Joe Rogan Experience #1881 - Rick Rubin

1. 0:00 – 1:35

   Meeting Rick Rubin & the “accidental” career driven by passion

   1. NANarrator0:00

      (drum music) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:06

      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.

   4. RRRick Rubin0:17

      Same.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:17

      Yeah.

   6. RRRick Rubin0:17

      Happy to be here.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:18

      I'm happy to have you here, man.

   8. RRRick Rubin0:19

      Happy to be in this-

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:20

      I'm excited to talk to you.

   10. RRRick Rubin0:20

       ... beautiful place.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:21

       Thank you. And it's fun.

   12. RRRick Rubin0:23

       It's inspiring.

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:23

       You see shooting stars across the ceiling, you're not tripping.

   14. RRRick Rubin0:25

       Okay.

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:25

       Every, like, 40 seconds or something.

   16. RRRick Rubin0:27

       Cool.

   17. JRJoe Rogan0:27

       A star shoots across the ceiling. So what's happening, man?

   18. RRRick Rubin0:31

       Just hanging.

   19. JRJoe Rogan0:32

       You wrote a book.

   20. RRRick Rubin0:32

       I wrote a book.

   21. JRJoe Rogan0:33

       I'm excited to read it, man.

   22. RRRick Rubin0:34

       Yeah, I'm excited for you to see it.

   23. JRJoe Rogan0:35

       You've had a wild life, brother.

   24. RRRick Rubin0:38

       It's, uh, continues to surprise me on a regular basis.

   25. JRJoe Rogan0:42

       Does it?

   26. RRRick Rubin0:43

       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.

   27. JRJoe Rogan0:50

       How so?

   28. RRRick Rubin0:53

       (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.

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:17

       Yeah.

   30. RRRick Rubin1:18

       And it just magically turned out different than that without me knowing it was possible.
2. 1:35 – 4:51

   From punk band to early NYC hip-hop: capturing what clubs sounded like

   1. RRRick Rubin1:35

      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.

   2. JRJoe Rogan3:30

      How so?

   3. RRRick Rubin3:35

      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?

   4. JRJoe Rogan4:24

      Mm-hmm.

   5. RRRick Rubin4:26

      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.

3. 4:51 – 9:53

   First productions and the sound shift: drum machines, scratching, and “It’s Yours”

   1. JRJoe Rogan4:51

      And so how did you get in with the artists and start producing stuff?

   2. RRRick Rubin4:56

      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.

   3. JRJoe Rogan6:26

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

   4. RRRick Rubin6:33

      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-

   5. JRJoe Rogan6:48

      What was the difference in the way you were doing the sound versus the way the sound was on the album?

   6. RRRick Rubin6:53

      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-

   7. JRJoe Rogan6:59

      Okay, tell Jamie what to pull up.

   8. RRRick Rubin7:00

      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.

   9. JRJoe Rogan7:18

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

   10. RRRick Rubin7:24

       Just starting, so p- first or second year of school, whatever age that is.

   11. JRJoe Rogan7:29

       So like 19, 20?

   12. RRRick Rubin7:31

       Something like that.

   13. JRJoe Rogan7:31

       Wow.

   14. NANarrator7:32

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

   15. RRRick Rubin7:37

       Listen to the music.

   16. NANarrator7:37

       ... 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.

   17. RRRick Rubin8:01

       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.

   18. JRJoe Rogan8:22

       Mm.

   19. RRRick Rubin8:24

       So this is just a drum machine.

   20. NANarrator8:28

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

   21. JRJoe Rogan8:40

       Oh.

   22. RRRick Rubin8:42

       And there's, there's scratching also.

   23. NANarrator8:47

       Do you like it? Yeah. Do you want it? Yeah.

   24. RRRick Rubin8:48

       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.

   25. JRJoe Rogan9:25

       W- who was the first person that started scratching?

   26. RRRick Rubin9:30

       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.

   27. JRJoe Rogan9:42

       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.

   28. RRRick Rubin9:51

       Yeah.

   29. JRJoe Rogan9:51

       It became part of it.

4. 9:53 – 12:10

   Sampling as montage: invention, controversy, and creating something new

   1. RRRick Rubin9:53

      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.

   2. JRJoe Rogan10:37

      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.

   3. RRRick Rubin10:58

      The, the ... it's a b- ... It's a long conversation.

   4. JRJoe Rogan11:00

      Mm-hmm.

   5. RRRick Rubin11:00

      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.

5. 12:10 – 16:30

   “It’s not music”: industry rejection and the RUN-DMC/Aerosmith bridge

   1. JRJoe Rogan12:10

      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.

   2. RRRick Rubin12:23

      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.

   3. JRJoe Rogan12:52

      Other thing?

   4. RRRick Rubin12:53

      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-

   5. JRJoe Rogan13:19

      (laughs)

   6. RRRick Rubin13:19

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

   7. JRJoe Rogan13:26

      That doesn't even make sense today, right?

   8. RRRick Rubin13:28

      No, no, no. Now, it's, it's, uh, the world has changed. The world has changed.

   9. JRJoe Rogan13:32

      Wow. Uh-

   10. RRRick Rubin13:33

       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.

   11. JRJoe Rogan14:00

       Wow. That's hard to... It's-

   12. RRRick Rubin14:03

       It's shocking.

   13. JRJoe Rogan14:03

       Yeah.

   14. RRRick Rubin14:03

       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.

   15. JRJoe Rogan14:13

       Yeah.

   16. RRRick Rubin14:13

       And the whole purpose of doing that was to demonstrate this is music.

   17. JRJoe Rogan14:19

       Mm-hmm.

   18. RRRick Rubin14:19

       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.

   19. JRJoe Rogan15:10

       Ah.

   20. RRRick Rubin15:10

       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.

   21. JRJoe Rogan15:24

       Wow.

   22. RRRick Rubin15:25

       Yeah. Let's listen to that.

   23. JRJoe Rogan15:26

       Yeah.

   24. RRRick Rubin15:26

       Could we play the intro, the intro to Aerosmith's Walk This Way?

   25. JRJoe Rogan15:31

       I remember when you did that. I remember that being a very polarizing song.

   26. RRRick Rubin15:37

       Absolutely.

   27. JRJoe Rogan15:37

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

   28. RRRick Rubin15:44

       Mm-hmm.

   29. JRJoe Rogan15:44

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

   30. RRRick Rubin15:49

       Mm-hmm. (instrumental music plays) Stop. Just that long. (laughs)
6. 16:30 – 20:41

   Fall, backlash, and revival: how “Walk This Way” split audiences (and saved Aerosmith)

   1. JRJoe Rogan16:30

      Wow. How was it received in the music business when you did that?

   2. RRRick Rubin16:34

      Um, I guess the first thing was radio. Like, it... I remember, uh, I guess it was WBCN in Boston-

   3. JRJoe Rogan16:41

      Yeah.

   4. RRRick Rubin16:42

      ... played it once.

   5. JRJoe Rogan16:43

      Marc Parenteau?

   6. RRRick Rubin16:44

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

   7. JRJoe Rogan16:47

      Um, Charles LaCordiara.

   8. RRRick Rubin16:49

      No, tell me another name.

   9. JRJoe Rogan16:51

      God, that's hard to remember.

   10. RRRick Rubin16:52

       Like DJs.

   11. JRJoe Rogan16:52

       I'm remember the morning mattress was Charles LaCordiara and afternoons was Marc Parenteau.

   12. RRRick Rubin16:57

       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.

   13. JRJoe Rogan17:01

       Yeah.

   14. RRRick Rubin17:01

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

   15. JRJoe Rogan17:06

       Yeah.

   16. RRRick Rubin17:06

       ... playing a hip-hop record.

   17. JRJoe Rogan17:08

       Yeah.

   18. RRRick Rubin17:09

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

   19. JRJoe Rogan17:16

       (laughs)

   20. RRRick Rubin17:17

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

   21. JRJoe Rogan17:22

       Wow. (laughs)

   22. RRRick Rubin17:23

       Yeah, so it was like it definitely divided the audience.

   23. JRJoe Rogan17:26

       Yeah.

   24. RRRick Rubin17:26

       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.

   25. JRJoe Rogan17:36

       Yeah.

   26. RRRick Rubin17:36

       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.

   27. JRJoe Rogan18:03

       (laughs) How did Aerosmith react? Did you come to Aerosmith and try to bring it to them? Did the label come to them?

   28. RRRick Rubin18:09

       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.

   29. JRJoe Rogan18:32

       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.

   30. RRRick Rubin18:52

       Absolutely.
7. 20:41 – 23:58

   Def Jam in a dorm room: LL Cool J, Beastie Boys humor, and creative freedom

   1. JRJoe Rogan20:41

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

   2. RRRick Rubin20:50

      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.

   3. JRJoe Rogan21:32

      (laughs)

   4. RRRick Rubin21:33

      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.

   5. JRJoe Rogan22:00

      Mm.

   6. RRRick Rubin22:00

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

   7. JRJoe Rogan22:12

      Mm.

   8. RRRick Rubin22:13

      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-

   9. JRJoe Rogan23:12

      (laughs)

   10. RRRick Rubin23:12

       ... outside of our small group of friends.

   11. JRJoe Rogan23:15

       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."

   12. RRRick Rubin23:32

       It was o- it was definitely odd. It was very free. (laughs)

   13. JRJoe Rogan23:35

       Yeah.

   14. RRRick Rubin23:35

       It was very free.

   15. JRJoe Rogan23:36

       Free is a great word. That's a great word.

   16. RRRick Rubin23:37

       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-

   17. JRJoe Rogan23:56

       Yeah.

   18. RRRick Rubin23:56

       ... that it was for anyone else.

8. 23:58 – 34:33

   Originality vs. imitation: why boundary-pushers age well (Public Enemy, Paul’s Boutique, NWA)

   1. JRJoe Rogan23:58

      Well, speaking of experimental, Paul's Boutique is one of my favorite albums ever.

   2. RRRick Rubin24:02

      It's incredible.

   3. JRJoe Rogan24:02

      It's fucking great. And that was such a radical shift from the first album.

   4. RRRick Rubin24:09

      Absolutely.

   5. JRJoe Rogan24:11

      I mean, it's just-

   6. RRRick Rubin24:11

      And I didn't, I didn't produce Paul's Boutique. That's what's different about it.

   7. JRJoe Rogan24:14

      It's so different.

   8. RRRick Rubin24:14

      Radically different. And m- miraculously beautiful. Beautiful album.

   9. JRJoe Rogan24:18

      Yeah, just completely different kind of music, but it speaks to the sort of freedom of that time-

   10. RRRick Rubin24:24

       Absolutely.

   11. JRJoe Rogan24:25

       ... that people would take these wild chances like that.

   12. RRRick Rubin24:28

       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.

   13. JRJoe Rogan24:49

       Yeah. That's w- that was strange to me at the time.

   14. RRRick Rubin24:52

       Yeah.

   15. JRJoe Rogan24:52

       'Cause I was like, I don't understand why people aren't loving this. This is so interesting.

   16. RRRick Rubin24:56

       So good. So good.

   17. JRJoe Rogan24:59

       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."

   18. RRRick Rubin25:16

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

   19. JRJoe Rogan25:23

       Yeah.

   20. RRRick Rubin25:23

       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."

   21. JRJoe Rogan26:13

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

   22. RRRick Rubin26:19

       He's incredible.

   23. JRJoe Rogan26:20

       Isn't that crazy?

   24. RRRick Rubin26:21

       It's crazy.

   25. JRJoe Rogan26:21

       That someone would think that his, his lyrics or his voice is not good?

   26. RRRick Rubin26:26

       It's insane. It's insane.

   27. JRJoe Rogan26:29

       I mean, it's iconic.

   28. RRRick Rubin26:30

       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...

   29. JRJoe Rogan26:42

       Right.

   30. RRRick Rubin26:42

       I remember at the time that LL came out, another record came out called, um, Roxanne, Roxanne.
9. 34:33 – 39:27

   Fame, attention, and staying authentic: from Tom Petty to Joe’s “don’t read comments” rule

   1. RRRick Rubin34:33

      You see the other side, too.

   2. JRJoe Rogan34:34

      Yeah.

   3. RRRick Rubin34:34

      There are so many artists who were shy-

   4. JRJoe Rogan34:39

      Mm-hmm.

   5. RRRick Rubin34:39

      ... private people-

   6. JRJoe Rogan34:40

      Yeah.

   7. RRRick Rubin34:41

      ... 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.

   8. JRJoe Rogan34:59

      Yeah.

   9. RRRick Rubin35:00

      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.

   10. JRJoe Rogan35:40

       Mm.

   11. RRRick Rubin35:41

       It was too, it was too weird.

   12. JRJoe Rogan35:43

       Yeah.

   13. RRRick Rubin35:44

       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."

   14. JRJoe Rogan35:54

       Mm.

   15. RRRick Rubin35:54

       You know?

   16. JRJoe Rogan35:55

       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.

   17. RRRick Rubin36:03

       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?

   18. JRJoe Rogan36:20

       One thing I do is I don't read anything that anybody says about me.

   19. RRRick Rubin36:23

       Great.

   20. JRJoe Rogan36:24

       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.

   21. RRRick Rubin36:42

       Mm-hmm.

   22. JRJoe Rogan36:42

       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.

   23. NANarrator36:56

       Yeah.

   24. JRJoe Rogan36:56

       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?"

   25. NANarrator37:37

       Mm-hmm.

   26. JRJoe Rogan37:37

       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.

   27. NANarrator38:04

       Yeah.

   28. JRJoe Rogan38:04

       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?

   29. NANarrator39:25

       Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan39:25

       It seems impossible.
10. 39:27 – 1:06:05

    Comedy deep dive: Joe’s Kinison spark and Rubin’s Dice partnership (“The Day the Laughter Died”)

    1. NANarrator39:27

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

    2. JRJoe Rogan39:32

       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-

    3. NANarrator39:48

       Because you were funny in real life?

    4. JRJoe Rogan39:50

       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-

    5. NANarrator39:59

       Yeah.

    6. JRJoe Rogan39:59

       ... 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.

    7. NANarrator40:15

       Yeah.

    8. JRJoe Rogan40:15

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

    9. NANarrator40:21

       And it was healing-

    10. JRJoe Rogan40:22

        Yeah.

    11. NANarrator40:22

        ... 'cause you made everybody feel better and you-

    12. JRJoe Rogan40:24

        Oh, yeah.

    13. NANarrator40:24

        ... it, it served a purpose.

    14. JRJoe Rogan40:25

        It did.

    15. NANarrator40:26

        Yeah.

    16. JRJoe Rogan40:26

        It was a giant relief valve. Shh.

    17. NANarrator40:28

        Okay.

    18. JRJoe Rogan40:29

        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."

    19. NANarrator40:49

        Yeah.

    20. JRJoe Rogan40:49

        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.

    21. NANarrator41:46

        Yeah.

    22. JRJoe Rogan41:46

        She didn't wanna do 'em in the lobby.

    23. NANarrator41:47

        Yeah.

    24. JRJoe Rogan41:47

        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."

    25. NANarrator42:16

        (laughs)

    26. JRJoe Rogan42:16

        "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.

    27. NANarrator42:32

        Yeah.

    28. JRJoe Rogan42:32

        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."

    29. RRRick Rubin43:20

        Awesome.

    30. JRJoe Rogan43:20

        Because if that wild shit could be comedy-
11. 1:06:05 – 1:34:18

    Process across mediums: Chris Rock’s craft, writing methods in rap, and studio “protected space”

    1. RRRick Rubin1:06:05

       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.

    2. JRJoe Rogan1:06:17

       Radical. Yeah.

    3. RRRick Rubin1:06:18

       Like Ch- like Chris, Chris is always writing and Chris is meticulous and it's always game on.

    4. JRJoe Rogan1:06:28

       Yes.

    5. RRRick Rubin1:06:28

       And when he's on stage it's, it really shows.

    6. JRJoe Rogan1:06:32

       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."

    7. RRRick Rubin1:07:03

       Yeah.

    8. JRJoe Rogan1:07:04

       "I'm ready to see you crushing."

    9. RRRick Rubin1:07:05

       Yeah.

    10. JRJoe Rogan1:07:06

        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."

    11. RRRick Rubin1:07:15

        Yeah.

    12. JRJoe Rogan1:07:16

        Because he was working on new shit.

    13. RRRick Rubin1:07:17

        Yeah.

    14. JRJoe Rogan1:07:17

        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.

    15. RRRick Rubin1:07:30

        Yeah.

    16. JRJoe Rogan1:07:30

        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.

    17. RRRick Rubin1:07:37

        Yes.

    18. JRJoe Rogan1:07:37

        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.

    19. RRRick Rubin1:08:17

        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.

    20. JRJoe Rogan1:08:26

        He's on fire right now. He's on fire right now.

    21. RRRick Rubin1:08:28

        Yeah. It was insane.

    22. JRJoe Rogan1:08:29

        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.

    23. RRRick Rubin1:10:12

        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-

    24. JRJoe Rogan1:10:18

        He's angry now, though.

    25. RRRick Rubin1:10:20

        He's on fire.

    26. JRJoe Rogan1:10:21

        Yeah.

    27. RRRick Rubin1:10:21

        And it's great.

    28. JRJoe Rogan1:10:22

        It's great.

    29. RRRick Rubin1:10:22

        And it's like, he, him and Chappelle were playing together.

    30. JRJoe Rogan1:10:24

        Yeah.

Episode duration: 3:02:19