you've worked, corresponded, known so

many just fascinating people, people

admire that I want to see if you'd be up

for me just reading a few names. Not a

lightning round. You can you can answer

at whatever length you would like, but

you just tell me

>> sort of, you know, something

inspiration, an insight, something that

that you took from that person if you'd

be up for it.

>> Sure. Yes.

>> Let me start just with the composer,

John Cage.

Cage. I think the thing that really

impressed me about Cage was not his

music, which I didn't particularly care

for after the 1940s,

um, but his idea that being a composer

was a kind of a practice in the sense of

a a religious or a spiritual or a

philosophical practice. And I thought

that's the kind of artist I want to be.

I I want to have a practice. I want

there to be resonances into other parts

of my thinking. I don't want it to just

be something that I do on the weekends

and then forget about. So Cage Cage with

his book Silence was very important for

me. That came along at just the right

time for me. David Bowie,

uh, one of the most

committed artists I've ever worked with

in the sense that he

he really thought about what he was

doing. Um,

just to tell you a short story. Um, I

remember being in the studio with him

doing he was doing a vocal on one of the

songs. I can't remember the song, but so

he he does the vocal and he comes back

into the control room and said,

listening back to it, he says, "It's a

bit lumberjack, isn't it?" [snorts] And

I knew exactly what he meant. And he

said, "I think the guy should sound a

little bit more nervous, like he's

working in an office, and he hasn't been

there very long and doesn't quite know

how you're supposed to behave in the

office." Then he goes back out and does

this other vocal and suddenly you hear

the the transition from this confident,

strong, hairy, macho guy to somebody

who's a little bit timid and has kind of

doesn't quite know whether he should be

saying the things he's saying. Um, and

seeing him fine-tune that was was very

impressive. Steve Reich.

>> Well, Steve Reich was a very important

part of my listening because he made a

piece called It's Going to Rain that

opened a door for me.

[laughter]

And the door it opened was not just to

do with the way in which he made it

which was itself very impressive. Um

using an absolute minimum of material 8

seconds of material I think it was that

piece works

by making your brain behave in a certain

way. So I suddenly thought then, oh, the

composer isn't just Steve Reich. It's

Steve Reich and my brain that's making

this composition what it is. And that

thought never left me that you actually

are engaging the the technology of the

listener's brain to complete the piece.

They're not passive.

>> Listening to his music completely

changed my relationship with music. I

think it it it's like powerwashing your

own mind.

>> Yeah. [laughter]

like to really sit through it. It It's

as psychedelic as any um as I think any

drug out there. It really does. It It's

so rhythmic and it forces your brain to

adjust to it in a way that feels like

when you come out the other end of it.

>> Yes.

>> Some sort of reprogramming has happened.

>> Yes. Yes. Certainly that that definitely

happened with me. I I can definitely say

from the moment I heard it's Going to

Rain, music was a different thing. Lori

Anderson.

>> Oh, such a sweet friend. Um,

probably the hardest working artist I

know. She absolutely never stops and she

is always working on half a dozen

projects in 10 different parts of the

world. Um,

and I think she's the only person I know

who can

fly all night,

not sleep, come straight into a meeting

and be absolutely there. She's she's

remarkably lowmaintenance person. She's

she's always there uh and always sharp.

>> And Stuart Brand.

Well, these these all these people

you're naming are people who had a huge

impact on me. Um Stuart

was in the army during I guess it was

the time of career or just afterwards.

Yes, just after career I guess he was in

the army and I I don't think he was ever

ashamed of being in the army. He I think

he enjoyed it. Um and he left the army

and became a hippie. became one of the

sort of foundational hippies around

Timothy Liry and Ken Keezy and that

group of people. And he's always been a

very big thinker and a very long-term

thinker. And one of his earliest

thoughts was

if people on Earth could see a picture

of the Earth from the moon, it would

change our consciousness of the Earth.

a thought he had sitting on a roof while

on acid if I remember the story

correctly.

>> Yes, that's absolutely true. Yes. Um

acid does produce good b good results in

some people [laughter] not not in me

unfortunately.

Um so so Stuart sort of gave birth to

this idea I think that if we could show

the world from the outside if we

realized

what this tiny what an amazing

extraordinary unique gift it was this

tiny little planet teameming with life

swimming around in a dead universe as

far as we know. We still don't know that

there's any other life in the universe,

which is phenomenal if you think about

it. We still don't know. We might be the

only life in the universe. I I think

about that nearly every day. I think

it's the most sobering thought. I think

uh that should be shouted from the

rooftops every day. That's my my version

of seeing the whole earth from space is

getting people to understand that we

might be the only life.

It might all be on this one place. And

bloody hell, shouldn't we look after it

a bit better then? Those those things

make me constantly think and constantly

be sort of grateful for the fact that

I'm alive. Um I remember reading this

comment from a New York taxi driver.

He's driving the taxi and he says, he

turns to the customer. He says, "Oh,

life. I'm so glad I got in."

I just love that the idea that it's like

a an amazing show at a theater and you

manage to get a ticket to see it. Um I I

appreciate that kind of gratitude.