David Senra - The Simple Genius of Rick Rubin

Episode Date: May 24, 2026

Rick Rubin grew up on Long Island obsessed with music — arena rock at 13, punk by high school, then hip-hop when it was still a street movement you could only hear at one club in New York City. The records coming out didn't sound like the club. They were made by professionals who didn't go to the club. So at 18, while a freshman at NYU, he made one himself — "It's Yours" with T La Rock. It sold 100,000 copies in 18 months. He put his dorm room address on the sleeve. This launched Def Jam Recordings. LL Cool J's first record came next. The Beastie Boys after that. His credit on those records didn't say "produced by." It said "reduced by" — a theological statement as much as a job title. His method has never changed: strip everything down until what remains has no place to hide, then protect whatever magic appears. He's applied it to Jay-Z, Johnny Cash, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Eminem, The Strokes, Metallica, Kanye West, Tom Petty, and many other top artists.  He describes himself as a lazy workaholic. The Zen exterior is real. So is the guy who spent the first 25 years of his career in a dark room 16 hours a day, seven days a week, waiting for a miracle to show up. Show notes: https://www.davidsenra.com/episode/rick-rubin Made possible by Ramp: ⁠https://ramp.com⁠ Deel: https://deel.com/senra HubSpot: https://hubspot.com AppLovin: https://axon.ai/senra Rick Rubin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rickrubin X: https://x.com/RickRubin Tetragrammaton: https://www.tetragrammaton.com The Creative Act: https://a.co/d/05FKl59a Substack: https://rickrubin.substack.com Chapters (00:00:00) Less Is More But Harder (00:02:00) Def Jam From The Dorm Room (00:04:00) Capturing Club Energy On Record (00:06:00) Going Deep On Influences (00:12:30) Why Reduced By Rick Rubin (00:14:00) Beatles Structure Meets Rap (00:16:00) The Ruthless Edit (00:19:30) Eminem: The Most Obsessive Artist (00:22:00) Lazy Workaholic (00:25:30) Protecting The Moment Of Magic (00:29:00) Dana White And Becoming A Podcaster (00:32:30) Professional Listener (00:44:00) Fishing And Showing Up (00:47:00) Johnny Cash And Constraints (00:55:30) Church Business vs. Banking Business (00:58:50) Run On Intuition Alone (01:01:00) Jay-Z vs. Eminem Process (01:04:30) In Service Of The Artist (01:09:00) Work As Diary Entries (01:13:30) Four Ways Success Destroys You (01:16:00) How To Sustain Success (01:21:00) The House On The Mountain Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Five years ago, I read this biography of you. It's called In the Studio. You and I were just talking about it before we started recording. One of my favorite ideas that I took away from that book that I think about probably every week is this concept that you have that less is more, but to get less, you have to do more. Can you talk a little about that? Yeah.

If you're stacking a lot of things on top of each other, each one of those things becomes less important. So if you have 10 things, each one of them is one-tenth as important as one by itself. So if you're making something and you want the least amount involved, those things have to be really critically curated because they're doing the work of everything and nothing is hidden.

It's why it's not as easy as it sounds to do less. But when you see it, when you see it, you can get the personality. I'll give you an example with guitars. A lot of recordings are made where the guitarist plays and then they double it and triple it and they create this like wall of guitars. And when there's a wall of guitars,

you hear guitar, but you don't hear someone playing guitar. You just hear guitar. It becomes more generic. When one person plays it and you can hear their fingers on the strings, it's got more personality. It's more human. And I tend to look for those things where it's the singular essence shows through. Well, I'm always surprised about people that do great things, I think, especially from people outside,

it's like the amount of volume that goes into it before, like, before you're presented with, like, their finished work. I know, like, you start, you know, you're obsessed with music when you're a teenager. You start deaf jam in your dorm room. You're like 18 years old. What was the first example? Was it L.O. Cool J? Like, who was the first example where you're like, wow, there's a lot more work that goes into making a great piece of art,

great product, great album than I ever knew? I never thought about it because it was like a mission and a love. And I didn't think of it even as work. It was just what I wanted to do is make these things. So the fact that it took a lot of work wasn't even in, it wasn't in consideration at all. When you were 18 years old, 19 years old, it was just all music all the time? Yeah, it's just as a fan I listen to music all the time.

I fell in love with it. I wanted to be involved in whatever way that I could. Hip hop was just starting in New York City. It was still a totally underground movement. So the only place you could hear it was at one club downtown where I was going to school. There was only one club that you could hear hip hop. was once a week. But other than that, it was only in, it was in the Bronx, it was in Brooklyn, but really just in like community centers and outdoor parties. It was underground and not

well thought of kind of music. It was street music. And I would go to this club every week and hear the music. And at that time, there would be a few hip-hop records coming out, 12-inch singles, no albums, only 12-inch singles. And there'd be maybe one new record every two or three weeks. And that's all there was. And I would go to the club every week, hear the music there, and then I would buy the one single that would come out every few weeks. And the singles didn't represent what the energy in the club was.

And I wanted to feel that energy of the club. So I started, the first record I made was called It's Yours. and the purpose of that I was just trying to capture the energy of the club on record. And I didn't know anything about recording. I wasn't a professional. I was a kid.

The fact that I didn't know what I was doing allowed it to be true to what hip hop was. Whereas all of the records that were coming out, the few and far between 12-inch singles every few weeks, they were made by professionals who made other kinds of music. They weren't made by hip-hop people. So an outsider with experience,

was making what they thought hip hop was. But if you went to the club, you knew what it really was. And the club was very stripped down, and it was scratching, breakbeats, drum machines, and rapping. And that's what the records were. The ones that were produced by people producing other or making other genres of music, was it like too much polished? Was it like fake?

How would you describe the difference from what you're hearing in the club? So this is like your opportunity, essentially, your way into this. The records are like a dot. of this scene that was going on, and all of the other documents of that period weren't representative of the scene. They were representative of something else, professional professional, professional, like the Hollywood version of it.

But that's not what it was. Is this the first, like, signal you put out? It's sold like 100,000 copies, or is that the same one? Yeah, something like that. It's a lot, I mean, for a record in that world, world, it took a long time, probably took 18 months to sell 100,000, but over 18 months sold about 100,000. And it was a hit as much of a hit could be in something that would never be on the radio

and the kind of music that nobody listened to or liked. As a matter of fact, back then, most people who were not hip-hop fans didn't even acknowledge it as music. That's how far it was. What did they think it was? Don't know. It was the same thing, though, with Elvis and Rock and Roll. the grownups didn't acknowledge that as music.

It was just some other thing that they didn't know what it was. That's how foreign it was. When you were 18, 19 years old, were you already studying older versions of music? Did you already going back? I always listened. Anything I liked, I wanted to hear everything that the person that I liked, everything they listened to that they liked. I always wanted to understand.

I do the same thing with biographies. Yeah. So I want to know more about this, but I'll find somebody that, you know, like Steve Jobs, for example, I find him very interesting. I'd read a biography of him. And then every single one of these books, they'll talk about half a dozen, maybe a dozen people. And I'm like, who's that?

I don't know this guy. And I'll go in the bibliography and usually find books about the people that inspired them. Same. Do you remember the first time you did that? Like, who were you like, I'm really interested in this band or this artist? Let me find out who they were inspired by. It's always been the case. Or the other version of it is like it,

where I would hear something for the first time. I can remember the first time I heard. to MC5, which is a band from Detroit in the 1960s, kind of a proto punk rock band. They're before punk rock, but it has punk energy. And I heard that, and it was really cool. And then I remember going to a used record store, because the used record store had all the cool, older stuff,

and they knew the most about music. So you spent hours in used record stores and just talking to the people who worked there. Same like you've heard Quentin Tarantino working in a video shop, And just there's so much information around the people who really love this thing. And I remember they said, well, if you like the MC5, you might want to check out Iggy and the Stooges. And then I listen to the Stooges. Like, oh, I love this too.

And that was another also Detroit, same timeframe, same scene. And it was great music. So it would either be music like the music that I found that I liked or music that inspired the music that I liked. Both of those were things I would always pursue. I want to tell you about the presenting sponsor of this podcast, Ramp. I have been reading a lot about SpaceX lately. SpaceX is one of the most valuable private businesses in the world, and one of the main themes in the history of SpaceX is constantly attacking and questioning your cost.

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Like, you were going to have to get a day job and then just do music. I didn't know it was possible to be a job. Yeah, can you talk about that? Yeah, I thought I would have a regular job. I didn't know anyone who did music professionally or I couldn't imagine. I didn't have any, and no one in my family was an artist, so it wasn't a realistic expectation. So I thought I'd love music the way I always have.

I could participate and make music if I want, but I would have a job to support myself, because I didn't think that that was possible for music to support my life. You were in a band, right? You played in, I think, guitar. In a punk rock band, so it was very rudimentary. Yeah, and then DJ.

I still a little confused, can you try to explain the past? try to explain the path that led you to this very singular position that you have now. Yeah, I just always followed what was interesting to me at the time. So when punk rock came along, well, first before punk rock would be heavy metal. Heavy metal at that time was really more like hard rock than what we think of now as heavy metal. So it would be aerosmith, ACBC, Ted Nugent. those were kind of the mainstays of what arena rock was like when I was 13 or 14 years old. And I loved that music.

And then I got a guitar and tried to play along. And it didn't go well. But then when punk rock came along, it was easier for me to play along because it was more basic music. But how do you go from that to, is DJ the next route in? the next thing that happened was in my interest in hip hop in high school there were some kids no one in my high school like punk rock except me

but there were some kids who liked hip hop and this was again in the very very very early days of hip hop I think that's an understatement I mean the beginning of hip hop because I remember reading about the early founding of Def Jam and then I was I always like when I'm reading books, I write out the year that I'm in, and then I look up what year that person was born. It's like, okay, how old is Rick at this point that's happening in his

life? And what I remarkable was like when I was reading your book, I had read, this is after I read Jay Z's book Decoded. And Jay Z, 10 years after you're starting Def Jam is talking about the early days of hip hop when he got into it, which is a decade after you got into it. And he says something that's really great. He's just like, I definitely couldn't tell you that I was going to, I could get rich from rap. I just knew that hip hop was going to get a lot bigger. before it goes away. That's a decade later than where you're at. And where I was, I would not have said it'll ever get big.

I was in the stage where I'm going to make this, and the few people who like this will all like it, and that's it. There was no upside. There was no thinking anybody else is going to like this. That's how underground it was. Is L.O. Kulji, the first person you produced? The first hip-hop record I produced was Tila Rock, it's yours. Okay.

It was one single. That's the one that sold 100,000 copies in 18 months. And then LL's first record was the first record after that. But which is the one where you put reduced by Rick Rubin on a sleeve and then your dorm room address? Yeah. I think all of them probably had the dorm room address because that's where I lived. And reduced by, I probably said it for the first time on LL's record. This is the thing that I can fascinate with.

It's like less is more, but to do to get less, you have to do more. this stripping away of everything that's just like almost like religious devotion to simplicity and like timeless ideas. You were 19, 18 years old when you put that on his record. Well, I thought about the idea of produced by and I thought the word meant to build up. Like I think of production as building and really what I was doing was taking apart and reducing. I thought maybe reducing would be reduced by is more accurate in this case. And that's how it happened. So he brings you a song and there's just too much.

Like, what do you take it away? In those days, he didn't, it weren't songs. It would be, he would just have notebooks of lyrics. And they weren't in song order. It was just rhymes. And we would look at all the lyrics together and say, is there something here that could be the basis of a song? Like, I need a beat, for example,

that could be a repeated phrase that ends up being a hook. And the reason, like many of the hip-hop records before the Def Jam records were somebody would start rapping, and then they would wrap for a few minutes, and then they would finish rapping. It wasn't like a song. It was more like a monologue. Almost like spoken word to a beat.

Kind of, but it was still in a rap style, but it wasn't in a song structure. It was like Jamaican toasting. The fact that I grew up on the Beatles and loved the Beatles, and my understanding of music is based on the Beatles. And the Beatles were the greatest songwriters ever, and the structure of their songs are really organized and tight. So based on what I knew about from listening to the Beatles, I applied that to rap music,

so that it would be structured more like a Beatles song instead of like a monologue or a Jamaican toasting record. Okay, so there is four decades separating when you're working with LL, Kuljay, and today. How similar or different from what, like if you're working with an artist today, how different is what you're doing with that artist today compared to what you did with LL four decades ago?

Probably not so different. It's probably pretty similar. It just it depends on the art. Like, because LL was a solo rap artist, and he didn't have a band or make music, I was responsible for making the tracks. And my version of that was a very stripped down minimal thing. But now I get to work with bands sometimes

that have a big sound, and there are a lot of players. I'm looking for the essence of each of these artists. And the essence tends to be stripped down. to be stripped down, but it's stripped down to what they are. Just finished a new album with the strokes, and they're a band of five people. So it sounds like a band of five people. It doesn't sound less than that. It sounds like what they are.

You have this idea of ruthless edit. I've heard you talk about it a few times on podcasts. Can you explain what that is? Sometimes for the sake of the whole work, removing things about it, that you really love is part of the process. And instead of, if you have 100%, and you know at the end you want to have 70% of what you have, like you have 30% too much,

instead of whittling down that 30 to get to the 70, I would say reduce it to 40%, let's say. Force yourself to get to 40%. And then add, back what's needed to get to the 70. And it works in a different way. You have a better understanding of the work after the ruthless edit, because you find out, especially with a group,

because in a group, everybody votes. So with the red-hot chili peppers, we'll record, for an album, we might record 40 or 50 songs, and then all of us vote on A, B, or C. And then if everyone picks it as an A song, that's going to be on the album. If it's really divided, it might not be. You know, it'll be a democratic process until we get down to, like, what is everyone together think is the best thing that we can make?

That's the ruthless setting process. And you're just looking for the essence of what you think could be great. So, like, in that case, you're recording, let's say, 50 songs. Yeah. And you say the album wants to have 10 or 12. Well, what about there's like, there might be three that we can't look without. Yeah. Is that the thought process?

It helps to get to that point of what are the ones you can't live without, however few it is. And build from there, build out from there. What other interests do you have outside of music? Like, are you into like architecture or like, is there anybody, the reason I ask you that is, like, is there anybody else in different domains that you still have a passion for that you see that you see that use similar ideas that you do? In every domain, there are people who, too, make beautiful things. I like people who make beautiful things. But are you seeing their thought process, you find similarities between their thought process

and their push-in-work? It's all the same. I think most of what I do is not really about music. I happen to work in music, but it's not about the music. Does that make sense? It does, but say more about this. You're at Changa La and you walk through the space

and you see it doesn't feel like other places you've been. Yeah. It has the same aesthetic as the record I make or the things that I work on, the things that I like, things that I buy, you know, the objects I buy would have the same aesthetic. So it's all fitting into a, I'd say, worldview. Yeah, I feel this way too because, like, I mean, we talked right before we started recording about, you know, podcasting.

I think we're both, I had the same obsession with it. And I've had my first podcast for over a decade. And it started out just me reading biographies and people that build businesses. But over time, I realized, like, this same person, personality type. It's like the artist, the entrepreneur, the filmmaker, the musician. I've done podcasts on all these kind of people and I'm like, I don't see any distinction between them. It's the same. Yeah. It's the same. Yeah. It's all the creative spirit. I want to like, they have a bunch of like selfish things I told you I want to talk to you about because there's just some people that

have made massive impacts on my life. I told you like I grew up listening to hip hop. It's all I listened to to this day. I listen to more podcasts and listening to music now. But like it really gave like a put a voice, like words to a feeling I had, even maybe in my subconscious. Eminem was the first one that, like, I was, I heard his first album and I was like, this is how I feel. I didn't grow up in a trailer park in Michigan, but I know exactly what you're talking about with certain things with your family or certain things of like just becoming, you know, coming of age. I heard you say one time, I'm like obsessed with, I want to spend time with them and hopefully get him recorded podcasts, and I know that would be very difficult. But especially

for you who've worked with, you know, the best of the best people over almost half a century. And for you to say that he might be the most obsessive artist they've ever worked for. It was like, I literally screenshot of that and saved it on my phone. I look at it all the time. Why did you say that? Can you just tell me about what it's like working with them? It feels like his entire life is centered around writing words. He's totally preoccupied with that.

So he always has a notebook. He's always making little notes. He writes tiny and tiny letters. and he's always making notes. And at one point I asked him because he's got notebooks and notebooks and notebooks. And I said, are you working on a new song? He's like, no, I'm just like keeping active, keeping active in the skill set. And I said, are you going to put those in a song?

He's probably said 90% of it will never be in a song. He's just writing, just writing. And that's what he does. He writes. Does he apply that to like other elements of making a song, though, just not just writing. He does a lot of his own production. He does.

And I would say the same type of obsessive. It's what makes him great. He's obsessed. Have you come across anybody that you consider great that's not obsessed? I'm sure there are. I have to think about it, but that's not the only way to do it.

For some people, it happens in a more natural way. And for some people, it's more of a work ethic is always a part of it. But for some people, work ethic is the reason they are who they are. And there are other people who are just incredibly talented and have enough work ethic to get over the finish line. What do you think it's for you?

I don't like to quit. I like to see things through. When I start something, I like to see what it can be. From the outside, because you know, you have this whole like, very relaxed, like, Zen vibe. Yeah. I swear I think underneath is like a workaholic. Oh, for sure.

Okay. For sure. I'm a lazy workaholic. Lazy workaholic. No, you got to say more about that. That's what it is. Because it doesn't feel like work? Explain.

No, no, no. I have to force myself to do it, but I do force myself. My demeanor would be to do nothing. Rick, I don't believe that. That's true. No, you love this too much, though. What do you mean? So I love the beautiful thing.

And it takes a lot of work to get to the beautiful thing. You like the end result? Yeah, I like to get there. I like to get there. get to the point where it's like, okay, press the send button and share it with the world. That's a great feeling. Like, I like it enough for you to get to hear it. Okay.

But all of the work up until then, it's like, oh, my God, I have to go to the studio today. That's surprising to me. Yeah. It's such a beautiful day. Wouldn't it be nice to just go out and have lunch with friends? But my whole life has been, you know, most of my life was in the first 25, years was in a dark room for 16 hours a day, seven days a week in New York City, working on music. Now, you'd rather be out here barefoot, butt naked, and the sun, I think.

Now. But I, not then, not then. But I'd rather, you know, I like being outside. I like having fun with friends. I like hanging out with my family. Do you like making podcasts more than music now? I don't know if it's, I like it more. I like the people I get to meet,

and I'm interested in learning about people. I like learning how people think their vision to make something, how they follow through to make it, and learning the roller coaster ride, that journey of building things, how it worked, where it didn't work, what ideas they thought may have worked that didn't, when they were surprised in the process.

So all interesting to me. I want to like pulling this for a little bit, if you don't mind. Yeah. So I heard Billy Elish's brother, who I think they have a close collaboration with. So he was describing the difference between him and Billy. He said that he enjoyed the process of making music. She enjoyed having made the music. Yeah.

So are you more like Billy in that case? Like you like that it's done? I think so. I'll say I like the moment of revelations. So we're working on something. It's just okay. It's boring. I'd probably rather not be there.

That's how it feels. But then something happens. And it's like magic. Like something appears. It doesn't, it's not like we made it. It's like something comes up in the process. It's conjured in the process. That's like a miracle. And that's the thing that's addictive.

That feeling when it's like it's not good, it's not good, it's not good, it's not good. We try this, we try this. This doesn't work. This doesn't work. This doesn't work. And it could be a mistake. The machine could not work. We can hear something other.

The machine broke. But what we're listening to is really cool all of a sudden. That's the feeling, that moment of discovery where it goes from nothing to something really good. and then the whole rest of the process after that is protecting that because it's super delicate. When it happens, it's like this miracle happened and this magic thing happened and now we have to protect it through the rest of the process

to not ruin it. When it comes together, let's say a band is playing and doing take after take after take, when it's really good, we all kind of look at each other like as they're playing. It's like, it's scary because you don't want it to end. Like, you don't want it to stop because we know if it stops, we can't control it.

We can't do it again. It's not like that. It's this moment in time where something magical happens. So we spend a lot of time waiting for those. And I can't say that's fun. It's not fun. It's just like takes a lot of patience. You have to force yourself to do it.

Yeah. Have you ever just like, I gave up? up in that moment, just walked away for a little bit. So you do have this like, this really work. You have work ethic and discipline. Yeah. Okay. But it would still be if you could.

It's frustrating and boring and takes a great deal of patience. It's like waiting for paint to dry, just waiting, waiting, waiting, and trying different things and nothing works until something either works or something happens and it just comes together and I can't tell you why. Explain like what people do to kill these special moments though. What you kept saying like we have to protect us. Once you're aware of it, it's harder to protect. Like in the process of it happening, if you realize this is it.

It's like it's like what is it in golf, the yips. You know, like when you're playing golf, if you like if you start thinking about it instead to just being in it, you can't do it anymore. So it's almost like you have to get out of yourself to allow it to happen. Maybe not me, but for the artist. The artist has to get to this place where it's like they don't even know they're doing it.

It just happens. It's not a performance. It's something else. It's a it's this like a real moment happens. And it's thrilled. I think you're speaking to my soul right now because there's something I heard Steph Curry talk about one time where they're like, what do you think of

when you're taking a shot? And he goes, absolutely nothing. Exactly. And so like when I read books for a living, essentially, before I started this, and, you know, people, I've had authors reach out to me after I did their book and they're like, how did you get to the essence of it? Like, what were you thinking of when you're doing this?

And I was like, nothing. I just read. And if something jumps out to me, I don't think at all. I just underline it. And then I'll go back through it when I reread the highlight. If it's still interesting, it was interesting the first time.

Now it's interesting the second time. It's probably interesting. There's 10 million mes out there. I'm not unique. Same. And there's no way I read this line twice. And if I read it on a podcast that somebody else is not going to think of it's interesting,

he's like if I overthink it or if I think of, oh, this person might hear it or this kind of this many people are here. It's in the way. Nothing. I'm thinking of nothing. Yes. That's really interesting. So let me ask you.

ask you this, though. So you're fucking Rick Rubin. You can do whatever you want. Why are you choosing to spend so much time podcasting then? I like meeting the people. And even before the podcast started, I would still, if someone was interesting to me, I would reach out to them, want to spend time with them, hang out with them, and just learn from them, really. I can remember the one where it became obvious to do the podcast was Dana White. Someone introduced me to Dana White. We're recording with him next week. Great. He's great. He's incredible.

And I said, he actually reached out to me. He's like, anytime you want to meet, I'm down, I'm down, he's like, great, let's do it. We met, we sat at my house, we sat outside, we talked for about three hours. And at some point in the conversation, I said, do you mind if I record this? Because I feel like I'm not going to remember what we're saying,

and I'm really liking this story. And that was sort of a breakthrough of like, This is kind of what doing a podcast is like. I already do this in my life. I don't record them, but I meet the people that make things that are interesting to me, and I spend time with them, and I listen to what they do,

and I ask a lot of questions because I'm curious. So it really is an outgrowth of my normal life. So I like doing that. Deal is how the best founders turn the world into their talent pool. I've been studying how history's greatest founders operate for a decade, and one thing they all have in common is they understand that recruiting and hiring the very, very best talent is your most important priority. A players recognize other A players, which is why

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innovation and bring more voices, stories, and ideas to every corner of the world. Deal is trusted by over 40,000 businesses. Learn how they can help your business today by going to deal.com forward slash Senra. That is deal.com forward slash senra. We were talking before we started recording, like, I may be the person's most obsessive podcast thing in the world. I listened to thousands of episodes. I was listening to your podcast's Broken Record back in the day. I was like, this is incredible. And you were heavily into like interviewing musicians back then. That was the format of that show, was just talking to musician. And then Tetragrammaton, you took, in my opinion,

to another level. And you're talking to all kinds of incredible people. I listened to, I just had a conversation to Toby Lucke, founder of Shopify. Yeah, amazing. I used one of your episodes to prep because he's such a unique mind, one of the most interesting conversations I had. But I analyzed people like, you know, there's a handful of podcasts that are really great. There's a couple million in the directory, only a handful are really great. Yours is really great.

And I'm like, why the hell? It's unfair. This guy is like gifted at music and now he's gifted podcasting. Why is this the case? And what I came up with and I started analyzing and thinking about what you do in your day job, what you've done for over four decades. And I was like, he's a professional listener. That's true.

I don't, he's listening to the guest. He is in the moment with the guest. Yes. And it's like that is why one of the reasons why, obviously you have a lot of interesting things to say, but one of the reasons, in my opinion, that you're so great at podcasting. Well, I think in real life,

people like to talk and they don't like to listen. And often in a conversation, you'll be with someone and they'll be saying something, something and you'll be thinking about, okay, this is what I'm going to say in response to that. You're not really present back and forth. That's what it is. It's like two people waiting for their turn to say what they think. And this is different.

And it really, I think it came from listening to music because I listen to music in a very deep way. I close my eyes. I really pay attention. It's not wallpaper. It's like I go. into the music. In some ways, I think my relationship with music allowed me to never drink or take drugs because listening to music for me is totally psychedelic experience. I can feel the music, and I can be transported by the music, not all music, but good music. So I close my eyes,

I feel it, and then at the end of it, I opened my eyes, and I'm surprised where I am, because I've been gone when I'm listening. So I listen deeply, and I want to know. I really want to understand things. So I'm comfortable asking questions, and I really listen to what someone's saying. And if someone says something I don't understand, I'll ask a question to clarify so that I can understand it. I also don't have any judgment.

I don't think that I have a way that, like, my way is the right way, and I'm not comparing what's being said to me about what I think. What I think is not part of it. I'm just, I just want to truly understand what's being shared with me. And if someone says something that's very different than what I believe, I want to know more. It's like, how did you get to that? Why do you think that? Because maybe I'll learn something.

Maybe I have it wrong, you know, like that. I don't know anything. I want to know more. So through talking to people and really listening, you really get to meet people. And as a professional listener, I think. found some people, it's disarming to talk to someone who really listens because it's so rare. Most people don't listen. When I listen to your podcast, I feel you have this combination of like sincere interest.

Yes. True. In the other human being. Yes. And a desire. I think you just said this, but the way I think about it is the way I think about you when I listen to your podcast is like a desire not to form an opinion, but to understand. That's it.

That's it. want to understand. I want to understand to broaden my scope to see the world. I want to see the world through your eyes. You know, I want to see the world through someone made something that's beautiful to me. I want to understand how they see the world. Someone makes a great discovery. I want to know what was the process that allowed that to happen. I'm curious. Yeah, it doesn't seem to be an end to your curiosity either. I'm interested. I've always been interested. I think of myself as a researcher. I've always, like when the internet came along, anything that I'm interested in, I'll go forever going deeper and deeper and deeper into a topic just to get any glimpse and to redeposing

opinions and go deeper and deeper and deeper and just try and understand. I'm curious. You think of yourself as a researcher? Yeah. That's what I do most of the time is research. Okay, I don't know about this. Tell me about this. Well, not a researcher in a professional way, but anything I'm interested in, I want to know everything about it, whatever it is. And even mundane things. If I drink coffee, I want to taste a million coffee. I want to find the best coffee.

I want to read what every person who knows about the best machine says about every machine and then test every machine. And it's just a fanatical devotion to finding the best version of whatever it is. Is it all consuming for you when you find these pockets of interest? I'd say so. There's no end. I don't get to an end of that process. I admire people that do things for a very long period time. And you can tell a lot about people by what they admire.

It's like, I want to do these kind of podcasts until I die. Like, it's like, what's your strategy? What's successful in, five years, in 10 years? One, then I'm still doing it. And two, I'm just making things that I'm proud of. That's it. There's no fucking download number. There's no how many ads.

So it's just like, that's it. And I'm terrified that one day, you know, I'm going to wake up and be like, I don't want to do this anymore. No, but the only reason that would happen is because something else would take over that you have to do. And that would be fine, too. When I was nine years old, I spent a lot of time practicing magic, like card magic in front of a mirror. And that was really fun. And there's a whole community of musicians. And I was just a little kid, but like grown up magicians.

And if you're truly interested in magic, there are all these meetings, and they get together and talk about stuff. And if you're an outsider, everything's a secret. But if you're a magician, they love sharing. So it's a really cool community to be part of. And that was my community, from nine until probably 16. Those were the people I hung out with,

and that were the people that we shared this interest. And I just wanted to learn. And then music became more and more. popular in my life. Like music became a, and then at some point, it's like, I can't do both. They're both, these are both full-time occupations. And when I say occupations, I don't mean jobs. I mean something to occupy my time. I can either devote myself to doing magic or devote myself to doing music and at some point, music won. But that wasn't a loss. I didn't lose anything. That's a beautiful way to think about it.

Yeah, it's like I let go of the thing that I loved for this other thing that I loved that just took on this new life. And I've done music for a long time, and I like making other things too. And if my life became about making other things more than making music, that'd be okay. It's more about the making that excites me.

This is why I kept asking, like, do you think you would, like, making a podcast, like we can have a conversation. We can be doing your show right now instead of mine. And at the end of this hour or two hours, like it's done. We have something.

We can do it again tomorrow. Like the amount of time from, you know, creation to output is so much shorter than an album or even a great song. True. And if you're, what you're saying, I think you call yourself a lazy workaholic. I'm saying lazy alcoholic.

Lazy workaholic. Like it's almost like, this doesn't work. This doesn't feel like work to me. Yeah. I feel like, I was a little surprised with the way you described working in music that does feel like work to you. Yeah, for sure.

It's also work because I have to show up. If you commit to be somewhere at a certain time, that's work. Because that morning I might wake up and think, I don't really want to do that today. But it's agreed to with other people. I'm going to be at this place and we're going to do this thing, so I have to show up. But most days, I don't want to do the things that I'm scheduled to do. Now, at the time that I choose, at the time that I choose to do them,

I want to do them. I know I want to do them, but still, it's really nice not to have to get out of bed or it's nice to go for a walk on the beach. So I think I might be well positioned. This is, I'm just now getting advice from me because I'm a huge fan of you and I respect the way you think anyways. I just did another podcast on the book you wrote,

creative act by the way. And there's so many ideas that you put into words that are in my head, that I didn't have words, for in there. So if I, right now, I feel like this is, I don't work a day in my life. I feel like I wake up and I'm like compelled or like, I don't even know the word to use it. Like, then there's no doubt that I'm just on the right path. If I was sitting here and we weren't recording and I was just seeking your advice, like I don't feel it's at work at all. The only time it feels like work is when I have to edit, which I fucking hate, but I do it anyways

because I think it makes it better. Yeah. But that's the only time. That's a good example. It's a good example. There are parts of it that are not always fun. And when you're committing time, like time is our most valuable resource. And when we're committing our time to doing something in advance, which we do, we preschedule, the day of, you don't always want to do that thing. But I feel you have complete control over your time and your life. Yes. How are you still? I choose it.

And I have to acknowledge, I make this, no one's forcing me to do this. I said I would show up. I have to show up. But in your day-to-day, that still feels like work. Yeah, it's like I'd be happy not doing anything. Well, I don't know. I don't know if that's true. There's no way.

It's never been the case. I've always... Because you could have stopped working decades ago. Yes. And you think you're addicted to making great shit? Yes. And I'm lazy. It's a real part of it.

I'm telling you an honest piece of this, which is every day, it's not like, let's go. Every day, it's like, oh, no. I gotta go work. You're disappointing me. I'm sad. It's a truth. I'm sad. But it doesn't feel like it feels like out of almost anybody in the world that gets paid for being them is you. Yes.

And you're saying that's not the case. No, I'm me. I'm definitely me. There is a part of me that doesn't want to show up for anything. And I have to overcome that every day. That's what I'm saying. Did you ever spend any time with Tony Bourdain when he was alive? Never have.

Were you ever a fan of any of his? Yeah. Okay, so I read all his books, watch all his shows. And in his book, I was shocked because that guy, first of all, like, in his book,

he describes what it's like to be a heroin addict, which is insane. And the amount, what you realize when you read Kitchen Confidential is like the same work ethic he used to score drugs

as a junk, as a broke junkie. Once he broke that habit, he just applied it to writing and building TV shows. Like, his work ethic was the same. We were just directed the worst thing possible,

being a fucking heroin addict. And then he directed in a positive, generative direction and he took off. But he said something very similar to you. He's like somewhere deep inside me is this guy that just smoke weed and lay in bed all day. And he goes, I have to fight. His writing is beautiful.

He's like, I have to fight that guy every single day. Yeah. Now, what's also true, I do have to fight that guy to show up. And there are parts of the job that are just like watching paint dry, waiting for something good to happen. But that moment of magic when something good, does happen is the thing I'm addicted to. That feeling of it wasn't good. It's not good. Oh, my God, it's good. And it's like a miracle because nobody knows how or why that happened. It's not in our

control. That's the other thing about it. It's really, it really is magic. So I'm addicted to the magic part of it, but I'm not addicted to everything leading up to those magical moments. I'm patient. I'm patient enough to wait forever for that thing to happen. But it's not fun. Like some people really look forward to fishing. It's like fishing. It's like you can go out and spend a whole day fishing and not catch any fish. It's like that.

You can work in the studio for a day or for a week and nothing good can happen. That happens. It's out of our control. But when the good thing happens, it's like, ah, there it is. That's why we're here. That fishing analogy is really important to me. I've heard you say this a few years ago. It's true. It's the best example.

I heard Acon one time describe working with M&M. And he shows up into Detroit and he gives him calls. He's like, all right, I figure we're going to do a night session. You know, these guys are usually nocturnal, calls them at like 7 p.m. And M's like, yeah, I'll see you tomorrow. And Acon's like, tomorrow, like, what are you talking about? Shows up and doesn't realize that he treats it like a job. Shows up at 9 a.m.

Right? He's in the studio writing like, he's like, he's, he's like, he's. you're saying recording verses. I think it's like, let's say noon. He literally be in the middle of a verse. He's like, oh, I'll be right back. I'm going to take lunch. And he's like, what?

Goes, comes back at one, goes back to work, five o'clock. He says, all right, I see you the next day. And people, like, misunderstood what Acon was saying. It's like, he doesn't wait around for inspiration. No. He shows up every day knowing that if he does the work, then it will come. Yes. It's exactly what you're saying about fishing.

Yeah. And inspiration is a real thing, too. But it's both. Like, if you only wait for inspiration, it won't ever come. You have to work and be there and show up. If you're not in the practice of allowing the thing to happen, it won't happen.

Doesn't mean it will. Just because you do show up, doesn't mean it will happen. But if you don't show up, it won't happen. Brian Halligan founded HubSpot 20 years ago, and he has this line about AI that I keep thinking about. He said most companies are using AI to make their teams more productive, but the companies that will thrive make the company itself the intelligence.

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Visit HubSpot.com to learn more. That's HubSpot.com. You got me into Johnny Cash, who is a couple generations before me, and not only was the music great, but I loved you describing what went into making it. When you talk about that, but there was something like a, the way I would like still down what you were saying is like constraints are actually your friend.

Yeah. If you don't, like, you can't do everything. So if you, if you artificially constrain yourself, it forces you be more creative. Can you talk about this? I feel like you've used this a bunch in your career. Yeah, it's like the idea of creating a palette. And the albums that speak to me most are ones when you hear them.

You know if an artist has 20 albums, but you hear a song, you know, oh, that has to be on that album, that seventh album, because that's the only album that sounds like that. Even though the band always sounds like the band, this group of songs sounds different than all the rest. And it may be that there's some, it was either recorded in a different way, or all the songs were about a particular thing,

or they're using different instrumentation than they used to use. I like it when an album like stands alone outside of an artist's career as a defining moment in time. It's not just more of the same. But how is that tied to these constraints that you put on the work? That happens by coming up with like a series of rules that only apply to this project. Those are the constraints. So that could be...

In the Johnny Cash's case, the first one was, I didn't know that it was going to be an acoustic album, which it turned out to be. But that was something that through the process of recording, I learned the most interesting version of this to me is when he's singing alone, which is really the demos in my living room, him singing me songs. That sounded better than when we went into the recording studio with musicians and played them with the band. It wasn't as interesting. I didn't know that in advance. That wasn't a premeditated idea. And then in terms of the material that he would sing, I grew up with this image.

What spoke to me about Johnny Cash was this image of the man in black. And the man in black is a mythical character. Yes, Johnny Cash, but it's not just Johnny Cash. It's like the mythical Johnny Cash, the Johnny Cash, who's the man in black. And the man Johnny Cash could sing a funny song. The man in black probably wouldn't sing a funny song.

So the material that we picked was always through the eyes of what's something that man in black, the legendary mythological character. What would he sing? And those are the songs that we chose. And so in this case, the constraints are you, Johnny, a guitar. I think he said he didn't even use a pick. It was like his fingers. Every guitar, every time he strung the guitar was his fingers. And you guys in a house.

Yeah, but a big part of it, too, is the choice of material. That's a big part of it for those albums. And it's looked at through the viewpoint of not a funny song, but a man in black. And not even just a funny song. It had to have a certain amount of gravitas to fit a mythical character singing it. When I think about everything I've read about you and as much as I've heard you speak, I feel like you would agree with the statement that, like, great things can't be made by a committee. that.

Correct. It would be unusual for that to be the case. In many cases, it's just, it could be banned. It tends to water it down. It tends to water it down.

Is it, so this is the case in company, since obviously my main focus on entrepreneurship. Yeah. It's like, even if there's a group, there's usually like a main person.

Is that the same thing in bands? So there always like one deep, like there might be four guys in the band or five guys in the band. Is it usually the stronger personality that has more influence? In a band, what makes a band great,

is how the different musicians hear music and play together. And it doesn't have to be a single point of view. The Beatles are a great example because John and Paul really were very different people and wrote different kinds of songs and approached music in different ways. Jagger and Richards, same. There's opposition there. That goes against exactly what you said. It's a different model.

But then like in Compedy and the Heartbreakers, Compedy is really the flag bearer of the band, and everyone lines up behind Tom. They're all great, and they all can play great things, and they all add incredible things. But Tom is sort of the final word in what happens in that band. In a band like you, too, it's democratic. Everybody in the band has to like it.

If three of the guys like it and one of the guys doesn't, it doesn't happen. And that's another model that works for them. So if we go back to this designing in constraints, your work with Johnny Castro is very simple. Go back all the way 40 years before that. I'm reducing. I'm not producing.

I think in 2020, I listened to, I don't know, 600 to 700 individual. I probably listen to two or three podcast episodes a day. So, I don't know, 700, 900 episodes. I think the single best podcast episode that I listened to all that year was your episode in Tetrackermiton with Jimmy Iveen.

there was a story that you told in there that was very fascinating because Jimmy's like, I think, 10 years older and you, kind of like 10 years. Almost exactly 10 years old. We're a day, where our birthdays are a day apart. Yeah.

And you tell this phenomenal story in the podcast of one of the first, maybe when the first time you met Jimmy Avine, he said something that was so strange, you go to play something you're working on. And he goes, I wish I could still make something that simple. Yeah.

And your response was, I'm sure you can. Yeah, what do you mean? Explain why he said that. And what's happening? What happens over? time. Yeah, because he was a producer. And as you learn more of what you can do, you tend to do that. You tend to, they tend to get bigger. At that point in time, I hadn't done it enough. It was my first

record. So that was the cult electric was my first rock record. This is after almost a decade in hip-hop or half a decade in hip-hop? No. No? No. When was this? Same, like same time. Oh, okay, okay. Yeah, this is like 19... Is this when you moved to California? No, this is still in New York.

Oh, shit, okay, so give me this. I'm still living in the dorm. I'm still living in the dorm in NYU. Oh, my God. I thought this is, okay, so this is the very beginning. So it's as simple as it gets because that's all you can do. Yeah, I was doing what I was very simple, but I stayed true to that as much as I can. There have probably been a couple of examples along the way where I may have...

I may have not stayed true. Very few. If you look at my whole recorded discography, there may be two or three examples where it got out of control, or where the artists that I'm working with just had a very different vision, which does happen sometimes,

and usually we end up not working together again. And there have been one or two occasions where we end up not even finishing a work because it's just too, we just see it in a different way. I had that experience with Joe Cocker. We went into the studio to, to record and I had a specific vision of how I saw Joe Cochre and what I thought was great about Joe Cocker and he really had a vision of it being something different than that.

And we weren't on the same page and it didn't job. So it never happened. I'm curious your perspective since you've known Jimmy I've been for so long because he has a very another singular career where he like kind of in music the whole time but yeah, jumped around. Yeah, different job from you know engineer to producer to to record company owner, to then building businesses with his artists. Like, what do you think special about him? Like, what's unique about him?

Why was he able to do what he's able to do? He's got good taste and he's got a great work ethic. Those are the two. To me, in my mind, you two are very, almost before this conversation I'm having with you, almost at the opposite ends of spectrum, where I felt like you were just like drawn, you know, like a moth to flame about what you want to do.

Where he's like, it was always work. I never liked it. It was always a job. I like certain parts of it, but he essentially just forced himself to do it. He said something really interesting that I thought really summed it up, which was, Jimmy is in the banking business. These are his words. He said, I'm in the banking business and you're in the church business.

And that's the difference. Explain that. I love this. It said, I'm doing a passion and belief. And he's doing a bottom line, what's going to work? what's going to be good for business. And it's just two different things, two different mentalities. There's a great line in the

Define ones where he hears, he's producing Tom Petty, and he hears a song, he goes, this is house music. And Tom goes, what do you mean? He goes, he goes, find me, you know, whatever, it's eight more albums. He goes, that song's going to buy you a house. Yeah, so that's we have a different, we're

different in that way. And Tom goes, I've never heard somebody described music that way. It's going to buy me a house. Yeah. There's a bunch of stories that Jimmy tells in that podcast with you about the crazy things that you see in the music business. You know, where I think he tells a story of like the Phil Spector coming to the studio with like a butcher's in a butcher's outfit. And he's got like guns strapped to him everywhere. And David Geffin's in the studio and John Lennon's getting drunk. Do you have any like things that stand out from you?

I've never heard you here tell any of stories of stuff you've seen inside the studio. I can remember doing a session with ODB, Old Dirty Bastard from Lutang. And I remember being nervous because I'd never met him before and his reputation preceded him. So I didn't really know what I was going into. And I thought, I'm going to bring my dog. I had a Pooley, which is a dog that has dreadlocks. And that would be whatever's going on if you see a dog with dreadlocks. It's interesting.

Like, it, it, it's fascinating in its own way. And I had a friend of mine also filming everything because I thought, well, if there's a camera and if there's a dog, it's going to be okay. What was his reputation for you to do this, though? All kinds of crazy things. Violence? Could be violence, could be a lot of things that would not be good.

Yeah. And just things I wasn't really prepared for. But I loved him. You know, I was a fan. And I remember we walked in and he looked and he pointed at the dog and he said, he's okay. And then he pointed at the camera, he's got to go. It's like, okay. And then he went.

And then the session ended up going pretty well. We mentioned Toby Lucke earlier. And in the conversation I had with him that was very fascinating, he said something where he's just like, there's not like one right way to do things. There's probably a hundred. which I think you would agree with. And he's like, you just have to find the one that fits best for you and just do that. And you would think this like computer, German computer programmer engineer would be like very rigid. But when you talk to him, he essentially just runs his life by all intuition.

Yeah. You were all intuition. All intuition. Like, explain like why you essentially, your entire life is just, in my opinion, like managed or run by your intuition. your intuitive feelings. Yeah, I've always been true to what I feel and it's worked out. I suppose if it didn't work out,

then maybe I would have to try something else. But the fact that I've stayed true to what feels right to me and luckily, by the grace of God, it has resonated with other people. It allows me to continue doing it. But I suppose if that didn't happen, I would just make things for myself on a small level and keep doing it

have a real job. Is this your guided by intuition tied to, I feel you have a skepticism of human knowledge. I think you say, like, I think we know very little about everything. Thomas Edison has this famous quote where he's like, we don't know one, one thousand percent of anything. Yeah, I believe that. I believe we don't know anything. Yeah, so if you believe you don't know anything, then what is the only other thing

you could do is be guided by your intuition. Yeah, and to try things and see what works. And just because one thing works doesn't mean that's the way that that's the way it happens. That's a way that happened to work in that case. I found one of my all-time favorite quotes when I was reading the book Zero to One. The quote says,

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Yeah. You worked with both them because you, You talk about just how different they were? Yeah, M is much more, well, he writes down the lyrics, and he's really studious in the way that he works. And he'll also record take after take after take after it's written and try different things. Jay is much more spontaneous. It all happens in his head and then he'll get up and say it once or twice and that's it.

What's the energy when you're in the room with both of them, though? M is totally involved in every aspect of everything. And Jay is like, play me a bunch of stuff. If I hear something I like, I'll think about it. And if not, I'll see tomorrow. He's like, Jay will only be there when he needs to be there. And if you hear something that sparks an idea, he'll sit and just say, play it over and over again, play the music over and over again.

And he sits in the back and you almost, it goes on long enough where you forget he's even there because he's just silent in the corner listening, sitting on a couch, listening over and over again, 30 minutes, 25 minutes later. I was like, I got it, jumps up. He runs into the room, hit record, and he does the whole thing just from his head. It's amazing. He's the only person I've ever seen to do that. I think a lot of people know that he did Magna Carter, Holy Girl, essentially two.

weeks. Like he did the whole album in two weeks. Most of his albums were made very quickly. Yeah, it was always interesting. He was like, yeah, he recorded them in two weeks, but these ideas he's been refining. It's not like when he's out in the studio, he's not thinking about it. He's like refining these ideas over a long period of time. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Some of them, it all happens in a weekend, the whole thing. That's crazy. Yeah. As opposed to M. who will work on a song forever. Yes. Very different. Just two different styles. Both amazing. But they just come out of it. from different, I think it's just different personality types.

What do you think M's personality type is then? I would describe him as obsessive. You know, he's really perfectionist, willing to do whatever it takes for it to be great and diligent, hardworking. And Jay's much more relaxed. Jay's, it just kind of happens for him. He's doing it, but it's just a different style.

Of the two, which one do you think your working style is closer to? I do a different thing, so it's hard to say. What I do changes according to who I'm working with. Like whatever the artist needs is what my job is. So in some cases, it's totally hands off. And in some cases, it's, well, we've got to start from the beginning and try to figure this out together. Oh, so you know what?

I'm thinking of it's kind of tied to what you were saying about being professional listener, that you take sincere interest in the person, whether you're recording a podcast with them or you're working with them in the studio. And so your goal, if I'm reading this correctly, has really nothing to do with you. You feel your act of service to try to get them to be the best version of themselves. Is that the way you think about it? Yes. I'd say that's accurate.

Do you have anybody that plays that role in your life for you? I don't know if I do. I didn't know if anyone produces me. Could they reduce you? I don't know if there's anything to reduce here. Yeah. I don't know. Luckily, I have friends who, friends and family

who are not particularly interested in what I do. So I have reality around me a lot of just like, that's crazy. Don't, you know, like a lot of, that's a bad idea. And it's interesting for me because some ideas I hear, that's a bad idea. It's like, okay, maybe you're right. And many ideas are like, I'll show you. I'll show you it's a good idea.

I feel I have to do this, you know? Yeah, I could see that you take a lot of input, but I think you would be resistant to... I won't change my mind, but I'm open to hearing ideas and definitely open to help. If someone suggests something that makes it better, and I see that, it's like, that's the best.

I'm not closed-minded, because someone offers information, even experienced wisdom, I might not always choose to use that information. Do you think you have a big ego? I don't think so. You have a lot of self-confidence, though? I have a lot of self-confidence.

But they even said, somebody met you when they were like 19, and they're like, that's the most self-confident and 19-year-old ever met. I think that's the mix. I think, you know, I'm lucky I learned to meditate when I was young, and meditation has been a big part of my life.

So it's never been about ego. It's never been about me, you know. It's, I'm confident in being able to share what I'm experiencing. I hear something like, that's amazing. And I hear something else, it's like, you know, it's not good enough and nothing anyone can say will tell me otherwise.

Like I know I can feel it. So there's confidence in your own judgment, because you were just saying, you can have somebody that has a lot of space wisdom. When I say confidence in my own judgment in, this is how I see it. I'm not saying I'm right. I never say I'm right or I know what's best. None of those things.

This is how I see it. I see it clearly. This is how I would vote for it. If I get to vote, I vote for this. But it's not my way or the highway at all. What is your inner monologue like when you're making something? Is it positive, negative? Are you self-critical?

Depends. Like, I would say rarely critical. What it usually is it starts apprehensive when we start because it could be anything. So at first, it's scary. So I don't know what's going to happen. Even today. Even today. And there's usually expectation because I've had success in the past that if I'm there,

it's going to be great. So I feel this pressure of like there's expectation and I know I can't control anything. It's going to be the way it's going to be. I know I'm patient and I know I'll wait until it's great. And we start by experimenting and see what it could be. And as soon as there's a glimmer, as soon as I hear something that's good, then I relax. But until then, it's too open.

You know, it could be too many things. But once something lands, whatever it is, I relax. It's like, okay, we have at least a direction to move in. It doesn't mean we stay in that direction forever. But having a direction is better than not having a direction. And when we start, we don't have a direction. So you would say you don't have a, you're a, like a self-critical inner monologue, constantly playing in your mind.

Never. It's interesting. The reason I asked you this question is because I was with an entrepreneur yesterday. Guy's worth $10 million. And he wakes up every morning at 5.30, just assuming he's going out of business and, like, essentially paranoid. He lives like a paranoid life. And that's why he thinks he's good. This is very common with, like, a lot of people.

Yeah. And I used to have a self-critical, like, kind of mean. I was fucking pretty mean to myself. I was a guy named Brad Jacobs. I actually had him on the show. I've talked to him a bunch. And he used to have that too. And now he's in the 60s.

It's like counterproductive. It's not helping anything. And something, I talk about this on the podcast. You can hear me mentioning it over again for a few years. And just something one day just fucking snapped. And I just don't do that anymore. That's great. And I went back and I was reading my notes on you.

and I was just telling my partner, Rob, about this. This is the way I look at the work we're doing now. It's like, I like Rick's framework that, like, if you look at your work, it's just like an entry to a diary. Yeah. It's like, there's nothing to be critical about because, like, you did the best you possibly could have done. In that moment.

In that moment. Yeah. And then that was 10 years ago, and that was five years ago. And then what we're making today is. And I might not do the same thing I would have done 10 years ago. And that's fine. But I don't have any regrets about 10 years ago. That's what I thought.

That's real. Each of those installments are real. So it's always true. It doesn't mean that that's who you are forever. It's who you are in that moment. It's really freeing. It's helpful for an artist to think that way. Because usually, especially when we're younger,

we think the thing that we make is this is my magnum opus, and this is going to define me for the rest of my life. And it's a daunting hill to climb. But when you realize, it's like, this is just the one today and we're going to make another one tomorrow. And hopefully the one tomorrow is going to be as good or better than the one today. What's true today? What's the one? I usually say that if you are excited to share it with your friend, like if I'm working in studio and long before a record comes out,

if we're making something, and if someone comes on, I'm excited to play. it for my friend who has good taste, why I know likes good music, it could come out then. Like if I want to play it for them, that's good enough for everybody. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah. But usually artists will feel like, well, I'll play this from my boys, but it has to be a lot better before regular people can hear it. And that's ridiculous.

It's like as soon as I liked it enough to share it with one person, chances are it's ready for everybody. I've seen you talk to a ton of musicians and artists on camera. I just finished rereading this profile that was in Colossus magazine on Josh Kushner. And it starts out with him coming to seek your counsel. There's a ton of people that come to seek your counsel. And I feel almost like your hold up, like your motorcycle ronda is like holding up a mirror to them and just telling them to do what they know they want to do.

but it's somehow more valuable if they hear it from somebody else. Does that make any sense to you? Do you resonate with that at all? That sounds right. I mean, there are occasions with someone will come to me and say, I'm thinking about doing this crazy thing, and I'll say, I wonder about that. But more often than not, when people share their hopes and dreams, that's all you need to know.

It's like, these are my hopes and dreams, but I'm afraid of this, this and this. Most often, it's go with the hopes and dreams. Don't worry about any of that stuff, because that stuff doesn't matter. What is the stuff that they're afraid of over here? What someone's going to say? Will I be able to keep doing it? My last one was successful. What do I do now? Success is a funny thing.

You know, when you're young and you get successful quickly, no one's prepared for that. And it's awkward and uncomfortable. And you think that's the thing that you want, but when you get it, it's not like what you think it is. It's very different. And there are all these pressures that come with it that no one's ready for and no one learns how to do. And it's not like whoever you learned good habits from over the course of your life, they don't know how to deal with it because they never got, you know, overnight famous or successful.

Or like, it's a weird thing. So a lot of artists kind of implode in success. Okay. So I want to ask you why you have not imploded over this. this many decades. One of the most interesting things that Jimmy Avine told me, we talked a lot about this,

because I'm obsessed with people that are just further down the line than I am. Yeah. It's just the wisdom they gain from experience. Like, I'll read, I got the book knowledge. I need, like, the stuff that's not in there that they can, like, tell you. And he was just like, most people cannot handle.

You know, you guys have been around some of the most talented people. Genius-level talents that have completely imploded, maybe destroyed their lives, maybe died prematurely. And so he broke it down on like four things for me. Like there's like people can't help stress.

And these are the pitfalls, David, that you should watch out for. One was drugs. Second was alcohol. Third was women. And fourth was megalomania. That, you know, it's really hard to get on stage and there's 80,000 people screaming your name. And over time, they just think there's some kind of like, they're not even human anymore, which you seem to be like, I'm not special.

I have no, I know you say you have no talent, all those other shit. But like, I'm not special. Yeah. You know, I think that. There's a lot of wisdom status. It's like, man, there's 10 million me's and 10 million to use all over the world or whatever. Whiz. Do you think Jimmy's perspective on that is like the people that you've seen that were, had talent and had success and then destroyed it?

Is there anything else that he's missing from there? I think those are all of them. It's like because the last one takes into account a lot of like there's both the mask of overconfidence. confidence and ego, which is hiding insecurity, or there's the insecurity. But they're really the same. You know, they're just presenting in two different ways. Two different people have the same overnight success. One of them gets really boastful and I'm the greatest that ever lived. And the other one is like, oh my God, they're going to find out that I'm not, it's that I'm really a fake. But those are both the same people.

It's the same, they're two sides of the same coin. The megalomania is a way of hiding the insecurity. It's a brave face. They might not know this. They rarely know it, you know. It's different sides of the same imbalance. So that leads me to the question I hinted at or maybe even said, like, have you sustained success over such a long period time then?

I think the fact that I learned to meditate, when I was young and always had a grounded. And the fact that I know it's not me. It's like those two things. Like, I'm grounded and I know I'm lucky to participate in this magic that's happening. I get to be in the room when it happens. But it's not from me. What do you mean it's not from you?

I'm in the service of it. Is that what do you mean? Yeah, I would say that. I'm in the service of it. I'm devoted to setting the stage to allow it to happen. And I'm patient and waiting for it to come. It's not like when it's great. It's like I did a great job.

It's not that. No, I think the people that sustain greatness over time, even if they do something great, they don't like wrestle in the laurels. They don't go to sleep on wins. They just make something great. They're like, oh, do you try to do it again the next day? And they don't really think too much.

Jimmy Avivine has, I keep bringing him up, but he has that great line and he's just like, I don't have a rear view of mirror and I don't have a trophy room. I don't give it. Even when he did the show, he's like, I don't want to talk about the past. I want to talk about what I'm working on in the future.

They're all like that. I just had lunch with Jeffrey Katzenberg. Same thing. He's just like, yeah, we do the show, but like I want to talk about what I'm working on now, not just what happened at Disney and everything else. It's just very, very common. Like, staying in the moment of being present.

Let me, tell me if you disagree with me, because again, like, I have this interpretation of you in my mind because I've been a fan of yours for a very long time. And going back to this sustained success over a long period of time, I talked to James Dyson, the guy that invented the vacuum cleaner guy, and he's a fascinating person to me. Number one person I wanted to meet because his first autobiography, I think, is so great because it's all about him just enduring to struggle and refused to quit.

And something I didn't understand, even though I read his first autobiography five times, second autobiography, two or three times, and his encyclopedia, he wrote an encyclopedia. This, I love obsessed people. He's inventor. He wrote an encyclopedia. while he's building his company on a history of great dimensions. And he's like, fucking 200 dimensions.

And he's like, look at this little weird thing. And he's just like complete. Obsessed. Obsessed. But what I didn't understand what was driving him was he told me this great story on the podcast where he goes, this is his simple organizing principle. He's like, I pick up a product, right? Pick up product.

It exists. I go, how can I make this product better? Makes it better? Pets it back down. Waits a little bit, picks it up. Goes, how can make it better? Makes it better? puts it down.

He goes, I just do that over and a product. over again. Yeah. I've been doing it for 50 years. Yes. So if I had to guess what your organizing principle was that I think also influences the sustained success that you've had is you just making things that you yourself like. That's good. And sometimes I'll go into a friend's house and I'll think, the furniture in here is an arranged in the best way. Maybe I'll rearrange the furniture. No, you don't. I've done that. What is your friend saying?

Depends. Some are, you know, some are cool with it. Some are like, he's crazy, you know. Okay, we could say more about this. Like, well, it's just like seeing the possibility. I've worked on a lot of, a lot of living spaces. And the idea of designing a house from scratch is a daunting one to me. I can't imagine doing that because it's too many options. But if there's a house that exists, I might be able to see, well, what's the best version of this thing that already exists? And that's what's same. Same with music. It's like I hear what's there and now what's the best version of this?

What could we do to make it better? What could we do to make it better? Same thing as James Dyson, exactly the same. Yeah, I feel like you did this from the very, from the jump, when you're like, well, I'm in the club. I'm obsessed going to the club. The hip hop club is incredible, right? Yeah.

But I like this stuff that's here. I go to the record store. I'm buying this stuff that I don't like. It's not real. Yeah. So I was like, why don't I just make what I actually like? Yeah. And it wound up working out, like, fabulous.

Yeah. But again, I didn't know in advance it would work out fabulously. It's just like, this is what I want to hear. I'm making it for me. Which these are my favorite kind of people because, again, it goes back to like, why are you doing what you're doing? And you're doing it because you're doing it because you're doing it because you're wanted to make it to the point where I want it in the world.

You were willing to just make music at night and have a normal job just because you liked doing it. Absolutely. It was never, I never thought of any of this as a job. It's never been about that. It's only a job because I'm committed to show up. That's what makes it a job. The actual craft of making things is what I like to do.

What would have to happen for you to basically disappear and to not and to stop doing? stop working with musicians, stop making podcasts. I think I would just keep making things for myself. You know, I give the example in the book of if you were to move into a house on the top of a mountain that no one could ever come and visit. And you made that the place that you most wanted to spend your time and you really curated it to your taste. That's the job.

It's not about I'm making this to show off to someone else. I'm making this because I want to inhabit this. I make the music that I want to, I'm excited to listen to. Now, it's ridiculous. It doesn't work out that way because in making the music, we listen to it a thousand times. And then when it's done, it's fine if I never hear it again. I never put on music I worked on, which is funny because I'm making it to be the perfect version of what I want to hear. But in the process of doing that, there's so much listening involved,

that's not fun to go back and listen to it for me. I want to hear something new. This idea of the example that you use in the book of the house on the mountain. That no one will ever see. Say more about the thinking behind that, though. Well, it's true. I just know for me if I was, I don't decorate my home to impress someone else. I decorate my home to be the best version of the house that I want to live in.

And it's not typical. I'm willing to go to extremes to make the thing that I want to inhabit. And it's not for anyone else. It's just for me. Now, often, other people, if they do happen to come over, like, wow, I'd love to live in a place like this. I've never been in a place like this. I think the metaphor that you're using there, though, is almost like a map for people to find a life's work. if they haven't found it yet.

It's like, what are you already doing? Yeah. Or you. And what will you do no matter what? What won't you stop doing regardless? I always say it's like people say, oh, you know, if you love what you do, you would do for free. And I was like, no, there's another level to loving what you're doing. If you truly love what you do, they couldn't pay you to stop.

Yeah. I think it's excellent advice for helping people find their life's work. Rick, this was awesome. You've been a huge inspiration to me. I've used a ton of your ideas. in my work, and I hope this is the first conversation of many between me and you. Great. Pleasure. Thanks for doing this. Thank you. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Please remember to subscribe wherever you're

listening and leave a review, and make sure you listen to my other podcast founders. For almost a decade, I've obsessively read over 400 biographies of history's greatest entrepreneurs searching for ideas that you can use in your work. Most of the guests you hear on this show first found me through founders.