Rick Rubin is one of the greatest music producers of all time, working with many of the greats including Beastie Boys, Eminem, Metallica, LL Cool J, Kanye West, Slayer, Tom Petty, Johnny Cash, Dixie Chicks, Aerosmith, Adele, Danzig, Red Hot Chili Peppers, System of a Down, Jay-Z, Black Sabbath. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
- Lambda: https://lambdalabs.com/lex
- Theragun: https://therabody.com/lex to get 30 day trial
- ROKA: https://roka.com/ and use code LEX to get 20% off your first order
- Onnit: https://lexfridman.com/onnit to get up to 10% off
- ExpressVPN: https://expressvpn.com/lexpod and use code LexPod to get 3 months free

Recording space is courtesy of The Chinati Foundation and John Chamberlain.

EPISODE LINKS:
Rick's Twitter: https://twitter.com/RickRubin
Broken Record Podcast: https://bit.ly/3j7BFXZ

PODCAST INFO:
Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast
Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8
RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/
Full episodes playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOdP_8GztsuKi9nrraNbKKp4
Clips playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOeciFP3CBCIEElOJeitOr41

OUTLINE:
0:00 - Introduction
1:52 - Nietzsche and music
12:53 - Rick's approach with artists
24:16 - Beautiful simplicity in music
28:00 - Marvin Gaye
37:15 - Best album of all time
41:08 - Paul McCartney
43:13 - Ideas
45:36 - Rebellion and conformity
50:24 - Fitness
53:32 - Johnny Cash
1:03:28 - Tom Waits
1:08:07 - Lyrics vs rhythm
1:12:54 - Johnny Cash continued
1:14:53 - Beastie Boys
1:21:14 - Depression
1:25:36 - Art vs Business
1:34:24 - Art of conversation
1:50:57 - Rick's podcast
1:54:07 - Advice for young people
1:58:13 - Mortality
2:00:48 - Meaning of life

SOCIAL:
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman
- Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman
- Reddit: https://reddit.com/r/lexfridman
- Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman

There are no right answers for anything involved in art.

We're all trying experiments to find a way.

And even for the things that I work on, I don't have a set way that I do anything.

Maybe you're just a meat vehicle and you're channeling ideas from somewhere else.

I believe we know close to nothing, close to nothing about anything.

If we embrace that not knowing, we'll have a healthier experience going through life.

The following is a conversation with Rick Rubin, 1 of the greatest music producers of all time, known for bringing the best out of anyone he works with, no matter the genre of music or even the medium of art, or just the medium of creating something beautiful in this world.

And the list of musicians he produced includes many, many, many of the greats over the past 40 years, including the Beastie Boys, Eminem, Metallica, LL Cool J, Kanye West, Slayer, Tom Petty, Johnny Cash, Dixie Chicks, Aerosmith, Adele, Danzig, Red Hot Chili Peppers, System of a Down, Jay-Z, Black Sabbath, I can keep going for a very long time here.

Most importantly, Rick is just an amazing human being.

We became fast friends, which is surreal to say and is just an incredible honor.

I felt truly heard as a person when I spent the day with him eating some delicious Texas barbecue, talking about life, about music, about art, about beauty.

This was a conversation and experience I'll never forget.

To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description.

And now, dear friends, here's Rick Rubin.

I'm not shaky, but I would say I feel uneasy.

And I feel like the sooner we start talking, the more relaxed we'll get.

Well, maybe we should sit in this moment and enjoy the nervousness of it.

He said, without music, life would be a mistake.

Let's try to analyze Friedrich Nietzsche from a century ago.

It seems like music has the ability to bring us so much depth in our soul that's hard to access any other way.

And without it, there would be a loss beyond the pleasure of it.

Feels like it's a window into something else.

Something that no other medium can express quite the same way.

Something about music can do it automatically.

Maybe poetry or maybe certain abstract forms can get us there.

But there's something about music that really can get us there quickly.

But it's also the time, the place, the history.

There's something about, like a lot of my family's still in Philly.

There's something about driving through Jersey and listening to Bruce Springsteen.

And then it just, I'll get like emotional.

That like, 1 of my favorite Bruce Springsteen songs, there's a haunting kind of strumming to it.

It's not a strumming, it's actually picked as a country feel to it, almost like a Johnny Cash feel actually.

And it, I don't know, it makes me feel, so for people who don't know, I'm on fire.

That song is, I guess, a love song to a woman that you can't have because she's married or she's with somebody else, which I guess is quite a lot of love songs.

But there's something about the haunting nature of the guitar and then it has to be driving through Jersey.

And I feel like everyone has fallen in love with a Jersey girl at 1 point in their life.

I don't know if that's true for everybody.

I haven't either, but I just feel like that.

There's something about Bruce Springsteen that's like, yeah, I've been there.

And that just takes you to a place of emotion that you just, that captures love, that captures longing, that captures the heartbreak of just the way time flows in life and the fact that it's finite and just all of that in a single simple song.

But it's true that there's a connection both between time and place and music.

And certain music Growing up on the East Coast didn't really resonate with me until I spent time on the West Coast.

When I lived in New York, the Eagles didn't really speak to me.

And then when I started spending time in California and driving through Laurel Canyon, all of a sudden the music of the Eagles felt appropriate somehow, and I started listening to it more.

So not until you went out west can you understand the sounds of the West.

So it's really like New York has a sound.

What other places have a sound in the United States?

And that said, sometimes we can get an experience through music of a place.

Like we can resonate with the music and not understand why.

And then maybe when we go to the place where it was created, it's almost like we have a knowingness of that place.

Yeah, Stevie Ray Vaughan with blues and Texas blues.

You can just listen to Texas flood and just, again, there's this like a woman you're missing, a broken heart, and somehow that connects you to the place, the Eagles.

What song with the Eagles connects with you?

Are we talking about like, Take It Easy, or are we talking more like Hotel California?

I'm thinking Take It Easy, but both are great.

Yeah, there's certain songs when I started learning guitar when I was young that's like, I would like to be the kind of person that not only knows how to play this song, but understands this song.

And like, have that song be something I played 20 years ago.

And I've lived with that song for a while.

Obviously there's the solo, but there's also the soulfulness of the lyrics, which I still don't understand.

And as you get older, I feel like the meaning of the song could be anything.

I think when the person wrote them, they may have had 1 interpretation, but it's not contingent on us getting that interpretation to like it or resonate with it or feel it.

In some ways, the best art is open enough where the artist gets to have their experience when they make it, and then the audience gets to have their experience when they listen, and they don't have to be the same.

And then it connects thousands or millions of people together.

There's a togetherness of music when you share that music, when you're listening to stuff together, like in a car.

So I work in part on autonomous vehicles.

And you start to think, well, what are the things you lose when the car stops being the central part of American life, the car ownership.

It just feels like the car when you're alone, it's like a therapist thing, session, because you get angry at other humans, you get to, and then you get to like sit in your own anger and emotion, you get to listen to the song on a long road trip and remember, like run through your memories, the heartbreak, I don't know, the 1 that got away, but also like the beautiful moments, all of it.

Yeah, driving also serves another purpose and it's 1 of the things that we can do that we have to pay attention enough not to crash, but typically can essentially run on autopilot enough where we could be thinking about something else or concentrating on something else.

And the difference between concentrating on something or trying to solve a problem, when you're solely trying to solve a problem versus when you have some little task that's keeping you occupied, I find if I have something slight to take care of, it frees a more creative side of my mind to better solve problems.

You know, I'm kind of jealous of people that found that in painting, for example.

They'll be drawing or painting and listening to, so that's the small task you do.

It's like this gentle, peaceful, slow process that requires just a small fraction of your mind and then you can listen.

There's a process, so most freeing of the mind for me has to go through a process of a bit of pain for a bit.

So doing something difficult, it's just like a airplane taking off or something.

So that's, like for example, running, the first few miles would just be just, first of all, the physical aspect, which is like, ah, you're so fat, you're out of shape.

You're this is, this is the getting old, this, that.

And then the demons come in who are like, you should be getting this and that and this done.

You're like breaking promises, all those kinds of voices coming in.

And after that, maybe mile 4, it's like, fuck it.

You just run, run with the wind at a very slow pace, but with the wind, and then you could think.

So it's the footsteps, the physical activity, then you could deeply think about stuff, ideas, sort of design, whether it's program design stuff or like high-level life decisions, all those kinds of things, I would say running.

It's an engineering, I guess some people like glue together airplanes and stuff like that.

But the bridges, It's such deeply honest work because at the end of it, you're gonna have to test that bridge and you're gonna see how good your work was.

The little details, but also the big picture.

So it's not pure physics, it's materials engineering too.

Because the way you want to do it is you actually split the wood as thin as possible and then glue it back together because the glue is really strong except for the arches and things like that.

So you're building arch bridges, which is a whole nother skill because you have to bend the wood.

And it's so cool because the thing can hold thousands of times its weight.

And then you get to watch it explode at a certain point from the pressure and when you do a really good job, it doesn't explode in a kind of some weak point that you didn't anticipate, just kind of starts cracking.

And it's literally hundreds of hours of work just explode in front of you.

Except for the journey that you took to get there.

These questions are ridiculous, so You're gonna have to try to figure out what the heck I'm trying to do here.

So Nietzsche also said, a line I love which is, and those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.

Or maybe you're the 1 who's saying and everybody else is crazy.

You know that the dancing, the joy of the music, of just feeling the music and everybody else just doesn't understand.

And this doesn't have to be literally about music, this is about art, about creation.

I would say I feel different, and it's hard to say, it's like, which side of the equation is crazy, you know?

Did you ever find a group of people that you get, that get you?

Is you try to find the moments when you just get each other?

I would say they're definitely, certain artists with certain temperaments, when you're around them, it feels like you can finish each other's sentences, You know, just see the world the same way.

And that's not essential for the 2 of you together creating something special?

It could be anything, it could be any, there's no rules.

It's, it'd be like, think of it like a coach.

A coach could, a coach could bring their, what they have to bring to any talented individual and, you know, help them find their way.

And sometimes the right coach for the right athlete really works and other times there's a mismatch.

I saw it when it came out, so I don't really remember it well, but I did see it.

Who is pushing a drummer to create, to grow as a musician, but also to create something special.

I don't know if it's even special music skill-wise, it's a special moment.

From 1 perspective, it's just an abusive, a person who selfishly gets off on being abusive to those he's with.

But from another perspective, the way I saw that movie, it's just the 2 right humans finding each other at the right moment in life and risking destroying each other in the process, but maybe something beautiful will come of it.

Do you think that's a toxic relationship?

Or is there, does some of that movie resonate with you as that sometimes is required to create art?

Well, there's suffering involved, but not that kind of suffering.

There are some people who that's their process and that's whatever works.

You know, there's no right answers for anything involved in art.

Every, I come to every project, blank, and see, I really listen to what the artist plays and says and through what they're through what they explain they want to do Help find the best way to get there Was it implicit in the movie that the mean teacher liked being a mean teacher?

You said the way you described it was that he got off on treating people this way.

But we sometimes project that onto people, people who are really rough on students.

You start to think, well, maybe, maybe that is fundamentally who they are, and if it's fundamentally who they are, that there must be some pleasure in it, or it's an addiction of some sort.

But it could be also a deliberate choice made by the teacher.

It also could be a lineage, like in the Zen tradition, there are sort of the mean Roshis, who if you do something wrong, take a physical action.

And in the lineage, it's considered, that's how you teach.

I didn't come from that lineage, so I'm much more of a, I feel like it's more of a collaboration between people working together to make the best thing.

It's not a boss-slave relationship at all.

And we agree at the beginning of the process that if either of us, or any of us, don't like what's happening, we say it, and the goal is to keep working until we get to a point where we're all really happy with it.

It's like if we make something that an artist likes and I don't like, or that I like and they don't like, we haven't gone far enough.

In terms of lineage, the ones that seek destruction and the ones that seek happiness all come from the same lineage.

We all came from fish, so somewhere in you, deep down there's the other stuff too.

It's just that you haven't been yet, by the way, because you said every new project, including maybe starting today, is an opportunity to channel, to plug into something that was always there and you haven't gotten a chance to plug into.

When you first come in, like we just met, what's the analysis happening?

But I mean, with me is 1 thing, I'm an artist of sorts, I program, and I'm just, I'm human, I guess.

How do you see like, how do I bring out so for people don't know?

I mean, Obviously, everyone knows that you've produced some of the greatest records ever, but the way I see that is you just brought out the best in a lot of interesting artists.

And so in order to bring out the best in them, you have to understand them.

You have to hear the music of their soul.

Hopefully I'm not being too romantic here, but just like, is there something you can say of how difficult that is, if there's a process, if there's tricks, if it's luck.

I think it starts with this, again, coming in blank, like not having any preconceived ideas, being open and really listening, listening and not thinking about what you're gonna say next or what your opinion is or any, you know, not, basically being a recorder and just hearing what comes in.

And then once you hear what comes in, processing that information, and trying our best to do that without any of the beliefs that we might have to impact what that is.

If I ask you a question, I don't wanna hear what, I don't wanna listen to you and have any reaction happening when you're speaking and want to be as neutral as possible for me for my goal is is is Not to form an opinion.

It's to understand so if anything I would draw you out further and just ask questions to really understand.

And if you say, or if you say something that I, that somehow triggers me in a way that that's, I wonder how he came to that.

I wouldn't challenge you, I would ask, like how did you find that?

From a place of curiosity, You would try to figure out.

Yeah, I wanna understand who the person is and through questioning we can usually get there or through just spending time together, you find out who the person is.

What about finding out and figuring out how to then take the next steps of bringing out the best in them.

Like, let's add this instrument, let's remove this instrument.

Let's add this line, let's remove this line.

So 1 of the, we don't really have rules, but 1 of the agreements in the studio is any idea that anyone has will always demonstrate it, will always try it.

Because I can describe to you an idea and you can think, that's a terrible idea, let's not do that.

And then I can play you the idea and then you can say, oh, that's really good.

And it's completely different because when we're told something, we have to imagine what that is and the way you see something and imagine it and the way I see something and imagine it are completely different.

So you say a thing and now there's 2 humans that play that thing in their mind differently, in their imagination, and then there's a cool creative step in when you actually do it to see how it differs in the imagination, and then the difference or the commonality will be like an exciting little discovery together.

Well, so many groups of people making things together in a room, 1 person will suggest something and someone else in the room say, ah, that doesn't sound like a good idea.

The testing of every idea is really important.

And that's how you get to see, oh, that's not at all what I thought it was gonna be.

I know because someone will suggest, why don't we do it like this?

And then, you know, 8 times out of 10, it's nothing like I imagined and great.

And you try not to have an ego about the fact that you thought it was not a good idea in your head.

It doesn't, if everyone's there with the purpose of making the best thing we can, there's nothing else.

You know, there are no, there can't be any boundaries to that.

So there's a moment I saw with, I know you don't love talking about previous things you've done, but it's cool to dive in there every

I'll think of something ridiculous that would make you change your mind.

You mentioned, I saw a video of you with Jay-Z working on 99 Problems where you suggested acapella opening the song with acapella, just no instruments, just voice.

That to me, I mean, that's 1 of the characteristics of the things, of the ways you've brought out the best in an artist is doing less, sort of tending towards simplicity in some kind of way.

So that choice of a cappella is really interesting because I could see a lot of people think that that's a bad idea, but it turned out to be a really powerful idea.

Can you maybe talk about the simplicity, how to find simplicity, why you find simplicity is beautiful?

It has been with me from the beginning of my work.

The very first album I ever produced, the credit I took was reduced by me instead of produced by me for that reason.

Like I like the idea of getting to the essential.

I have a better idea now that I've done it for a while, but at the time it was purely an instinctual thing.

Part of it is a sonic benefit, which is the less elements you have, you can hear each of the ones that are there, and they can sound better.

And the less there are, the more space they could have around them and the more you can hear their personality.

If you were to record 10 people playing the same guitar part and you listen to it, it would sound like guitar.

And if you record 1 person playing a guitar part, it sounds like a person playing the guitar.

And often in the studio, the idea of building upon things and adding layers to thicken, to make it sound bigger.

Sometimes the more things you add, the smaller it gets.

So it's a, a lot of it is counterintuitive until you just in practice see what works.

it, to try removing stuff until it's just right.

It's the Einstein thing, make it, make it as simple as possible, but not simpler.

That's such a, like finding a stopping place, just keep chopping away and chopping away.

Yeah, there's something we also like to do called the ruthless edit, which is, let's say you're at a point where it can work for anything, but I'll give you the example with an album.

Instead of picking our favorite 10, we limit it to what are the 5 or 6 that we can't live without?

So going past even the goal to get to the real heart of it and then see, okay, we have these 5 or 6 that we can't live without.

Now, what would we add to that that makes it better and not worse?

It's just, it puts you in a different frame when you start with building instead of removing.

And you might find that there's nothing you need to add.

Sometimes, sometimes something happens when you get to the real essence.

Then when you start adding things back, it becomes clear that it was just supposed to be this, this tight little thing.

Can I ask you like a therapy session question?

So I'd like you, you mentioned somewhere that 1 way to kind of think about music to get into music is to look at the top like hundred albums of all time and just go down the list and like just take it all in like 1 piece of artwork.

It's a cool experiment, because unfortunately I have to admit, I've gotten lazy and stopped taking in albums as albums.

And I looked at 1 interesting top 100 list, top 500 actually, which is put together by Rolling Stone.

And they put, this is the therapy session part, and this has to do with simplicity too.

They put Marvin Gaye's What's Going On at number 1.

So I'd like to maybe get your opinion on that choice.

The reason Marvin Gaye is really interesting, it'd actually be cool to play what's going on in a second, but when you just listen to his acapella, just listen to his voice, it is really good.

Like people, it makes me wonder if it's possible to pull off like most of his songs with no instruments.

Like in many parts, there's so much soul in just Mercy Mercy Me, What's Going On.

There's so many songs that you could just be like, I wonder if you could just like, just go raw.

Or maybe in parts, or maybe do what you do with Jay-Z, just open up with nothing.

See all Lex Fridman transcripts on Youtube

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