothered. We're all creative. We may not choose to embark on a creative-- make creative choices, but that's-- it's on us. We can. We just have bad information. We, we're told we're not good enough, and we believe it, and it's not true.
- SBSteven Bartlett
When people say that, oh, you know, Rick is a creative and Steven is, say, they say Steven is not a creative. What are they actually saying? What is that like in our culture to be a creative? What-- how are, like, we misunderstanding the definition? See what I'm saying? 'Cause we do, we go, "Creative. Uh, they do a little bit of art and music stuff. Creative. Not creative. Excel documents. Creative."
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What are we actually saying there?
- RRRick Rubin
I think it's a way to, um, try to simplify the world. The world is complicated, and I think all of us can do anything. I, I'm not saying all of us could do everything to the best of our ability better than anyone else. That's a big part of it is the idea of competition. Like if I wanna play baseball, I know that I could get better at baseball. That doesn't mean I think I could get good enough to play on the Mets, but I know I could get better, and I know I could train anything that I'm interested in and get much better at it. And as soon as we're not capable of playing for the Mets, we think it's not for us, and we shut that off. We're not doing a service to ourselves. We're not becoming our best selves or really, uh, living up to our full potential as humans.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Feels like a natural human instinct to compare in order to understand the value of anything.
- 33:51 – 57:46
Why Competition Between Artists Is Ridiculous
- SBSteven Bartlett
I feel like we do it when we go to restaurants. There's three steaks. The expensive one's probably a bit bougie. The cheap one's probably not good. I'll go for the middle one. Seems like a hu- a hu- a way that humans take shortcuts, but we do it with ourselves as well. So I know that the thing I've made is good as if I look over at your thing, and mine is ranked better or mine is prettier or richer. Are you saying for us to get out of the business of comparison?
- RRRick Rubin
Yes, because I'm saying it's, it's always apples and oranges. If you, if, if you were to ask who's better, Michael Jackson or Prince? I would say Michael Jackson's much better at being Michael Jackson, and Prince is probably better at being Prince. But you can't compare what the two of them do. They do two different things. Before you mentioned Kanye West and, and Drake. There's no competition there. They do two totally different things. What you get from each of them is totally different. I wouldn't want from Drake what I get from Kanye, and I certainly wouldn't want from Kanye what I get from Drake. It's, it's pointless.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Is either more creative?
- RRRick Rubin
That's for you to decide. That's for you to decide. There's no-- The, the whole idea of competition between artists is, it's such a weird thing. Again, it's back to who has a better diary entry. It's ridiculous.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Feeling you don't have the energy it takes. These are all things that are not conducive to the work.
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah, I have that one sometimes. Feeling like I'm not up to it. Too much. I flew here yesterday from London. I'm tired. I'm a little jet lagged. I'm gonna show up and talk to you. Maybe it won't be good. Maybe it's better just to lay down, relax, and recover. But I'm here. I show up.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You've referred your, to yourself as a, um, a lazy workaholic. [chuckles]
- RRRick Rubin
Yes. It's true.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What is a lazy workaholic?
- RRRick Rubin
Often, most days, I would rather not do any of the things that I'm scheduled to do, and I schedule the things, and I show up, and I do what needs to get done.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Do you ever settle with creative work? The, the deadline for the record label is approaching. The work is not yet done. We'll finish here, and we'll send it.
- RRRick Rubin
I tend not to do that. I tend not to work on deadlines until we're past the point. The first time we would ever establish a deadline is when we already know. We've cracked the code. We know what this is gonna be. We can see it. It may not be completely finished, but we have a good idea of what it is and how it's gonna work, and it's maybe ninety percent done. Then we might set a deadline for that last ten percent of finishing it, and that last ten percent probably won't make or break the project
- SBSteven Bartlett
Part of what you accept when you pursue the creative process you've described, where it's really about like, "Do I like it? Do we like it?" Is you will create things that are at some, some points just absolute legendary and unlike anything else that exists. They are not the same. But part of the risk you take is you'll make things that other people just don't like.
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah. That's all there is in this process, is you have an idea, you build it. You may learn along the way that the idea was maybe not the best idea, and it turns left, and you make-- I, I'm starting out to make this blue statue, and it turns out to be this red painting. You don't know that going in, but you discover it through the process, and it could take a long time. Other times you'll think, "I'm gonna make this blue thing." You make it in five minutes. There it is, done. And, and we can't-- You can't calculate that. You can't anticipate what's gonna happen. But if I wasn't doing this experiment here, I would never get to the better thing. It happens all the time. And then sometimes you build it, and it doesn't work for twenty years, and then it becomes Amazon.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I've thought a lot recently about how time horizons change the work that you do, and that's kind of also what I'm hearing there because in that example you gave of this blue statue thing, if you were under a time horizon, you wouldn't have the space for that exploration you've described. And actually, in all of our lives, we, I think, apply time horizons. We say, "This part of my career is gonna be five years, and in, in those five years, I wanna achieve these things." How do you think about setting personal time horizons, but also, like, creative time horizons?
- RRRick Rubin
One of the things I talk about in the book is that there are different, um, phases of creativity. The first phase is the seed phase, then is the experimentation phase, then is the crafting phase, and then is the f-finishing, completion, editorial phase. And you can't set a timeline early in that process. In the seed phase, you have to try a lot of things, and it's gonna take as long as it takes. And in the experimental phase, which is where you're taking the seeds and seeing what they wanna be, that takes time. And then in the crafting phase, the third phase still takes time because now you have the seed. You see what it wants to be. You've given it time to gestate. You see how it grows. And now in the crafting phase, the third phase, you start trimming it and making it the way you see it. All of that has to happen before there's any idea of a timeline because until that time, you don't really know what you're making. It's a dream. But once you've gotten-- gone through these three phases and you have this thing in front of you, it may not be finished, but you see what it is. You see it, and it's good. You're excited about it. When I say it's good, I mean it's good to me. That's it. That's where it ends. It's good to me. I like it enough that I'm willing to show it to you. If I like it enough that I'm willing to show it to you, I like it enough to show it to everybody.
- SBSteven Bartlett
People will hear this as creative advice. I was hearing it as life advice. I was hearing the seed phase of my life, the experimentation phase of my life, the crafting phase.
- RRRick Rubin
Yes. It's the same. It's all the same, and that's why the, The Creative Act started with this idea of how to make things, and it turned-- What I realized through writing the book is it's how to be in the world, that, that you, you either live your life to allow these things to happen, or you don't. And if you live your life to allow these things to happen, then you're an artist. Even if you're a businessman or if you're a chef or if you're a mother, you're living your life as an artist. You're embodying it, and it's coming from you, and it's-- I wanna say it's who you are. It's not who you are, but it's who you are in that moment. I'm showing you this beautiful thing as a reflection of how I see the world today. Now, tomorrow, I may see the world differently. That's fine. But when I share it with you, this is the best it can be in this moment.
- SBSteven Bartlett
The, the reason I was asking this question about the, um, you know, sometimes they, the world might not like what you give it-
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah
- SBSteven Bartlett
... is because, uh, because of this word failure, which you talk about in the book as well, and how to deal with failure. I guess a lot of the reason why people won't take the risk to listen to themselves, to what they love, is because of the word risk, and with that comes, "I might lose money. I might lose friends. If I quit this job and pursue that violin hobby and go to Peru and violin up in Peru, my frie-- I'm gonna lose friends. People are gonna think I'm strange, so I, I'll conform."
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah. And I'm saying you have to do all of those things, lose the friends, take the risk. Now, I'm not, I'm-- And, and I'm s- also saying, I'm not saying that f- that 100%, if you go move to Peru and be the violinist, it's gonna work, and you may wanna have an actual job to pay the bills while you're doing that. That's okay. The idea that it all has to be one thing, I have to do my dream thing, and it has to be my profe- it has to be my hobby, my love, my profession, the way I support myself, doesn't have to be. When I started making music, I thought I was gonna have a real job, and I'd make music, and it would be my hobby. I would do it forever. I would do exactly what I was doing, but I thought I would have a real job to support myself to do these things that I wanna do. Luckily, I was able to-- It, it turned into its own thing by nothing that I did. Had no expectation that, that it could be a profession. I had no-- It couldn't be. It was a ridiculous idea. I did it because I loved it, and while I was going to school and while I was probably gonna go, go to law school, and I would have a regular job, day job, and I would do music as the love of my life. That's what I would do. Luckily, I didn't have to do that But that's what would've happened
- SBSteven Bartlett
A lot of people at that age are told to f- uh, follow their passion, find their purpose, which sounds like this, you know, 'cause the word passion is a singular word, and also the word find means I have to go, go out there and actively pursue the thing. A lot of people listening now would, would say, "You know, I'm- I've been told to find my passion," and when they look at their job in the factory or wherever it might be, you know, whatever they're doing, they go, "Okay, this isn't it yet, but I will get there at some point later."
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
"And I will jump." So you're saying don't jump necessarily.
- RRRick Rubin
There are realities of life that you have to deal with. I'm not saying ignore the fact that you get- you have to pay rent or, or say, "I'm happy living in my parents' house until, until it works." That's fine. I, I'm saying there are realities of life that have to be dealt with. Don't put the pressure of, of that on your art, because then you won't make the best decisions. You'll make short-term decisions based on real world issues that you have to deal with in that moment that won't support the long-term benefit of the work you're doing, the real work you're doing.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I'm sure you've sat there in those moments where you're trying to persuade an artist to follow themselves and what they... No?
- RRRick Rubin
I don't try to persuade anyone of anything. [laughs]
- SBSteven Bartlett
Oh, really? Okay.
- RRRick Rubin
No. I don't- I wouldn't use that word. I wouldn't use the word persuade.
- 57:46 – 1:08:06
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- SBSteven Bartlett
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- RRRick Rubin
Sure.
- SBSteven Bartlett
This word identity. I am a lawyer in Manhattan and a father and a mm.
- RRRick Rubin
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And I took that identity. It's almost a bit of a trade I made. I, I accepted it, which meant that at cocktail parties-
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah
- SBSteven Bartlett
... people were impressed by me.
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And so, you know, we traded something for something else, and now we're boxed in. And now a lot... You know, I hear a lot from our listeners on this show, like they feel stuck.
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah. We're free. We're free. We just have to choose to take advantage of this human gift of freedom, and we can start over. I remember the one close friend who tried to commit suicide and didn't, uh, luckily lived. I went to visit him in the hospital. He was laying in, in a hospital bed, and he was seemingly catatonic. He hadn't spoke since this happened. And I was standing in the hallway, and there were a series of his friends coming to see him. Everybody would go into the room one at a time. And I listened to the two people who went in before me, and they were crying, and they were acting as if he had died Now, he's laying there, he's in fetal position, he's not saying a word. And I'm just thinking, "This mu- this is really weird. This is re- it's really... The whole scene is weird." Never seen anything like it before. And my first thought was, the people who are going in there and talking to him, they have no idea how to act. None of us do because this is an unusual situ- unless you've been in it, which I hadn't been before, you'd have no idea what to do. But I knew from listening, this is not the best... What they're doing is not the best situation. There's a better way. And I was the next one in, and I went in, and I looked down and I said... A- again, I don't know where this came from, but it came. I said, "This may be hard for you to see right now, but you're in the sweet spot." And I remember saying that, [chuckles] and he looked at me, and he looked at me like I was insane. But it was the first re- the first time anyone-- The first thing he reacted to was that. And I said, "You just hit the reset button." I said, "All of the things that you hate to do, that you feel obligated to do, that you feel committed to do, that made you wanna not be here anymore, you just hit the reset button. You never have to do any of those things again. And now you can do anything you want. You're free to start. All of those old ideas, none of those obligations are hanging over your head." And we ended up having a really nice conversation, and he got up and he got dressed, and he was like himself. It was an amazing, an amazing experience. But that, that's how boxed in we feel, but it's all just a story. It's not true. We are free.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Is there a step one in that direction for people that wanna hit the reset button? Is there a first step?
- RRRick Rubin
Well, I would t-try to see what are the things in your life that really you wanna change, and then think about what's the, what's the cleanest way to change them. Leaving a job, leaving a relationship. You know, the, the reason these things happen is we make commitments with good intentions, and then when it's hard to keep the commitment is where it starts feeling boxed in. Now, I think commitments are a good thing both to make and to keep. That said, there can be a point where it becomes life and death. It's like, this commitment that I made was a mistake, and it was-- and/or something changed. Maybe the person that I married became an alcoholic, and it's really hard living with an alcoholic, and it's not fun. This is not what we signed up for. And I can do everything I can to help this person, but maybe nothing works. And at some point, it's okay to hit the reset button and say, "You know what?" Y-y-you're not doing any favors if you're, if you're locked in a situation... I have a lot of friends who are in relationships, and maybe the relationship has gone south, but they stay in it because both, both sides of the couple feel like this is the life we signed up for. And in reality, you're not doing any favors for the person being unhappy in a relationship. It's-- The nature of love is it's a two-way street. Or the same, the same I can say if someone is in love with someone and the other person un-unrequited love, the person's not in love with them. There's no really such thing because the nature of love is it's like a negative and a positive magnet pull-pulling towards each other. You can't have one side of the magnet in love. It doesn't work. And it's just a fantasy of what, you know... It's a, it's a beautiful fantasy of what you think, like as an optimist, it could be so beautiful.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm.
- RRRick Rubin
But if it's not there, it's best for everyone involved. Someti- I have some friends who feel like, "Well, I don't wanna break up with them because it'll, it'll, um, it'll destroy them." It's not true. It's better for everyone involved, if it's not working, to find the n-new beautiful life. You can do that. It's okay.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I imagine as well there's some people who, um, have lots of small misalignments. None of them are, are huge issues on their own, but now they have a life full of a hundred small misaligned things. Could be anything. Um, and so their life feels really fundamentally misaligned, but it's actually just maybe they struggled with honesty across many little areas of their life.
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah, and maybe those can be worked on, and maybe it could be fixed. But in either case, don't let it just linger. F- you know, repair them.
- SBSteven Bartlett
It's hard conversations though, Rick.
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah. Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
A lot of people aren't good at that. We're, you know, people pleasers and... There's a through line here with creativity generally, I think, this idea of like people pleasing, the difficult conversation, and I've obviously seen from some of the things you've mentioned through this conversation, like you'd be willing to tell people like, "This isn't for me." I imagine you're offered a lot of money a lot of the time as well.
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
How do you sort of parse through that if you're offered a, a ton of money to do something, but at some level it's not aligned with your principles or values or...?
- RRRick Rubin
I wanna make good things. Like I wanna make something good.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Have you turned down large numbers of... In, i-in terms of money or other incentives because you didn't feel something was gonna be good or was aligned or...?
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah, I'm sure I have. I, I can't think of examples, but I'm sure I have. I, I, I don't think about the stuff. Like I think about the things I do. I don't think about things I don't do, you know?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Does it matter to you, the money part of it?
- RRRick Rubin
I want to be in success- I wanna participate in the success. I think that's right. That feels right to me. I never make a decision for a financial reason. That said, if we make something successful, that's valuable.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And in your own life, and we're talking there about mental health, through your early 30s, you had a depressive episode yourself.
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Was there a causal factor? And how, how important was that in shaping how you think generally about the world and the art and the creativity? 'Cause I know it-- I've heard you say on Newsday that it changed you permanently.
- RRRick Rubin
It did.
- 1:08:06 – 1:26:58
The Depression That Transformed Rick's Life
- RRRick Rubin
loved me, really cared about me, always supportive. I went to school. I started making music as a hobby. It ended up taking on a life of its own and becoming a business, and had great success for all those years. And then at 33, for the first time, it got called into question. I had a business relationship with a big company. The person who I was in relationship with was one of the probably the top person in the whole music industry, well-loved, beautiful person, one of my mentors. He got politically forced out, and a new person was put in who I didn't have a relationship with. And that person called me and said, "I read your-- I read our agreement," because he had adopted the agreement that I had with my mentor. He's like, "I don't like it. When you come back to California, we should talk about it." That was it. That was the whole conversation. Now, for me, I, I didn't, I didn't know because I'd had so much success for so long, I never, I never had to deal with any instability in my life in that way. I felt like the rug had been pulled out from un-under me. And I had started having panic attacks and couldn't sleep and got really sick. And again, for, for almost anyone else, the exact same scenario would've been, "Okay, we'll deal with it when I get there, no problem," and move on. But I didn't have the ability to deal with it because I never had to deal with anything like that. I didn't have the musculature to deal with that issue. And it felt like the rug was pulled out. I didn't know what to do, and sunk. And then we-- it ended up going on for years, even after the problem was solved. I ended up leaving the company, starting a relationship with a new company. Everything was fine. But some-- It's like it was like a, a bal-- it was like I was a balloon that got burst in that moment. And I'm still not the same person as I was before. Now, maybe now I'm more rooted in reality, which, uh, probably sounds funny after a lot of the things I've been saying. Before that, I would say I never questioned anything. It was just like everything was always rolling in this one direction. And that was the first time that it was questioned, and I... It sunk me and took years to get out of it. What I will say, though, is that because of that, so many of the artists I work with deal with a lot of i- personal issues, and before that, before I was 33, I probably didn't understand how they felt as much as I do now. Because now I've had an experience where I feel like the bottom fell out. I would say it has helped my understanding of the artists I work with.
- SBSteven Bartlett
On your Desert Island Discs, you said, "It wasn't anything that I understood. I thought I was dying."
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
The essence of this is a, it was your first sort of big professional, dare I say, rejection.
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah?
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah. I was wrapped up in that, in who I was, and that questioned who I was-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm
- RRRick Rubin
... for the first time.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And you went to therapy?
- RRRick Rubin
Yes. Went to therapy and ended up, uh, using an antidepressant drug, which I tend not to be a drug person, but it was bad enough for long enough that that was the final-- It was the, it was the last thing. I was seeing a different therapist, probably a therapist or a healer, at least one, five days a week. And every time I would wake up and go and just thinking, "M-maybe today it's gonna be better. Maybe today it's gonna be better." And it wasn't better. It was really a tough time.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What was go- what was going on under the surface of this? 'Cause, 'cause on the surface, one would say Rick got a professional rejection-
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah
- SBSteven Bartlett
... and it resulted in him saying that he thought he was dying. That's what we see on the surface.
- RRRick Rubin
Well, it was totally un-- it, it all was happening on the unconscious level. Couldn't sleep, was nauseous all the time, didn't wanna get out of bed. It was like it, it was a ph- I felt it in a physical way and didn't wanna do anything.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What, what, what is this? What i- what was that?
- RRRick Rubin
Well, I've heard it described as like being shot with a poison arrow in a, in a philosophical or a psychological way. I was shot with a poison arrow.
- SBSteven Bartlett
'Cause I've, I've looked at your, um, your earliest years. I've looked at, you know, two wonderful people there.
- RRRick Rubin
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Your mom and your dad.
- RRRick Rubin
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Um, and sometimes, you know, when I interview people that are anomalous in some way, I find that their upbringing had some sort of trauma and that they had a chip on their shoulder. But with you, I had very much the opposite, that you had two parents that really, really loved you.
- RRRick Rubin
Really loved me. Could do no wrong. But that was part of what it was. It's like I had been raised Believing I could do no wrong.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hmm.
- RRRick Rubin
And then in the real world, making music, the success showed that I could do no wrong until someone decided, "You know what? I don't like, I don't like what you're doing." So I just had no-- I just didn't have context for it, no way to deal with it.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Sounds like a horrific season of your life.
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Would you-- If there was, um, if there was a button on the table now that would allow you to erase it, would you press it?
- RRRick Rubin
I would not.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Why?
- 1:26:58 – 1:45:08
Why Rationality Is Overrated in Creativity
- SBSteven Bartlett
she has been saying to me. I think, I think we, we go together. Funnily enough, you're talking about plus and minuses because she is someone that helps me break outside of rationality.
- RRRick Rubin
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And when, when she's, when she speaks to me about these ideas she has about these, you know, bigger ideas she has, I always listen very intently. Although at some level I am, I guess, rebutting them.
- RRRick Rubin
But do you see how they impact her life? Do you see what they do to her?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- RRRick Rubin
Does it feel like it raises her vibration like-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hundred percent.
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- RRRick Rubin
It's like there, there's-- That counts. You know, the way she feels, that counts.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Her vibe.
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah. [chuckles]
- SBSteven Bartlett
One of the, um-
- RRRick Rubin
Enough for you to wanna be around her all the time.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah. [chuckles]
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I feel like I'm, yeah, leeching off that vibe to some degree sometimes. [chuckles] What-- You talked about higher intelligence, and you talked about a, a generative force, which is the perfect segue into the big subject of the moment, which is artificial intelligence. Kinda leads to what you were saying about vibe coding as well. For the first time ever, I was saying yesterday, I, I got a, a message from my fr-- one of my friends who isn't involved in technology saying like, "I'm concerned. I-I don't know what this technology is. Is it gonna take our jobs? I'm concerned." And that for me was the bat signal that, that, that this is really getting down to everyday people. This week, there was a anthropic researcher, um, who also worked at AI-- uh, ChatGPT, OpenAI, say he thinks it might be, uh, the, the end of the human race or at least there's a more than ten percent chance of that. AI is a broad subject. I'm sure you've got lots of thoughts on it.
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah, I think it's a, it's a wildly powerful tool, and I'm curious to see what it can do. Like any powerful tool, it could be really dangerous. It could be used for bad, or it could be used for good. Fire burned down my house. I wouldn't say we should ban fire.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hmm.
- RRRick Rubin
Fire cooks our food, does some good stuff, heats our, heats our houses. It's one of these things. It's like the internet changed the world. It does some really good things, probably does some really bad things. Very powerful. The printing press, when it came along, the church tried to ban the printing press. They didn't want that. They didn't want books to be able to-- They didn't want information to be able to be for everybody. Good came from that and probably some bad. So-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Can it be creative?
- RRRick Rubin
I don't know. I'm curious. I, I don't know. I feel like everything we've talked about today about what creativity is has to do with point of view.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hmm.
- RRRick Rubin
And AI doesn't have a point of view. AI is, uh, the collected ideas that already exist. It doesn't have-- It doesn't see it from a particular angle. And if you ask it the same question several times or several days in a row, it may give you a very different answer day after day. So it's not like it has-- this is how it sees the world.
- SBSteven Bartlett
If I asked an AI to make ten million different tracks-
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah
- SBSteven Bartlett
... would it-- theoretically, it would at some point make a hit, even though it doesn't have a, a point of view per se.
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah. I wouldn't, I wouldn't-- It's hard for me to say what a hit even is.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay.
- RRRick Rubin
But I would say it could make ten thousand tracks, and you might like one or two of them, or you may n- like five percent of them. You might. And that's interesting. And I could see, like, there was a time when we would sample records. When we were doing hip hop records, it was called crate digging, where you'd go to record stores, find old records, listen to them all the way through, and find one little part. It's like, "Ah, this little break beat. Let's use that and make a new song out of it." And it-- and you change the context and make something new. So if AI was playing music constantly in the background and then all of a sudden I heard a little clip, "Oh, that's a good sample. We can make that into something."
- 1:45:08 – 1:50:19
The Johnny Cash Sessions: Capturing Magic in the Living Room
- RRRick Rubin
them. And we did that, and we recorded with a great band, and it was interesting, but it wasn't better. And then we did it again with a different band. Same thing. Wasn't better. It's like, I guess those recordings from the living room, which we had no thoughts of ever-- anybody ever hearing, they have something that the real recordings don't have.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hmm.
- RRRick Rubin
And we ended up putting out those. So, but again, that we didn't go into the process to do that. We discovered it through the process, and sometimes it's the opposite way where you ma- you have a clear vision of what it's gonna be, and you do it all the way, and it, it tells you through that process it wants to be this entire other thing.
- SBSteven Bartlett
It wants to be.
- RRRick Rubin
It wants to be.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You're saying that as if it's got a mind of its own.
- RRRick Rubin
It does.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hmm.
- RRRick Rubin
Well, it-- I'm only saying it does because it shows you, "No, what you think is wrong. Try it like this."
- SBSteven Bartlett
You're sort of personifying. You're sort of-
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah, I'm personifying. It doesn't say it in words, but it's clear. The indicators are clear. What we get back is, hmm, we thought it was supposed to be this fast. When we listen to it, it's clearly much too fast. We have to play it slower. We thought it was gonna be a loud electric song. Turns out it wants to be a really quiet song. We didn't know that.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Has there been a time where you thought something was just the most amazing thing ever, and then when it went out into the world, the world didn't subjectively think it was amazing?
- RRRick Rubin
For sure. It probably happens often.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And how do you rationalize that on the basis of-
- RRRick Rubin
Well, as soon as I decide that I like it enough to share with the world, I'm done. I move on to the next thing. I can't-- The-- What anyone else thinks doesn't really impact it. It's fun when people like it. I love it when people like it, but that's total bonus. The real work is I like this enough to put it out into the world. My name's on the back of the record. The artist's name's on the front. They like it enough to put it out. I like it enough to put it out. Here you go. What's next?
- SBSteven Bartlett
And what comes of that, you're treating like none of your business?
- RRRick Rubin
Correct. 'Cause anything that I think of past that is gonna totally undermine the creative process. The creative process is a pure, uh, delicate process to be protected, and if you're thinking about what happens next, totally undermines it. The house of cards crumbles. When we're working in the studio and something starts sounding good and someone, one of the artists might say, "Oh, this, this sounds like it could be a single," it's like, we're not talking about that. That has nothing to do with what we're doing.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What are you doing?
- RRRick Rubin
Making the best thing we can make. We, we're making the best thing we can make, and I always use this-- I always thought of it as greatness, like we're working towards greatness, timeless greatness. Didn't know what it meant, and more recently I came to realize we're making it as an offering to God. And if we're making it as an offering to God, things like the numbers, that's much-- that's insignificant. This is we're doing our best as an offering. There's nothing deeper than that. There's no metric that competes with that. I didn't always know that, but it was always the same.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Was there a point when you realized that?
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah, a few years ago, and it felt good when I realized it. It was like, ah, [laughs] of course. You know, 35 years in, like, oh.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Do you remember the moment?
- RRRick Rubin
I have a vague memory. I don't remember the specifics. I remember I was sitting on a lifeguard chair in Hawaii and, um-
- SBSteven Bartlett
[laughs] How dare you
- RRRick Rubin
... and I remember thinking about it there, but I don't know if that's the moment where it struck me. But I remember it was like-- it was a, a total epiphany even though it was only f- you know... For me, it didn't apply to anything else. It was just like I realized what I've been doing all this time without understanding it. It just became clear. It's like, ah, that's what it is Yeah. It was a great, it was a great feeling of like, now it all makes more sense
- SBSteven Bartlett
Do you mean in the literal sense, you think that you are making offerings for a higher power?
- RRRick Rubin
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Very, very literally.
- RRRick Rubin
I'm saying God. [chuckles]
- SBSteven Bartlett
And God defined as the higher power.
- 1:50:19 – 1:59:38
Making Art as an Offering to God
- SBSteven Bartlett
literally-- So, so the art you make, the music you, you make, he is actually the customer in some respects.
- RRRick Rubin
No, because it's a gift. So he's not a, it's not a customer. He's the beneficiary, but he's not the customer. And it's like a, I wanna sh-- I want to show you my best out of love and thanks, gratitude. Here's the best I can do. That's what it is. This is my best. If anybody else likes it, great, but if not, we're good.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Does he ever give feedback?
- RRRick Rubin
I wanna say that when other people like it, I might, I might take that as a good sign, but I don't know. I, I don't really think about it. But I feel like when a lot of people like it, it's like the energy of it is positive all the way around. Interesting to think about. Fun to think about.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Do you think that's why we're here? 'Cause, 'cause I'm now trying to figure out why there would be such a relationship with God where we were offering gifts and how that links to our maybe higher purpose.
- RRRick Rubin
Well, I think we're here to show who we are. We're here to self-express. I am here. I'm here to tell you, "This is me. This is how I see the world." And to say to you, "Show me who you are. Tell me how you see the world." And the way we make sense of it is we discuss that, and we may... in some areas, we may line up, in some cases, we may differ, but that's how we figure it out. And everything we do is, "This is how I see the world." And then other people say, "I never saw it that way, but yes, I'm on board with that." And other people are like, "Hmm, no, that's not for me." And that's fine.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hmm.
- RRRick Rubin
But we are here. Our purpose is to self-express.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Through several different means. Through-
- RRRick Rubin
Any different way. Any self-expression with-- comes in a lot of, in a lot of forms. But the best version, it's never because they did it this way. That's not self-expression. Copying the, "They were successful, and I'm copying them," that's not self-expression. That's a, a different game. That's not what we're here for. You can do it. It's fine. It's fine. But I don't think that's why we're here.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I sat with a, uh, someone who is an expert on consciousness. He's a physicist who just, you know, is, uh, is very spiritual. One of the things he said to me, which has really stayed with me, is he was positing that potentially consciousness itself is God has divided consciousness into lots of little pieces, into my French bulldog, Pablo, into Rick, into someone in China, and he set us all off to go and explore and understand the world, and by doing so, consciousness is seeking to understand itself. Very strange idea. And then I went to, I think, Malta, and I was driving down the road in Malta, and I looked, and I saw these tourists. And with that idea in mind, that consciousness has divided itself to go and understand itself into these pieces, into a fish, so it can go check the bottom of the ocean. I saw these tourists, and they were all just looking up at this mountain.
- RRRick Rubin
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And, like, with-- in the abstract, that's-- it looks like a very strange thing that we're, like, fascinated by the novel. And so I started to think maybe that is true. Maybe this thing called consciousness is this exploration to understand itself, and it's turn- some consciousness has gone into Rick, and Rick is experimenting and creating to understand and to... And kind of what you were saying there reminded me of it 'cause it sounded like you were talking about consciousness itself and the self-expression of consciousness, so.
- RRRick Rubin
It could be. It's a beautiful idea.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Strange idea, isn't it? That-
- RRRick Rubin
Not strange to me. [chuckles]
- SBSteven Bartlett
Not strange to you. [laughs] Okay.
- RRRick Rubin
Not at all.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I think nothing is, nothing's off the table.
- RRRick Rubin
Nothing's off the table.
- SBSteven Bartlett
One of, um, one of the great artists you've, uh, you've worked with, we talked about, is, um, is Jay-Z.
- RRRick Rubin
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And you have this wonderful eight-part documentary-
- RRRick Rubin
Yes
- SBSteven Bartlett
... coming out with Jay-Z, which I was fascinated enough to, uh, well, I found fascinating to watch. Uh, it's, like, out on the 18th of September, and one of the clips that I watched from it, just let us run down, i- is the story of, um, this brand.
- RRRick Rubin
Ah, yes. Ace of Spades.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I found it really fascinating, the story that Jay-Z told about this brand, Ace of Spades, um, for many reasons. But it also, it rhymes with some of the things you're saying about integrity and how you feel and his decision to, um, abandon another brand and at a cost, at a near-term cost against his near-term incentives, and pursue launching his own.
- RRRick Rubin
Yes, and what's interesting, what, what's most interesting about that story, and it's not-- We don't make a lot of it. It's just a passing remark. But what happened was he decided not to support a company going forward.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Cristal.
- RRRick Rubin
Yes, which he had made very popular in the hip-hop community. He was the first person to drink it. Nobody knew what it was. He talked about it in, in records, in songs, and it became a very popular drink in the hip-hop community. And the person who ran Cristal said some disparaging remarks about it, about hip-hop people drinking Cristal.
- 1:59:38 – 2:00:54
Quitting as a Superpower: Creating Space for What's Next
- SBSteven Bartlett
you start a new thing. But obviously, from what you've just said, logically, you can't really start anything big in life without first doing something, which none of us really glamorize. Actually, it's the opposite. We say never quit. Don't quit.
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
But that is the necessary first step to starting, to starting a brand, which in Jay-Z's case went on to be worth six hundred and thirty million dollars at the time when he sold his stake. Um, we have a weird relationship with quitting. We need certainty. I need the branch.
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah. No, I think that's... it's an empowering thing. It's like taking control. I just had a conversation about this recently with someone who's a very high up person in a very high tech company who is, um, who's decided to step down, and he's stepping down for the right reasons, and he's concerned that people... the perception will be he's being fired. That, that'll be the outside world. But he's really stepping down because he doesn't like what's going on there, and usually people don't leave jobs at that level.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hmm.
- RRRick Rubin
So it's an interesting, it's an interesting moment in time when that, when that happens.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Similar to what you were saying about getting artists to step outside of their genre, to quit their genre.
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah. Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
[paper rustling]
- 2:00:54 – 2:07:00
Ads
- SBSteven Bartlett
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- RRRick Rubin
I've never used that particular device, but it looks beautiful.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You know, if I came to you, Rick, and I went [drum beat] I loved that.
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And clearly, I mean, objectively it wasn't great.
- RRRick Rubin
I don't know. Could be great.
- SBSteven Bartlett
If, but if I [drum beat] if I was like, "Rick, [drum beat] I wanna put that out."
- RRRick Rubin
Do you really believe it's great? If you really believe it's great, I support you putting it out.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Really?
- RRRick Rubin
If you really believe it's great, yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Would you interrogate-
- RRRick Rubin
You're giving me this hypothetical with like, what if this thing that's bad, if I tell you I think it's great. It's like you don't believe it's great. I trust when you tell me, "I really love this thing. I wanna play it for people," I support that.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Even if you don't-- It doesn't matter if you-
- RRRick Rubin
Doesn't matter. And if I don't like it, I'll say, "You might wanna try these things." But I always support somebody who makes something that they love. That's beautiful for the world.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Is there an example of that with artists you've worked with where they presented you with something and you didn't really get it, you didn't feel it, you didn't like it. They put it out and it was a huge success for them, but also for the audience?
- RRRick Rubin
I can think of one, but I don't really wanna talk about it. [chuckles] But yes, I could think of one. It, it has happened.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Is there anything you can tell me about it without identifying what the song was or the person was?
- RRRick Rubin
Um, I was working with an artist and there were lots of good songs, and there was one song that I felt like this one doesn't fit with all the rest.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hmm.
- RRRick Rubin
It feels like it doesn't go with the others. And, um, the artist chose to include that one, and it ended up becoming a big hit. Wasn't the first single, but it did become a big hit. And it's anytime I give my opinion, this isn't-- This is a really interesting idea, this idea of I'm asked how do I have the confidence, 'cause when I say I don't like something, I really mean it. It's like, well, how could you have the confidence that it's not good? It's like, well, I have the confidence that I don't like the pizza.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hmm.
- RRRick Rubin
It, it doesn't mean more than that. You know, it ends... I was asked to produce Guns N' Roses' first album, and I turned them down because I went to see them live, played in a little club in a basement, maybe 30 people there, and they were, they were a hair band at the time with makeup and stuff, and I just looked like, "I don't really get it." Now, they went on to become Guns N' Roses. It's good that I didn't work with them because if I would've worked with them, it might have turned into something different than what they did without me.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- RRRick Rubin
So it wasn't the right, it wasn't the right fit. Um, do, do you know what I'm saying?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- RRRick Rubin
It's like-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah
- RRRick Rubin
... it's-- I'm honest about what I see, and it's true, but it's only true for me.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I'm wondering if you can be at the inverse of that, if you can be a great creative and never be commercially successful ever.
- RRRick Rubin
Absolutely. For sure. For sure.
- 2:07:00 – 2:19:15
Jay-Z's 30-Minute Miracle: Writing Without Writing
- SBSteven Bartlett
some incredible people. I've got some of the albums that you produced around that time and published. Um, but one of those people through- throughout your career and then thereafter was Jay-Z. What was special about Jay?
- RRRick Rubin
Jay wrote in a way that no one else wrote. All the other rappers that I worked with spent a lot of time writing lyrics, and I never saw Jay write lyrics. And when I got to work with him, I got to see him not physically write lyrics. And when I played him the beat for "99 Problems," he said, "Okay, just keep looping it. Keep playing it over and over again." And he sat in the back of the room, and it went on long enough that I almost forgot that he was there because I was talking to the engineer, and song's just playing over and over, and he's silent in the back. On occasion, you could hear him mumbling or humming. And then after 20 or 30 minutes, he's like, "Okay, I got it." Ran into the other room and did the first verse. Totally. The whole thing. No- nothing was written, just... He just remembered it. And he did it s- he did several takes, and each of the takes, the words were the same, but the cadence was different. Like almost as if A saxophonist was playing a solo, and you n- you know how the solo goes, but every time you play it, you play it a little different.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- RRRick Rubin
That's what it was like. Like, it had emphasis in different places, and the cadence was a little different, and one word might be m- featured in one version, whereas in the next version, that word just kinda went by less important. Um, and then so he did s- let's say three takes, and then he came in, he listened to them. He's like, "Oh, yeah, I think the second one's good." And then he's like, "Okay, keep playing it and I'll..." And he sat back down, and he did the same thing again. About another half hour later, he's like, "Let's do the next one," till he was ready. So it just, it just happens in his mind.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What is that? Is that taste? Is that-
- RRRick Rubin
I don't know. It's a, it's a real and, and unusual skill set. Very unusual. I don't know how he, how he can remember 'cause it's complicated. It's not like in a rock song there might be four lines in a verse. Pretty easy to remember. But rap songs have a lot of words, and it's complicated. But... So that was, that was the first thing that really I would say separated him from everyone else from me is that his process was totally different than anyone else I ever worked with.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Which is interesting 'cause other people might arrive at the same outcome but take a different journey there. They might, you know, write lots of things down and-
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So there's not a correct process.
- RRRick Rubin
No. There's n- with all of these things in art, there's never a right way. What, what works for one person doesn't mean it works for someone else, and that's one of the real dangers of getting advice from people is someone tells you, "I wrote it this way and it was really successful, so this is how you have to do it."
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hmm.
- RRRick Rubin
But that's not true. That it might work, but that might be the way that it works for that guy, not you.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hmm.
- RRRick Rubin
So always be wary when getting advice because, again, people give you advice with the best intentions, but they're giving you advice based on their story, not your story.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So where do we get advice from?
- RRRick Rubin
I would say listening to a lot of stuff. It depends on what, what the sub-- like what, where we're... what, what medium we're working in. But I would swim deeply in that medium, whatever it is, and then really listen to what's going on in you. It, it has to do with you, how you see it. It's an internal, um, it's an internal compass that tells you where to go. And I'll also say there may not only be one answer. There may not even be a right answer, and that's where it really comes down to, like, this internal feeling of I would take as-- I would hear as much information from as many people as possible, hopefully conflicting, and then really check in and take as much time as it takes to internally get to a point of where you know it. You know what the right answer is. You know what the right answer for you is.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hmm.
- RRRick Rubin
There is no right answer, but you know what the right answer for you is, and that's what you always wanna get to. What is the right answer for me?
- SBSteven Bartlett
How do I know?
- RRRick Rubin
You'll know it. And if you don't know it, you don't have enough y- there's not enough... You haven't done enough research yet because you-- it has to come from you. It has to come from you of, "I've gotten to the point. I've done enough homework of conflicting information where I can listen to myself and I feel good about it."
- SBSteven Bartlett
One of the ways, um, that that noi- that voice inside of us gets conflicted is we have our parents. I, I know your story. I know your parents, you know, they kinda thought maybe you'd be a doctor, but you didn't like needles, so they were like, "Okay, well, he can be a lawyer." A lot of people say they have that voice with my parents and, and it's sometimes hard to untangle what voice is me and my wishes-
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah
- SBSteven Bartlett
... versus external.
- RRRick Rubin
Yes. I remember when I first went to college and moved out of my parents' house, it took me probably a year to understand what in my head was me and what in my head was them. I was definitely confused, but had to create that space or lucky enough to create that space to, to allow it to happen. Again, I didn't go to s- college for that to happen. But in college, being outside of the house, I started to understand who I was and who they were and where we were aligned and where we saw the world differently, and it was fine. But it took time because I didn't know that. I didn't know that.
- SBSteven Bartlett
If you ask a lot of people w- who they wanna be or in your case in music, you know, what, what music they wanna make or what their goal is, they will say things that they don't realize have come from somewhere else.
- RRRick Rubin
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Happens a lot in my life. I'll, I'll interview someone. I'll say, "What do you wanna be?" And they'll say something just arbitrary and big and fancy.
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And then oftentimes when you, like, ask more questions, there's nothing behind it, so they got it from Instagram or they got it from their parents. How, how, how can we cultivate a better understanding of, um, of our own truth? It's like when I played you that bad song, you started trying to s-- you, you went in search of truth. How can I c-- how can I know? How can I parse out what is me and my alignment and what is inherited from somewhere else?
- RRRick Rubin
I, I, as I said before, I think you need to find some practices that ground you in yourself. Meditation is a great one. I'm sure there are others. But you have to get in touch with y- with you. Maybe therapy works for some people. But you gotta get to where who you are It's a-
- 2:19:15 – 2:21:27
Walking the Tightrope: Why Risk Equals Greatness
- RRRick Rubin
But that's the risk, and it's the risk that I s- I wholeheartedly support. Wholeheartedly.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Why?
- RRRick Rubin
Because that's where it's at. Like, that's-- if the goal is to make the beaut- most beautiful thing you can and to self-express in the purest way, it's a razor's edge walk. There's nothing ordinary about it. It's beyond ordinary. There's nothing normal about it. Normal is nothing to aspire to. Average is nothing to aspire to. If you're looking for greatness, sometimes eggs get broken, but that's just-- but that's what comes with it. That's how it works.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Are we all cut out for greatness? 'Cause it comes with a cost, and walking tightropes is not for everybody.
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah. I think we all have potential, and when I say greatness, it's like we all have potential to be the greatest version of ourselves. You know? We, uh, we can be-- You can be the best version of you I don't know what that is compared to other people who are great at other things. You know, I, I'm-- it doesn't mean you'll be the best F1 driver.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- RRRick Rubin
But your light can shine brighter than anyone else doing what you do, and I'm into that. [chuckles] I support that. I wanna see that.
- SBSteven Bartlett
With these great people, this big list of people that I have in front of me that you've worked with, I mean, it's just this endless, endless, almost unbelievable list. Everybody from, like, Justin Timberlake to the Red Hot Chili Peppers to helping, I mean, Kanye on his, uh, th-the record Runaway, which is one of the most incredible records of all time, to, um, we've talked about Jay-Z and System of a Down and AC/DC and Mick Jagger and, I mean, there's a l- endless list. When I look at it, I go, "Were these people all great?"
- RRRick Rubin
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And were they great from birth or, or is, are they ordinary people that made a decision?
- RRRick Rubin
They're-- I would say they're ordinary people who made a decision. Maybe some of them had some particular gifts,
- 2:21:27 – 2:29:13
How Great Artists Work: Eminem's Obsessive Practice
- RRRick Rubin
um, but others were ordinary and cultivated a gift. That list, they're not special. They're not the only ones like that. But they really rode that wave. I think of Eminem as a good example. Eminem is someone who's always writing. He's always writing because he wants to be able-- he wants to be the best he could possibly be, and he's insanely obsessive about that. So his entire life is focused on sitting at a notepad writing all day and all night. It's all he does. That's what makes him him.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Even if he's not publishing an album or-
- RRRick Rubin
Doesn't matter. It's not-- He's not writing... I asked him one point, looking at his notebooks, he's like, "Is all this gonna, you know, is, are all these for..." He's like, "No, no, no. Ninety-nine percent of this stuff no one will ever see. I just wanna be good. I wanna-- I'm practicing. I'm, I wanna get better at what I do." He's in training always. If you think of it like an athlete, you know, there are athletes who-- there are some athletes who train in the off-season, and there are some who don't.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- RRRick Rubin
And the ones who train in the off-season are usually better and usually have a longer career. It's like that.
- SBSteven Bartlett
When we sat down, you asked me a question. You said, um, you said, "Steven, you, you're doing this podcast. Have the guests changed you?"
- RRRick Rubin
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And much of what I've shown here is how you've changed people's lives through being a coach or a producer or however you might define that. My question to you is, can you give me a couple of example of artists that, for whatever reason, fundamentally changed you?
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah. The first one I, I'll say is Johnny Cash.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Johnny Cash.
- RRRick Rubin
Um, because I got to spend time around someone who was so humble and quiet and smart and didn't offer much. Like, like, if you didn't, if you didn't draw him out, he wouldn't say anything. But anything you asked him about, he knew about and had a really incredible point of view. But he wasn't, um, he didn't have a need to let you know that.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- RRRick Rubin
It was all going on inside, and he was a beautiful spiritual person, and I loved him. And I feel like my life was really improved getting to spend so much time with someone so, so inspiring. That's one.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What is the, um, emotion there?
- RRRick Rubin
Where's-
- SBSteven Bartlett
There was some emotion there.
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah. Yeah, he's a beautiful man. Beautiful man. Next one would be, um, Tom Petty, who was... He was the ultimate craftsman. So in The Beatles, you have John and Paul, and John was more of a raw nerve who tore his chest open and led with his heart. And then Paul was more of a, almost like a, a savant of music, like j- like a craftsperson. Paul could take anything and make it good. John was like a raw nerve who could just show his soul. And they're two very different skills, and together, that's what makes it The Beatles. Also, the fact that George and Ringo are incredible. I mean, w- even with, you know, even as great as, as Paul and John are, it's only The Beatles when it's the four of them.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- RRRick Rubin
Paul is the craftsman. Paul knows all the parts. Paul knows how to put it together. He was the only one of The Beatles who knew how to do that, other than George Martin, whose job was to do that. But Paul understood that side of it. Tom Petty was like Paul. He could do-- He could play anything. He saw all ways around it. He knew how to make it, and in addition to that, was a great songwriter. So he had kind of what was great about John and Paul both in him. So being around him was really inspiring. Also, as a record producer, I learned a lot from getting to work with him. I offered a outside perspective. I was younger, different, so I, I brought something to the table. But I learned a tremendous amount because at the time that I worked with him, I had only worked with artists who had, you know, made their first albums, like new artists, and he was a very established, brilliant studio recording artist. So I got to learn a lot working with him.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What did he teach you? If it had to just be one lesson you pull down
- RRRick Rubin
One of the things he talked about was everything always had to be in time and in tune. You have to understand every word of the vocals. Seems like an obvious thing, but so many records you can't understand every word. And he would listen back and he's like, "Ah, this word is supposed to be plural and you can't hear the S. I have to re-record it," or, "I have to-- maybe we could punch in the S," because if you can't understand it, it loses something in translation. You have to understand every word. Um, so timing, tune. Um, he also was another person who would work forever on it until it was right. He w- he would-- he was not at all lazy. He would never want it to be done. The first album we worked on together was called Wildflowers, and I think we probably worked on it, not every day, but we worked on it over two years, probably two and a half years. It's a long time for an album. At that point in time especially, it was a long time. But there was no hurry. It was just like, "Well, we're making progress. Let's keep going, let's keep going, let's keep going." And, um, so I learned a lot from him also about patience.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Some might say that's perfectionism, and people think of perfectionism as a form of procrastination and-
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah. There was no procrastination in it. And I've been around both. Like, I've been around procrastinating artists too. It's a whole different thing.
- SBSteven Bartlett
How do you know? How do you know if you're a perfectionist or a procrastinator? Is there a symptom?
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah. The pr- the real proc- the real procrastinators get to the point, it usually has to do with being afraid to put it out into the world. So there are some artists I know, famous artists, you'll, you know who they are, who haven't put out album, uh, haven't put out an album for 10 years. I think the longer you wait, the harder it gets in general.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Why?
- RRRick Rubin
The pressure, like the longer you wait, the more it feels like it can never live up to what the expectation is. It's a difficult position to get into.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And the perfectionist, their reason for delay is not to do with fear, it's to do with something else. Is that what you're saying?
- RRRick Rubin
Hard to know. Hard to know. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So those are two artists that you've mentioned that changed you, Johnny and, um, Tom. Is there any others that front of mind?
- 2:29:13 – 2:30:51
Adele's Effortless Greatness: 30 Perfect Takes
- SBSteven Bartlett
great.
- RRRick Rubin
When she sings, everything stops, and she can do it over and over again, and it's always great. It's not like some singers work for a long time singing a bunch of takes and piecing them together to get the good one. She'll sing a song 30 times in a row, and it'll be great 30 times. It might not be the same 30 times-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah. [chuckles]
- RRRick Rubin
... but it'll always be great.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You produced, um, her 21 album.
- RRRick Rubin
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Worked on songs on there.
- RRRick Rubin
Some of that.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Did you know she was great when you met her? Was there something that made her distinctive from these other great artists?
- RRRick Rubin
At a time when most pop artists at that time didn't write their own songs, she was more like a throwback to the '70s singer-songwriters. So there was something about her. I also got to work with Shakira, who also writes her own songs, and there's something about those pop artists who write their own songs that it's different than someone who can just deliver a song well. Um, so I feel like it's a little bit of an anomaly in a pop world where so much of it is more, I want to say manufactured, meaning a bunch of people work on the song, and then the singer sings the song.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- RRRick Rubin
Adele, a key piece is that it always comes from her, and you can feel that in the songs, and it's more personal, and I love that.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You can feel it. I've seen her live as well. It feels like this is the first time she's ever sung the song when you, we experience her live. Rick, what is the most important thing we haven't
- 2:30:51 – 2:31:36
Final Wisdom: Don't Listen to Anyone, Be True to Yourself
- SBSteven Bartlett
talked about that we shouldn't talked about-- should have talked about as it relates to creativity and the art of making great things or good things or whatever [inhales] the measurement stick might be?
- RRRick Rubin
I think we've kind of covered it. The, the, the main idea really is don't listen to what anyone tells you. Be true to yourself. Work hard. Never give up. Don't quit, and just keep going. And, and don't put undue pressure on your art. Find a way to live that doesn't put pressure on your art so that you can be totally free in the things that you're making for them to be the dream version. And hopefully, at some point,
- 2:31:36 – 2:40:49
The Jay-Z Documentary: Revealing the Poet Behind the Billionaire
- RRRick Rubin
the dream version takes over, and it becomes your whole life, not just your passion.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Why did you make this documentary with Jay-Z?
- RRRick Rubin
Well, I had made a documentary with Paul McCartney a few years ago that was six episodes, and the reason for that one was there were no-- I never, I never saw any documentaries about either Paul or The Beatles about musicianship. They were always about either the songwriting or about Beatlemania. And I thought without the musicianship, there wouldn't be Beatlemania. And yes, you need, yes, the songs, you couldn't deliver the songs without the musicianship.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- RRRick Rubin
So I thought there was this big void in the, in the story of Paul. If you were to make a list of the best bass players of all time, Paul belongs at number one, but most people wouldn't even put him on the list because you don't think of him as a bass player. You think of him as Beetle Paul.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- RRRick Rubin
And I just thought there was an opportunity to, um, shed light on something that I love. And through-- I thought that was going to be a more traditional documentary, but it turned into a different kind of documentary. Happened by itself, wasn't pre-planned. Turned into this interesting thing that was different than anything else that had been made with Paul or about the Beatles, and people liked it. It felt like a dream for me to be part of it. And after that happened, I was thinking about who else is, I want to say misunderstood, because that's kind of what it is. Like, yes, Paul's great and everyone knows Paul's great, but people don't think of him as a great musician. They think of him as something else.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- RRRick Rubin
And I started thinking about Jay-Z.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Why?
- RRRick Rubin
Because Jay-Z is thought of today as this incredible businessman, and he's-- uh, you think of him as billionaire businessman, um, behind-the-scenes genius, married to a famous singer. Most of what we think about him isn't poet. That's not the first thing you think of. And even the people who like Jay-Z might not really know the depth of the writing. And I thought it's an interesting story. Like, the lyrics are really intricate and really difficult, and it's astounding what he does.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hmm.
- RRRick Rubin
And he's famous, but-- and, and that's the reason he's famous, but nobody knows it. People see him in a different light. So I thought shedding light on the poet, the lyricist, the artistry of Jay-Z was a really interesting thing. And luckily, I shared the idea with him. And when he-- when I told him the idea, he said, he said, "I like it a lot. I'm not going to say yes, because if I say yes, we're going to make it. And I don't know. So I'll let you know." I said, "Okay." And then we didn't talk about it again for probably a year. And then I called a friend of his and I said, "You know, I shared this idea with Jay a year ago. We haven't discussed it since. What do you think?" He's like, "Call him and ask him." I said, "I feel like I already told him the idea. Don't you think he should just call and ask-- tell me he wants to do it?" He's like, "If you don't call him, it's not going to happen." He's like, "Just call him and ask him, and he'll, and he'll either say yes or no, but at least you could ask him." It's still-- I heard that. That was good information given to me of what to do, and I probably didn't call for six months, eight months, just because, like, it felt uncomfortable. Already discussed it. And eventually, I can't remember if it happened in a call or if I ran into him or if I went to see him. Can't remember. But the next time we talked about it, he's like, "Yeah, let's do it." I said, "Okay." And then we did it [laughs] .
- SBSteven Bartlett
It's stunning. It's stunning, I think, because it's different. It's different in a way that's quite surprising. And, um, so a couple of observations I had is things are usually shot in a certain way. It felt like you had, again, once again abandoned the rules of how to shoot something like that. Even like the color, the, the, the color grading, the like sort of black and white, um, color grade that I saw on the screen, and then some of the angles were a bit off. I'm like, "That's not how you shoot an interview." [chuckles] But for some reason, it felt like I was spying on a personal conversation.
- RRRick Rubin
That's what it was. It was a deeply personal conversation. And in all the years of seeing interviews with Jay-Z, he doesn't do so many-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hmm
- RRRick Rubin
... but the ones that you've seen, he's never like that.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- RRRick Rubin
He's never like that. So-
- SBSteven Bartlett
I felt like I was listening behind a door
- RRRick Rubin
... and this is really who he is. Like you really-- after you watch this, you'll really know who Jay-Z is, which is-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hmm
- RRRick Rubin
... incredible.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- RRRick Rubin
It's an incredible privilege to have that point of view of a real intimate view into someone so great.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Clearly, he felt very safe with you as well-
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah
- SBSteven Bartlett
... because you do get that real side of Jay-Z that I think is really rare. Um, speaking of incredible things, this book is also an incredible thing. I know that in part because so many of my guests have come here and talked about it.
- RRRick Rubin
Really?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Um, so many of them. And so many people hold it up as their favorite book on creativity, I think because it's challenging. Uh, I think which is the essence of Rick Rubin in some respects is to be a challenging coach. This book, I think, finds itself being the same, which is a very challenging coach. So I think it came out in twenty twenty-three. I'm going to link it below for anyone that hasn't got it. If you haven't got it, I think it might be the challenge you need. And I don't necessarily think it's a book necessarily about creativity. It's, it's really just a-- I, I consider it to be a, a philosophy book, dare I say.
- 2:40:49 – 2:46:28
The 78 Chapters Mystery: When the Universe Intervened
- SBSteven Bartlett
Why?
- RRRick Rubin
Just a feeling. So listen what happens next. I have an assistant at that time named Dylan, and we work on the 83 sections independently, so they're almost like separate essays. And when we would work on it, we would work on, let's work on 37, whatever it is, whatever the title is, and just work on that section. We'd work on each section independently. And I said, "Okay, put them all-- Here's the order. Put them all in order." And he put them in order, and the next day came, and we were in Italy, I remember. This is the day after the conversation with Neil where he told me I was crazy. And he said, "It's the weirdest thing. I put them in order, and there are 78 sections." I said, "No, there were 83 yesterday." He's like, "Now there's 78." I said, "Where are the others?" He said, "There are no others." That happened.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So did somebody miscount or something or what?
- RRRick Rubin
Don't know. Nobody knows. But we were sure there were 80-something, and it turned-- and I wanted it to be 78.
- SBSteven Bartlett
[laughs]
- RRRick Rubin
And the next day there were 78, and nobody did anything.
- SBSteven Bartlett
[laughs] Someday you're gonna-- Neil's gonna find four chapters and not mention it.
- RRRick Rubin
Maybe. Or maybe call excited, like, "I told you you were crazy."
- SBSteven Bartlett
Rick, we have a closing tradition where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest not knowing who they're leaving it for. If you could make a phone call and you had 60 seconds to call anybody, and it had to be an apology, who would you call and what would you say and why?
- RRRick Rubin
Hmm. It's a hard question for me to answer for several reasons. One, I almost never make a phone call. I, I'm not really a phone person.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- RRRick Rubin
So the only reason I would call somebody would, it would have to be some sort of an emergency situation. And I feel like there are not a lot of outstanding apologies to make.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What about a thank you?
- RRRick Rubin
A thank you would be great. I could call anyone and thank them.
- SBSteven Bartlett
If you could only make one last phone call to say thank you.
- RRRick Rubin
Oh, one last phone call. I would probably call Muriel, my wife, and just thank her for being in my life, and maybe either her or my child to just thank them for bringing so much light into my life.
- SBSteven Bartlett
How did that change you?
- RRRick Rubin
It's, it's different, totally different. Um, it's beautiful being in a relationship. We travel as a pack. We go everywhere together. We've, we've never been apart, I don't think. I think maybe in the 15 years that I've been with my wife, we've maybe spent three nights apart-
- SBSteven Bartlett
[chuckles] Wow
- RRRick Rubin
... in 15 years, something like that. And we're-- Everything we do, we travel together. This, this is a long time that I'm away from them, so I'm looking forward to getting back with them.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And becoming a father?
- RRRick Rubin
It's just so much fun. He-- I, I get to see the world in, uh... I get to see the things that he's excited about that remind me of things I was excited about, and I get to show him things that I like, and sometimes he likes them, and sometimes he says things that I, I can't imagine how he, how he knows them. There's a real wisdom that's, uh, it's baffling. It's just fun.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You talk in the book about how children are the great reminder of what, you know, creativity might be at, at, at its essence-
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah
- SBSteven Bartlett
... before we fuck it up.
- RRRick Rubin
Yeah. And it's the, it's the thing is that when you're a little kid, you haven't yet-- N-no one has told you what you can and can't do yet, how the world works. You really look at things with wonder. And that's the perspective of a great artist. They're, they're walking around in wonder, in awe of things that maybe seem ordinary to everyone else, but the, the world is filled with just incredible beauty. It's breathtaking. It's breathtaking. People are amazing. Talk to anyone. It's interesting. People are interesting if you just slow down and really listen.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Rick, thank you. Thank you for the inspiration and the wisdom and for being a challenging coach to many millions of creatives all around the world and being fearlessly yourself. Um, this is a fantastic book. I'm gonna link it below for everyone that hasn't yet read it. But also the HBO documentary with Jay-Z, the eight-part documentary we, we referenced is out now on HBO. Um, comes out on September 18th, so if you're watching this after that, it's already out. Um, thank you, Rick.
- RRRick Rubin
My pleasure. It's on Mubi in the rest of the world.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Rick, thank you.
- RRRick Rubin
My pleasure.
Episode duration: 2:46:29
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