[Music]

I'm Ezra Klein this is the Ezra Khan

show

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how do you introduce a podcast with Rick

Rubin so he may be the most influential

music producer alive and seems like a

fair statement he holds it nine Grammys

he co-founded Def Jam recordings he was

a co-chair of Columbia Records and he's

just worked with the most stunning array

of artists just a very very partial roll

call if you have a girlfriend

Beastie Boys

Run DMC

Slayer

Slipknot Neil Diamond

Johnny Cash Eminem

the Red Hot Chili Peppers

Kanye West

for Andy Carlisle

Adele

it is a lot of very different kinds of

artists who trust him who seek him out

so what does he have to offer them what

is he giving them

Reuben just came out with this really

fascinating unusual book called the

creative act a way of being

expected stories of late nights in the

studio with famed musicians but it is

not that at all

this is a spiritual tract it's a guide

to finding and cultivating and

inhabiting State's mind

that Foster creativity

but not just the kind of creativity that

leads to art

you don't have to be an artist to get a

lot out of this how to really listen to

another person how to deepen your

openness to the world and then also deep

in your discernment in it your your

judgments about it your taste how to

know when something is for you good

how to know and trust yourself when it's

not good enough or not done yet

there's a funny way in which the

conversation ended up playing out themes

of the book we did two versions of it

because the first one didn't quite find

the right level

and then as we began and this is a

conversation about a book all about

achieving more open States from which to

listen

Reuben's suggestion was we get ourselves

closer to that state

by taking a few deep breaths in sync and

so we did and I left that in the audio

because it may open your taste and it

may change your experience of the

conversation too as always my email is

recline show at nytimes.com

foreign

welcome to the show thank you sir

so this can be a conversation about

finding the states of mind that help you

listen to help you discern that help you

create

and so as we start it how should we find

the right State of Mind for this

well we can do a maybe five slow deep

breaths together

to get us rolling and on the inhale

think about the inhale

and on the exhale when I say think maybe

that's not the right word maybe say to

yourself cue yourself inhale

as you're inhaling we're inhaling and

then when you exhale focus on the exhale

we're exhaling now

and nothing else we'll do five breaths

only being present with our inhale and

exhale are we ready

let's do it

let's do it

laughs

foreign

so assuming you're about to take about

the same amount of time as mine where

are you that you weren't a minute ago

um we had a little technical issue

before we started

which created some energy in my body

that was like a rattle

and by the second breath it felt like

that settled

and by the I don't know towards the end

I realized I don't know how many breaths

I've done because um

feeling very relaxed and that felt

really good

that's what it did for me and I I also

felt like and I don't know this

but it tuned us to each other that now

we're starting

at least on a closer wavelength than

before that happened

I think that's right

so I normally think it's cliche to begin

by asking anybody about the title of

their book

but but I do think there's an

interesting interaction for you between

the the title and subtitle the creative

act and a way of being

so tell me about the way of being a side

of this

the way of being is really what the book

is about the creative act is what I

started out wanting to write

and through the process

of

looking at what were the decisions made

to make things to the best of our

ability

it came back to a way of being

and that right now

regardless what else is going on in my

life

the most important thing in the world to

me is this conversation that we're

having this is what we're doing now and

as long as it takes us as long as it

takes and if it went all day I would go

all day

and that's the way of being in the world

it's a combination of paying attention

and commitment

to doing whatever it takes to do your

best whatever that is

you and I have talked a bit about your

love of Stephen Mitchell's translation

of the daote ching

this struck me very much as a Taoist

book not just in content but in form

I think when I saw this book coming I

expected to read a lot of Recollections

of Rick rubin's history with various

artists and times in the production room

and in the studio

and it reads very taoistly it's very

poetic it's very spare

there's not a lot of I

it's very comfortable with Paradox and

tension and contradiction

so that was intentional absolutely

absolutely it would have been much

easier to do the book that you described

but it was never interesting to me from

the beginning and when I first set out

to work on this seven or eight years ago

I met with a handful of Publishers at

that time and told them about what I I

wanted the book to be and all of them

had the same reactions like well yeah

but you're going to tell your stories

from the studio and you're going to tell

the stories of you know all the great

people you've worked with I said no no

no that's not what it is that that makes

it a smaller book

this is a Timeless book this is about a

way of looking at things and I wanted to

be very clear in talking about the book

this is not a book about me there's not

one story about me in the recording

studio there's not one story about any

artist I've ever worked with that's not

what this book is it's more of a

philosophical work thinking about

how we make beautiful things

let's talk about that philosophy

and I want to start with something you

say very early in the book that seems

very important to me which is

you frame artists and really you frame

all of us as translators as picking up

signals from the world around them that

many hear but ignore or maybe many never

even hear and so you're right then that

the best artists tend to be the people

with the most sensitive antenna give me

some examples of that to make that

grounded

okay the first example that comes to

mind is recent I just made a new album

with Neil Young

and it's called world record and the way

that that came about was

he was hiking

in Colorado on a daily basis

and he noticed that he was whistling and

he doesn't whistle much and he doesn't

whistle well but he noticed that he was

whistling and he noticed what he was

whistling was interesting and it wasn't

the song he knew

and he decided to record on his little

flip phone because he had a he has an

ancient flip phone

the whistling and he did this every day

and he collected

10 or so of these whistling Melodies

that if you asked him he would say he

did not write they just

he essentially channeled them they just

happened

and he was aware enough to capture them

and then aware enough when he had a

handful of them to say you know I think

I could make this into an album this is

interesting I like these Melodies and

they're unlike any Melodies that I

normally write

so

That's the basis of this album it came

from something outside of himself

we laughed a lot in the studio about I'd

love to meet the guy who wrote these

songs

you know who is this guy they don't

sound like Neil Young songs and then

when he sat down to write the words he

wrote the lyrics to all of the songs in

two days without changing any words

it just it just sort of happened

and he said that's never happened to him

before either so

from the beginning and this is someone

who's been making albums for 50 years

he found an entirely new way to work not

based on him deciding to find a new way

to work not on an intellectual Choice he

made but on noticing

these whistling pieces are coming

through

first step is I'll collect them and then

looking back it's like I feel like these

are good this is the beginning of

something

so that's an example of being open to

what comes

we recognize

will overhear something that someone

says that's just the phrase we're

looking for

one dimension of this for you

is a view that the out there

of Art

and ideas of zeitgeist of energy

is real

that creativity isn't just something we

summon from inside ourselves but

something that we are

being able to pull from the world around

us and and it creates a sort of sense of

ideas as having their own

volition you write that if you have an

idea you're excited about and you don't

bring it to life it's not uncommon for

the idea to find its Voice through

another maker this isn't because the

other artist stole your idea but because

the idea's time has come yes you call it

elsewhere great unfolding tell me a bit

about that idea of ideas as having

almost our own life

we see it happen in movements of art

where there'll be one artist somewhere

in the world who starts working in a

particular way and then someone in far

off reach

uh unconnected

a similar thing starts happening

sometimes two sometimes three sometimes

five

and they're not imitating each other

it's like a bubbling up

of

this is what's next

now maybe the less

mystical version of it would be

if all of these things came before

this is the natural reaction to all the

things that came before you could make

that argument you could say that punk

rock was a reaction to

you know the complexities of progressive

rock maybe I don't know

but the fact that the Ramones sprung up

in New York

and The Clash sprung up in the UK

and didn't really know about each other

at the beginning of that

it's interesting that these movements

happen

and we see it again in painting all the

time where you'll see a style appear and

it changes all of abstract expressionism

isn't

copy of the first abstract expressionist

it happened

the time was right

and it seems like

we see Big Ideas changed in the world

and we see things happen where

possibility is unlocked

is it purely that the mental block of

believing it's not impossible is what

allows us to do it maybe so I don't know

but belief is a very very powerful thing

I talk about it in the book

and the beauty of belief is it doesn't

matter whether the thing you believe is

true or not

it's your belief in it that gives it its

power it's not the truth in it that

gives it its power it's your belief in

it

so belief is a really powerful force in

the universe and a great one to have on

your side I talk also in the book about

how

you have to believe that something that

doesn't exist can exist

to bring it into the world

if you start with the idea that it's

impossible

then it's impossible

we believe our way into things

allowing them to come into being in the

world

and it is for me I have to say It's

Magic because that's my experience of it

I imagine something outlandish

and

it somehow finds a way to come together

I think this would be interesting to me

I haven't seen anything like this what

would that be like

how can I bring that into the world and

see

how does it make me feel so there's a

belief and a suspension of disbelief

that goes into all of the creation of

art if you want to make something new

there's no template to follow

we're really going out on a limb all the

time and we crash and burn a lot you

know we crash and burn a lot in the

process just hopefully not too often on

a grand stage but the beauty of it is

when we're making things we're making

them for us and then it's up to us to

say okay this is something I want to

share with other people or this is

something that not only do I not want to

share with other people this is telling

me I want to go in this completely

different direction because I found this

is more of a dead end than I expected

I want to hold then on this idea though

of the translator and needing a

sensitive antenna to pick up on on what

signals you're hearing

from the people you've worked with from

yourself how do you make that antenna

more sensitive if you want to be better

at listening not just to other people

but to the world

to what is maybe out there waiting to be

born out there waiting to be woven into

a single thread

how do you become more sensitive to that

it seems the awareness practices in

meditation are probably the best way to

get there

and once you have an awareness practice

expanding it from the meditation cushion

into the world

to where you're living in a constant

state of awareness the beauty of the

awareness practice in meditation is you

get the tools to learn how to do it

once you have the tools it can't help

but change the way you you see the world

it happens organically

if you want to use it as a tool in your

creative work

it becomes an obsession

and you're always looking for

opportunities you become Sherlock Holmes

you're always looking for Clues you're

always

seeing why is this color this color why

did this tree decide to grow in this

spot instead of on the other side of the

road

did someone plant it or did it happen

naturally if it happened naturally why

but I would say it's a daily practice

out in the world and I'm giving examples

from nature but it's also you can find

it in literature you can find it in a

movies you can find it listening to

people it's everywhere you go

there's so much information

that's being offered up and we only

collect small pieces

but the more open we are to taking it in

and looking for what's interesting why

is something interesting to us what are

we keying in on what are we noticing

that no one else is noticing

if you become aware of it you start

seeing it everywhere right now I'm

sitting in a room I've sat in many times

and I'm noticing that there's a piece of

wood

that makes up a beam

and I can see that there's a red

streak in the wood I've sat in this

position many many times I've never

noticed this red streak before I see a

red streak and I see some chips in the

wood and now now that I noticed that I

start looking at every beam in the room

how is this one different why is this

one like this

how come I never noticed it before

it just happens we're talking about

noticing things and I'm looking up first

thing I notice like never saw that

before it's interesting

so it's like living in a constant

questioning

with everything you see everything you

hear everything you do

just looking for what's interesting and

why what's different and why what

changed and why

one thing you say in your section on

awareness

is it awareness is not a state you force

and I want to say as an unenlightened

person

that that doesn't often feel true the

distraction is not a state by force

and that awareness you mentioned the

constant practice of it that awareness

takes

tremendous amount of energy

and practice and patience yeah and yet I

read enough Buddhist literature to know

that it is supposed to be

a state of rest and openness so tell me

a bit for yourself but but also because

you're working with a lot of people and

I'll get to this in a sec who I think do

have a lot of distraction in their lives

how do you navigate the actual

difficulty of awareness that the getting

to this non-force state sometimes takes

a lot of force a lot of changes in

context a lot of work

it takes a lot of work it takes a lot of

dedication takes a lot of practice but

ultimately if you're forcing it it isn't

what it is the reason we say it's not

something you can force is because it

really isn't something you can force and

if you're forcing it that isn't it

do you know what I'm saying you may

force yourself to practice

but eventually you get to the point

where you're there it's like learning a

habit it's like learning to ride a

bicycle

there's a lot of work to learning to

ride a bicycle but once you learn to

ride a bicycle you ride the bicycle and

it's fairly effortless in terms of how

to ride the bicycle maybe it's work in

pedaling and steering but the idea of

getting the bicycle to balance once you

have that ability you have that ability

awareness is a bit like that

when you meditate and and I will say

it's a it's a hole that gets deeper and

deeper forever so

once you get the feeling for it I would

say if you were to meditate every day

twice a day for 40 days

at the end of 40 days I'd be surprised

if you didn't feel like a different

person than the person who started

now to get to the point where you feel

like you feel at the end of 40 days all

the time

is probably a lifetime of uh dedicated

practice

you say that awareness is a practice

maintained by rituals we've talked a bit

about meditation here but tell me about

some of the other rituals you've seen

and and particularly things that maybe

somebody from the outside wouldn't

realize as a ritual what in the artist

you've worked with or the people you've

learned from have you seen as a ritual

of awareness that might to someone else

simply look like

living or habit

or routine

the first one that comes to mind is not

one of awareness it's of connection and

it was right before we started this

together

I did a ritual for

us

where I imagined my higher self

I envisioned my higher self

floating above me

and I envisioned you and I envisioned

your higher self

floating above you

and then my higher self and your higher

self embraced

and agreed that we would work together

to bring forth

the best information that would be

helpful to others

now you didn't know about that when we

started but that was something I did for

myself

with the idea of that's the outcome that

I'm hoping for

and

that little ritual probably had some

impact on me it may have had impact on

you I can't say I don't know but I know

that it's like setting an intention

when you set an intention like belief it

has power

so I come in feeling I come into this

conversation with a sense of connection

with you

an imaginary sense of connection with

you

in the hopes that that will be

beneficial to what we're doing together

today that's one example of a ritual

I'll tell you another a different kind

of a ritual that was one of the teachers

who I love is Jack cornfield

who's a Buddhist scholar and he talks

about

doing work with gang members

and how communication is very difficult

for them both

in terms of

being able to share how they feel but

even wanting to open up and speak at all

and he finds that something a ritual as

simple

as lighting a candle in the room

changes the energy of the room when the

people sitting around the table if

you're sitting around a table with a

group of people and there's a some sort

of uh anxiety or energy

if you light a candle

and everyone sees you like the candle

and everyone can see that the candle is

burning on the table

changes the whole energy of the

conversation that reminds me of Carlos

Santana when Carlos Santana plays guitar

in the studio

I didn't know this until I got to work

with him whenever he's playing his

little music stand in front of him

turned on its side to be a table

with several trinkets of meaning to him

a picture of a guru that speaks to him

and

he lights a candle and he burns incense

and if he's playing guitar there's a

candle burning and there's incense in

front of him and there's a picture of

his Guru

and I will say having been in the room

with him playing guitar it's unlike

anyone else I've ever experienced

playing guitar it's otherworldly

[Music]

foreign

but for him that's his ritual

and it clearly works like I I get to see

it work I get to see it work in real

life so I think uh the burning the

candle could be a really nice one for

pretty easy for us to uh to try that one

when you're in a scenario where you want

to change the energy of the space or

create an intention of

going in deeper

try lighting a candle see what happens

a lot of your advice and thinking about

awareness in the book it's very

spiritual it's very meditative

and it got me thinking about whether you

actually see that in many of the artists

you work with because when I follow some

of the people on Instagram or elsewhere

who are on your production discography

I see them on their phones all the time

I see them obsessed with self-image

constantly gramming much more so than I

would ever do dwelling on slight

surrounded by a lot of people a lot of

posses

they don't always seem to be people on

the far edge of cultivating presence and

awareness they often seem particularly

desperate in a way for distraction

so when you think about the people

you've worked with and seen what am I

missing in noticing that tension

that may be the case that may be the

case and I think one of the reasons that

they seek out working with me or

spending time with me is they very much

like the piece of the way I approach

things and when they come to the studio

in Malibu for example Shangri-La or our

place in Italy or the when we've worked

in Costa Rica

or in Hawaii we tend to work in

beautiful places that don't have

televisions

don't have mirrors

often at the end of a stay of an artist

coming to one of the places that I work

they talk about like going back into the

real world coming out of these

environments and they don't often don't

want to you know they really like

they like the piece on the tranquility

and the beauty and the Simplicity of the

places that we get to work in together

do you think social media and the modern

culture we have of attention and The

Business of buying and selling attention

are

a hindrance to creativity and awareness

do you think that as a like almost as a

species or at least the digital part of

our species

that we are structurally in a worse

place for receptivity than we were say

50 years ago

it's certainly different

I don't know that I could say if I think

it's better or worse it's different it's

more foreign to me being being a

grown-up often with technology we see it

happen in two directions

we lose something but we gain something

and

maybe we're losing something on the

awareness side but gaining something on

the amount and availability of content I

know that when I was young

the things that I liked were hard for me

to learn about find out about

or participate in so I had to go to

Great Lengths to learn about things I

was interested in whether that was in

the early days of punk rock

or being a magician you know having to

drive long distance to go to a magic

store and and spend time with the other

budding magicians

or whatever it was that I was interested

in it was always difficult to get access

and in terms of punk rock I didn't

really have any punk rock friends no one

in my high school was a punk rocker I

was the only one so it was a lonely

existence

and now

if there's a new movement of any kind

you can find a community of like-minded

people all over the world and share

ideas with them and it seems like that's

a very good thing and I don't know if

that trade-off is

balanced but I think they're always good

and bad that come with all these changes

I think that's certainly right what one

of the things that I wonder a bit about

to go back to your story of being young

and having really to work to get access

to things you wanted or to see things

you you hadn't already known

is it it did cultivate

a different kind of attention when you

got the thing like when I saved up money

and I bought a CD that's a big deal for

me I got a CD Now

and if I didn't instantly like it

I was much more likely to do the work

to figure out how to like it or really

figure out why I didn't like it

the same is maybe even true of books uh

when I you know had to go get a book

from the bookstore buy it or check it

out from the library and I didn't have

this like unlimited Kindle selection

that I'm often looking at now not liking

something I would give it more time

and now because the problem we all face

is how to filter between all of the

content we're being served

I find I'm much quicker to say I'll use

Music here as a the example

I'm much quicker to note the sound of

something see my immediate reaction to

it and discard it

if my internal meter doesn't flow into

pleasure instantly

and I wonder if something's lost by that

and I wonder about the practices needed

to be appreciative and aware

and to treat as precious things that

don't

immediately appeal

the things that will be of value to you

seem like they would eventually break

through one way or another

maybe you pass by something

now and then

someone will recommend something you'll

read a great review somewhere something

will happen that'll impel you to go back

and I know even when it was difficult

and even when I was buying CDs if I

didn't like something it was hard for me

to to give it time and it really would

be more based on the

there would have to be an outside reason

for me to go back and it would happen

and it would definitely happen where

things that I initially didn't like I

grew to love but it wasn't because I

worked on them it was because the

conditions around me allowed it to

happen it wasn't

forcing myself to try to like something

I didn't like you know I still to this

day I still don't really like mushrooms

I never worked to force myself to like

mushrooms

I still don't like them are you saying

the food or the Psychedelic hair the

food no I'm saying the food I've never

done the psychedelics but the food

mushrooms I've never I've never liked

the taste I've never liked the

consistency of mushrooms I tend not use

any drugs but maybe the reason

particularly I haven't taken mushrooms

because the idea of psychedelics are

interesting to me maybe the fact that I

don't like eating mushrooms has some

psychological uh

feeling of this is not for me

[Music]

if I were to watch you

listening to something new maybe it's an

artist you're going to be working with

maybe it's just something that has been

recommended to you by three friends but

but you want to listen you want to be

there with it

what would I see happen are you in a

dark room are you wearing headphones are

your eyes open or closed what is what is

the practice of listening when the

listening really matters to you

look like

my eyes are closed

I'm in a space with complete silence

that could be a room in my home with

speakers

it could be in the car

it could be in the recording studio

those I say would be probably the main

places where that would happen

and I would sit quietly if I was

listening with the idea of

I really want to know where I am with

this

I would be careful about when I listened

to it

so if for any reason

I felt any level of anxiety

any level of stress

if I was wrestling with some sort of a

problem mentally

if I was in a terrible mood I would not

listen

I might listen to other things

but if I'm listening with the idea of

really being with something

the state that I'm in plays a role in

that if I'm sick I probably wouldn't do

it

I think those are the descriptive

elements

of what it would look like I would be

sitting with my eyes closed I might be

laying down with my eyes closed depends

on

whatever's comfortable really

and I would close my eyes and I would

play it and um just be with it and and I

would start with the idea of I'm turning

off you you mentioned the phrase from

the book earlier about listening and

suspending disbelief now if I'm

suspending disbelief I'm not judging it

the aspect of myself

that's the Judgment aspect is turned off

I just want to be with the music

and see what's happening in my body when

it's playing

feel it

try not to think anything I can do not

to think about it would be good

I might have a thought along the way

it's like oh this reminds me of

something else like that's not so

helpful I'm I'm hoping that doesn't

happen or if it does happen it would be

like being in a meditation

where in my practice I'm focused on my

mantra

and a thought pops up happens all the

time

in meditation practice we let the

thought pop up we don't

avoid it or engage with it

we think of it almost like a bubble like

a bubble floats up and we just let it

float away

and we go back to our mantra

so in the case of listening to music the

music would function as the Mantra and

if a thought popped up

I would try using the practice what I

learned through the practice of

meditation of letting the thoughts just

not engage not push them away but not

engage

so that I can really be with whatever's

happening

tell me about what you call the vessel

and the filter

the vessel is the part of us that holds

everything that we've seen over the

course of our lives and the vessel

contains things that we collect

and things that get in there without us

knowing so we may have uh learned a

lesson from a teacher or an adult When

We Were Young and that got stored in the

vessel

and it may be accurate and it may be not

accurate and what's in us or what stuck

in us uh there are definitely the things

that we've collected that we loved

everything we love is in the vessel but

there's also a bunch of stuff that that

just got in there through living life

and the filter is

when things are coming from the outside

world

how we interpret them and how we see

them that's our filter so we can

experience the same thing and have a

very different reaction to the thing

that we see I'll tell you story this is

interesting I'm thinking about this

because I'm currently listening to

Quentin Tarantino's new book which I

love and he talks a lot about very

violent movies and I tend not to like

violent movies

and it reminded me

I was living in Boston in the summer

between my Junior and senior years

of high school

and I went to a movie theater in the

Harvard Yard there was a midnight movie

a lot of kids were going and

I thought okay I'll go but I had no I I

never liked horror movies or anything

like that and the movie started

and the in the very first scene

you see a person who's a zombie but he's

a person

through the scope of a rifle

and then you see this person's head

explode

and it was horrible it made me nauseous

seeing this

and I'm in a theater full of other young

people all pretty much all my age who

jumped up and screamed

like Yay like like they were seeing

what they came to see

and then over the course of the movie

this happened thousands of times

and over the course of the movie my

sensitization of it making me nauseous

by the end of the movie it didn't make

me nauseous anymore not because it

wasn't disgusting

but the way humans are I imagine is the

way it is for people who go to war

you find a way to compensate or uh

calibrate yourself

to this is how it is now

and this is a not that it's okay but

that somehow

we adapt we adapt to this new condition

and I remember thinking after seeing

this movie it's like I don't feel like

this is good I don't want to be adapted

to seeing people's heads blow up and

feeling like it's okay to cheer that's

it's wild it was just such a surreal

moment

so my filter rejected that first uh

atrocity seeing that atrocity on yet

everyone else in the theater through

their filter that was that was what

action was that's what excitement was

that was an adrenalizing experience

and I can't say mine's right and there's

wrong and that different experiences are

filled around the world because we were

all watching the same movie but how it

affected us was different

I'm interested to hear that story of

your youth because it conflicts with a

suspicion I had about you okay so I was

looking over all the work you've

produced or all the work that I could

find that you produce to prepare for

this

and one thing I I noticed was that early

in your career you know the first 10 15

20 years of production

the work you were attracted to or seemed

to be working on was was really quite

aggressive it was more aggressive forms

of rap and hip-hop and metal it was a

lot of production of Andrew Dice Clay's

stand-up albums and there are a lot of

issues with Andrew Dice Clay but one

thing I think everybody can agree on is

he's got a very aggressive form of

comedy and that seems a lot less true

for your recent Productions and and your

book is very notably gentle and your

demeanor is very notably gentle

so I was going to ask you if you felt

that your filter your taste your your

temperament had changed in that way

but it sounds like there's something uh

there at the beginning too in terms of

what you did and didn't like so tell me

what I'm seeing there and the shift of

what you've worked on

I think it's just more a question of

what's going on in the culture and age

those two things are playing a role in

it I like outlaw

elements I like things that seem like

they go too far I've always liked that I

still like that I like being shocked I

like the extremes but maybe now I might

like the extreme in a very quiet way

instead of in a very loud way but I

think that might just be a function of

age I still am capable of

finding the aggression in a piece of

music and helping support that

and maybe when I was younger I don't

know if I would have been as good at the

more delicate side of things

um I don't know

but I think the the

my taste is the same

I just probably spend more time

in a mellower world but then again I've

been meditating since I was 14.

if I always seek peace in my life I like

to be by myself

I like to be in quiet spaces

I've always lived a bit of a monk like

life

even when you know producing very

aggressive music

what's a work you find

moving or interesting

for

the extremeness of its quiet

first one that comes up there's a song

we did with the Chili Peppers that was

so delicate and quiet and beautiful but

one of the techniques that has appeared

in the studio

is um

if we're looking for a very very quiet

delicate performance making the

headphones that the musicians are

hearing very loud

so loud that if they play at normal

level it's deafening

and it forces everyone to play so

delicately like almost as if um you know

you just touch a guitar string and it's

really loud

it creates a whole different feeling

you can make a louder guitar sound quiet

based on turning a fader down or you can

make a quiet guitar sound loud based on

turn your fader up

but when someone's playing very very

delicately and you might get well and

you can hear it loud but you can feel

the uh touch being so careful

it creates an energy that's really

beautiful to hear

so you look back early in your career

and you're a producer of a really

remarkable series of hip-hop recordings

you you co-founded Def Jam recordings

when the early hip-hop record labels

and then there's this period when you

begin to expand and among other things

you begin working with Johnny Cash on

these really now legendary recordings

the American recordings but at that

point his career really stalled so when

you walked into that studio and you

began talking to him what did you see

there what did you think was there that

you were trying to bring out

well we'll start with I worked on

hip-hop music then I worked on other

kinds of music I worked on heavy metal

rock music I don't think I've done

anything within the country genre

but I'm doing the same thing in all the

cases and it has very little to do with

what kind of music it is has more to do

with just how it feels

and after having success doing hip-hop

and hard rock and heavy metal

I realized most of the artists I worked

with were young almost all of them

almost all of them it was their first

project maybe their second project

so I had this thought

because I've only worked with young

artists what would it be like to work

with a grown-up artist I wonder if

whatever this is that we're doing would

work with a grown-up artist

and I thought about who's the grown-up

artist

who

has the potential to be great or who has

been great over the course of their life

but maybe isn't doing their best work

now and that was a key to it because it

wasn't finding someone

who was doing the best work of their

lives and working with them on more of

that it really was a who's someone who's

proven that they could do it

but who hasn't been doing it for a long

time

and the first person I thought of was

Johnny Cash and it had nothing to do

with him being a country artist had

nothing to do it had to do with him

being in my mind an iconic figure

and someone whose best work I think

everyone would say including him was

long behind him

so it was more of an experiment

and as you walked into that room though

what did you see in him I mean beyond

that his best work had been behind him

when you met him and you tried to open

yourself to what he was and what he

could be

what was it you

notice and then how did you

guide him there if that's how you would

describe what you did

um I felt a very deep Soulful human

being

he seemed like

someone who had essentially given up on

themselves

he was a huge star on Sun Records along

with Elvis Presley

then in the 70s he was the biggest

artist on Columbia Records and then

over time got dropped by that label

she was playing at dinner theaters

and I don't think he thought of himself

seriously as a current recording artist

I think he saw himself as someone who's

pass their Prime and now was

getting to sing the old songs in front

of the audience who's interested

and we met at a dinner theater in Orange

County I watched his show and I thought

he sang great and I thought it was a

great experience other than the sadness

of seeing this iconic figure singing you

know in a room of maybe 150 or 200

people who were eating dinner

as he's singing I was curious to know

what would

a great new Johnny Cash album sound like

and I had no idea what that was

and usually with the artists I work with

I have no idea going in what it's going

to be

and I met him backstage and I liked him

very much and we didn't speak very much

we sat together for a while but I would

say he's quiet and shy I'm quiet and shy

and we just were in each other's

presence for a while said a few words to

each other

but I would say there was some sense of

connection

and he may have said

so I understand you want to record me

and I said yes and he said well why

would you want to do that or what would

you do different than anyone else has

done

and I said

I really don't know I I'd be curious to

see what happens if we

got together and you just sang me songs

on acoustic guitar and

played songs for me that you like over

the course of your life to give me an

idea of who you are like so I understand

your taste and then once we do that

we'll figure out what to try to do

and um

he agreed to do it but he didn't agree

to do it enthusiastically

it was more of a

why does this person it's funny you say

he didn't know who I was

like why is this guy

want to work with me does it make sense

so he thought if I cared enough to want

to do it

he would

see where it went but with zero

expectations

and then we did that and he would start

coming to my house

and um we would he would sit on the

couch and he'd play me songs on with on

his guitar and they were I learned so

much from him because he had this wealth

of history of Music he knew so many

songs he didn't know many modern songs

but he knew songs from the past and he

knew songs from

his childhood or from before he was born

that I'd never heard before and he would

sing me these beautiful songs

and I recorded the songs not with the

idea of anyone ever hearing them I

recorded them more as a reference the

same way that we make notes in the

studio it's like I'll record these songs

so that we have a reference of all the

songs that you play me and then if

there's a question between which songs

to do we could listen back and decide if

you know comes down to choosing between

two songs we could listen to the

original time that you played them for

me and decide what to do

so it was purely to document the

experience for us

and we did this over time over and over

again

and then it got to where we had okay

here's a handful of songs that we think

it's time to record and then we booked

studio time and went in with different

musicians and we did this several times

with different musicians great musicians

and over time it became clear to me

that none of the experiments we did

were better than what happened on the

couch

and that actually

the solo acoustic performance on the

couch was the most interesting thing

that happened even though when it was

happening

I had no idea that it would ever be a

record I just thought we're looking for

songs this is just part of the process

to find the songs

and then I remember calling them and

saying I feel like these are like

listening back this is the most

interesting stuff what do you think he's

like well it makes me nervous but I've

always wanted to do like a late and

alone kind of album but I never had the

confidence to do it but listening to

these if you think these are better than

when the band's playing

I'm willing to try what you want to do

and that was how it happened and then

and then we did a show at The Viper Room

which was a club owned by Johnny Depp

and Johnny Depp brought Johnny Cash Out

on stage and it was beautiful and I

don't know if it holds 100 people 120

people tiny Club

and the house was packed with musicians

and

um

people who just love Johnny Cash and

this was sort of a loud Rowdy Club if

you've ever been to this club it's kind

of a loud it's has a bar and um and they

usually have loud music and it was kind

of a loud rock and roll Club

and from the moment Johnny Cash stepped

on stage

you could hear a pin drop in the room it

was dead silent in the room

and Johnny started playing the first

song

and I could tell he was uncomfortable

and Afraid and he told me he's

uncomfortable and afraid every show

every show with his band has been over

the course of his life

terrified would sometimes throw up

before shows even after doing it for 50

years

and here was the first time he was ever

doing it solo

came out solo there once was a man

he couldn't cry

[Music]

he hadn't cried for years and for years

after by about the third song he got in

the groove and just was feeling

comfortable and the love after every

song even the first where he was

uncomfortable the love in the audience

was so profound

and the cheers were so strong that I

think the acceptance of the people in

the room

gave him the confidence to continue the

show

and it was a beautiful beautiful moment

and I think after that show

he was convinced

for himself that maybe this is okay to

put this out as a record

[Music]

my life

just because we went into the studio

with great musicians we went into studio

with members of the Chili Peppers

amazing musicians

if that's not better than Johnny by

himself why would we put out the one

that's not the best one that we have

even if it's not what we thought it was

going to be

that story reminded me actually of a way

very indirectly influenced the music

I've listened to over the past couple of

years because I listened to an interview

you did with Andre 3000 who I Revere

and you asked him what he was listening

to

and he said he was listening to Steve

Reich who I knew nothing about but is

one of the great minimalist composers of

uh I mean he's still working today but

of the 20th century

and he said that he was listening to him

that Andre 3000 said he was listening to

him because he'd been more interested in

music recently that created space in

which he could think

and I immediately thought well anybody

he's listening to and describing the way

I want to listen to and it has kind of

sent me on a whole different musical

journey and I've gone to see Steve Reich

Music Live and I really really adore his

work but I'm curious about that idea of

music that

create space in which you think and how

you approach that

it's interesting because Steve Rec is a

great example of extreme music and when

you're

15 years old

maybe the extreme music that speaks to

you is Slayer

and when you're 40 years old the extreme

music that speaks to you is Steve Wright

it's a great way of putting that yeah

explain what's extreme about him it's

very repetitive

in a way you could say it's non-musical

it seems to be more almost

algorithmic even though it's not

it's like hearing a cycle over and over

and over again

sometimes overlapping with another of a

similar cycle

sometimes changing

in very small ways and they could be

very long pieces and often the

instrumentation is interesting might be

a group of players playing just uh

percussion instruments or the

instrumentation seems to often be as

interesting as composition itself

well one thing that always strikes me

about his music is that he's able to

make human beings sound like machines

like when I think of pulses which is one

of his great works

I always describe it to people that it's

like being inside an air conditioner in

a really good way yeah but it has this

remarkable quality of

I've now seen it live so I really know

that it's done

by instrumentation

but it is the most machine sounding

music I've ever heard much more so than

most electronic music

and that transmutation of people into as

you put it something that feels

mechanical algorithmic

but still beautiful it's a really quite

remarkable

production

his music is very beautiful what's

beautiful about it is

when we think of classical music

classical music is written and performed

in a very structured way

was jazz music might be rooted in the

same

elements it might use the same language

of classical at times but it's often

played in a more free improvisational

way there's very little improvisation In

classical music it doesn't really work

in classical music to have improvisation

and I'm going to send you

an album that I love because I've never

heard anything like it before where it

feels rooted in classical music

but it's as loose and improvisational as

Jazz it sparked something in my mind

it's um from the album music for

wobbling

music versus gravity

FS Blum and Nils from this is the first

track

[Music]

foreign

[Music]

[Music]

foreign

[Music]

so tell me what moves you or captures

you in that

well it breaks

my understanding of genre so there's

clearly you hear that the sophistication

of the playing

where it's classically trained music

by a classically trained player

and whenever I hear classically trained

music by a classically trained player it

stays on one course

and this starts like that and then it

feels more like a jazz improvisation

and I've never heard classical music

looking for the next idea allowing the

next thing to unfold allowing the

improvisation to happen and then all of

a sudden something happens it seems

electronic there's an electronic

Intervention which is completely

unexpected in this acoustic

classical framing

that takes it to a whole other place and

the whole album It's soothing to me and

creates a question in my mind I always

want to know what's going to happen next

it forces me to pay attention because it

breaks all of the conventions that I've

grown to understand to be the way it

always works so this is different than

all the other ones like it it's

thrilling to me

so it reminds me of something in your

book about the relationship between

imperfection and Perfection because one

thing I hear when I listen to that so I

love Neil fromm's music

and one thing about a lot of it is it is

gentle and perfect and the sounds are

very rich and he manipulates pianos in a

remarkable way

and on that particular song he and and

the other artist there's a distinct

imperfection that there's something

they're doing there with the instruments

that is making them sound off that is

making them sound jarring that is almost

like it is Miss striking in the chord

that forces a lot of attention but but

I'm curious how you how you hear that

because in a way I feel like that

songs built not to be soothing

it's soothing based on the

instrumentation and then those mistakes

or those seeming mistakes

force you to pay attention they

re-engage you again sometimes it's the

mistake that re-engages you sometimes

it's the change in Direction there are

musical Direction changes that are not

always expected because I don't know I'm

not sure that these pieces were composed

or if they're improvised I'm imagining

they're improvised but I don't know

that's another thing that I love about

it is hearing it I'm not sure how this

was made

and I know that you could listen to this

piece and learn this piece and play it

back with the mistakes and that's how

that piece would go

and that you know someone like John Cage

would have the mistakes in if there were

mistakes those would be part of the

piece

and it would be written out with those

clunks in there again I don't know how

it was made but I love it I love it and

it makes me want to listen more it makes

me want to know what's going and I'm I'm

always I never fall into the pattern of

it it never gets old it's always new

I think it's a really lovely Bridge

to another section and very important

section to me of your book

which is alongside the openness you have

quite a bit

on developing taste developing

discernment developing judgment

you talk about what it takes to quote

level up your taste one of the

opportunities for developing Pace right

now but also one of the difficulties

with it

is the unbelievable abundance of what

you can absorb right you can at any

moment really have access to a lot of

the best art Humanity has ever produced

in a way that definitely was not true

for me when I was sitting in my room

when I was 14.

on the other hand there is this

unbelievable flattening this this

overwhelming this everything is the same

everything is just another line on a

screen everything is just another uh

entry in the playlist

so so yeah what does it mean to develop

taste what is if you wanted to spend six

months a year leveling up your taste how

do you go about that

I would seek out whatever is considered

the greatest works in history in

whatever area you're in and maybe maybe

Beyond whatever area you're in I

listened to

um a beautiful podcast called

um

poetry Unbound right here beautiful

poetry every week I love that podcast if

you're a filmmaker studying painting is

not a bad idea if you're a musician

studying filmmaking or or films is not a

bad idea I mean so many great great

songs were written about great movies

over the course of Our Lives I probably

watch more old movies there's a um

the two places that I find the movies I

watch are the Criterion Collection app

which is fantastic and mubi mubi that

are mostly Art House movies the most

beautiful movies in the world

the inspiration can come from any

direction

seeing great works of architecture

traveling to see them not just looking

at pictures of paintings on your laptop

but going to the museum and getting up

close and seeing how the paint was

applied

seeing the thickness of the paint on the

canvas

so many things don't translate I would

say um

if you see a Sunset and it takes your

breath away and if you take a photograph

of it the photograph doesn't have that

same quality

and that's true with looking at art

online we could we can get a sense of it

but you don't really

see Guernica

when you look at a photograph in a small

image

of this giant magnificent painting

go outside of your

normal

taste in music and maybe do a deep dive

into the historically greatest country

albums ever made or country songs ever

made or the historically greatest

Jazz recordings if you're if you've

never really listened to Jazz

and listen enough and when I we talked

earlier about

it's hard to stay with something if you

don't like it but if you know that

something's in the Canon of stood the

test of time for the last 50 years this

is considered the best in this genre

it's a genre I don't understand but I'm

interested in in folk music going deep

into folk music

I've gone through phases where

I listen to one kind of music for a

really long time and then I move on to a

new phase

at the moment I'm interested in um

I don't know if you would call it

Moroccan or maybe it's Arabic music but

a traditional

Arabic Spiritual music

I heard it on the on a radio several

years ago there was a radio station in a

in a country that I was in and I heard

this incredible music that was unlike

anything I've ever heard before because

it sounded like folk music

but it was from a different place

it was in language I didn't understand

it was from a different place and it was

so beautiful

and since then I've been searching for

more of that

um this also interesting a great app

called radio whoa whoa whoa whoa

radio radio it's the word radio but with

a lot of O's radio and that shows a map

of the world a globe and you can pick

any country in the world

and you could pick any decade

so you can say

uh Spain 1940s

and you'll hear what was playing on the

radio in Spain in the 1940s

or Russia in the 1970s

it's wild it's like being in a time

machine where you're showing up at these

places and turning on a car radio that's

what it feels like to me like it's truly

transported to another dimension

listening to this I find it very

inspiring and it's fun just to hunt

around the world and to pick decades and

move what's it like in the 90s and then

what was it like in the 1930s

and maybe even chart the progress

through the different decades in the

different places it's so cool and how

different two countries next to each

other let's say Italy and France how

radically different the music on the

radio in those two places were even

though you could drive right over the

line and be right there it's that close

it's a radical fun trip and opens your

mind to possibilities really uh it makes

me excited about music again when I when

I play with that

you write about leveling up your taste

quote this applies to every choice we

make not just with art but with the

friends we choose the conversations we

have even the thoughts we reflect on

all of these aspects affect our ability

to distinguish the good from the very

good very good from great

give me some examples of what you mean

by that

yeah that's heavy yeah different points

in your life

we have relationships with people or

friendships with people that make sense

at that point in our lives and we're

seeing the world in somewhat of a

similar way

and over time we might find they grow in

a way that we don't or we grow in a way

that they don't and and also sometimes

the opposite is true too I will say

sometimes having people around you who

have very different ideas is really

helpful and more true to what it's like

being in the world and I'm suggesting

pay attention to your network of friends

the things that you read

everything that you take in

what you watch

are you being true to yourself today

are you being true to who you were

when that relationship started or when

that interest started

I'll tell you honestly at the time that

the formation of hip-hop the early days

of hip-hop

I listened pretty exclusively to hip-hop

music for a long time

I grew out of my hip-hop phase and now I

listen to hip-hop when either someone

recommends something great or I come

across something just out in the world

that that excites me and engages me and

gets me back interested for a period of

time

but I don't listen to hip-hop music all

the time but I spent a lot of my life

listening to hip-hop music I don't

listen to new heavy metal you know I

listen to that at a certain point in my

life

and I continue to allow

whatever is interesting to me in that

moment

and whatever's interesting to me in the

moment usually has other

things with it it may impact what I'm

reading it may impact the people I'm

talking to

I try my best

to stay true

to who I am in the world today

and

doing my best to support who that is

and when I change those things change

and I may go very deeply into something

for a while and then grow out of it and

then move on to something new and as a

creative person having those different

chapters in my life they all bring

something all of that is in the vessel

do you know what I'm saying it's like

while I don't listen to the same

aggressive music I used to listen to I

have a whole vocabulary of aggressive

music in me that's never going to go

away

[Music]

[Music]

one thing you talk about in that section

on taste

and I found this really beautiful is you

have this emphasis on nature as a place

to develop a deeper appreciation of

beauty

and you write quote of all the great

works that we can experience nature is

the most absolute and enduring say more

well it seems to me

that all man-made art

is

a reflection back

to our first

energetic feelings of what's stimulating

to us so our mother's face when we're an

infant our mother's face is the first

thing that we recognize and that's the

first thing that's we're connected to

and then it might be a family it might

be the home that we grow up in it

consistently broadens out

over time

and nature is the one

where you know the first time you see

the ocean

paying attention to the stars at night

if you live in a place that's flat the

first time you get to see mountains

if you live in a mountain range the

first time you get to see planes

all of these things that

from our experience seem like this is

how it always is I grew up I grew up in

a small Beach Community it was flat

and

the world that I grew up in it was a

small town

[Music]

the ocean was on one side of the little

island six blocks away the bay was on

the other side of the little island

there was a boardwalk

when I would go to Manhattan

it was mind-blowing to me the difference

between what Manhattan was like and what

the place that I lived in was like down

at the place I was born in was like

and

experiencing those changes the thing

that ultimately led to me

feeling less comfortable staying in New

York after imagining this is the place

I'm going to live my whole life it was

my dream to live in New York

had to do with nature I found that

spending my life looking up at the sky

and seeing a small sliver of Sky between

two buildings

wasn't satisfying to me after I don't

know Seven Ten Years however many years

it was

I felt like I need to see the Horizon I

need to see the Horizon every day

I can't just look between buildings

doesn't feel right to me I need the

horizon

one thing I've noticed is that when

artists seem blocked

novelists painters and and musicians in

particular

it's a very common move to DeCamp to

somewhere more natural for a period of

time to do their work out of a Hut in

rural Vermont can you tell me about an

example where you saw that that move to

Nature have a profound effect on the

direction of someone's work

I'll say what's interesting about that

is that I think

the Magic in those things is the move

more than the move to Nature

the idea of changing your life for a

period of time

going to a new environment

experiencing a different way of living

has to impact your work it has to unlock

something there are new things to notice

there are new feelings to be had and it

could be if you're a city dweller going

to Nature can unlock you and if you live

in nature going to a city can unlock you

I think the idea of going somewhere to

make something

it takes you out of your daily life it

takes you out of

the responsibilities of your life

when you go to a remote place to focus

on work

all there is is that work

and it can help an artist really get in

tune with themselves I can I can tell

you one from personal experience where

it ended up

uh not negatively impacting the work but

causing a bit of an explosion when

Trent rezner had finished I think he had

finished the downward spiral album

and we talked about maybe working

together and he was very much in it

and I suggested that he rent a house in

Big Sur and go live in Big Sur

and see what happens there because it's

a different kind of a place

and for him

at that time

in his mental state

it it did the opposite of what was hoped

and he felt uh again I've not really

talked to him about this because he kind

of vanished after this for a while

but he went inside of himself and then

started I believe drinking

and

kind of went stir crazy and it didn't

lead to uh the result the hoped results

in the in that case

so it really does have to do with the

person and the timing and there's not a

a one one remedy for all it's like we

all do have to find our own way and find

our own path and I suggest often in the

book is

try to open yourself to it another way

than the way that you think is the way

and see just experiment if you're used

to working dark work light if you're

used to working loud work soft if you're

used to working high workload whatever

it is

see see what happens on the other end of

the Seesaw and even if all it yields is

you getting better at being on the side

you're always on that's fine

you'll know more you'll get a new

perspective

I think this speaks very deeply to your

perception of the Artist as a contextual

creature as a translating

person

I grew up in Southern California in

Irvine

and then I went as a political

journalist to Washington DC and I lived

there for for 14 years

and then I moved to the Bay Area about

four-ish years ago

and my work changed much more in that

move than I expected it to I Knew

California I went to college at UC Santa

Cruz

I I just thought it was a place I liked

and you know I lived in urban

environments this whole time right I

didn't live out in you know rural

California or out in Big Sur

and the amount of difference in what I

think about and how I see things and

what feels resonant to me

was really big even though I would not

think of Washington DC and Bay Area

California as dramatically different

places but they're different enough

that the signal I was pulling in became

very different and then what I began

putting out and I'm not you know a lot

of it I would not classify as art it's

reporting and Analysis and other things

but but it really became quite different

it's been a quite profound lesson to me

tell me more about the differences both

in your work and the places what you was

it was it difference in

the community or was it different in the

place what tell me everything

both

both

so for me it began we actually took a

before we made this move we took a

10-week book leave in Half Moon Bay not

actually that far from from Big Sur

and I thought that was going to be a

very quiet period and this little Hut

near the beach and I was really struck

by how expansive it was with so much

less to do because spatially I wasn't

near a lot to do

and I didn't know anybody in Half Moon

Bay and it's a bit of a hike to get into

the city into SF

the quiet and I didn't have kids at this

point so it was a little bit different

the quiet uh was I had almost never felt

bigger when I expected to feel very

small so that was one pretty

transformational

period and that led to the actual move

which we didn't live in Half Moon Bay we

lived in in Oakland and then in San

Francisco

and

I mean among other things to talk about

the political side of my work maybe

the problems of California are different

than the problems of national politics

you're dealing here with a state run by

democrats you have to focus in on what

is not going well in Democratic

governance you've netted out a lot of

Republican influence and so

where that is the cause for me in my

view of a lot of problems at the

national level that's really not the

cause of the main problems at the

California level so you have to begin

thinking about a different set of

Dynamics and players and problems and

and my work is profoundly shifted off of

that

and then what people think about and

take seriously

in the Bay Area is just different I mean

I do think there there is now and has

been for a long time people call it the

California ideology or

um California Consciousness or

but but there is a tilted axis of more

interest in things like meditation and

psychedelics and Technology

and this sort of weird

Locus

of things that affect consciousness

that is just much more constantly