Revisionist History - Revisionist History Presents: Rick Rubin

Episode Date: November 13, 2018

Revisionist History presents the first episode of a new podcast, Broken Record. It's a conversation between Rick Rubin and Revisionist History host Malcolm Gladwell, covering everything from Rick’s role in the very beginning of hip-hop to his role in introducing Johnny Cash to a new generation of writers, performers and music lovers. Rick and Malcolm delve deep into Rick’s back catalogue – which is really a history of contemporary music – to reveal more about the artists that defined a new era, and why they are still vital listening today. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pushkin. Pushkin. At Discover, they believe managing your credit card should be uncomplicated. That's why with Discover, cardholders can get their questions answered by a real person based in the U.S. day or night, 24-7. They can also get help by using the Discover app or messaging them on the website. Because having the option to connect with a real-life person beats dealing with a recorded message any day of the week. That's just common sense. So go ahead and give them a call, send them a message online, or connect with them on the app. They look forward to speaking with you. Live. Discover. Learn more at discover.com. I first met Rick Rubin years ago at someone's house in Los Angeles. He's impossible to miss.

Long white beard, low soft voice, one of the great music producers of our time. He was there at the birth of hip-hop. He produced Jay-Z's 99 Problems. He did five Chili Peppers albums. Produced Adele's 21, Tom Petty's Wildflowers. He resurrected Johnny Cash. I could go on. Then I met him again about a year ago because I'd been talking about doing a music podcast with my

old friend Bruce Hedlum. And I heard that Rick had been talking about doing a music show too. Which is a bit like saying that Bruce and I had been thinking about starting a pickup basketball game, and then we heard that LeBron James had been thinking the exact same thing. I mean, whose pickup game are you going to join?

The Two Short Canadians or LeBron? So I started going up to Rick's recording studio in Malibu whenever I was in LA, just to chat and listen to music. His place is called Shangri-La, an oasis, one of the most famous recording studios in the country. Built by Robbie Robertson and the band years ago, Bob Dylan recorded there. And after him, everyone, I mean everyone, there's a main building, a cottage all in white. There's another building that looks like a chapel. And there's Bob Dylan's old tour bus, which has been retrofitted as a small studio, which is my favorite place at Shangri-La.

All on a shimmering hilltop with the sound of the ocean surf in the background. We started taping our conversations and Rick started calling in the musicians he knew and Bruce started sitting down with his favorite artists. And now we have this show, a podcast about musicians and their music. Our pickup game has come to life. My name is Malcolm Gladwell. Welcome to Broken Record, a production of Pushkin Industries. Rick and I began recording the episode you're about to hear at Shangri-La not long ago.

And I was going to go back up and finish talking to him when the Wolseley Fire started, one of the worst fires in L.A. County history. It engulfed Malibu. As I'm recording this, thousands of acres are burned. Countless homes are gone. An entire community lost. So I met Rick in Santa Monica instead, the afternoon after Rick and his family fled the fire.

Maybe just tell me about your yesterday. Woke up yesterday morning. Was told that Malibu was going to be evacuated soon. So packed up the baby and left. Didn't really take anything. Just took sort of what we were wearing, what we had on, a couple of t-shirts. No stuff. Oh my God. And just left.

What time did you leave? 9.30. And you say it took how many hours to get to? It took a little over four hours to get to Santa Monica. It's normally a 20-minute drive. Yeah. And it was bumper to bumper, parking lot-like traffic the whole way. And when you were leaving, could you see the fires?

You saw the smoke. Let me show you this picture. Let's see. This will kind of give you a sense of it. Oh, my God. That is bananas. It's insane. It looks fake.

It looks Photoshopped. That looks like a... It looks like a nuclear bomb. So what do you know... At this point, what do you know about your house and studio? I don't know much. I know there have been reports that the house is gone, but it's impossible to know because no one can get there.

There's this map that the county put up of where things burned, but it's not so accurate. But that map shows that my house is gone. Yeah. And that map shows that the studio is still surviving. There's a map on a website maintained by Ventura County. The purple colored parts are where the fire is. And if you zoom in right where Rick's house is,

it's inside the purple area, just. And his studio is just outside the purple area. That all he knew I would have been a wreck Rick isn't like that this is I can't imagine being in your shoes it's pretty strange it's definitely it's more strange than anything else yes just I don't know what to make of it are you someone who's attached to your belongings? Not particularly. I mean, I like the things I like, but I feel like ultimately it's just stuff. Yeah.

And most stuff is replaceable. In a way, it feels like a potential for a clean start. Yeah. like a potential for a clean start yeah when i moved from in town i lived in a big old spanish house filled with antiques and when i moved to malibu i moved to this very empty zen house and that felt good and this seems like an even more radical version of that to where there's no house or stuff yeah you've gone you've gone back to the, oh, my Lord. We're traveling very light. Yeah. Have you talked to other people?

There are lots and lots of musicians in Malibu. Many musicians, many friends. And people are reacting differently. Some people are really hysterical, hysterically upset. Some people are concerned with losing specific things, but there's the, the reality of the situation. There isn't much to think about. Whatever energy I put into thinking about it won't change the situation. And I was thinking about it of all the, you asked about the stuff. And when I was thinking about it last night, I got a little sad when I was kind of envisioning walking through the house.

The thing that made me saddest were the trees. The trees are these big, beautiful old trees that have been there for at least 100 years. Yeah. And you can always build a house, but the trees will never be those trees. And so much of the personality of the place for me was the setting of the trees. So in that way, I started thinking, oh, it really is a loss because those trees will likely not be there. Will you return to Malibu? I don't know. We'll see.

This was going to be Broken Record, brought to you from Shangri-La in beautiful Malibu. But now it's something else. So keep that in mind as you listen to the earlier part of our conversation, the part that follows. It was recorded in a Malibu that doesn't exist anymore, at a little oasis that is no longer an oasis. The grass was green, the sky was blue, the trees were beautiful. We sat in the main studio at Shangri-La, me all jumpy and ramped up as always, Rick barefoot, sitting cross-legged on one of the couches in the central studio, talking softly, like the OG that he is. A happier time. Back then, I had to ask about one of the Rick Rubin urban legends, about the time he played the famous New York punk club CBGBs in high school

with his band, The Pricks. Did he or did he not have his dad dress up in a policeman's uniform and shut down the show because the Pricks were too extreme even for CBGBs. Is this true? Did you really manufacture? It's possible. I honestly don't remember, but it's possible, and I remember even with the early days of the Beastie Boys, we would sort of manufacture... An incident.

Yeah, just exciting situations. Yeah. This is consistent with your understanding of your dad's personality, that he would play along? He would do that. Okay. Any opportunity to perform as a policeman, he'd love that. Do you ever go back and listen to the music you played at that age? I do not.

I haven't heard it in a long time. Yeah. What do you think you would, how do you think you would? I don't honestly listen back to music I've worked on at any point. Really? Not so much. Why is that? Just kind of moving forward. Yeah. I rarely read things that I... Yeah. I also think when you put a lot of time into something, you've already spent that time with it. It's like if you've spent a thousand hours on a book, you don't want to spend more time. You've already done that. So same with

music. We work on it for a long time. And by the time it's done, it's done. Yeah. Was there a point where you decided you would rather produce and make music than perform it? I was on tour with the Beastie Boys. The first Beastie Boy tour was opening for Madonna, which was Madonna's first tour, the Virgin tour. Wait, the Beastie Boys opened for Madonna? Opened for Madonna. That is hilarious. It's a second finger. I'm a simple church temple. Do what I do, but think what you're doing.

There was a whole aspect of the Beastie Boys who were really influenced by Monty Python and Steve Martin. There was definitely an outrageous, surreal comedy aspect to it. And being on the Madonna tour was sort of like that because the Beasties were sort of rowdy and dirty and Madonna's audience were 14-year-old girls or 12-year-old girls. So it was a really dicey,

it's like when Jimi Hendrix opened for the monkeys. You know, it's like, it's a weird, doesn't really work. So you would literally look at it in the audience and would you see a mixture of these kind of... Yeah, little girls and their moms. Mixed in with some Beastie fans. Not so many Beastie fans. And we didn't even have, we had very little,

we didn't even have an album out yet. It was very early in the Beasties' career. year we did the shows from the point of view of being the bad the bad guys so uh in like pro wrestling world you have good guys and bad guys and the Beasties always sort of played the role of the bad guys. Yeah. Which wasn't completely understood by the audience. It was just, you know, there were a lot of boos. It was all sort of an inside joke. Everything to do with the Beastie that just, either inside jokes or things that we found funny, but with no looking past a very small audience.

How did you meet them? Was this when you were at NYU? I was at NYU. I think Adam Yauch was going to Bard. Adam Harvitz might have still been in high school. I can't remember if Mike was still in school, but we met through punk rock circles. We were all into punk rock. And there was a little teeny punk rock record store called Rat Cage Records who actually put out the first Beastie

Boys, maybe even the first two Beastie Boys singles. And I probably met them at the Rat Cage store. Then there was a club called Negril on Second Avenue that was a reggae club. And one night a week, they had hip hop night. And I remember meeting Mike D at that as well. What's fascinating to me about that era is the line between punk and hip hop is so porous. Is it, or am I wrong? Yes and no. They were definitely two different scenes, but they were both bringing music back to a street level. So there was a crossover appreciation,

but it was definitely two different worlds. Yeah. Yeah. But you had a foot in both. Absolutely. As did the Beastie Boys. As did the Beastie Boys. Yeah. That's what we really had in common was our punk rock roots and love of hip hop. Yeah. When I was in high school in Long Island, there was a radio show called Mr. Magic's Rap Attack on WHBI. That was the only place that hip hop in my high school would record this show and listen to it on Boombox all week.

And I had friends in that circle and I would listen to music with them. And then I was also listening to punk rock on my own, but there were no, I was the only punk rocker in my high school. So in rap music, I had some friends in punk rock. I didn't really have friends. Yeah. Again, because it was pre-internet. If it was internet time, I'd have friends all over the world who liked the things I liked, but then it was really the people that you were around. So because of the community of hip hop, it took on a bigger role in my life. And was it in those years unusual for white kids in New York to be going to hip hop shows? Absolutely. It was very unusual. So you would show up and... I'd be the only white person.

And how did you... Did you like that? Did you, did you even notice? I didn't really think about it. I went for the music. And while sometimes I went places where I felt like when I would walk in, I would feel like, hmm, I wonder if I belong here. But then as soon as the music would start, my relationship to the music and the rest of the audience relationship to the music was the same. So I felt camaraderie in terms of musical taste and fandom. But what's interesting is that your career is defined by an indifference to boundaries. It's almost like you're completely uninterested

in the kind of genres other people set up. And I'm just curious, was that there from the very beginning? Yeah, music was always music, and I always liked a wide variety. I always liked James Brown and the Talking Heads and Barry White, the Beatles. When you toured with the Beasties and Madonna, did you like Madonna's music? It was probably poppy for my taste at that time.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I tended to like more edgy things, like hip-hop, punk rock, heavy metal. Yeah. Parenthetically, did you guys all hang out together? We did. Man, I wish I had a fly on a wall for that. So you're like, how long did the tour go on?

I remember it being a summer. Oh, but what I didn't get to in the story was I got an ear infection and had to stop, had to stop touring. Yeah. And if it wasn't for that, I probably would have kept doing it. But in reality, it was, I think it was sort of the universe stepping in saying, you know, you belong in the recording studio. Yeah.

And it felt right. Like it felt more right for me. I belong in the recording studio. Yeah. And it felt right. Like, it felt more right for me. I was never a good traveler. Yeah. I was better being in one place. You weren't, but you, on that tour, you weren't playing. I was the DJ. Oh, you were the DJ?

Yeah. Oh, I see. Yeah. Oh. I was the DJ in the group. Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's, oh, I had no, I had forgotten that fact. And we got to play. I mean, we played at Madison Square Garden. We played at Radio City group. Yeah, yeah. Oh, I had forgotten that fact. And we got to play.

I mean, we played at Madison Square Garden. We played at Radio City Musical. It was unbelievable. I mean, for a kid growing up in New York, getting to play in the places that you... Maybe 21? Yeah. 20, 21?

You're just out of NYU. Still in NYU. Still in NYU. Oh, yeah. So maybe even younger. Maybe 19. Living in NYU dorm. Are you. Oh, yeah. So maybe even younger, maybe 19, living in NYU dorm. Are you going to class?

Are you? I didn't take any classes before 3 in the afternoon because I knew I wouldn't wake up. Yeah. How do you have time to take classes when you're? Are you out every night? Out every night. I would go to these clubs like Negril and the Roxy

and see what was going on there. And the records that were coming out didn't reflect hip hop. Hip hop was a whole interactive culture. And the DJ, the reason in the Def Jam logo, the DJ is big, is because the DJ was a key piece of the hip hop world. But the records at the time didn't reflect that. The records at the time were a band playing and a guy rapping. But if you went to a hip hop club,

you saw a guy DJing and cutting up records and scratching and guys rapping and sort of the interaction between that was the version of the hip hop band was the DJ and the MC. So really the goal of making records was more almost like a documentarian of like, I'd go to these clubs, I'd hear this incredible music, then I would buy the records and they wouldn't be anything like it. And just from the fan point of view of wanting records that sounded like what I heard at the club, I started making them. What in your mind is the first great true hip hop record? Or one of the first.

Yeah. I would say Run DMC, Sucker MCs. That's probably the best hip hop record. There were rap records before that, but that was maybe the first hip hop record. You know, in that era, I had a jade tree in my dorm room, which I dubbed, which I named Run DM Tree. Wow. That's just how far from the mainstream we were in Toronto in 1980. I rewrote the lyrics of the song to be all about my jade tree.

Wow. Jade trees are lucky. They're supposed to be lucky. Oh, really? Yeah. We'll be back with more Broken Record after this. Brought to you by Discover. When you have a simple question about your credit card, getting an answer should be simple,

right? But then you call your credit card company and you can't reach a real person. How can I assist you? Speak with a representative. I'm sorry, we don't have live representatives. What? Connect to a representative. Did you say representative? Yes. I'm sorry, there are no representatives available. How can I help? At Discover, they believe managing your credit card should be uncomplicated. That's why when you call Discover with a question about your credit card, Discover gives you the option to speak with a real person based in the U.S. day or night, 24-7. They also give you the option to find help by messaging them through the website or the mobile

app. Because having the option to connect with a real-life person beats dealing with a recorded message any day of the week. That's just common sense. And at Discover, they think there needs to be a lot more of that. So go ahead and give them a call. Send them a message online or connect with them on the app. They look forward to speaking with you live. Learn more at discover.com.

If we were to make a musical biography of Rick Rubin, in which we list all of the transformative songs, music you worked on over the course of your life, tell me the next one. What's the next song that kind of opens up your sense of what's possible musically? As a listener. As a listener and also as a producer.

I can say another one that was meaningful was before there was a group called Public Enemy, Chuck D had a radio show. And the theme song from his radio show was called Public Enemy No. 1 and that's what ended up being what the band was based on. But when we first heard that little minute-long promo for his radio show, something that didn't sound like anything else. You know what I'm saying? I think another key piece in the story of the music that we were making at the time was Walk This Way, because it really bridged a gap for people who didn't understand hip-hop. And that was really the purpose of doing it.

People at the time didn't think hip-hop was even music. And the idea was if we could find a song that was familiar, that was very close to hip-hop, and could be given a hip-hop treatment that it would help people bridge the gap. But what was it about that particular song by Aerosmith that made you think it was appropriate for this country? It's lyrically, it's very close to a rap record already.

If you listen to the original Aerosmith version, the way Stephen does the vocals, it's essentially a rap record. And that was the key. It was like, okay, this is music that people are familiar with, that they grew up liking. And now here's this other music that's similar to it, but they don't get it at all. If we could just point to this connection, maybe the lights will go off. What does it mean when you say that it's essentially a hip-hop record in a way, lyrically? What does that mean? The way the song works is built on a rhyme scheme and phrasing more than melody. Most hip-hop is based on a rhyme scheme more than melody. That's really the big change. It difference between singing and rapping is rapping is words in a rhythm that are catchy because of the rhythm, whereas most music up until rapping, it's based on the melody.

And that's really the difference. And the Aerosmith song is rooted in the phrasing. Sometimes drawing those connections are the things that help an audience understand what's happening. Can you, is your phone up? Can you play just a little bit of the original? I want to kind of hear that, what you're talking about. Okay, so this is the Aerosmith version. Yeah.

That much you'd hear in every hip hop club, what I just played you. Yeah. That was an accepted norm in the vocabulary of hip hop club what I just played you yeah that was that was an accepted norm norm in the vocabulary of hip hop yeah nobody knew there was a song after that in hip hop yeah all they knew was just that much just that much so if you had two turntables you would play that much. Just that much. So if you had two turntables, you would play that much on one turntable, and you'd get the second one ready in the same spot, and you would continue just that much.

And then a rapper would rap over the top, and they would make up freestyle raps of what they wanted, usually bragging. So that's what most rap was at that time. Yeah. So the idea of asking Run DMC to learn the words to an Aerosmith song was a very foreign concept at the time. There had been no cover songs done in the hip hop world. Yeah, yeah. And they thought it was a terrible idea.

And they thought it was like country lyrics. I remember them thinking, it's like, these are terrible lyrics. And how long did it take for them to come around after the record came out? I don't know that they ever came around until it was really successful. Like, I can remember, even when we recorded the vocals, they were sort of not into it. Can we hear a little bit of the vocals and then explain to me why you say

those are hip-hop vocals? Yeah. So now, okay, so we'll listen to the Aerosmith version first. So that phrasing Yeah very hip-hop. Yeah. Very. Yeah. It's as close to a hip-hop record without being a hip-hop record as can be.

Wait, so should we listen to the hip, should we listen to the Run DMC version now? Yeah. It's not very different yeah Yeah. Yeah. Do you prefer one to the other? No. I guess I probably have a preference for the original just because growing up, it was in my vocabulary. What did Aerosmith say about it? Do you know?

They loved it. They did? They loved it. Yeah. And they were always into street culture. And they always wanted to be part of street culture. So for them, it was really exciting. Yeah. And then you said you would have meetings with people who understood the popularity of hip hop, but didn't accept it as music. What does that mean? Those were the words that I heard and it was so unusual to me. I can remember a specific quote from a record company executive at the time, which is, what do you attribute the success

of this? I mean, we know it's not music. And they were saying this as like fans. And they just didn't see it. I mean, I think a lot of people reacted that way. A lot of people didn't see it. It didn't, I mean, I think a lot of people reacted that way. Yeah. A lot of people didn't see it as music, in the same way that a lot of people from the jazz era didn't see rock and roll as music. Yeah. It's the same.

Those revolutions really changed things. What it helped do was open up hip hop music to the suburbs and being a suburban kid. That was in some ways the intention. It's also interesting because it wasn't done for the sake of popularity at all. It was done for the sake of explaining something. You know, it wasn't done. I didn't think of it as a commercial idea at all. That wasn't, not at all.

Wasn't about that at all. Because what do you think of, I mean, just to use myself as an example, I am this kid in rural Ontario. I am listening to basically British New Wave music on a scratchy that's coming in from a station in Toronto, which doesn't really,

you know, the signal's really weak. I know nothing about hip hop and that song, like, it's like, oh, you know, wow.

Like just kind of, you know, that's when the door, I mean, I imagine that Mike, is that your first memory of hip hop? I think so. Wow. So then, you know, that's when the door, I mean, I imagine that my- Is that your first memory of hip hop? I think so. Wow.

So then it- I mean, I was aware of it, but I didn't, the reason I'm so interested in this point is I am exactly in the position of that, whoever it was says, it's not music. It just didn't register for me. I didn't understand it. I had no place to put it. I was, you know, I was interested in Elvis Costello and The Clash or whatever. That's what I thought. There's actually another interesting aspect of this, which is that ultimately there is a race issue involved also in the same way that Elvis was essentially making music that Chuck Berry

and Little Richard had made before. But because he was white, it got mainstream popularity. And to some degree, what we did with the Beastie Boys wasn't so different than what we were doing with Run DMC, with the Beasties was not so different than what we did with Run DMC or LL Cool J or Public Enemy but the fact that they were white allowed it to spread in a way that was harder to do otherwise again this was not an intentional yeah this wasn't premeditated at all just sort of happened but it was interesting to see that like oh they're more the audience is more accepting of the beastie boys than run dmc yeah well give people permission to listen in a certain sense and and then interestingly it ended up having a good effect on hip-hop in general which was the beastie sort of

opened the door for people who may not have been interested in this niche black music. But then once they were in the door, then they wanted all the niche black music. So it did help the revolution to happen. Yeah, yeah. Do you remember the reaction of Run DMC themselves to this idea? To walk this way? Yeah. Yeah, they were not into it.

They were not into it? No. No. Really? Yeah. Did you talk them into it? I tried to talk them into it unsuccessfully. Russell really talked them into it.

Russell said, just do what Rick says. We're going to take a little break and be right back. Do you own a home or a condo? We're going to take a little break and be right back. all your stuff. Furniture, a flat screen, and all the boxes of stuff that have been sitting there ever since you moved in but still haven't unpacked. It's hard to find the time, right? But you know what's easy? Bundling policies with GEICO. GEICO makes it easy to bundle your homeowner's or renter's insurance along with your auto policy. That way, you'll rest easy, knowing that your home and all your stuff is protected, like the furniture and that flat screen. Plus, getting a quote on homeowners and renters insurance is super easy through GEICO. It's a good thing too because you already have so much to do around

your home, you know, like going through all those boxes of stuff. Visit geico.com, get a quote, and see how much you could save. It's GEICO easy. Visit geico.com today. That's geico.com. I'm back with Rick, and I ask him about the origins of one of his most famous collaborations. Rick Rubin, Jewish kid from Long Island, and The Man in Black. How did that happen, by the way, the Johnny Cash thing? It's also unusual the way it happened was I had worked with almost all the artists I had produced up until that time were young artists, first-time artists. And all the artists I signed were debut artists. And I thought it would be a fun challenge to make a really good album with a great artist who maybe hasn't done

great work for a while. So it was more like a puzzle to solve. And when I thought about the different great artists who weren't doing great work, the first one that came up was Johnny Cash. I just thought, I mean, he's Johnny Cash. For you I know I'd even try to turn the tide Because you're mine, I walk the line Do you listen to much country? Not really.

So you think of him, and then you, so what comes next? I ask what's going on with him. Is he on a record label? He's playing, at that time, he was playing in, like, small dinner theaters around. Oh, he'd fallen out? Low. Yeah.

And he'd been dropped from his label, sort of like he had been discarded by the industry at that time. And I think part of the reason that he was open to working with me wasn't because he believed in me or believed in the idea. I think he was excited that somebody cared enough to want to do something because nobody else did. Had he heard of you? I don't know if he had. I don't think so.

I don't know why he would have. Did he ever listen to hip hop? No. No. So you're just basically cold calling him. I mean, through his people, I'm guessing. Yeah. And we met backstage at a dinner theater in Orange County.

And I remember it being awkward because both of us were pretty quiet. But I remember sitting on the couch for a long time and not really talking, but feeling, even though it was awkward, I felt comfortable with him. And there was no idea of what it would be at the time. It was just sort of, let's go on this journey. Let's do something. Yeah, and find what's great. Did he have, did he, who was the one who first sort of suggested the idea of doing these stripped down covers? Is that your idea? It was and it wasn't. Well, I won't back down.

No, I won't back down. You can stand me up at the gates of hell, but I won't back down. It started where we were looking for songs. And we would get together. So in terms of finding the material that best fit his voice, we would do these demos, basically solo demos. But there was no thought that that's what the record would be like. It was more the first stage

of this expedition was figuring out the material that was going to work. Give me an example of a song that doesn't fit his voice and tell me why it doesn't. There's a handful of things. One is he has to feel an affinity for it. If he doesn't feel it, it's much harder. Second is subject matter would have to make sense for, in his case, it was different because there's Johnny Cash, the human being, and then there's Johnny Cash, the mythical man in black. And my goal was to make music that always fit the mythical man in black. Now, if it fit Johnny Cash, the human being as well, that's fine. But it didn't have to. It was more important that it was this sort of looming cartoon figure yeah of who he was

that's way but that's sort of interesting i thought you were going to say the exact opposite i thought you're going to say we have been joined by a dog by the way um i thought you're going to say my goal was to make music that fit the the human the human no he had he had even done that along the way not always so successfully. And I think it really went back to like, I think of the great Johnny Cash moments. I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.

This sort of outlaw figure. Now, Johnny Cash in real life never shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. But the mythical man in black did, and we responded. So it was more that. it was more like these sort of brooding heavy introspective or revelatory thoughts because in real life johnny also had a great sense of humor i didn't want to do any funny songs. I didn't want that to be part of the,

I wanted to really focus. You didn't want to do My Name is Sue. No, even though that's a great one, even though it's a great one. Yeah. But I wanted to really focus the story on this mythical presence. And also because now that I think about it,

if he's playing dinner theater in Orange County, the myth has fallen away. He's sort of hit rock bottom. You're trying to build him back up. What do you consider to be the best of the songs you did with him? I mean, I have a favorite, but... There's a lot of good ones. One of the ones we did that I really liked was the Mercy Seat in the Cave song.

It's incredible. Wait, can you play a little snippet of that? Do you want to hear the Johnny Cash version? Yeah. Okay. It all began when they took me from my home and put me on death row, a crime for which I'm totally innocent, you know.

I began to warm and chill to objects and their fields, a ragged cup, a twisted mop, the face of Jesus in my soup, those sinister dinner deals, the meal trolleys, wicked wheels, a hook bone rising from my food, and all things either good or ungood. And the mercy seat is waiting waiting and I think my head is burning and in a way I'm yearning to be done with all this weighing of the truth and I for an eye and a tooth for a tooth and any way I told the truth and I'm not afraid to die Will you do, will you pay me just a little snippet of the original

and then tell me what it is you heard in the original that made you think it would work for Johnny Cash? And the murder seat is waiting And I think my head is burning And in a way I'm yearning to be done With all this measuring of proof Of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth In a way I'm yearning to be done with all this measuring of proof. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

In any way I've told the truth. And I'm not afraid to die. It's just the lyrics. Just the lyrics. Just the lyrics. We have this mythical man in black. What are stories he can tell that you'd believe coming from that guy? And this was one sort of like this biblical, heavy story. It's funny.

It's the third time you've used the word heavy. And you're absolutely right. There's a heaviness to all of those records that's kind of, it's so unusual. I don't associate that word heavy with popular music. No, and certainly not with country music or folk music, which is essentially the Johnny records are sort of folk records. Yeah. Where some of the songs that were like the Mercy Seed or the Nine Inch Nails song.

Hurt. Yeah. Which is my favorite. Yeah, it's great. It's really great. I just love the way the song is just transformed. The idea of an old man singing it, the end of his life. Changed everything.

It changes everything. Changes everything. Is that what, so with Hurt, is that what you were thinking when you, I'm assuming you brought that song to johnny you were like oh my god when a 60 something year old man sings this it's a different it's a wholly different song totally different song and much more hopeless like it's oh it's bleak yeah you don't usually by the time you're that age you found resolution so um to have sort of 20 year old angst in your 60s or 70s it's not angst anymore it's despair it's flat-out despair it's brutal I hurt myself today to see if I still feel.

I focus on the pain, the only thing that's read. The needle tears the hole. The old familiar sting. Try to kill it all away. But I remember everything. What have I become My sweetest friend Everyone I know Goes away in the end

And you could have it all, my empire of dirt. I will let you down. I will make you hurt Did it affect you emotionally to do... You're sitting in close proximity to this mythical man singing these songs with an unbelievable emotional weight to them. Are you emerging at the end of the day, like, devastated? Do you go and curl up in a ball and you're dead? Pretty excited. Because when you hear something, a really good version of what it is, I wouldn't go into the emotion of it so much as the excitement

of seeing something come together that has this power. Yeah. Did you ever talk to, who's the 98th snail? Oh, Trent. Trent, does Trent Razor. I did. I actually sent it to him when we finished. I don't think he liked it so much when he first heard it.

Yeah. Then Mark Romanek made the video for it. And then when he saw the video, Trent's like, oh, I see what this is. I think it was too close at first. And it was just odd hearing someone else. I can remember we covered a Beck song. And I remember playing it for Beck. And I remember him saying, this is the first time I've ever heard anybody sing my lyrics besides me. And it's Johnny Cash. He was just so mind-blowing because he was probably 22 at the time, 21 at the time. Yeah. I would think it must be so thrilling

to understand that what you think of as a deeply personal song has a life outside of you, that it can have an alternate meaning in a different universe when sung by someone from a different, that's got to be like. So interesting. What's really interesting, I want to go, this idea that we started talking about in the beginning about your sort of indifference to boundaries, to musical boundaries.

And that clearly allows you to kind of move. You don't get defined by your relationship with hip hop. You end up doing. Well, I move. You don't get defined by your relationship with hip hop. You end up doing. Well, I do and I don't. So from a creative standpoint, I don't. But from an outside standpoint, anytime I tried to do something different than what I did before, there was always great resistance every step of the way.

Tell me a little bit about that. Whoever I was in business with, major label-wise, or they just wanted more of the thing that happened before that was successful. And every step of the way, it was just a struggle. And I was told often that I couldn't do what I was doing, whether it was Slayer or Johnny Cash or whatever it was. It was just like the idea of working on different kinds of music was really frowned upon for some reason. I don't know why. What's so weird, of course, is that the very reason you were so good at working in the hip hop world was that you were already crossing a boundary.

100%. And I think most people who make the best music, I think that's the case. People who grow up listening to electronic dance music and then making electronic dance music tend to make more mediocre dance music. Whereas people who come from some other form of music and cross into dance music make much more interesting dance music.

Yeah. It's just a wider perspective. Rick and I talked for a lot longer and we'll talk again. We've only scratched the surface. Whether we'll meet again at Shangri-La is another matter. I hope so. Coming up on Broken Record, many, many more new episodes, including Nile Rodgers, Rufus Wainwright, country music songwriting greats Don Henry, Don Schlitz, and Bobby Braddock in conversation, heavy metal demigod Dave Hill. This is the first new show from Pushkin Industries, the new audio studio I started with

Jacob Weisberg and named in honor of the great Russian biracial polymath and poet Alexander Pushkin, who is our patron saint and whose name we think sounds really cool. Coming up from Pushkin, a whole new show from Michael Lewis called Against the Rules, not to mention another season of Revisionist History. Broken Record is produced by Mia LaBelle and Jason Gambrell, with help from Bruce Hedlum, Chiquita Paschal, Jacob Smith, Julia Barton, Justin Richmond, Jacob Weisberg, and of course, Rick Rubin. Our theme music is by Evan Viola.

To hear all the songs featured in today's episode, check out brokenrecordpodcast.com. This show is brought to you by Pushkin Industries. I'm Malcolm Gladwell. You know what I forgot to do? I wrote a whole rap back then about the jade tree. I'm Malcolm Gladwell. You know what I forgot to do? I forgot to... I wrote a whole rap back then about the jade tree. I'm a sucker jade tree, can't grow much higher. All you other jade trees gonna call me sire.

And I forgot I was gonna say it. I was like, no, this is too stupid. I can't break up Rick's flow with this. God, I'm an idiot. Anyway. Crowd Street, the largest online real estate investing platform gives investors like you access to institutional quality opportunities across the country.

Today, thousands of investors are building their personal portfolios, all online, from multifamily and industrial warehousing to self-storage and senior living. Create your account for free and join an active community of investors who have tapped into some of the most sought-after real estate. With more than 560 deals and over 359 million in distributions to date, see how easy it can be to invest in real estate with CrowdStreet. Learn more at CrowdStreet.com.