Joe Rogan Experience #1881 - Rick Rubin

Narrator 0:00 (drum music) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

0:04 The Joe Rogan Experience.

Joe Rogan 0:06 Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (rock music) Rick Rubin, ladies and gentlemen. It's a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance.

Rick Rubin 0:17 Same.

Joe Rogan 0:17 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 0:17 Happy to be here.

Joe Rogan 0:18 I'm happy to have you here, man.

Rick Rubin 0:19 Happy to be in this-

Joe Rogan 0:20 I'm excited to talk to you.

Rick Rubin 0:20 ... beautiful place.

Joe Rogan 0:21 Thank you. And it's fun.

Rick Rubin 0:23 It's inspiring.

Joe Rogan 0:23 You see shooting stars across the ceiling, you're not tripping.

Rick Rubin 0:25 Okay.

Joe Rogan 0:25 Every, like, 40 seconds or something.

Rick Rubin 0:27 Cool.

Joe Rogan 0:27 A star shoots across the ceiling. So what's happening, man?

Rick Rubin 0:31 Just hanging.

Joe Rogan 0:32 You wrote a book.

Rick Rubin 0:32 I wrote a book.

Joe Rogan 0:33 I'm excited to read it, man.

Rick Rubin 0:34 Yeah, I'm excited for you to see it.

Joe Rogan 0:35 You've had a wild life, brother.

Rick Rubin 0:38 It's, uh, continues to surprise me on a regular basis.

Joe Rogan 0:42 Does it?

Rick Rubin 0:43 Every time. It, it, it's like one thing after another. So much of it's unintentional. I would say all of it's, all of it's unintentional.

Joe Rogan 0:50 How so?

Rick Rubin 0:53 (sighs) From the beginning, I never thought any of the things that I'm doing were possible or, uh, realistic. And I just did things out of the love of them, thinking I would have real jobs and, you know, like, the thing that, that my passion would be my hobby and I'd have a job to support my hobby.

Joe Rogan 1:17 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 1:18 And it just magically turned out different than that without me knowing it was possible.

Joe Rogan 1:23 That's the best kind of story. I love those stories. 'Cause when someone just follows their passion and it just leads them to being one of the baddest motherfuckers in music.

Rick Rubin 1:33 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:34 (laughs) How did you get started?

Rick Rubin 1:35 I just started making, um... I went to... I was in a punk rock band first. And I recorded a couple of punk rock things with my band and liked the feeling of being in the studio. It was fun. And, um, hip-hop was just getting started at this time. And I would go to, uh, there was a club called Negril on 2nd Avenue in Manhattan, downtown. It was a reggae club most nights, but one night a week, it was hip-hop. And this was when hip-hop was d- did, it didn't really exist other than in The Bronx, Brooklyn, um, a- and it was this t- tiny little scene of people playing music in parks, really. It was not a... It's hard to explain how small it was, how, how much of a sub-genre it was in these days. So the fact that you could see it downtown was a big deal, because it didn't really exist anywhere. That you didn't hear this music in clubs. You didn't hear it... And there were very few at this time. 12-inch singles would come out and there w- and there would be, I don't know, I don't know if there were more than 30 or 40 rap songs in the world at this point in time. But there were these clubs where stuff would happen and at this club that I went to called Negril, what you would normally only be able to see at a club in Harlem, like there was a club called Broadway International and there was a club called The Disco Fever, was brought downtown and people downtown could see it. So I started going every Tuesday night. This is when I was going to NYU. And, um, I just loved the music and then I would buy every 12-inch single that would come out when it would come out and none of them sounded like what it sounded like at the club. It wasn't, it wasn't related at all.

Joe Rogan 3:30 How so?

Rick Rubin 3:35 S- The, the s- the... It... Live, it was much more of a raw... It was like DJs and break beats and it, it was harder. Whereas the record sounded more like an R&B record, but with somebody rapping on it. But it wasn't, it wasn't, um, what we know as rap today. That's not what those records sounded like. The, the, they were live bands. They were made by people who made other kinds of music, so they made them the same way they made other kinds of music when hip-hop was really different. So I started making hip-hop records really with the idea of I just wanted, as a fan, to hear what it sounded like in a club. So it was more, almost like a documentarian style, you know?

Joe Rogan 4:24 Mm-hmm.

Rick Rubin 4:26 And I would just start documenting what I heard and making things that sounded more like the energy of a club, which was, again, different than these slick records and part of it was 'cause I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't have any, um, training or skill, but that allowed... That was what allowed it to be new, was it wasn't doing it the regular way. It was doing it the way of hip-hop, which didn't yet exist.

Joe Rogan 4:51 And so how did you get in with the artists and start producing stuff?

Rick Rubin 4:56 I started meeting them. The first... My, my favorite group at the time was called The Treacherous Three and they were on a, uh, a label called Sugarhill. Their best... They had put out three 12-inch singles that I loved. Those were the best 12-inch, uh, they still sounded like R&B records, but they were the best of the rap records you could get at this time. Those first three came out on Enjoy Records. They had a red label. And then they signed to Sugarhill and when they signed to Sugarhill, they put out an album and it didn't sound... It, it's like wasn't good like the ones on Enjoy. And then one night, Treacherous Three were playing at that club, Negril, and I met them after the show. Uh, Kool Moe Dee was the lead rapper, you'd say, and I went to Kool Moe Dee and just said... And again, I don't know anything about the music business. I don't know anything about what anyone does. I, I, I don't know that there's such a job as a producer. I don't know any of this. I just said, you know, "I'm re- I'm your biggest fan (laughs) and this, your new album doesn't sound like what's good about you guys. And let's go, uh, uh, let's work together to try to make something that's as good as you guys are."... and he said, "Well, we're signed to Sugarhill. We can't really do that, but you should talk to Special K," another member of the group. "He's got, uh, a brother, T La Rock, who's a really good rapper, and you could do it with him." It's like, "Okay," and that was ... the first record I made was T La Rock.

Joe Rogan 6:26 Wow, and so did they recognize once they heard that sound that, yeah, this is more like what we're doing in the clubs?

Rick Rubin 6:33 It ended up getting very popular. It took a long time, probably took, uh, 10 months to really have impact in the New York scene, and it, and it did. It was a really popular song, and, um, and that-

Joe Rogan 6:48 What was the difference in the way you were doing the sound versus the way the sound was on the album?

Rick Rubin 6:53 We could, we could listen to it. Like, if you listen to it, you'll hear the difference. Be, be the ... I can describe it, but if you listen to it, you'll really understand. The-

Joe Rogan 6:59 Okay, tell Jamie what to pull up.

Rick Rubin 7:00 Okay. So, uh, a typical rap record at that time would have been, uh, Kurtis Blow, The Breaks. So if you listen to that, you'll hear what rap sounded like, and then after that, we'll listen to T La Rock, It's Yours, and you'll hear the difference.

Joe Rogan 7:18 Okay. Jamie will find it. So, so this, to you ... And how old are you at the time?

Rick Rubin 7:24 Just starting, so p- first or second year of school, whatever age that is.

Joe Rogan 7:29 So like 19, 20?

Rick Rubin 7:31 Something like that.

Joe Rogan 7:31 Wow.

Narrator 7:32 Clap your hands everybody, if you've got what it takes, 'cause I'm Kurtis Blow-

Rick Rubin 7:37 Listen to the music.

Narrator 7:37 ... and I want you to know that these are the breaks. Breaks in a bus, breaks on a car, breaks to make you a superstar, breaks to win and breaks to lose, but these here breaks will rock your shoes, and these are the breaks. Break it up, break it up, break it up.

Rick Rubin 8:01 So you hear guitar, you hear bass, you hear drums, and there's a band playing, and it sounds like it's at a party, and then there's rapping on top of that. And now play It's Yours.

Joe Rogan 8:22 Mm.

Rick Rubin 8:24 So this is just a drum machine.

Narrator 8:28 Commentating, illustrating, description giving, adjective expert, analyzing somatomusical myths, seeking people of the universe, this is yours.

Joe Rogan 8:40 Oh.

Rick Rubin 8:42 And there's, there's scratching also.

Narrator 8:47 Do you like it? Yeah. Do you want it? Yeah.

Rick Rubin 8:48 Now, you hadn't really heard that on records yet, because it was what would happen live in the DJ ... The DJs were the musicians, but to people who made other kinds of music, the DJs were only playing back a band, so they assumed the record's supposed to be a band playing. And my assumption was that's not what it was. It was the DJ playing a drum machine and playing parts of records that ... That's what was exciting. That was the music of hip-hop. The rapping on top could be the same, but the music of it was different.

Joe Rogan 9:25 W- who was the first person that started scratching?

Rick Rubin 9:30 I think, um ... I don't know that much about it, but I believe it was, uh, DJ Kool Herc is the considered the inv- inventor, but I'm not sure if that's true. I wouldn't ... I'm not the best person to ask.

Joe Rogan 9:42 What a wild idea. And revolutionary. And so like, it changed the way people thought about music, and espe- uh, particularly like hip-hop music.

Rick Rubin 9:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 9:51 It became part of it.

Rick Rubin 9:53 It comes out of the idea of the break, starting with the break. So, the break is you have a song that has all different parts in it, a traditional song, but there's one little part in it that has a cool drum beat or a cool little percussion part. And what a DJ would do in those days was they would play just that little snippet of the song, might be four seconds, and they would have two turntables, and they'd play four seconds here, and then four seconds here, and then four seconds here, and four seconds here, to create a longer piece out of this four-second loop. But there was no such thing as a sampler then, so it only happened through live playing it.

Joe Rogan 10:37 Hmm. And then when did people figure out sampling, and when d- ... There was al- ... A lot of times, sampling was maligned, right, in the early days. People didn't sort of understand. They were like, "Oh, you're ... y- you're taking other people's music." But it was not just that. It was a creation of new music with samples.

Rick Rubin 10:58 The, the ... it's a b- ... It's a long conversation.

Joe Rogan 11:00 Mm-hmm.

Rick Rubin 11:00 The fir- ... The first part of sampling is ... The way it was used in hip-hop in the early days ... So, I was saying we would do- ... We would use a snippet of a record, and then sometimes we would even create a tape loop. So, you would take a little piece of a piece of music on tape, and then have it come back around, and you'd edit it and splice it. And there's, there's a ... There's at least one song on the Beastie Boy- first Beastie Boys album that, that uses that technique. Um, but the ... but it was about extending these pieces of music to create something new, and hip-hop from the beginning was always a form of montage. It was finding things and making something new out of it. It wasn't finding things to make it sound like it sounded. It was finding something and changing it into something new. That's what was exciting about it. And the ... this montage process is the basis of hip-hop, and up until the time of It's Yours, we didn't really hear it on the records, because people, people still were making records using traditional methods, non-hip-hop methods.

Joe Rogan 12:10 Did you get a sense, like, while this was all happening of how th- that was... This is like, a completely new music genre. This is a whole new music scene. Like, it must have been very exciting.

Rick Rubin 12:23 It w- it was. Being part of it was very exciting, and loving it was exciting. And there was a disconnect between that and the outside world, because the outside world didn't recognize it, didn't even recognize it as music, much less something that they, that was, was good, you know, like, uh, that could be good. It, it was viewed as this other thing, not music.

Joe Rogan 12:52 Other thing?

Rick Rubin 12:53 Yeah. That's how it was described. I can remember being in, um... Once, uh, Def Jam happened, and we started having a lot of success putting out music, and I'm still probably at NYU, um, labels would come around and wanna be involved in one way or another. And, and one label asks, like, "What do you attribute the success of this to? After all, it's not music." Now, these are people in the music business-

Joe Rogan 13:19 (laughs)

Rick Rubin 13:19 ... who are wooing us, wanting to work with us, and they're telling us they don't hear it as music.

Joe Rogan 13:26 That doesn't even make sense today, right?

Rick Rubin 13:28 No, no, no. Now, it's, it's, uh, the world has changed. The world has changed.

Joe Rogan 13:32 Wow. Uh-

Rick Rubin 13:33 But it was a completely alien underground form of music. And because people were rapping instead of singing, that was one piece that didn't, wasn't understandable. And then because the music was like It's Yours, where it's, it's a drum machine. There's no melody. There's no... It's, it was too foreign at that point in time for people to understand it as songs.

Joe Rogan 14:00 Wow. That's hard to... It's-

Rick Rubin 14:03 It's shocking.

Joe Rogan 14:03 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 14:03 It's, it's ridiculous. And, and in, in some ways, like, there's a song I produced with, um, RUN-DMC and Aerosmith, Walk This Way.

Joe Rogan 14:13 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 14:13 And the whole purpose of doing that was to demonstrate this is music.

Joe Rogan 14:19 Mm-hmm.

Rick Rubin 14:19 This is music, and this is... Not only is it music, it's familiar music. You're just not, you're not seeing it. Like, you're, you're somehow removed from what's happening, but it's easy to see if you, uh... So again, if you create a demonstration, so that's what Walk This Way was, was I looked for a song that was familiar, and that the way it was written in the original version, the Aerosmith version, the phrasing of it was essentially a rap record. The verses are ba-ba-ba-da-la-da-la-da-da-da-la-da-la-da-da-da-la-da. It's not melodic. It's all about the phrasing. That's how rap works. And the beat, you know, the intro, pst, da, pa-pum-pum-da, was already a known breakbeat in the hip-hop world.

Joe Rogan 15:10 Ah.

Rick Rubin 15:10 They, they had never heard... Uh, th- in hip-hop club, no one had heard of Aerosmith. No one had heard of, um, Walk This Way, but they knew the Toys in the Attic break, which was just that beat, not the song.

Joe Rogan 15:24 Wow.

Rick Rubin 15:25 Yeah. Let's listen to that.

Joe Rogan 15:26 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 15:26 Could we play the intro, the intro to Aerosmith's Walk This Way?

Joe Rogan 15:31 I remember when you did that. I remember that being a very polarizing song.

Rick Rubin 15:37 Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 15:37 Because people didn't know what to think. It's like some people thought you were ruining Walk This Way by adding RUN-DMC.

Rick Rubin 15:44 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 15:44 And some people were like, "Why do you have RUN-DMC with rock and roll? It doesn't make any sense."

Rick Rubin 15:49 Mm-hmm. (instrumental music plays) Stop. Just that long. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 15:56 That's it.

Rick Rubin 15:57 That, that piece is the Toys in the Attic break, 'cause it says Toys in the Attic on the record.

Joe Rogan 16:01 Yeah. (instrumental music plays)

Rick Rubin 16:04 Just that.

Joe Rogan 16:05 Wow.

Rick Rubin 16:05 So that would, that was... And so if you went to a hip-hop club, you might hear that.

Joe Rogan 16:10 Wow.

Rick Rubin 16:11 But I grew up on Aerosmith, and I grew up on AC/DC, and I grew up on Ted Nugent. You know, I grew up on rock and roll music. And, um, when I saw this disconnect, this was the way to, like, bridge the gap.

Joe Rogan 16:27 Bridge the gap, yeah.

Rick Rubin 16:27 Just to, just to explain what was happening.

Joe Rogan 16:30 Wow. How was it received in the music business when you did that?

Rick Rubin 16:34 Um, I guess the first thing was radio. Like, it... I remember, uh, I guess it was WBCN in Boston-

Joe Rogan 16:41 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 16:42 ... played it once.

Joe Rogan 16:43 Marc Parenteau?

Rick Rubin 16:44 I can't remember if it was Marc Parenteau, or who, who else was there? Who were the other-

Joe Rogan 16:47 Um, Charles LaCordiara.

Rick Rubin 16:49 No, tell me another name.

Joe Rogan 16:51 God, that's hard to remember.

Rick Rubin 16:52 Like DJs.

Joe Rogan 16:52 I'm remember the morning mattress was Charles LaCordiara and afternoons was Marc Parenteau.

Rick Rubin 16:57 Yeah, I don't think it, I don't know that it was either of them, but it might have been. Again, I, I don't remember.

Joe Rogan 17:01 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 17:01 I just remember that BCN played the song, and it was a big deal also, 'cause it was a rock station-

Joe Rogan 17:06 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 17:06 ... playing a hip-hop record.

Joe Rogan 17:08 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 17:09 And I remember that there was this outrage, uh, from the audience, s- you know, "Take that garbage off."

Joe Rogan 17:16 (laughs)

Rick Rubin 17:17 And then within a few days, it was the most requested song on the station.

Joe Rogan 17:22 Wow. (laughs)

Rick Rubin 17:23 Yeah, so it was like it definitely divided the audience.

Joe Rogan 17:26 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 17:26 But the best things do. That's, that's what's really exciting. When you, when you hear something new and you don't have a reference for it, your first reaction might be to push it away.

Joe Rogan 17:36 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 17:36 And I remember the first time I heard the Ramones when I was in probably junior high school, and I heard the Ramones, and th- that was the first really punk rock fast music I ever heard. There, there wa- I don't think there was any before the Ramones. So if you're used to hearing normal tempo rock and roll, and then you hear the Ramones, I just laughed. It seemed like a joke, you know? It just seemed ridiculous. And then eventually, it became my favorite thing.

Joe Rogan 18:03 (laughs) How did Aerosmith react? Did you come to Aerosmith and try to bring it to them? Did the label come to them?

Rick Rubin 18:09 I, I just had the idea of doing the song and recording the song with th- with RUN-DMC, and then the label said, "Why don't we reach out to Aerosmith and ask if they would participate?" And I was like...... that sounds crazy to me. But if they'll, if they'll do it, obviously I'd love it. You know, I loved that band growing up. They were one of my favorite bands growing up. So, that seemed like a dream. And then they came and we did it.

Joe Rogan 18:32 Wow. That, that was a groundbreaking moment in music. It really was. If you really stop and think about all the ripples that came out of that s- that particular song. That, that song introduced so many people to hip-hop and I'm sure so many hip-hop fans to rock and roll and Run-DMC.

Rick Rubin 18:52 Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 18:53 You know, combining with Aerosmith is like the perfect combination.

Rick Rubin 18:56 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 18:56 Two iconic bands.

Rick Rubin 18:59 But also, at that point in time, Aerosmith had fallen on hard times. I remember I saw Aerosmith play at Nassau Coliseum, sold out, incredible show. And then six months later, Aerosmith were playing at a club on Long Island called Speaks, which was like a, it was like where the cover bands would play.

Joe Rogan 19:19 Six months?

Rick Rubin 19:20 Six months.

Joe Rogan 19:21 What happened?

Rick Rubin 19:21 I- I don't know. I don't really know. I think maybe Joe Perry left the band, which was part of it. But I don't know how you can go from that popular to th- to ... in this new condition that quickly. But it happened.

Joe Rogan 19:39 That's wild.

Rick Rubin 19:41 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 19:41 I can't ... I, I wasn't aware that that had happened.

Rick Rubin 19:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 19:44 That d- d- that doesn't even make sense that something like that can happen in six months.

Rick Rubin 19:47 I know.

Joe Rogan 19:47 Nassau Coliseum-

Rick Rubin 19:48 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 19:48 ... which is like, what is that? 15,000?

Rick Rubin 19:49 Sold out.

Joe Rogan 19:50 20,000?

Rick Rubin 19:50 20,000. 18,000 something.

Joe Rogan 19:52 Jesus Christ, to a club.

Rick Rubin 19:54 Yeah, maybe s- s- 600-person club. Like a big club, but still a club. B- b- a big fall. A big fall.

Joe Rogan 20:01 Wow.

Rick Rubin 20:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:03 In six months?

Rick Rubin 20:04 Yeah, really quick.

Joe Rogan 20:05 So, was it a scandal when Joe Perry left? Was that what it was? Was it like everyone was upset and-

Rick Rubin 20:10 I don't know. I really don't know.

Joe Rogan 20:13 So, they did that, and then did that song bring them back?

Rick Rubin 20:17 That song brought them back.

Joe Rogan 20:18 Wow.

Rick Rubin 20:19 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:20 Holy shit.

Rick Rubin 20:20 They had actually put out an album called Done With Mirrors, which was like their comeback album before Walk This Way, and that did not, was not well received. And then Walk This Way came out, and then, uh, it both broke Run-DMC in a mainstream way and re-broke Aerosmith as a mainstream gr- mainstream group.

Joe Rogan 20:41 Wow. So then, what happens with you after that? That song obviously is this giant smash and things just start happening then?

Rick Rubin 20:50 Things started happening right from the beginning. It's, it, uh, honestly the whole thing was miraculous 'cause it w- I'm working in this form of music that people don't think is music, nobody likes and nobody cares about other than the, you know, 200 people at the Negril Club (laughs) that, that, uh, that I would go to. And then bit by bit, the first, the first album I produced was LL Cool J. Uh, he was 16 at the time. And the way that, the way I met LL was, because of the It's Yours record, the T La Rock record that we listened to, the, it had Def Jam Recordings' name and the address, 5 University Place, which was my dorm room at NYU.

Joe Rogan 21:32 (laughs)

Rick Rubin 21:33 And, uh, I, we started getting demo tapes to the dorm room. And Adam Horovitz from the Beastie Boys was listening to all of the demo tapes and he found the LL tapes like, "You should listen to this one." And we listened to it and we, i- it made us really laugh and we liked it. And, uh, so much of it has to do with humor. Like, um, when it's good it makes you laugh, even if it's not funny.

Joe Rogan 22:00 Mm.

Rick Rubin 22:00 You know? Like the, the, the, um, the surprise nature of things. When you're, when you hear the unexpected, you laugh.

Joe Rogan 22:12 Mm.

Rick Rubin 22:13 And it feels good. It's a good feeling. And, uh, and I remember we laughed a lot at LL's, uh ... A- as a matter of fact, on LL's demo tape, the first thing he said before he started his demo rap was, he said, "Let me clear my throat." And, uh, and then he started rapping. But he, he only said that because he turned on the recorder before he started rapping, but it wasn't supposed to be part of it. And we just thought it was the funniest thing, "Let me clear my throat." And then on the Beastie Boys record, we have a song where in the middle of the song th- we stop the song and Ad-Rock says, "Let me clear my throat." And it's really based on hearing it, just this s- funny thing that didn't really make sense, complete inside joke. And, um, so, so w- we were making these things that were completely insider, personal, no expectation. You know, n- there was no expectation that anybody would like any of the things we were making-

Joe Rogan 23:12 (laughs)

Rick Rubin 23:12 ... outside of our small group of friends.

Joe Rogan 23:15 And what you were doing too was, that's a completely unique way of making music. That, that really didn't exist before. Like having, like not just having samples, but having things like that s- pausing in the middle of a song, "Let me clear, let me clear my throat."

Rick Rubin 23:32 It was o- it was definitely odd. It was very free. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 23:35 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 23:35 It was very free.

Joe Rogan 23:36 Free is a great word. That's a great word.

Rick Rubin 23:37 Very free exper- it was experimental. And it was intended to be f- fun and exciting and hard and all the things that we liked in music, but again, with no, uh, potential upside. You know, no expectation-

Joe Rogan 23:56 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 23:56 ... that it was for anyone else.

Joe Rogan 23:58 Well, speaking of experimental, Paul's Boutique is one of my favorite albums ever.

Rick Rubin 24:02 It's incredible.

Joe Rogan 24:02 It's fucking great. And that was such a radical shift from the first album.

Rick Rubin 24:09 Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 24:11 I mean, it's just-

Rick Rubin 24:11 And I didn't, I didn't produce Paul's Boutique. That's what's different about it.

Joe Rogan 24:14 It's so different.

Rick Rubin 24:14 Radically different. And m- miraculously beautiful. Beautiful album.

Joe Rogan 24:18 Yeah, just completely different kind of music, but it speaks to the sort of freedom of that time-

Rick Rubin 24:24 Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 24:25 ... that people would take these wild chances like that.

Rick Rubin 24:28 I remember I was with Chuck D-... at the Mondrian Hotel in Los Angeles, and we had gotten advance of Paul's Boutique and we listened to it together and our minds were blown. We're just like, "This is the future." It was so good, and we loved it. And then it came out and it ended up not being, at the time, it was not wildly successful.

Joe Rogan 24:49 Yeah. That's w- that was strange to me at the time.

Rick Rubin 24:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 24:52 'Cause I was like, I don't understand why people aren't loving this. This is so interesting.

Rick Rubin 24:56 So good. So good.

Joe Rogan 24:59 But th- it's just like, I think then, is that what happens to us? Like, now there's like a form that people accept for hip-hop. There's like a form that people accept for a certain band at that time. And then Paul's Boutique comes along and it's like, "Well, now we're gonna try something even wilder."

Rick Rubin 25:16 It was, it's always been the case that people come to expect, or the audience comes to expect a certain thing.

Joe Rogan 25:23 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 25:23 And if you veer outside of those lines, it's often not well received. And a- an example also, even Public Enemy, when we put out the first Public Enemy record, none of the, at this point in time, there were already stations playing rap music, like, uh, Master Mix shows on, uh, WBLS and KTU would be, like, Saturday night, they'd be playing rap music. But they wouldn't play Public Enemy. They would play the instrumental versions. They wouldn't play Chuck's vocals, because he didn't sound like the other MCs at that time. And, uh, and he even has a line on the second Public Enemy album about, uh, "Some say no to the album, the show, bum rush the sounds I made a year ago." Um, it's like, "Last time you played the music, this time you'll play the lyrics."

Joe Rogan 26:13 Mm. I don't know why anybody would listen to Chuck D and not think it was fucking awesome.

Rick Rubin 26:19 He's incredible.

Joe Rogan 26:20 Isn't that crazy?

Rick Rubin 26:21 It's crazy.

Joe Rogan 26:21 That someone would think that his, his lyrics or his voice is not good?

Rick Rubin 26:26 It's insane. It's insane.

Joe Rogan 26:29 I mean, it's iconic.

Rick Rubin 26:30 But it was just new. It was just, it was new. And what he was talking about was new. So, it just wasn't, it wasn't what was in the culture at the time, but often the best things...

Joe Rogan 26:42 Right.

Rick Rubin 26:42 I remember at the time that LL came out, another record came out called, um, Roxanne, Roxanne.

Joe Rogan 26:50 Mm-hmm.

Rick Rubin 26:51 By a group called UTFO. And UTFO was a much bigger hit than LL's song, but over time, the consistency of LL's artistry bypassed UTFO.

Joe Rogan 27:04 Hm.

Rick Rubin 27:05 Um, but sometimes like the thing that catches on isn't the, it- it's a short-term thing, you know?

Joe Rogan 27:14 Mm-hmm.

Rick Rubin 27:14 It's a short-term taste.

Joe Rogan 27:18 Yeah. Well, one of the things that I found interesting about hip-hop was, uh, I can really remember this clearly because, uh, the first time I listened to NWA, I was on a, a treadmill or a stair climber machine and I was in Boston and, uh, I was like, "This is fucking crazy."

Rick Rubin 27:38 It's incredible.

Joe Rogan 27:38 Like, these guys are, it's, it was so wild and so violent and so hard.

Rick Rubin 27:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 27:46 I, I was, I remember thinking like, "Holy shit, this is popular?" And I remember thinking, "This kind of music is gonna have like ramifications on society." You know? 'Cause it was so powerful and, and s- and like shocking. Like, I'd never heard that kind of violence and that extreme lyrics and just their depictions of real life in South Central LA. And, um, I mean, it really ignited this completely new branch of hip-hop in a lot of ways.

Rick Rubin 28:19 Absolutely. It was, I had, I had, um, pretty much left hip-hop at that point in time. Um, once, once hip-hop... So when we started doing the stuff we were doing, hip-hop didn't really exist. And then all of a sudden it got popular. And once it got popular, it, it felt like the community changed and it wasn't people getting into it out of love for hip-hop or wanting to continue pushing the boundaries of what was creatively possible. It just started all sounding like records we had already made. And it wasn't-

Joe Rogan 28:59 Mm-hmm.

Rick Rubin 28:59 It just wasn't interesting. Felt like derivative.

Joe Rogan 29:01 Mm-hmm.

Rick Rubin 29:01 Everything was derivative at this point. So I started producing other, I produced Slayer and you know, Danzig, different kinds of music that felt more challenging to me in that moment, um, that just spoke to me more. And then I heard NWA, actually it was Easy E, NWA hadn't recorded yet. There was the Easy E album, which is the first album from Dre in the sound of what became NWA. And it blew my mind, and I went to California to meet with them and I actually visited in the studio when they were recording Straight Outta Compton album.

Joe Rogan 29:34 Wow.

Rick Rubin 29:35 Yeah. Incredible.

Joe Rogan 29:37 Wow. That's fascinating too that like this new thing emerges and then people just imitate the pattern of success, like whatever the, the successful pattern of that music.

Rick Rubin 29:46 Yeah. It wasn't, it wasn't out of artistry. It was out of, "Oh, this works. Let's do what works."

Joe Rogan 29:53 Yeah. And for someone like you, like, you, you seem to go on feel a lot or just like what resonates with you.

Rick Rubin 30:02 That's it. It's all, all, everything I do has to, is just personal taste, and it's what the book's about is like, really for people to trust, artists to trust in themselves, make something that speaks to themselves and hopefully someone else will like it. But you can't second guess your own taste for what someone else is gonna like. Won't be good.

Joe Rogan 30:21 Right.

Rick Rubin 30:22 You know, we're not s- we're not smart enough to know what someone else is gonna like. You know, to make something, well, I don't really like it, but I think this group of people like it. It's a, it's a bad way to play the game of music or art. You have to-... do what's personal to you, take it as far as you could go, really push the boundaries. And, um, people, people will, will resonate with it if they're supposed to resonate with it, but you can't get there the other way, you know?

Joe Rogan 30:55 No.

Rick Rubin 30:55 The other way is a dead-end path.

Joe Rogan 30:57 When artists are not successful yet, though, it's very difficult to f- for them to find who they are, because they're always just trying to figure out what's the path to success, which success seems to be the carrot at the end of the stick. It's like there's always this something, you know, these guys have all this money. These guys have all this c- these cars and these big houses. How do I get that? How do I get success? How do I fill up an arena? How do I, how do I become successful?

Rick Rubin 31:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 31:23 And so there's this temptation towards imitation.

Rick Rubin 31:26 Yeah. It's a dan- it's a dangerous path, and if that's your g- if you're getting into this business for that, for that outcome, if that's the reason you're doing it, chances are it's not gonna work out. I don't think that-

Joe Rogan 31:38 Most of the time.

Rick Rubin 31:38 Yeah, that's not what makes it... What makes it great is the personal.

Joe Rogan 31:44 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 31:44 With all of its imperfections, with all of its quirkiness, that's what makes it great. The, you know, you, how you see the world that's different from how everyone else sees the world, that's why you're an artist. That's your purpose in sharing your work with the world.

Joe Rogan 32:02 And that seems to be th- the case with everything, with literature-

Rick Rubin 32:06 Everything.

Joe Rogan 32:06 ... it's definitely the case with standup comedy.

Rick Rubin 32:08 Everything.

Joe Rogan 32:08 We experience that in standup comedy, where there's these kind of derivative voices, where they're kinda like finding what they think other people wanna hear, and they start saying it because they, they've heard other people say similar things-

Rick Rubin 32:21 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 32:21 ... that are now successful.

Rick Rubin 32:23 And even if they, uh, and even if they have some sort of a short-term success doing that, it's not revolutionary. It doesn't change the world. It doesn't last.

Joe Rogan 32:36 Right.

Rick Rubin 32:36 You know, it's a, it can be a momentary thing, but it's never the thing... The th- it's the people who you first see and you might not like that you come to like, because you don't understand them at first, those are the ones that change the world.

Joe Rogan 32:51 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 32:51 Those are the ones that you, you know, you dedicate your fandom to for life.

Joe Rogan 32:56 Yeah. I remember when Cypress Hill came out.

Rick Rubin 32:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:59 I f- at first, I was like, "Man, I don't know about this." You know, that, that whine, that nasally voice-

Rick Rubin 33:05 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 33:05 ... that B-Real had. I was like-

Rick Rubin 33:06 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 33:06 ... "I don't know about this." And then, within like-

Rick Rubin 33:08 I loved it. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 33:08 ... six months, they were like my favorite.

Rick Rubin 33:11 So good.

Joe Rogan 33:12 So good.

Rick Rubin 33:12 His voice is so good.

Joe Rogan 33:14 And it was also like one of the first cannabis-infused kinds of music.

Rick Rubin 33:19 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 33:19 You know, they were so not just cannabis-inspired, but they would, they would sing about it. They would rap about it.

Rick Rubin 33:26 Yeah. And also, um, Snoop as well would be-

Joe Rogan 33:28 Yes. Yeah.

Rick Rubin 33:29 ... lean into that.

Joe Rogan 33:30 Well, and then The Chronic, of course, you know? I mean, literally the cover of the album.

Rick Rubin 33:34 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 33:34 There was something about th- or there is something about someone like that that is completely unique that, like w- I think what you said, you said perfectly, that like that's what changes things, and that's what lasts. Whereas these, something that's derivative or someone's just trying to do things that they think other people are gonna buy, that's gonna be successful, it just... You might start out that way, and hopefully you can deviate and find your own voice. But if you don't, you can't keep imitating.

Rick Rubin 34:05 Yeah. And who, and who cares, you know?

Joe Rogan 34:07 Right.

Rick Rubin 34:07 What's the p- what's the... It's a waste of your life.

Joe Rogan 34:10 Right.

Rick Rubin 34:11 You know, get... There are other... If your goal is to make money, go work on Wall Street, you know?

Joe Rogan 34:16 Right.

Rick Rubin 34:16 Do, do something else where you get... There's a, there are ways to make money.

Joe Rogan 34:21 I think it's more though.

Rick Rubin 34:21 But if you're gonna do it in art, it's different.

Joe Rogan 34:23 I think it's attention. I think they want the money, yes, but they also wanna be stars. I think that's the thing. That's the real carrot, you know? It's like the money is, that's big.

Rick Rubin 34:33 You see the other side, too.

Joe Rogan 34:34 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 34:34 There are so many artists who were shy-

Joe Rogan 34:39 Mm-hmm.

Rick Rubin 34:39 ... private people-

Joe Rogan 34:40 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 34:41 ... and th- it's d- difficult for them to deal with any kind of success or, or, uh, fame. It's, it's a weird world. And even, even the ones who think they want that, when it actually happens, it's a shocking... It's not what it's cracked up to be. Obviously, there are great perks.

Joe Rogan 34:59 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 35:00 You know, there d- I- it's nice, it's nice to be successful. And there are things that happen when you're successful that you're not expecting, and things become a lot more complicated in real life. And, um, you, it, you can, it can shrink your life to the point of, you know, I know some rock stars over the years who literally never left their house or did anything. Y- Tom Petty would be a great example. The only thing Tom Petty did was record music, tour, watch television, read books. He never, he wouldn't go out to dinner. He wouldn't go anywhere, because if he went out, someone would be, "Oh, it's Tom Petty," and it just made him uncomfortable.

Joe Rogan 35:40 Mm.

Rick Rubin 35:41 It was too, it was too weird.

Joe Rogan 35:43 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 35:44 Um, and for the people who really buy into it, who, who like that, that can do a whole other trip, you know? They, like in wrestling, they say, "Living the gimmick."

Joe Rogan 35:54 Mm.

Rick Rubin 35:54 You know?

Joe Rogan 35:55 Yeah. Yeah. That happens with comics, too. You lean into your audience. You, you re- lean into what you think that they wanna hear and then you become them.

Rick Rubin 36:03 How do you, how do you, um, stay true to your voice as a comedian through success, through, through the ups and downs of doing it? How do you stay true to what you're doing?

Joe Rogan 36:20 One thing I do is I don't read anything that anybody says about me.

Rick Rubin 36:23 Great.

Joe Rogan 36:24 That helps. And two is, uh, I spend a lotta time alone. I spend a lotta time alone. I do almost all my working out alone, all the sauna time and cold plunge and, you know, writing. I spend a lotta time just thinking and not thinking about what people think about me.

Rick Rubin 36:42 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 36:42 Just thinking about what I like, what's interesting, and...... I think one of the things that really tempers me or keeps me sane is the workouts, 'cause they're so brutal. And they're so hard that everything else is easy.

Narrator 36:56 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 36:56 And I think that's something that's missing from a lot of people's lives, where you deal with the anxiety of fame and celebrity, and just the attention and all the demands on you. And it's kind of overwhelming. And if all you're doing all day is, like, dreading those experiences, like if you're Tom Petty and you're hiding in your house, and you're dreading going to dinner or dreading going out, then those moments do become too big to deal with. And then you just want to get away as quickly as possible and go back to your house, you know? I mean, you see it in people that become famous. You know, as I've become friends with more and more famous people, you see the... And they're always, like, asking questions of other people that are also famous, like, "How do you deal with it?"

Narrator 37:37 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 37:37 Like, "What is your solution?" And, um, I think m- my solution's the best one, for me. I don't think there's an... I mean, I think psychedelic drugs help a lot. That, um, it's just these, these big resets, these big resets where you're like, "Okay, this is all bullshit." Like, all this, this little weird game you're involved in with life and society and culture, it's fun and it's great and it's meaningful and it's f- fun for other people, but it's kind of bullshit.

Narrator 38:04 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 38:04 Because the r- the real thing is so much weirder and so much greater, and it's everything is connected in some very bizarre and unseen way. And that humbling experience of the, the psychedelic connection is, uh, is also a nice way to just, like, just, just check you, just put it back into perspective. Um, but for day-to-day, you can't really just trip balls day-to-day. It'd just be too weird. (laughs) So day-to-day for me, it's, it's the workouts. Like, it's, it's doing things you don't want to do and doing them rigorously, and, uh, and then when you get over it, there's also these physical changes that happen, the endorphin releases and the alleviation of anxiety, which I think is critical to being able to manage those states of, of fame. Um, but you also gotta have perspective and realize like, hey man, like, this f- this is just what comes with it. And, but the most important thing is like, hey, you're getting to do what you wanna do, which for me as a kid, you know, starting out doing standup when I was 21, it was like this impossible idea. The, the, the impossible idea was just being a professional. Like, God, wouldn't it be great to not have a job just to be able to get money from standup?

Narrator 39:25 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 39:25 It seems impossible.

Narrator 39:26 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 39:27 And, uh...

Narrator 39:27 How did, how did it start for you, standup? How did you know that that was your path or...?

Joe Rogan 39:32 Just open mic night. You know, I, I, uh... My good friend, Steve Graham, who was an ophthalmologist at the time and a flight surgeon, this, like, incredible guy that I'm still good friends with to this day, he's the one who talked me into it. He's the guy I did martial arts with, and he was like, "You really should be a comedian." And I was like-

Narrator 39:48 Because you were funny in real life?

Joe Rogan 39:50 Yeah, because we would all, uh, have to spar and everybody'd be really nervous, and I would make everybody laugh. I'd do an impression of one of our friends, and I'd-

Narrator 39:59 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 39:59 ... p- just be talking shit. Or we would g- be f- going to a tournament, which was really scary. So we'd, we'd all be on a bus together somewhere, and, uh, you know, it was like all these guys going to go fight, and I would be the one that made everybody laugh. It was like gallows humor.

Narrator 40:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:15 And, uh, I, I would love it. I loved all the attention of getting everybody to laugh, so I would be the funny one.

Narrator 40:21 And it was healing-

Joe Rogan 40:22 Yeah.

Narrator 40:22 ... 'cause you made everybody feel better and you-

Joe Rogan 40:24 Oh, yeah.

Narrator 40:24 ... it, it served a purpose.

Joe Rogan 40:25 It did.

Narrator 40:26 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:26 It was a giant relief valve. Shh.

Narrator 40:28 Okay.

Joe Rogan 40:29 I was just releasing all the gas in the room. It was like... And everybody would laugh, and it was like a, a, a break from the tension. And, uh, you know, at the time, I was like 16, 17 years old. And, uh, then when I was 19, Steve was like, "You really should be a comedian." And I was like, "Come on, man. You think I'm funny 'cause you like me."

Narrator 40:49 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:49 I go, "Other people are gonna think I'm an asshole." And plus this is like Boston, conservative, late '80s, early... You know, like the late '80s, people were fucking pretty conservative about, like, what they thought was funny and... Until Kinison came along. And then Kinison came along in '86, and that was right at the time when I started to consider it because I was... It's a funny story. I probably t- uh, told this on the podcast before, but I was working at the Boston Athletic Club, which was a fitness club in, uh, South Boston, and I was, like, a trainer. I was teaching people how to lift weights. And, uh, there was this girl. I think she was a volleyball player. She was, like, big. Like, she was, like, 5'11", like really athletic, big personality. She was hilarious. She was really funny, and she worked the front desk. And she knew that I love comedy, and she said to me, "You gotta see this comedian. I saw him last night on HBO." And she takes me outside to the parking lot to tell me, like, 'cause of the, the bits were so outrageous.

Narrator 41:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:46 She didn't wanna do 'em in the lobby.

Narrator 41:47 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:47 She takes me out in the parking lot, and she's like, "And this fucking guy is doing this bit about heterosexual nec- or homosexual necrophiliacs who are paying money to spend all this time with these, the freshest male corpses." And she'll, she goes, "And so he's, like, lying down on" ... she lies down on the s- on the street, on the asphalt, in the parking lot. And she's like, "So he's, I'm lying there thinking, okay, I'm dead now. I'm gonna be with Jesus. Like, oh, hey."

Narrator 42:16 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 42:16 "What is this? It feels like some guy's got his dick in my ass. You mean life keeps fucking you in the ass even after you're dead? It never ends. It never ends. Oh, oh." She is making me howl with laughter in a parking lot.

Narrator 42:32 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:32 It's just me and her. She's just reciting Sam Kinison. And I remember thinking, "What? That is crazy," and I was laughing so... And I had to find Sam Kinison. And so, uh, I got a cassette. I think it was, like, a, a VHS cassette, and I think it was at, like, Blockbuster or one of them type of video stores. And I brought it back to my apartment, and I remember watching it thinking, "Holy shit, this is comedy?"... like, that was the fir- 'cause I had thought that comedy was Jerry Seinfeld, comedy was Richard Pryor. I wasn't them, I wasn't those guys. And I would watch Evening at the Improv or The Tonight Show, and these guys would have the, the blazers on with the rolled up sleeves. I'm like, "I gotta dress like that." But it wasn't me. I saw Kinison, I was like, "That's comedy?" And that's when I started to listen to Steve. I was like, "Maybe I could be a comedian."

Rick Rubin 43:20 Awesome.

Joe Rogan 43:20 Because if that wild shit could be comedy-

Rick Rubin 43:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 43:23 ... 'cause I was just too wild.

Rick Rubin 43:25 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 43:25 I mean, I was a ... I never could keep a real job. I was super undisciplined with everything other than martial arts, and all I was doing was, uh, traveling around the country trying to kick people unconscious. That's what I was doing. I mean, that's what, uh, my life was, 'cause so to me, my life was so extreme and so, like, so filled with, like, violence and so wild, that, like, the staid, sort of, like, sedate existence of, like, "Ro- do you ever notice?" Like, there was none of that in me.

Rick Rubin 43:53 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 43:53 So Kinison was the first thing that I saw, I was like, "Wow, maybe I could do comedy."

Rick Rubin 43:58 That's amazing. And so much humor comes out of the extreme pain-

Joe Rogan 44:02 Yes.

Rick Rubin 44:03 ... discomfort, um.

Joe Rogan 44:06 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 44:06 I- i- it's ... You, you were in the right place for it to work. And the fact that that was your life would make you a different kind of comedian than those other comedians, which is a great thing.

Joe Rogan 44:18 Yeah. Well, and that girl. God, I wish I stayed in touch with her. I don't even remember her name. She was awesome, though. She was just fun. She was just a funny girl.

Rick Rubin 44:27 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:27 And the f- the fact that she laid down-

Rick Rubin 44:29 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:30 ... on the parking lot and she's like, "Oh! Oh!"

Rick Rubin 44:32 Sam did, too. That was-

Joe Rogan 44:33 Yes! Yes, sh-

Rick Rubin 44:33 Sam did it that way, too.

Joe Rogan 44:35 I mean, she reenacted his bit-

Rick Rubin 44:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:37 ... on this parking lot. But the fact that she did it, and she was so crazy, she acted it out. And she was, like, ba- basically my age, 'cause we were both, like, 19 at the time. And it was just ... I couldn't believe it.

Rick Rubin 44:46 I remember when I first saw Sam, and it blew my mind, and I loved him. I was really a Rodney guy. Like, I loved Rodney Dangerfield.

Joe Rogan 44:52 Mm.

Rick Rubin 44:52 Loved Steve Martin. Loved, um, uh, Monty Python, all things comedy. Th- I went through a phase after being a little kid of listening to music, like, uh, British Invasion, Beatles, Monkees, that kind of music when I was a little kid. Then I stopped listening to music and only listened to comedy for years, until junior high school when I started listening to hard rock.

Joe Rogan 45:17 Wow.

Rick Rubin 45:18 But I remember seeing Sam and being blown away, and I was already doing music at this time and had a label. And I went to find him, and then I found out he already had a record out, and I was so bummed. Well, he didn't have a record out, but he was signed to Warner Brothers, and I was bummed. And then, and then I saw Dice. And Dice blew me away. A- and, um, I saw him ... First I saw him on the Rodney HBO, you know, young comedians, whatever it was called.

Joe Rogan 45:49 Yeah, that's what it was.

Rick Rubin 45:50 I don't know what it's called. And, um, and it was just, I don't know, he did 10 minutes or something.

Joe Rogan 45:55 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 45:55 And it was insane.

Joe Rogan 45:57 Amazing.

Rick Rubin 45:57 It was per-

Joe Rogan 45:58 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 45:58 It was a perfect Dice set.

Joe Rogan 46:00 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 46:00 And it was another one of those, like, when I first saw Sam, it's like, he's not ... It's a very different character than Sam, but it's as hard-

Joe Rogan 46:09 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 46:09 ... and as extreme, and I just loved it. And then c- came to LA, and I saw that he was playing at, um ... What's the name of the club, the comedy club next to Greenblatt's?

Joe Rogan 46:21 Laugh Factory.

Rick Rubin 46:22 Uh, he was playing at the Laugh Factory. I watched him at the Laugh Factory. It was incredible. After he got off the stage, he walked to Greenblatt's. I followed him to Greenblatt's, and we spoke as he w- was ordering at Greenblatt's, and started making records together.

Joe Rogan 46:35 Wow. You guys did The Day the Laughter Died, which is one of my all-time fav- look at that.

Rick Rubin 46:41 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:41 The Day the Laughter Died cassette one, which is one of my all-time favorite comedy CDs, specials, whatever it is, uh, recordings, because it was so crazy that he did that.

Rick Rubin 46:50 It's crazy.

Joe Rogan 46:51 He's in the peak of his stardom-

Rick Rubin 46:53 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:53 ... for people who don't know the story. I mean, this guy's selling out Nassau Coliseum, and nobody had ever done that as a comic.

Rick Rubin 46:58 Yeah. He sold out Madison Square Garden two nights in a row, the d- the week we recorded The Day the Laughter Died.

Joe Rogan 47:05 (laughs)

Rick Rubin 47:05 Just to give a p- context of what was happening.

Joe Rogan 47:09 So, uh, for people who don't know, when you see Dice perform in HBO and you see his specials, it's polished material, it's sharp punchlines, he's killing, he's, "Oh! Oh! What's in the bowl, bitch?" It's powerful shit. So then he goes to Dangerfield's with basically no material.

Rick Rubin 47:32 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 47:33 And just fucks around. And just fucks around for two hours.

Rick Rubin 47:38 Yeah. It was incredible. It- it, th- what started it was I would go ... He would, he would go to The Comedy Store most nights, and, um, and I would meet him at The Comedy Store most nights. And most nights, he would be great and the audience would love him. But certain nights, wrong audience, mood he was in, and he could bo- even when he was already Dice, and he would bomb.

Joe Rogan 48:04 (laughs)

Rick Rubin 48:04 And for me and Hot Tub Johnny, I don't know if you ever met-

Joe Rogan 48:06 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 48:06 ... Hot Tub Johnny. Me and Hot Tub Johnny would sit in the b- uh, sit in, in the back. And for us, the funniest shows were when he bombed.

Joe Rogan 48:14 (laughs)

Rick Rubin 48:14 Because his reaction to bombing was so funny. Li- uh, whether it was pushing harder, like, like he's already doing aggressive material, and then when he's not getting the response, he goes harder, and people like it less.

Joe Rogan 48:35 (laughs)

Rick Rubin 48:35 And it's so funny. It's- because he just seems like a guy having a nervous breakdown.

Joe Rogan 48:41 (laughs)

Rick Rubin 48:41 You know? It's like it's so crazy, it's- it doesn't feel like comedy at all. It seems like this other thing, a guy losing his mind and, you know, turning red and sweating and screaming, and nobody likes it. And we just died.

Joe Rogan 48:58 (laughs)

Rick Rubin 48:58 And then a- and then in honor of doing the Garden, I remember saying, I was like, "Andrew, how about instead of recording the Garden-"... let's, let's try to do a set at Dangerfield's, and let's find out what night would be the least... Like, the most, uh, suburban, uh, like, n- not anyone who likes comedy. People who are just going to a club because they're traveling through New York, you know? Like, the-

Joe Rogan 49:26 Right.

Rick Rubin 49:26 ... the people who w- will most likely not like it, and let's record that.

Joe Rogan 49:31 (laughs)

Rick Rubin 49:32 And he's like, "Great. Let's do it. I'm in." So, it was, it was great.

Joe Rogan 49:36 But the ego... Like, most people's ego would not allow them to have something like that as a recording-

Rick Rubin 49:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:44 ... and then just release it for-

Rick Rubin 49:45 It was incredible. It was in- we thought it was the funniest thing in the world.

Joe Rogan 49:49 One of my favorite parts of that cassette, or the, the recording, is when some guy in the audience goes, "You're about as funny as a glass of milk."

Rick Rubin 49:59 (laughs) .

Joe Rogan 50:00 (laughs)

Rick Rubin 50:00 If you-

Joe Rogan 50:00 Has anybody ever sampled that?

Rick Rubin 50:01 If you listen to the recording-

Joe Rogan 50:03 (laughs)

Rick Rubin 50:03 ... you'll hear me and Hot Tub Johnny in the back laughing. We- we're-

Joe Rogan 50:06 (laughs)

Rick Rubin 50:06 The only people you hear laughing on that record and The Day That Laughter Died Part Two, is us.

Joe Rogan 50:11 Oh.

Rick Rubin 50:11 And we're going crazy.

Joe Rogan 50:13 It sounds like he's, he's like hitting punchlines that are just... Almost like he's speaking another language.

Rick Rubin 50:19 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:20 Like-

Rick Rubin 50:20 Yeah. No reaction.

Joe Rogan 50:21 But he's hitting them hard-

Rick Rubin 50:23 Hard.

Joe Rogan 50:23 ... like they would kill.

Rick Rubin 50:24 Yes, and you hear nothing.

Joe Rogan 50:26 (laughs) .

Rick Rubin 50:26 Oh, we're back!

Joe Rogan 50:27 (laughs)

Rick Rubin 50:28 Get it?

Joe Rogan 50:30 It's... For comedians, there's a guy named Mike Donovan who's like a comedy legend in Boston. And, uh, at the time The Day That Laughter Died, uh, I was, um, you know, just a beginning comic. And, um, he pulls me aside. He goes, "You gotta listen to this. You've gotta listen to this. It's fucking incredible."

Rick Rubin 50:47 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 50:47 He goes, "It's fucking incredible." He goes, he goes... He just bombs. He just goes up-

Rick Rubin 50:51 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 50:51 ... in front of this audience. They have no idea he's gonna be there, and he fucking bombs. And I was like, "Why is that good?" He's like, "Fuck. You g- you listen, you listen."

Rick Rubin 50:58 You'll see.

Joe Rogan 50:58 "You got..." So, you know, Donovan, who had been probably doing comedy at the time 15, 20 years, had... He knew like the formula, and anybody could kill. You get your, your right set, hot night, hot audience, you can kill. But f- this guy fucking doing that. And he... Donovan is like... He barely, barely breathed 'cause he's laughing so hard. 'Cause he's talking about Dice doing an impression of Nixon eating ass.

Rick Rubin 51:24 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 51:26 (laughs) He's talking about eating the woman's ass-

Rick Rubin 51:28 So stupid.

Joe Rogan 51:28 ... and be... "I, I, I do... I, I was like Nixon in that ass." (laughs)

Rick Rubin 51:32 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 51:33 He's doing... And it's fucking so ridiculous.

Rick Rubin 51:36 So stupid.

Joe Rogan 51:36 And Donovan is crying laughing, telling me about it. I was like, "Wow, I gotta go get it." And I remember listening to it, and I... I guess at the time I was like 21 or 22. I was so confused. I was like, "What the fuck is he doing?"

Rick Rubin 51:47 Yeah, it's so weird.

Joe Rogan 51:47 He's Dice.

Rick Rubin 51:48 I know.

Joe Rogan 51:48 Like, the fir- like, the first one, the first cassette, Dice.

Rick Rubin 51:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:52 Incredible. I listened to it. I was 19 years old. I was in my car, parked in front of my house with this girl I was dating at the time. And we were sitting in the car just howling laughing at this cassette. And then, he puts out that.

Rick Rubin 52:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:07 And he just like... No one knew what to do.

Rick Rubin 52:10 Yeah. That's, that was-

Joe Rogan 52:12 What was his reaction to the reaction of that? I've never talked to Dice about that.

Rick Rubin 52:17 He loved it. He, he li-

Joe Rogan 52:19 (laughs)

Rick Rubin 52:20 He, he understood performance art, you know?

Joe Rogan 52:23 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 52:23 He liked things that were different.

Joe Rogan 52:25 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 52:25 He liked doing not the regular thing.

Joe Rogan 52:29 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 52:29 And we'd already done... I think at that time we had maybe done either three... Probably three full regular comedy albums by this point in time, so it was nice to shake it up a little bit.

Joe Rogan 52:43 (laughs) But boy did that shake it up. And how did that affect his career?

Rick Rubin 52:48 No effect. N- n- not, not positive or negative.

Joe Rogan 52:50 (laughs)

Rick Rubin 52:50 No effect.

Joe Rogan 52:51 That's crazy.

Rick Rubin 52:52 Didn't matter.

Joe Rogan 52:52 How is that possible?

Rick Rubin 52:54 D- I mean, comedians liked it. But it was, you know... It was meta, you know?

Joe Rogan 52:58 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 52:58 It was an in... It was an inside joke.

Joe Rogan 53:01 But it was a two-CD release.

Rick Rubin 53:03 That was part of the beauty of it, is...

Joe Rogan 53:05 (laughs)

Rick Rubin 53:05 I remember we even put a sticker on it, uh, "Two hour..." Something like to the effect of, "Two hours of new material, no jokes."

Joe Rogan 53:15 (laughs)

Rick Rubin 53:16 'Cause it... It's what it was.

Joe Rogan 53:17 (laughs)

Rick Rubin 53:17 It's like, really no jokes.

Joe Rogan 53:20 How was it reviewed?

Rick Rubin 53:23 The p- the same as... People hated him. Reviewers hated him always. There was a story in... He played for the Garden shows, there was a review in The Village Voice that was like... The Village Voice was a big format newspaper.

Joe Rogan 53:38 Yep.

Rick Rubin 53:38 And it was two entire pages of a review comparing it to a Nazi rally, a Hitler rally. That it wasn't funny at all, that it was just... "This is the worst of society." Um-

Joe Rogan 53:52 Wow.

Rick Rubin 53:53 They just didn't get it at all. They didn't get it at all.

Joe Rogan 53:57 Well, there was a time where he was ostracized by mainstream media in a, in a way where it was like they were... I mean, he was... uh, Kinison got it a little bit. He definitely got it, but not like Dice.

Rick Rubin 54:12 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 54:13 Like, Dice got the full brunt of... Remember he was banned from MTV?

Rick Rubin 54:16 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 54:16 And they were trying to say that, you know... Well, it was like Kurt... I remember Kurt Loder talking about it like, "This unfunny, you know, comedian, Dice Clayton." I'm like, but everybody was laughing.

Rick Rubin 54:25 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 54:26 Like, what do you mean unfunny? When you say unfunny, you mean your own personal taste?

Rick Rubin 54:29 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 54:30 Like, do you apply that to all music? Do you say that about other bands? "Is this shitty band?" Do you say, "NWA sucks because they're violent?" Like, what do you-

Rick Rubin 54:38 It's... Another part of it is that they would always... To m- to vilify Di- Dice, they would always quote his jokes in writing. But if you don't see that character telling that joke-

Joe Rogan 54:52 Right.

Rick Rubin 54:52 ... it just sounds horrible.

Joe Rogan 54:53 I have a whole bit about that.

Rick Rubin 54:54 Te-

Joe Rogan 54:55 I'll, I'll tell you about it-

Rick Rubin 54:55 Please.

Joe Rogan 54:55 ... after the air.

Rick Rubin 54:56 Okay.

Joe Rogan 54:56 But it's, it's, uh-

Rick Rubin 54:57 But that's a real thing.

Joe Rogan 54:58 Yes.

Rick Rubin 54:58 It's like-

Joe Rogan 54:59 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 54:59 ... they would like vilify him-

Joe Rogan 55:00 Sure.

Rick Rubin 55:01 ... and portray him as if he was hateful-

Joe Rogan 55:04 Yes.

Rick Rubin 55:04 ... when all he was doing was trying to make people laugh, and succeeding tremendously-

Joe Rogan 55:09 And succe-

Rick Rubin 55:09 ... in doing that.

Joe Rogan 55:10 And obviously mocking himself, too.... I mean, it was a character. It was the clearest-

Rick Rubin 55:14 It was ridiculous.

Joe Rogan 55:15 His name was, his name was Andrew Silverstein.

Rick Rubin 55:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 55:17 Okay? And Andrew, when he would go ... And I love Andrew to death.

Rick Rubin 55:21 Yep.

Joe Rogan 55:21 Uh, in ... Being friends with him was one of the most surreal things-

Rick Rubin 55:25 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 55:25 ... at The Comedy Store. Because I was such a fan. When I was a kid, I never got to meet Kinison.

Rick Rubin 55:29 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 55:29 And I only got to meet Hicks very briefly. I mean, I literally said hi to him. That's it, um, when I was, uh, open micering in, in Boston. But I got to be friends with Dice. And I was mostly just doing The Store at the time, and Dice pulled me aside. And he said, "Hey, you should do the road." He goes, "You're fucking funny. You don't need these cocksuckers." He goes, "These people telling you what to do, and fucking-"

Rick Rubin 55:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 55:52 ... "you gotta b- do dance for them, do this show." He goes, "You could make a lot of money on the road. You should be doing the fucking road." And I was like, "I should do the road. Dice told me to do the road. I'm gonna do the road."

Rick Rubin 56:00 Great.

Joe Rogan 56:00 And, and I started doing the road. That's when I started like ... I, I called my manager up and I said, "Let's start doing clubs in all these different cities." So, when I wasn't doing news radio, when I wasn't on television, I would go off on the weekends and I would go, you know, do fucking wherever. Houston, Phoenix. And I started doing the road because of Dice's direction.

Rick Rubin 56:18 Amazing. And how different was, was it doing comedy for people not at The Comedy Store?

Joe Rogan 56:25 It was amazing. First of all, it made me a real comedian. Well, the, the cl- the, the, The Store made me a real comedian. But the, the road made me a real headliner, because I was doing an hour in these towns, and I was doing two, two shows Friday, two shows Saturday. And I was getting the feel of different vibes, and that's really when I fell in love with Texas. It was, uh, '97 when I started coming to Texas, '98. And, um, uh, they were just so rowdy and fun and free, and there was a different- there was a rebellious friendliness to them.

Rick Rubin 57:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 57:02 And I was like, "God, I love these people." And, uh, the first, uh, album I recorded in '99, uh, on Warner Brothers, was the- the, um, I'm Gonna Be Dead Someday. And I did that in Houston. And I did it really, like the touring and all that, was 'cause of Dice. Like, that- that's what really ignited me, ignited my, uh, my inspiration to go do that. And it just ... It th- that ... There was too many guys that were just staying in town. And everybody at that time, in the '90s, and it was kinda t- starting to die off, but there was this thing where everybody wanted a sitcom. That was the holy grail. The holy gr- I mean, the real holy grail was The Tonight Show. If you would be the ... But that was out of my reach. I was, you know, in my fucking 20s. It was not gonna happen. But the, the holy grail was getting a sitcom, because you could be Tim Allen, you could be Jerry Seinfeld, you could be Roseanne Barr, you could be Brett Butler. And if you got a sitcom, man, you were the fucking king.

Rick Rubin 57:59 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 57:59 And, you know, they would make a sitcom around you. So, I had, had a development deal at one mo- point in time, and then I, um, I got on this show that was this crappy show on FOX. And so, I was on that path. And then I got on news radio, which was great, and then the path after that was obviously get your own sitcom. But Dice was like, "Fuck that. Like, you should ..." You know, and this is at ... Dice had his own show, B- Bless This House, remember that?

Rick Rubin 58:24 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 58:24 And, you know, it was like ... And he was like, "That's not the way. The way is the road. The r- the way is comedy. You're a fucking comedian."

Rick Rubin 58:30 He also made a movie, if you remember, Ford Fairlane.

Joe Rogan 58:32 Yes.

Rick Rubin 58:33 And, and I remember thinking i- this doesn't feel r- like from the beginning-

Joe Rogan 58:37 No.

Rick Rubin 58:37 ... it didn't feel right. Felt like-

Joe Rogan 58:38 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 58:38 ... what, what, what's so great about you is not in this movie.

Joe Rogan 58:42 Right. Right. It was like homogenized milk.

Rick Rubin 58:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 58:47 You know, they pasteurized it and homogenized it and took all the enzymes out of it.

Rick Rubin 58:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 58:50 And it's like, "Uh, I guess this is not the same thing." You know?

Rick Rubin 58:54 And, and the, you know, the, the way that people reacted to Dice in the mainstream, you know, the hatred from the mainstream, really caused him to crack. You know, it, it ... Do you remember, he appeared on, I can't remember what late night show it was where he cried and he changed-

Joe Rogan 59:09 Yeah. I think it was Arsenio Hall.

Rick Rubin 59:10 Maybe. And he, and he, and he really changed his act after that, but not because it's what he thought was funny. He, he, he became a comedian 'cause he wanted to be loved.

Joe Rogan 59:19 Yes.

Rick Rubin 59:19 And even though he would go out in front of 20,000 people screaming, adoring fans-

Joe Rogan 59:24 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 59:24 ... people would write terrible things about him, and it didn't compute, and somehow he just felt like, "Th- you know, they don't see me. They don't get me."

Joe Rogan 59:32 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 59:32 And it, it, it really hurt him. It really hurt him.

Joe Rogan 59:36 Well, it's bizarre to us comics, 'cause we got him and we loved it.

Rick Rubin 59:41 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 59:41 And so we were like, "Why is, why does he get so much hate?" Like, it was so confusing. And the internet didn't exist back then in that sort of form. So, it's like he couldn't, they couldn't find like fan b- ... Like today we'd have no problem. Like, you know, s- sure, like MSNBC hates him, but, you know, uh, all the, the YouTube people would love him. You know? Or a lot of them would. It would ... He would find his voice. He'd find his audience. And I, I don't think that Arsenio Hall moment would happen today. He'd probably push back against it. But back then, the only reviews you heard of him were negative.

Rick Rubin 1:00:16 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:00:16 It was all negative.

Rick Rubin 1:00:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:00:18 And you had to like be a quiet Dice fan. Like, you had to like almost not tell people you were a Dice fan. I equate it to like how it was to be a KISS fan-

Rick Rubin 1:00:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:00:28 ... at one point in time.

Rick Rubin 1:00:29 Or hip-hop. Hip-hop music was the same.

Joe Rogan 1:00:31 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 1:00:31 Hip-hop was like villainous music.

Joe Rogan 1:00:32 Mm-hmm.

Rick Rubin 1:00:33 Hip-hop was like the original, uh ... In the mid '80s, hip-hop was the, uh, first populist uprising in New York City.

Joe Rogan 1:00:42 Mm.

Rick Rubin 1:00:43 You know? It was like taking music out of the conservatory and bringing it back to the street.

Joe Rogan 1:00:47 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 1:00:48 And the powers that be did not like that and wanted to cancel it, and tried to cancel it. That's when the whole PMRC thing happened, and ...

Joe Rogan 1:00:55 Mm-hmm.

Rick Rubin 1:00:56 Th- they were trying to ban rap music.

Joe Rogan 1:00:58 Yeah. It was Al Gore's wife. Remember Tipper Gore?

Rick Rubin 1:01:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:02 Al Gore's wife, Tipper Gore, at the time was the one who was like leading this fight against these lyrics. Because to a lot of these, like, you know, house moms and shit, like they would, they would hear that, those lyrics coming out of their son's bedroom and they're like, "What the fuck is this?"

Rick Rubin 1:01:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:17 Like, "What is going on?"

Rick Rubin 1:01:18 But also, they wanted to-... negate Prince. They wanted to cancel-

Joe Rogan 1:01:22 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 1:01:22 ... Madonna. They wanted to cancel a lot of stuff. It's been going on for a long time, this, this, um, this pushing back against art that you don't understand, you know?

Joe Rogan 1:01:35 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 1:01:35 That you're too old to understand.

Joe Rogan 1:01:36 Well, it's not, it was just, you know, the non-accepting of other people's interests or other people's, what, what other people enjoy. You know? There's, there's always going, like, there's a lot of stuff that people really love that I don't get. It just, I don't have the Grateful Dead gene.

Rick Rubin 1:01:53 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:01:54 I, you, I know, I have friends who love the Dead.

Rick Rubin 1:01:56 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:01:57 I hear it and I'm like, I, maybe if I did acid, maybe this-

Rick Rubin 1:02:00 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:02:00 That's what they say. But I don't know. It's just, this is not... But then I'd hear the Allman Brothers and be like, "Fuck yeah." It was like, for whatever it is, it's like whatever your personality is, your life experiences, you know, the, the, the, the place you grew up, like that shit resonated with me.

Rick Rubin 1:02:16 Yeah. Or the right, finding the right way in. Like-

Joe Rogan 1:02:18 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 1:02:18 ... I, the, the Grateful Dead didn't speak to me for a long time until they did, and I found the way in.

Joe Rogan 1:02:23 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 1:02:23 And, um, maybe I'll, I'll sh- share some, something with you-

Joe Rogan 1:02:26 Please.

Rick Rubin 1:02:26 ... that might find, find a way in, 'cause it's always nice to find something else to like, you know?

Joe Rogan 1:02:30 Yeah. Well, and, and then there was stuff that I liked that was like d- very different than that, like I was a giant Kool G Rap fan.

Rick Rubin 1:02:38 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:02:38 I remember listening to Kool G Rap when I first moved to New York and I was like, "Goddamn, this guy's good." He, to me, is one of, I mean, he's one of my all-time favorite hip hop artists. And to me, like the most underappreciated. I mean, you go back to listen to like Cock Blocking, that is a fucking great song. He has so many, the Ill Street Blues, so many great hip hop songs that I remember listening to them at the time going, "Why isn't this bigger?" Like, "Why don't more people know about this? Why isn't this like..." You know, to this day, you know, people will go back and they'll talk about like Nas, who's fucking incredible.

Rick Rubin 1:03:17 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:03:17 And they'll, but Kool G Rap sn- slips by. Like how the fuck? Go listen to that shit. Kool G Rap was incredible. Incredible.

Rick Rubin 1:03:27 You never know. Sometimes it's not based on how good it is. You know, like the s- the stars line up at certain times for certain things to happen-

Joe Rogan 1:03:35 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 1:03:35 ... and they happen. And sometimes you can make something great and it doesn't connect for whatever reason. I, I found this out from making a lot of stuff. Like-

Joe Rogan 1:03:42 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 1:03:42 ... sometimes you make two things that you think are the two best things you've ever made, and one of 'em connects with the world and one of 'em doesn't. And it might not have anything to do with what's in the art. It might have to do with, oh, it came out the same day as this other thing came out and that got in the way. Or there was a bigger story at the time, or there was some other, who knows? Who, or, or, or it's not the, um, it's not in the cards for that person to have that success.

Joe Rogan 1:04:11 Mm.

Rick Rubin 1:04:12 It's like there's so much to it that we don't understand.

Joe Rogan 1:04:15 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 1:04:16 All we can do is make something good and put it out and hope for the best. And that's, that's all there is. You, you, we never know why things, why does something work. Even if you make a piece of art, you might, and it works, you may not know why.

Joe Rogan 1:04:31 Mm. Yeah.

Rick Rubin 1:04:33 It's mysterious. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:04:35 It is mysterious.

Rick Rubin 1:04:35 It's mysterious. I'm gonna use the restroom.

Joe Rogan 1:04:36 Yeah, yeah, go ahead.

Rick Rubin 1:04:37 Okay.

Joe Rogan 1:04:37 Good. We'll be right back.

Rick Rubin 1:04:39 I'm so glad you liked The Day the Laughter Died.

Joe Rogan 1:04:42 Oh my God, I fucking love it.

Rick Rubin 1:04:44 It's so funny.

Joe Rogan 1:04:45 It is.

Rick Rubin 1:04:46 It's so crazy.

Joe Rogan 1:04:47 Yeah. It's, it's, well, it's just so bold.

Rick Rubin 1:04:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:04:51 And it, you know, and, uh, knowing Dice, um, as long as I've known him and seeing so many late night sets, like some of my favorite sets of Dice, Dice would go up in the OR and he would, uh, have like a challenge he would do where he wouldn't talk for as long as possible.

Rick Rubin 1:05:10 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:05:10 And so he would go in front of the mic and everybody'd be happy to see him, and he'd go, t- t- t-... He would just stand there and just, just stand there like about to talk and not talk and go like minutes, minutes without a word. And the comedians were fucking dying. And there was like 40 people in the audience and they were so confused.

Rick Rubin 1:05:32 Yeah, they were confused.

Joe Rogan 1:05:33 Confused. Yeah.

Rick Rubin 1:05:33 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:05:34 And m- my favorite Dice was insulting Dice, where Dice would find some, "Look at you."

Rick Rubin 1:05:39 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:05:39 He'd find some guy in the audience and just tear him apart. Just insult the shit out of him. And the guy would be like, "What the fuck, man?" (laughs)

Rick Rubin 1:05:47 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:05:47 And we would be crying, crying laughing. And Dice would just, just, uh, just fuck around. Like he had no problem with bombing. He had no pr- he was fully confident while no jokes and no laughs.

Rick Rubin 1:06:05 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:06:05 Fully confident.

Rick Rubin 1:06:05 He, he often didn't, uh, didn't prepare material. Like I- I'm friends with Chris Rock and the difference in their work ethic is radical.

Joe Rogan 1:06:17 Radical. Yeah.

Rick Rubin 1:06:18 Like Ch- like Chris, Chris is always writing and Chris is meticulous and it's always game on.

Joe Rogan 1:06:28 Yes.

Rick Rubin 1:06:28 And when he's on stage it's, it really shows.

Joe Rogan 1:06:32 Well, Chris though, Chris will take a lot of chances on stage too. And Chris also has this very unusual approach where he will like purposely try to find the beats and, and, and, you know, and leave dead air because he's finding these beats. And like stand on stage at the comic store and be like, "What else? What else?" And he'll have that, like where he is, you know, he's just like thinking and like the audience is like, "I'm ready to, I'm ready to see, bring the pain."

Rick Rubin 1:07:03 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:07:04 "I'm ready to see you crushing."

Rick Rubin 1:07:05 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:07:06 Like, "Why are you not crushing?" And he, you know, he would even say sometimes, he would follow people and be like, "Relax, relax. Not gonna be that good. Relax."

Rick Rubin 1:07:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:07:16 Because he was working on new shit.

Rick Rubin 1:07:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:07:17 And when he worked on new shit, he was working.... he was working. This audience, I know you're here to see, you know, comedy and you're happy that Chris Rock just showed up, but Chris Rock was not announced.

Rick Rubin 1:07:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:07:30 So it wasn't like this was a big production and he was going to do his very best material. He was there to try to put pieces together.

Rick Rubin 1:07:37 Yes.

Joe Rogan 1:07:37 And he would have a team of comics in the back, guys that he'd hired, great comics, guys like Richard Jeni, um, Nick Di Paolo, th- and these guys would, would g- listen to his material, and then they would all talk about it afterwards. And they would find whatever th- the embers were. And they're like, "Okay, we could fucking fan this and add some tinder, and this, this could be a bit," and try to find the beats. And that's what he did. And that's why he created so many great specials, because he had that work ethic, because he had that... He was an, uh, he was an artist, but he was also, like, he was, he was a craftsman. You know, he was crafting it.

Rick Rubin 1:08:17 Absolutely. I just saw him play at the O2 Arena a couple of weeks ago, and it was the funniest I've ever seen him, which is unbelievable.

Joe Rogan 1:08:26 He's on fire right now. He's on fire right now.

Rick Rubin 1:08:28 Yeah. It was insane.

Joe Rogan 1:08:29 Will Smith slapping him, I think, woke up... I mean, I haven't talked to him about this, but my impression was that I think now he understands that those people, those Hollywood people, are fucking crazy. They're all in this weird, bizarre cult of, of actors and Oscars and parties and applause and, and this, this very bizarre, disconnected world, you know, of these are our heroes and these are the most important people in the world and these people that win these awards and make these films, uh, they're the most appreciated, most respected. And him getting slapped and then him trying to go back to comedy and seeing Will Smith, like, s- just melt down in front of him... I mean, like g- gen- generally, like, like l- that moment was probably the end of how anybody will ever think of Will Smith again, as this movie star guy who's, like, this happy guy with his family, who's, like, putting together all these incredible films and w- and goes on to win the Academy Award that night, goes on stage and they applaud him after he just assaulted one of the greatest comedians that's ever lived over the most innocuous roast joke, the most innocuous. You know, "I loved you in G.I. Jane." Like, "What? That's it?" It's so mild. And I think him seeing that just fired up that "fuck you" furnace.

Rick Rubin 1:10:12 It's unbelie- All I know is, it's the funniest I've ever seen him. And I've seen him funny, you know? (laughs) Like it's-

Joe Rogan 1:10:18 He's angry now, though.

Rick Rubin 1:10:20 He's on fire.

Joe Rogan 1:10:21 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 1:10:21 And it's great.

Joe Rogan 1:10:22 It's great.

Rick Rubin 1:10:22 And it's like, he, him and Chappelle were playing together.

Joe Rogan 1:10:24 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 1:10:24 And both were inc- couldn't have been more different, and both incredible.

Joe Rogan 1:10:28 Yeah, I've never been to the O2. I was there, th- to the O2 for, um, a UFC once, but I'm there in two weeks.

Rick Rubin 1:10:35 It was surprisingly good for comedy. I was on my way there thinking, prepared to be disappointed-

Joe Rogan 1:10:40 Mm-hmm.

Rick Rubin 1:10:41 ... because I don't usually like comedy in a big venue like that. I, I, I like it better in a club. But somehow, it felt intimate, and it completely worked for comedy.

Joe Rogan 1:10:52 Yeah, Dave loves it. He was excited that I was going there. We were talking about it, and he was saying, like, "It's a great room. It's a great room for comedy." But Dave's got that arena timing, you know? He does a lot of arenas now. You know, he's, um, he knows... He can take... Like, we just did, uh, Columbus together a couple weeks ago, and he can take a fucking giant room and thousands of people and make it feel like you're just hanging with him in a living room somewhere-

Rick Rubin 1:11:16 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:11:16 ... or in a small club. He can transform it. But it's just like, the different ways of approaching comedy, it's, it's got to parallel with music, right? I mean, there's got to be some artists that, you know, they just wanna riff, they wanna figure it out on the fly, they wanna d- do it all, you know, almost off the top of their head. And then there's other artists where every single word is gone over and, uh, meticulously analyzed and pieced together.

Rick Rubin 1:11:47 Yeah, there's no right-

Joe Rogan 1:11:49 There's no right.

Rick Rubin 1:11:49 ... right or wrong way.

Joe Rogan 1:11:50 No right.

Rick Rubin 1:11:50 And you just have to find your way-

Joe Rogan 1:11:52 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 1:11:52 ... y- whatever works for you.

Joe Rogan 1:11:53 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 1:11:54 Um, yeah, I've worked with artists who do it completely different ways. You know, you s- you'll see, like, Eminem will... He's always writing in a book, always writing all the time, and he's always got notebooks, writing. And I, I asked him, I was like, "Are these all, you know, rhymes to use?" He's like, "No, no, no." He's like, "99% of what I write, I'll never use." Just to stay engaged in the process-

Joe Rogan 1:12:20 Mm-hmm.

Rick Rubin 1:12:21 ... of, of writing and finding new ways to write-

Joe Rogan 1:12:25 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 1:12:25 ... so that it just c- when I need it, it just comes." And then, um, Jay-Z would... doesn't write anything down.

Joe Rogan 1:12:34 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 1:12:34 And he just listens to the beat and hums, hums and then goes into the, goes on the mic, you know, 20 minutes later and just says a whole complicated ver- complicated verse. I don't know how, I don't know how he can remember it, much li- much less have just written it and just be able to do it, like, free. It's cra- it's just wild.

Joe Rogan 1:12:57 Does he practice on his own? Does he, does he create these r- raps on his own a, with, like, alone, or does he only do it when he's talking to people, or does he only do it on stage?

Rick Rubin 1:13:11 No, no, no. This is, this is on, for a record. Like, when we were recording 99 Problems-

Joe Rogan 1:13:16 Right.

Rick Rubin 1:13:16 ... I played the beat for him, he likes the beat, and then he says, "Okay, just keep playing it." And then he sits in the back of the control room on the couch...... and he's, and you just hear him humming like (humming) . As I say, 15 or 20 minutes, and then he jumps up, he's like, "Okay, I got it."

Joe Rogan 1:13:37 Wow.

Rick Rubin 1:13:37 And he goes in, no, no paper, no writing, nothing, and delivers the whole thing, and then says, "Let's try it again," and then he does it again. And the words'll be the same, but the phrasing'll be different. So it's more like, um, an improvisational solo. You know, if you have a melody, you could play the same melody with, uh, putting emphasis on different parts of it. So he does it. It's not the same. The words are the same, or close to the same, but the feeling of it and the rhythm of it changes when he does it again. And he does it a few times, and he's like, "Okay, I think that one's good."

Joe Rogan 1:14:16 And, but, did you ever ask him, these things that he's saying, has he said them before? Does he-

Rick Rubin 1:14:22 He has not. I, I know he hasn't because it's, it's happening live in the room in this moment.

Joe Rogan 1:14:27 So, but it's not, like he's not recite, he's not rep- even though it's live in the moment, it's not like things that he's thought of before?

Rick Rubin 1:14:33 No.

Joe Rogan 1:14:33 Just all off the top?

Rick Rubin 1:14:34 Yes.

Joe Rogan 1:14:35 Wow.

Rick Rubin 1:14:35 Yes. In that moment.

Joe Rogan 1:14:36 That's incredible.

Rick Rubin 1:14:36 It's insane. Never seen anything like it.

Joe Rogan 1:14:39 That's incredible. That's incredible. Yeah, he's famous for that. He's famous for having it all in his head.

Rick Rubin 1:14:45 But instantaneously-

Joe Rogan 1:14:47 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 1:14:47 ... or you know, relatively instantaneously.

Joe Rogan 1:14:50 Does anybody else do it like that? Like Nas does it-

Rick Rubin 1:14:52 I've not seen-

Joe Rogan 1:14:53 Nas writes.

Rick Rubin 1:14:53 I've never seen anyone else do that, do that.

Joe Rogan 1:14:56 Wow.

Rick Rubin 1:14:57 It's not uncommon for singers or rappers to hear something and immediately start, like automatic writing, where they'll just start saying nonsense words.

Joe Rogan 1:15:08 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 1:15:08 The first thing that comes to mind over the, over the beat. Where you can feel a shape of what it can be.

Joe Rogan 1:15:16 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 1:15:16 And like, um, we just made two new albums with, uh, the Chili Peppers. The w- the second one has just came, just coming out now I think, but w- first one came out like six months ago, but two double albums. And the way Anthony works is he'll hear the music and he'll sing along, but he'll sing along with a, an idea of a melody, but he doesn't yet have words, and just sing nonsense words, and just sing along making up nonsense words, automatically, real-time, and then listens back and says, "Oh, okay. This phrase in this spot sounds good, and this phrase in this spot sounds good. What else goes with that?" And then it's like a puzzle where you fill in the rest. It's like you d- you don't necessarily have an idea of what the song's gonna be about, or you might not even know what the song's about until you finish. You might not even know after the song's finished what it's about. You might not know for years what it's about, because it's like a dream, you know? It comes from the subconscious.

Joe Rogan 1:16:10 Yeah. Yeah.

Rick Rubin 1:16:12 It's a great way to work. It's a great way to write, to, um, just like participate with what's going on in a free way, and then listen back to what you did, and look for clues, look for where, where is the connective tissue here? Are there any things here that, that sound like they belong there?

Joe Rogan 1:16:32 Dan Auerbach from The, uh, Black Keys.

Rick Rubin 1:16:34 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:16:35 He does that. He says he gets really high.

Rick Rubin 1:16:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:16:38 And he just start, he makes up words.

Rick Rubin 1:16:40 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:16:40 Like, he'll, he'll like make up words to the music, just, and just try to find how it works. And he's not, you know, he's just trying to figure it out as he's doing it. And there's like, there's parallels to comedy, I think, because in comedy, you can write things, and I do, I write a lot of things, but sometimes when you're on stage, there's like a m- a, there's a path that just like opens up and you know that this is the way to do it. It's different than the way you wrote it.

Rick Rubin 1:17:09 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:17:10 Because the audience is there, and you feel it-

Rick Rubin 1:17:12 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:17:12 ... 'cause you, you only feel it when you're performing. But with comedy, the, the thing that's so different is the only way we ever know it's any good, the only way we really can create... You can't create in a va- I mean, maybe someone can. I heard Cosby used to do that. Cosby used to just write it all out, and then he would go on stage, or have it out and then not even need to rehearse it, not need to work it out in front of clubs. He would just do it in front of giant audiences, and it would be done. But most people, they're creating with the audience. And until you have an audience, you don't have any idea how the bit really comes together. There might be a setup that you thought was just a setup, and it gets the biggest laugh of the bit, and you're like, "What? What, I didn't expect that."

Rick Rubin 1:17:58 Does it change from night to night as well?

Joe Rogan 1:17:59 100%. It changes from night to night. Ch- changes depending upon your opening act. Changes depending upon the mood of the club. Tuesdays are different than Wednesdays. Everything's different, you know? It's like, it's one of the reasons why it's important to do, I always call it cross-training. I'm like, you can't just do arenas. You gotta do little clubs. You gotta do theaters. You gotta do everything. You gotta do clubs where they don't expect you to go up. You gotta do clubs where they know you're gonna work on new material. You gotta do clubs where this is a fucking recording. This is a big one, you know? Ready, polished, set, go. It's all different, and it all comes alive while you're performing, which I guess parallels with music, but the benefit of music is you can create it in the studio. You could put it together in the st- and you can make fucking incredible music almost in a vacuum because you're, you don't need the audience. It's, it's you. You're, it's you and the people you're working with, and you put it together. But we need people. It's like we, we have to ... They, they, they are an integral part of the process. The audience has to be there.

Rick Rubin 1:19:07 How does it work for television? If you're doing it like, if there's n- if you're doing comedy for television and there's no audience, how does that work?

Joe Rogan 1:19:14 In what way? What, what form?

Rick Rubin 1:19:16 Like...

Joe Rogan 1:19:16 (clears throat) Comedy for television?

Rick Rubin 1:19:19 It's a s- a sitcom or whatever it is-

Joe Rogan 1:19:21 Well-

Rick Rubin 1:19:21 ... where w- where there's a joke-

Joe Rogan 1:19:23 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 1:19:23 ... and there's no response coming back, or in a movie-

Joe Rogan 1:19:28 Yeah.

Rick Rubin 1:19:29 ... there's no response coming back.

Joe Rogan 1:19:31 ... well, you have table reads. And, um, the, in the table read, you find the beats because in table... But oftentimes, it's, like, very fake, which is really weird because one of the things that happens when you're on a sitcom is, uh, the producers and the writers will laugh really loud at their jokes.

Rick Rubin 1:19:48 I see.

Joe Rogan 1:19:49 And, uh, kind of fake sometimes, like they've heard the joke a hundred times before. And so you walk into the room like, "Why didn't you tell me that yesterday?" And everybody's like... (laughs) And, like, you know, it's, it's off-putting for a comic and you'd be like, "Hey, you know, you guys are fucking killing me with this fake laugh." Well, what they're trying to do is provide you with, uh, a feel of how the audience is gonna laugh, but they're also juicing up their own writing-

Rick Rubin 1:20:16 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:20:16 ... because they want-

Rick Rubin 1:20:16 But also, how do you know how the audience is gonna react?

Joe Rogan 1:20:18 You don't.

Rick Rubin 1:20:18 That's what-

Joe Rogan 1:20:19 You don't know. Y- so you do a first... Like, we had the benefit of, uh, working with Dave Foley, who's brilliant. And Dave Foley was, uh, one of The Kids in the Hall. And Dave Foley was essentially like an uncredited producer on Newsradio. So when we would do run-throughs and takes, Dave had this incredible sense of how a scene should go. And so when we would do run-throughs, we would go over the script and Dave would go, "What, what this is, um, how about, how about instead of this? Why don't you come in this... Why don't we just cut this part out? And you come in here and you're just angry because of something that's incorrect. You, you, you're angry because of that, and then Matthew comes over and says that, and Lisa comes over and says that, and then we end it with this." And then he would just,