{"slug":"rick-rubin-finding-your-life-s-work","show_id":"davidsenra","title":"Rick Rubin on Finding Your Life’s Work","display_title":null,"title_orig":"Rick Rubin × David Senra","dek":"Rick Rubin’s Def Jam began by capturing a club’s authentic hip-hop energy while professionals made a “Hollywood version,” and T La Rock’s “It’s Yours” sold 100,000 copies over 18 months despite never reaching radio. His repeatable edge is ruthless reduction—cutting 100% to 40%, then rebuilding to 70%—while preserving each artist’s essence, making disciplined editing, fit-for-purpose governance, and continued creative output the key variables to monitor.","lang":"EN","date":"2026-05-24","published_at":"2026-05-24T12:00:45+00:00","duration_min":84,"source_url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6MEDOY7tHo","source_label":"YouTube","rss_url":null,"youtube_id":"g6MEDOY7tHo","youtube_url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6MEDOY7tHo","thumbnail_url":null,"chips":["person:Rick Rubin","person:David Senra"],"provenance":[["SOURCE","YouTube captions"],["SYNTH","claude-fable-5"],["CLEAN","gpt-5.6-luna"],["VERIFY","gpt-5.6-luna"],["PARTICIPANTS","gpt-5.6-luna"],["TRANSLATE","gpt-5.6-luna"]],"title_alt":"Rick Rubin谈如何找到毕生事业","display_title_alt":null,"dek_alt":"Rick Rubin早期通过捕捉俱乐部真实的嘻哈能量，切入专业人士尚未听见的市场；T La Rock的《It's Yours》在18个月内卖出约10万张，尽管这种音乐不可能上电台。他的可复制优势在于无情精简：先从100%砍到40%，再加回70%，同时保留艺术家本质；持续产出、治理方式与筛选纪律，是这套创作系统能否延续的关键。","lang_alt":"ZH","tldr_md":"- **Rubin's core creative law — less is more, but to get less you have to do more — is the through-line of the whole conversation.** Stack ten things and \"each one of them is one-tenth as important as one by itself\"; a doubled and tripled wall of guitars means \"you hear guitar, but you don't hear someone playing guitar.\" The few things that remain must be ruthlessly curated \"because they're doing the work of everything, and nothing is hidden.\"\n- **Def Jam began as an authenticity arbitrage: the market's hip-hop 12-inches were made by outside professionals producing \"the Hollywood version,\" while the real product lived in one downtown club one night a week.** Rubin's first record, T La Rock's \"It's Yours,\" simply tried to \"capture the energy of the club on record\"; his amateurism was the edge, and it sold ~100,000 copies over 18 months in music that would never be on the radio. At the time \"there was no upside. There was no thinking that anybody else is going to like this.\"\n- **His editing method is a repeatable process, not taste alone: if you have 100% and want 70%, force yourself down to 40% and add back.** With Red Hot Chili Peppers that means recording 40-50 songs and voting A/B/C, with songs everyone picks as A making the album — \"you have a better understanding of the work after the ruthless edit.\" Find \"the ones you can't live without, however few it is, and build from there.\"\n- **The most self-revealing admission: \"I'm a lazy workaholic...** My demeanor would be to do nothing.\" Rubin says he must force himself to show up and is addicted to the moment of magic — \"it's not good, it's not good... oh my god, it's good\" — which then must be protected \"because it's super delicate.\" His working model is fishing: you can spend a whole day without catching anything, but \"if you don't show up, it won't happen.\"\n- **Senra's diagnosis of why Tetragrammaton works — Rubin is a \"professional listener\" — Rubin fully accepts.** Deep listening to music (\"totally a psychedelic experience,\" which he says may have allowed him never to drink or take drugs) trained a stance of understanding without judgment: \"What I think is not part of it. I just want to truly understand.\" The podcast grew out of a three-hour conversation with Dana White.\n- **On structure: \"great things can't be made by a committee\" — but there's no single right governance model.** The Beatles and Jagger/Richards ran on opposition, Tom Petty was the flag bearer with final word, U2 requires unanimity; likewise Jay-Z records entire performances from his head after 25 minutes on a couch while Eminem \"will work on a song forever.\" Both amazing, different operating systems.\n- **The longevity formula, after decades watching genius implode: meditation since youth plus \"I know it's not me...** I'm in the service of it.\" Rubin agrees with Jimmy Iovine's four pitfalls — drugs, alcohol, women, megalomania — adding that megalomania and impostor dread are \"two sides of the same coin,\" the boast a mask for insecurity. The life's-work test he leaves Senra with: build the house on the mountain no one will ever see — and \"if you truly love what you do, they couldn't pay you to stop.\"\n","digest_md":"### 1. Less is more — but you have to do more to get less\n- Rubin's arithmetic, the idea Senra says he thinks about weekly: stack ten things and \"each one of them is one-tenth as important as one by itself.\" With fewer elements, each must be \"really critically curated, because they're doing the work of everything, and nothing is hidden\" — which is why \"it's not as easy as it sounds to do less.\"\n- The guitar example as told: double and triple a part into a wall and \"you hear guitar, but you don't hear someone playing guitar... It becomes more generic.\" One player, fingers audible on strings, \"it's more human.\" What he hunts for: \"the singular essence shows through.\"\n- On the volume behind great work, Rubin says he never considered the work involved because it was \"a mission and a love\"; the fact that it took a lot of work \"wasn't even in consideration at all.\"\n\n### 2. Def Jam was an arbitrage on a scene the professionals couldn't hear\n- The market circa his NYU dorm years: hip-hop lived in one downtown club, once a week, plus Bronx and Brooklyn community centers; a new 12-inch single every two or three weeks, no albums. It was \"street music\" that non-fans \"didn't even acknowledge as music\" — \"the same thing with Elvis and rock and roll.\"\n- The gap: those singles were made by professionals from other genres — \"an outsider with experience was making what they thought hip-hop was... the Hollywood version.\" Rubin's first record, T La Rock's \"It's Yours,\" aimed only to \"capture the energy of the club on record,\" and \"the fact that I didn't know what I was doing allowed it to be true to what hip-hop was.\" It sold ~100,000 over 18 months in music that would never be on the radio.\n- On expectations: Senra cites Jay-Z, a decade later, knowing hip-hop \"was going to get a lot bigger before it goes away.\" Rubin, a decade earlier: \"I would not have said it'll ever get big... There was no upside.\" He also assumed music could never be a job — no one in his family was an artist; he planned to work a regular job and make music anyway.\n- His research habit was already in place: hear MC5, go to the used-record store, get pointed to Iggy and The Stooges — always chasing either music like what he loved or the music that inspired it, the same way Senra mines biography bibliographies.\n\n### 3. \"Reduced by Rick Rubin\": Beatles structure applied to notebook rhymes\n- The famous credit on LL Cool J's first record (dorm-room address printed on the sleeve): \"I thought the word ['produced'] meant to build up... and really, what I was doing was taking apart and reducing.\" Coined at 18-19, and he's held to it since.\n- Pre-Def Jam rap records weren't songs — \"somebody would start rapping... and then finish,\" a monologue \"like Jamaican toasting.\" LL brought notebooks of lyrics in no order; Rubin, whose whole understanding of music is based on The Beatles — \"the greatest songwriters ever,\" with \"really organized and tight\" structures — applied song form: hooks, repeated phrases, structure.\n- Four decades on, the job is \"probably not so different\": find each artist's essence, which \"tends to be stripped down, but it's stripped down to what they are.\" The just-finished Strokes album: \"they're a band of five people. So, it sounds like a band of five people... It sounds like what they are.\"\n\n### 4. The ruthless edit: cut to 40% to earn your way back to 70%\n- The method: if you have 100% and know you want 70%, don't whittle off the 30% — \"force yourself to get to 40%, and then add back what's needed to get to the 70%... You have a better understanding of the work after the ruthless edit.\" Sometimes that means \"removing things about it that you really love.\"\n- The Chili Peppers implementation: record 40-50 songs per album, everyone votes A/B/C; unanimous A's make the record, divided songs might not — \"a democratic process until we get down to what does everyone together think is the best thing that we can make.\"\n- The build-out principle: identify \"the ones you can't live without, however few it is, and build from there.\" And this isn't really about music — Shangri-La, the objects he buys, the records all share one aesthetic: \"most of what I do is not really about music. I happen to work in music.\"\n\n### 5. Eminem's obsession — and Rubin's confession: \"I'm a lazy workaholic\"\n- On why Eminem may be the most obsessive artist he's worked with: \"his entire life is centered around writing words\" — notebooks and notebooks, tiny letters. Asked if a new song was coming: \"No, I'm just keeping active in the skill set.\" Roughly 90% will never appear in a song.\n- Obsession isn't the only path: \"for some people, work ethic is the reason they are who they are, and there are other people who are just incredibly talented and have enough work ethic to get over the finish line.\" Rubin's own driver: \"I don't like to quit... When I start something, I like to see what it can be.\"\n- Then the admission that visibly disappoints Senra: \"I'm a lazy workaholic... My demeanor would be to do nothing.\" He loves pressing send, not the grind before it — \"Oh my God, I have to go to the studio today\" — after a first 25 years spent \"in a dark room for 16 hours a day, seven days a week in New York City.\" Senra's Bourdain parallel lands: \"I have to fight that guy every single day.\" Rubin: \"Yeah.\"\n\n### 6. What he's actually addicted to: the moment of magic — and protecting it\n- The revelation moment: \"it's not good, it's not good, it's not good... and it could be a mistake. The machine could not work... but what we're listening to is really cool all of a sudden.\" It's \"conjured in the process... like a miracle,\" and \"the whole rest of the process after that is protecting that because it's super delicate.\" When a take is going right, nobody wants it to end — \"we know if it stops, we can't control it.\"\n- Awareness can make it harder to protect it — golf's yips: \"if you start thinking about it instead of just being in it, you can't do it anymore.\" Senra's echo: Steph Curry, asked what he thinks during a shot — \"Absolutely nothing\" — the same nothing Senra reports when underlining books.\n- The fishing analogy, which Rubin calls \"the best example\": you can spend a whole day fishing and catch nothing, just as you can work in the studio for a day or a week and nothing good can happen. Senra adds Akon's Eminem story — 9 a.m. start, lunch at noon mid-verse, done at 5 — and Rubin's rule: \"If you only wait for inspiration, it won't ever come... Just because you do show up doesn't mean it will happen, but if you don't show up, it won't happen.\"\n\n### 7. The professional listener: podcasting as an outgrowth of his normal life\n- The origin: Dana White, three hours of conversation outside Rubin's house, then \"Do you mind if I record this?\" — \"That was sort of a breakthrough of like, this is kind of what doing a podcast is like. I already do this in my life.\"\n- Senra's diagnosis — Rubin is \"a professional listener\" — accepted and traced to how he hears music: eyes closed, \"totally a psychedelic experience,\" which Rubin says may have allowed him never to drink or take drugs; he opens his eyes surprised where he is. Most conversation is \"two people waiting for their turn to say what they think.\"\n- The stance: \"I also don't have any judgment... What I think is not part of it. I just want to truly understand what's being shared with me... Maybe I have it wrong. I don't know anything.\" Being truly heard is \"disarming... because it's so rare.\"\n- Self-image: \"I think of myself as a researcher.\" Senra then gives his own example of pursuing every detail of a mundane interest, down to testing coffee machines — \"There's no end. I don't get to an end to that process.\" And on giving up magic (his community from age 9 to 16) for music: \"I let go of the thing that I loved for this other thing that I loved... That wasn't a loss.\"\n\n### 8. Constraints make albums: the Man in Black filter\n- Constraints are \"a series of rules that only apply to this project,\" and they can make an album \"stand alone outside of an artist's career as a defining moment in time\" rather than \"just more of the same.\"\n- The Johnny Cash case: acoustic wasn't premeditated — the living-room demos, Cash singing alone, beat the full-band studio takes (\"I didn't know that in advance\"). And the material was filtered through myth: \"The man, Johnny Cash, could sing a funny song. The Man in Black probably wouldn't\" — the songs needed the gravitas of \"the legendary, mythological character.\" Every strum was fingers, no pick.\n\n### 9. Church versus banking: the Jimmy Iovine contrast\n- The early story: Rubin, still living in the NYU dorm, plays Iovine his first rock record — The Cult's \"Electric,\" made at the same time as the hip-hop work — and Iovine says, \"I wish I could still make something that simple.\" Rubin's explanation: as producers learn what they can do, \"they tend to get bigger.\" He's stayed simple, with \"maybe two or three examples\" in the whole discography that got out of control; a Joe Cocker record died over conflicting visions and was never finished.\n- Iovine's own summary, in his words as Rubin relays them: \"I'm in the banking business, and you're in the church business, and that's the difference\" — passion and belief versus bottom line. Senra's supporting story: Iovine hearing a Tom Petty song and declaring \"This is house music... That song's going to buy you a house.\" Rubin's verdict on Iovine's edge anyway: \"good taste, and... a great work ethic. Those are the two.\"\n\n### 10. Jay-Z versus Eminem, and why there's no one right structure\n- Jay-Z's method, unique in Rubin's experience: \"Play me a bunch of stuff. If I hear something I like, I'll think about it, and if not, I'll see you tomorrow.\" Then silence on the couch, track looping 25-30 minutes, \"I got it\" — the whole thing recorded from his head. Most of his albums were made very quickly; Magna Carta Holy Grail in about two weeks, some whole projects in a weekend. Eminem, by contrast, is written, studious, \"take after take after take\" — \"will work on a song forever.\"\n- Senra's committee thesis gets a \"Correct\" — committees \"tend to water it down\" — but Rubin immediately complicates it with band governance models: John and Paul, and Jagger/Richards, ran on opposition (\"that goes against exactly what you said\"); Tom Petty was \"the flag bearer\" with the final word; U2 is pure democracy — three yeses and one no kills a song.\n- The studio-lore contribution: nervous before an Ol' Dirty Bastard session (\"his reputation preceded him\"), Rubin brought his dreadlocked Puli and a friend filming. ODB pointed at the dog — \"He's okay\" — then the camera — \"He's got to go.\" The session went well.\n\n### 11. Sustaining it: no ego, no self-critique, and the house on the mountain\n- Why he hasn't imploded across five decades: meditation since youth, plus \"I know it's not me... I'm in the service of it. I'm devoted to setting the stage to allow it to happen.\" Confidence without claimed rightness: \"I never say 'I'm right'... If I get to vote, I vote for this. But it's not my way or the highway at all.\"\n- Senra relays Iovine's four pitfalls of success — drugs, alcohol, women, megalomania — and Rubin thinks the list is complete, because the last covers both presentations: the boaster and the one terrified of being found out \"are both the same people. They're two sides of the same coin. The megalomania is a way of hiding the insecurity.\" Overnight success \"is a funny thing... a lot of artists kind of implode in success.\"\n- No self-critical inner monologue — only apprehension at the start, \"because it could be anything,\" until \"a glimmer\" lands and he relaxes. Each work is a diary entry: \"That's who you are in that moment... It's really freeing.\" His share test: \"as soon as I liked it enough to share it with one person, chances are it's ready for everybody.\"\n- The closing map for finding your life's work: the house on a mountaintop no one will ever visit, curated purely to your own taste — \"I make the music that I'm excited to listen to\" (though he never replays finished records). The question: \"What will you do no matter what? What won't you stop doing regardless?\" Senra's capstone: \"If you truly love what you do, they couldn't pay you to stop.\"\n","transcript_md":"David Senra\n\nFive years ago, I read this biography of you. It's called In the Studio. You and I were just talking about it before we started recording. One of my favorite ideas that I took away from that book, and that I think about probably every week, is this concept that you have: less is more, but to get less, you have to do more. Can you talk a little bit about that?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah. If you're stacking a lot of things on top of each other, each one of those things becomes less important. So, if you have 10 things, each one of them is 1/10 as important as one by itself.\n\nIf you're making something and you want the least amount involved, those things have to be really critically curated, because they're doing the work of everything, and nothing is hidden. It's why it's not as easy as it sounds to do less. But when you see it, you can get the personality.\n\nI'll give you an example with guitars. A lot of recordings are made where the guitarist plays, and then they double it and triple it, and they create this wall of guitars. When there's a wall of guitars, you hear guitar, but you don't hear someone playing guitar. You just hear the guitar. It becomes more generic.\n\nWhen one person plays it and you can hear their fingers on the strings, it's got more personality. It's more human. I tend to look for those things where the singular essence shows through.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nWhat I'm always surprised about with people who do great things, especially from the outside, is the amount of volume that goes into it before you're presented with their finished work.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nMm-hmm.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nYou were obsessed with music when you were a teenager. You started Def Jam in your dorm room. You were 18 years old. What was the first example? Was it LL Cool J? Who was the first example where you thought, \"Wow, there's a lot more work that goes into making a great piece of art, a great product, or a great album than I ever knew\"?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nI never thought about it because it was a mission and a love, and I didn't think of it even as work. It was just what I wanted to do: make these things. So, the fact that it took a lot of work wasn't even in consideration at all.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nWhen you were 18 or 19 years old, was it just all music all the time?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah. As a fan, I listened to music all the time. I fell in love with it. I wanted to be involved in whatever way that I could.\n\nHip-hop was just starting in New York City. It was still a totally underground movement, so the only place you could hear it was at one club downtown where I was going to school. There was only one club where you could hear hip-hop, and that was once a week. Other than that, it was only in the Bronx and Brooklyn—really just in community centers and at outdoor parties.\n\nIt was underground and not well thought of as music. It was street music.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nMm-hmm.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nI would go to this club every week and hear the music. At that time, there would be a few hip-hop records coming out—12-inch singles. No albums, only 12-inch singles. There might be 1 new record every 2 or 3 weeks, and that's all there was.\n\nI would go to the club every week, hear the music there, and then buy the 1 single that would come out every few weeks. The singles didn't represent the energy in the club, and I wanted to feel that energy on record.\n\nSo, I started. The first record I made was called \"It's Yours,\" and the purpose of that was just to capture the energy of the club on record. I didn't know anything about recording. I wasn't a professional. I was a kid.\n\nThe fact that I didn't know what I was doing allowed it to be true to what hip-hop was. All of the records that were coming out—the few and far-between 12-inch singles every few weeks—were made by professionals who made other kinds of music. They weren't made by hip-hop people. An outsider with experience was making what they thought hip-hop was.\n\nBut if you went to the club, you knew what it really was. The club was very stripped down: scratching, breakbeats, drum machines, and rapping. And that's what the records were.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nThe ones that were produced by people making other genres of music—was it too much polish? Was it fake? How would you describe the difference between what you were hearing in the club?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nSo, this was your opportunity, essentially, your way into this.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nThe records are like a documentary of the scene that was going on, and all of the other documents of that period weren't representative of the scene. They were representative of something else—the professional, Hollywood version of it. But that's not what it was.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nIs this the first single you put out? It sold 100,000 copies, or is that the same one?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah, something like that. It sold a lot. For a record in that world, it took a long time—probably 18 months to sell 100,000. But over 18 months, it sold about 100,000, and it was a hit, as much of a hit as it could be in something that would never be on the radio, and the kind of music that nobody listened to or liked.\n\nAs a matter of fact, back then, most people who were not hip-hop fans didn't even acknowledge it as music. That's how far it was.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nWhat did they think it was?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nI don't know. It was the same thing, though, with Elvis and rock and roll. The grown-ups didn't acknowledge that as music. It was just some other thing that they didn't know what it was.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nOkay, that's—\n\nRick Rubin\n\nThat's how foreign it was.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nWhen you were 18 or 19 years old, were you already studying older versions of music? Were you already going back?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nI always listened. Anything I liked, I wanted to hear everything that the person I liked listened to—everything they liked. I always wanted to understand.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nI do the same thing with biographies.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nI want to know more about this, but I'll find somebody that—I mean, like Steve Jobs, for example. I find him very interesting. I read a biography of him, and in every single one of these books, they'll talk about half a dozen, maybe a dozen people, and I'm like, \"Who's that? I don't know this guy.\"\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nI'll go in the bibliography and usually find books about the people who inspired them.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nSame.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nDo you remember the first time you did that? You were really interested in a band or an artist and thought, \"Let me find out who they were inspired by\"?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nIt's always been the case. Or the other version of it is that I would hear something for the first time. I can remember the first time I heard MC5, a band from Detroit in the 1960s—a kind of proto-punk rock band. They were before punk rock, but they had punk energy. I heard that, and it was really cool.\n\nI remember going to a used-record store because the used-record store had all the cool older stuff, and they knew the most about music. You spend hours in used-record stores just talking to the people who work there. It's like you've heard about Quentin Tarantino working in a video shop. There's so much information around the people who really love this thing.\n\nI remember they said, \"Well, if you like MC5, you might want to check out Iggy and the Stooges.\" Then I listened to the Stooges and thought, \"Oh, I love this too.\" That was another Detroit band from the same time frame and the same scene, and it was great music.\n\nSo, it would either be music like the music that I found and liked, or music that inspired the music that I liked. Both of those were things I would always pursue.\n\nI want to tell you about the presenting sponsor of this podcast, Ramp. I have been reading a lot about SpaceX lately. SpaceX is one of the most valuable private businesses in the world, and one of the main themes in the history of SpaceX is constantly attacking and questioning your cost. Ramp helps many of the most innovative businesses in the world do exactly that. The median company running on Ramp cuts their expenses by 5%. And one thing SpaceX has demonstrated is that a religious dedication to controlling costs can help actually increase revenue because you can pursue opportunities you couldn't otherwise, and we see that in the Ramp data, too. The median company running on Ramp also grows their revenue by 16%. So, when you're running your business on Ramp and your competitors are not, you have a massive competitive advantage that compounds over time. Ramp is the only platform designed to make your finance team faster and happier. Many of the top founders and CEOs I know run their business on Ramp. I run my business on Ramp, and you should too. Go to ramp.com to learn how they can help your business save time, save money, and grow revenue. That is ramp.com.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nI always think about people's motivations. I always want to know why people are doing what they're doing. I think the motivations behind what they're doing—the reason that they go into their chosen profession—are really important.\n\nYou thought music was going to be a hobby. You were going to have to get a day job—\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\n—and then just do music.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nI didn't know it was possible to be a job.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nYeah. Can you talk about that?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah. I thought I would have a regular job. I didn't know anyone who did music professionally, or I couldn't imagine it. No one in my family was an artist, so it wasn't a realistic expectation.\n\nI thought I'd love music the way I always had. I could participate and make music if I wanted, but I would have a job to support myself because I didn't think it was possible for music to support my life.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nYou were in a band, right?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nMm-hmm.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nYou played, I think, guitar.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nGuitar. In a punk rock band, so it was very rudimentary.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nYeah, and then you were a DJ. I'm still a little confused. Can you try to explain the path that led you to this very singular position that you have now?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah. I just always followed what was interesting to me at the time. When punk rock came along—well, first, before punk rock, there was heavy metal. Heavy metal, at that time, was really more like hard rock than what we think of now as heavy metal.\n\nIt would be Aerosmith, AC/DC, and Ted Nugent. Those were the mainstays of arena rock when I was 13 or 14 years old. I loved that music, and then I got a guitar and tried to play along, but it didn’t go well. When punk rock came along, it was easier for me to play along because it was more basic music.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nBut how do you go from that to— is DJ the next route in?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nThe next thing that happened was my interest in hip-hop in high school. There were some kids—no one in my high school liked punk rock except me, but there were some kids who liked hip-hop. This was, again, in the very, very early days of hip-hop.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nI think that’s an understatement. I mean, the beginning of hip-hop. I remember reading about the early founding of Def Jam.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nWhen I’m reading books, I write down the year that I’m in, and then I look up what year that person was born. I think, “Okay, how old is Rick at this point in his life?” What was remarkable when I was reading your book was that I had read Jay-Z’s book, Decoded.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nMm-hmm.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nJay-Z, 10 years after you started Def Jam, is talking about the early days of hip-hop when he got into it—which is a decade after you got into it.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nHe says something that’s really great. He’s like, “I definitely couldn’t tell you that I could get rich from rap.”\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah. Yeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\n“I just knew that hip-hop was going to get a lot bigger before it goes away.” That’s a decade later than where you were.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nWhere I was, I would not have said it would ever get big. I was at the stage where I thought, “I’m going to make this, and the few people who like this will all like it, and that’s it.” There was no upside. There was no thinking that anybody else was going to like this. That’s how underground it was.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nIs LL Cool J the first person you produced?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nThe first hip-hop record I produced was T La Rock’s “It’s Yours.”\n\nDavid Senra\n\nOkay.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nIt was one single.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nThat’s the one that sold 100,000 copies—\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\n—in 18 months.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nAnd then LL’s first record was the first record after that.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nBut which is the one where you put “Reduced by Rick Rubin” on the sleeve, along with your dorm room address?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah. I think all of them probably had the dorm room address because that’s where I lived. I probably said “Reduced by” for the first time on LL’s record.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nThis is the thing that fascinates me. It’s less is more, but to get less, you have to do more. This stripping away of everything—it’s almost like a religious devotion to simplicity and timeless ideas. You were 18 or 19 years old when you put that on his record.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nI thought about the idea of “produced by,” and I thought the word meant to build up. I think of production as building. Really, what I was doing was taking apart and reducing. I thought maybe “reducing” would be more accurate in this case, and that’s how it happened.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nSo, he brings you a song, and there’s just too much. What are you taking away?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nIn those days, there weren’t songs. He would just have notebooks of lyrics, and they weren’t in song order; it was just rhymes. We would look at all the lyrics together and say, “Is there something here that could be the basis of a song?” Like, I need a beat, for example, that could be a repeated phrase that ends up being a hook.\n\nThe reason many of the hip-hop records before the Def Jam records weren’t songs was that somebody would start rapping, then they would rap for a few minutes, and then they would finish rapping. It wasn’t like a song. It was more like a monologue.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nAlmost like spoken word to a beat?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nKind of, but it was still in the rap style. It just wasn’t in a song structure. It was like Jamaican toasting.\n\nThe fact that I grew up on The Beatles and loved The Beatles was important, because my understanding of music is based on The Beatles. The Beatles were the greatest songwriters ever, and the structure of their songs is really organized and tight. Based on what I knew from listening to The Beatles, I applied that to rap music so that it would be structured more like a Beatles song instead of a monologue or a Jamaican toasting record.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nOkay, so there are 4 decades separating when you were working with LL Cool J and today. How similar or different is what you’re doing with an artist today compared to what you did with LL 4 decades ago?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nProbably not so different. It’s probably pretty similar. It just depends on the artist.\n\nBecause LL was a solo rap artist and didn’t have a band or make music, I was responsible for making the tracks. My version of that was a very stripped-down, minimal thing. But now I get to work with bands sometimes that have a big sound and a lot of players, and I’m looking for the essence of each of these artists. The essence tends to be stripped down, but it’s stripped down to what they are.\n\nI just finished a new album with The Strokes, and they’re a band of 5 people. It sounds like a band of 5 people. It doesn’t sound like less than that. It sounds like what they are.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nMm-hmm.\n\nYou have this idea of ruthless editing. I’ve heard you talk about it a few times on podcasts. Can you explain what that is?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nSometimes, for the sake of the whole work, removing things about it that you really love is part of the process.\n\nIf you have 100% and you know that, at the end, you want to have 70% of what you have—if you have 30% too much—instead of whittling down that 30% to get to the 70%, I would say reduce it to 40%, let’s say. Force yourself to get to 40%, and then add back what’s needed to get to the 70%.\n\nIt works in a different way. You have a better understanding of the work after the ruthless edit because you find out, especially with a group, that everybody votes. With the Red Hot Chili Peppers, for an album we might record 40 or 50 songs, and then all of us vote on A, B, or C.\n\nIf everyone picks a song as an A song, that’s going to be on the album. If it’s really divided, it might not be. It becomes a democratic process until we get down to what everyone together thinks is the best thing that we can make. That’s a ruthless editing process.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nAnd you’re just looking for the essence of what you think could be great. In that case, you’re recording, let’s say, 50 songs.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nAnd you say the album wants to have 10 or 12.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah. Yeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nThere might be 3 that you can’t live without.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nIs that the thought process?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nIt helps to get to the point of identifying the ones you can’t live without, however few they are, and build from there. Build out from there.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nWhat other interests do you have outside of music? Are you into architecture? The reason I ask is, is there anybody else in different domains who you still have a passion for, someone you see using similar ideas to the ones you do?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nIn every domain, there are people who make beautiful things. I like people who make beautiful things.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nBut are you saying that their thought process is similar? Do you find similarities between their thought process and your push for the work?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah. I think it’s all the same. Most of what I do is not really about music. I happen to work in music, but it’s not about the music. Does that make sense?\n\nDavid Senra\n\nIt does, but say more about this.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYou’re at Shangri-La, and you walk through the space, and you see that it doesn’t feel like other places you’ve been.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nYeah.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nIt has the same aesthetic as the records I make, the things that I work on, the things that I like, and the things that I buy. The objects I buy would have the same aesthetic. It all fits into, I’d say, a worldview.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nYeah, I feel this way too. We talked right before we started recording about podcasting. I think we both have the same obsession with it, and I’ve had my first podcast for over a decade. It started out with me reading biographies of people who built businesses.\n\nBut over time, I realized there’s this same personality type—the artist, the entrepreneur, the filmmaker, the musician. I’ve done podcasts on all of these kinds of people, and I’m like, “I don’t see any distinction between them.”\n\nRick Rubin\n\nIt’s the same.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nYeah.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nIt’s the same.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nYeah.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nIt’s all the creative spirit.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nI have a bunch of selfish things I told you I wanted to talk to you about because there are some people who have made massive impacts on my life. I grew up listening to hip-hop; it’s all I listen to to this day. I listen to more podcasts than I listen to music now, but hip-hop really put words to a feeling I had, maybe even in my subconscious.\n\nEminem was the first artist where I heard his first album and thought, “This is how I feel.” I didn’t grow up in a trailer park in Michigan, but I know exactly what you’re talking about with certain things involving your family, or certain things about coming of age.\n\nI heard you say one time, “I’m obsessed with Eminem.” I want to spend time with him and hopefully get him to record a podcast. I know this would be very difficult, but especially for you, who’s worked with the best—the best of the best people—for almost half a century, for you to say that he might be the most obsessive artist you’ve ever worked with was incredible. I literally screenshotted that, saved it on my phone, and look at it all the time. Why did you say that? Can you tell me what it’s like working with him?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nIt feels like his entire life is centered around writing words. He’s totally preoccupied with that, so he always has a notebook. He’s always making little notes. He writes in tiny letters, and he’s always making notes.\n\nAt one point, because he’s got notebooks and notebooks and notebooks, I asked him, “Are you working on a new song?” He said, “No, I’m just keeping active in the skill set.” I asked, “Are you going to put those in a song?” He probably said 90% of it will never be in a song.\n\nHe’s just writing. That’s what he does. He writes.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nDoes he apply that to other elements of making a song, though, not just writing? Because he does a lot of his own production, right?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nHe does, and I would say it’s the same type of obsessiveness. It’s what makes him great. He’s obsessed.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nHave you come across anybody that you consider great who’s not obsessed?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nI’m sure there are. I’d have to think about it, but that’s not the only way to do it. For some people, it happens in a more natural way. Work ethic is always a part of it, but for some people, work ethic is the reason they are who they are, and there are other people who are just incredibly talented and have enough work ethic to get over the finish line.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nWhat do you think it is for you?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nI don’t like to quit. I like to see things through. When I start something, I like to see what it can be.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nFrom the outside, you have this very relaxed Zen vibe.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nBut I swear, I think underneath is a workaholic.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nOh, for sure.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nOkay.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nFor sure. I’m a lazy workaholic.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nA lazy workaholic. You have to say more about that.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nThat’s what it is.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nBecause it doesn’t feel like work? Explain.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nNo, no, no. I have to force myself to do it, but I do force myself. My demeanor would be to do nothing.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nRick, I don’t believe that.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nIt’s true.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nNo, you love this too much, though. What do you mean?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nThat’s the point. I love the beautiful thing, and it takes a lot of work to get to the beautiful thing.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nYou like the end result? Is that what you’re saying?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah. I like to get there. I like to get to the point where it’s like, “Okay, press the send button and share it with the world.”\n\nDavid Senra\n\nMm-hmm.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nThat’s a great feeling. I like it enough for you to get to hear it.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nOkay.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nBut all of the work up until then is like, “Oh my God, I have to go to the studio today.”\n\nDavid Senra\n\nThat’s surprising to me.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah. It’s such a beautiful day. Wouldn’t it be nice to just go out and have lunch with friends? But most of my life—the first 25 years—was spent in a dark room for 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, in New York City, working on music.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nNo, you’d rather be out here barefoot, butt naked in the sun, I think.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nNow. But not then. Not then.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nOkay.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nI like being outside. I like having fun with friends. I like hanging out with my family.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nDo you like making podcasts more than music now?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nI don’t know if I like it more. I like the people I get to meet, and I’m interested in learning about people. I like learning how people think, their vision to make something, how they follow through to make it, and learning about the roller-coaster ride—that journey of building things—how it worked, where it didn’t work, what ideas they thought may have worked that didn’t, and when they were surprised in the process. It’s all interesting to me.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nI want to pull on this for a little bit, if you don’t mind.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nI heard Billie Eilish’s brother, with whom I think she has a close collaboration, describe the difference between him and Billie. He said that he enjoyed the process of making music, while she enjoyed having made the music.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nSo are you more like Billie in that case? Do you like that it’s done?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nI think so. I’ll say I like the moment of revelation. We’re working on something, and it’s just okay. It’s boring. I’d probably rather not be there. But then something happens, and it’s like magic, like something appears. It’s not like, “We made it.” It’s like something comes up in the process. It’s conjured in the process, and it’s like a miracle.\n\nThat’s the thing that’s addictive: that feeling when it’s like, “It’s not good, it’s not good, it’s not good, it’s not good.” We try this, we try this. This doesn’t work, this doesn’t work, and it could be a mistake. The machine could not work. We can hear something and say, “Oh, the machine broke,” but what we’re listening to is really cool all of a sudden.\n\nThat’s the feeling—that moment of discovery where it goes from nothing to something really good. Then the whole rest of the process is protecting that, because it’s super delicate.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nMm-hmm.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nWhen it happens, it’s like a miracle happened, and this magic thing happened. Now we have to protect it through the rest of the process and not ruin it.\n\nWhen it comes together, let’s say a band is playing and doing take after take after take. When it’s really good, we all kind of look at each other as they’re playing. It’s scary because you don’t want it to end. You don’t want it to stop, because we know that if it stops, we can’t control it. We can’t do it again.\n\nIt’s not like that. It’s this moment in time where something magical happens. We spend a lot of time waiting for those moments, and I can’t say that’s fun. It’s not fun. It just takes a lot of patience.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nDo you have to force yourself to do it?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nHave you ever just given up in that moment and walked away for a little bit?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nMm-mm.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nOkay, so you do have a really—\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah, good work ethic.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nYou have work ethic and discipline.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nOkay. But it would still be—\n\nRick Rubin\n\nIt’s frustrating and boring and takes a great deal of patience. It’s like waiting for paint to dry. You’re just waiting, waiting, waiting, trying different things, and nothing works until something either works or something happens and it just comes together. I can’t tell you why.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nExplain what people do to kill these special moments, though, because you kept saying, “We have to protect this. We have to protect this.”\n\nRick Rubin\n\nOnce you’re aware of it, it’s harder to protect. In the process of it happening, if you realize, “This is it,” it’s harder to protect. It’s like—what is it in golf? The yips. When you’re playing golf, if you start thinking about it instead of just being in it, you can’t do it anymore.\n\nSo it’s almost like you have to get out of yourself to allow it to happen. Maybe not me, but the artist has to get to this place where they don’t even know they’re doing it. It just happens. It’s not a performance. It’s something else. A real moment happens, and it’s thrilling.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nI think you’re speaking to my soul right now, because there’s something I heard Steph Curry talk about one time. They asked him, “What do you think of when you’re taking a shot?” and he said, “Absolutely nothing.”\n\nRick Rubin\n\nExactly.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nWhen I read books for a living, before I started this, authors would reach out to me after I did their book, and they’d say, “How did you get to the essence of it? What were you thinking? What were you thinking of when you were doing this?” I was like, “Nothing.” I just read, and if something jumps out at me, I don’t think at all. I just underline it.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nThat’s it.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nThen I’ll go back through when I reread the highlights. If it’s still interesting, it was interesting the first time.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nNow it’s interesting the second time.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nIt’s probably interesting—\n\nRick Rubin\n\nIt’s interesting.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nThere are 10 million “mes” out there.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nI’m not unique.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nSame.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nThere’s no way I read this line twice, and if I read it on a podcast, that somebody else isn’t going to think of it as interesting. If I overthink it, or think, “Oh, this person might hear it,” or think about how many people will hear it—\n\nRick Rubin\n\nThat gets in the way.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nNothing. I’m thinking of nothing.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYes.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nThat’s really interesting. So let me ask you this, though. You’re fucking Rick Rubin. You can do whatever you want. Why are you choosing to spend so much time podcasting?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nI like meeting the people. Even before the podcast started, if someone was interesting to me, I would reach out to them, want to spend time with them, hang out with them, and just learn from them, really.\n\nI can remember the one where it became obvious to do the podcast was Dana White. Someone introduced me to Dana White.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nI’m recording with him next week.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nGreat. He’s great.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nHe’s incredible.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nHe actually reached out to me. He said, “Any time you want to meet, I’m down.” I was like, “Great, let’s do it.” We met, sat at my house, sat outside, and talked for about 3 hours. At some point in the conversation, I said, “Do you mind if I record this? Because I feel like I’m not going to remember what we’re saying, and I’m really liking this story.”\n\nThat was sort of a breakthrough: this is kind of what doing a podcast is like. I already do this in my life. I don’t record these conversations, but I meet the people who make things that are interesting to me, spend time with them, listen to what they do, and ask a lot of questions because I’m curious. It really is an outgrowth of my normal life, so I like doing that.\n\nDeel is how the best founders turn the world into their talent pool. I've been studying how history's greatest founders operate for a decade, and one thing they all have in common is they understand that recruiting and hiring the very best talent is your most important priority. A players recognize other A players, which is why top companies like Ramp, Shopify, ElevenLabs, Uber, and DoorDash all use Deel. Many of the top founders I know have personally invested in Deel after using their product. And what they discovered is that Deel is the best company in the world at building infrastructure for global hiring. Deel will help your business hire, pay, and manage any worker anywhere in the world so you can retain the best talent anywhere and spend the rest of your time focusing on what you do best: delivering value to your customers. The founder of ElevenLabs has a great description of the value Deel can give your company. He said, \"We built ElevenLabs to break down language and communication barriers. With Deel enabling us to hire and support exceptional talent anywhere, we can accelerate our innovation and bring more voices, stories, and ideas to every corner of the world.\" Deel is trusted by over 40,000 businesses. Learn how they can help your business today by going to deel.com/senra. That is deel.com/senra.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nWe were talking before we started recording. I may be the person who’s most obsessed with podcasting in the world. I listen to thousands of episodes.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nMm-hmm.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nI was listening to your podcast, “Broken Record.”\n\nRick Rubin\n\nMm-hmm.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nBack in the day.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nThat was the format of that show: just talking to musicians.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nAnd then “Tetragrammaton,” you took it, in my opinion, to another level. You’re talking to all kinds of incredible people. I just had a conversation with Tobi Lütke, founder of Shopify.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah, amazing.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nI used one of your episodes to prepare because he’s such a unique mind. He’s great.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nGreat.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nIt was one of the most interesting conversations I had. But I analyze people. There are a handful of podcasts that are really great. There are a couple million in the directory, but only a handful are really great. Yours is really great, and I’m like, “Why the hell? It’s unfair. This guy is gifted at music, and now he’s gifted at podcasting. Why is this the case?”\n\nWhat I came up with, when I started analyzing and thinking about what you do in your day job—what you’ve done for over 4 decades—I was like, “He’s a professional listener.”\n\nRick Rubin\n\nThat’s true.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nHe’s listening to the guest. He’s in the moment with the guest.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYes.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nAnd that is one of the reasons why, obviously, you have a lot of interesting things to say, but one of the reasons, in my opinion, that you’re so great at podcasting.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nWell, I think in real life people like to talk, and they don’t like to listen. Often in a conversation, you’ll be with someone, and they’ll be saying something, and you’ll be thinking, “Okay, this is what I’m going to say in response to that.” You’re not really present. Back and forth, that’s what it is: 2 people waiting for their turn to say what they think. And this is different.\n\nI think it really came from listening to music, because I listen to music in a very deep way. I close my eyes. I really pay attention. It’s not wallpaper. I go into the music. In some ways, I think my relationship with music allowed me to never drink or take drugs, because listening to music for me is a totally psychedelic experience.\n\nI can feel the music, and I can be transported by the music. Not all music, but good music. So I close my eyes, I feel it, and then at the end of it, I open my eyes, and I’m surprised where I am, because I’ve been gone when I’m listening.\n\nSo I listen deeply, and I want to know. I really want to understand things. I’m comfortable asking questions, and I really listen to what someone’s saying. If someone says something I don’t understand, I’ll ask a question to clarify so that I can understand it.\n\nI also don’t have any judgment. I don’t think that my way is the right way, and I’m not comparing what’s being said to me with what I think. What I think is not part of it. I just want to truly understand what’s being shared with me.\n\nIf someone says something that’s very different from what I believe, I want to know more. It’s like, “How did you get to that? Why do you think that?” Because maybe I’ll learn something. Maybe I have it wrong. I don’t know anything. I want to know more.\n\nSo through talking to people and really listening, you really get to meet people. As a professional listener, I’ve found that for some people, it’s disarming to talk to someone who really listens, because it’s so rare. Most people don’t listen.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nWhen I listen to your podcast, I feel you have this combination of sincere interest—\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYes, true.\n\nDavid Senra\n\n—in the other human being.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYes.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nAnd a desire—I think you just said this, but the way I think about it, the way I think about you when I was on your podcast—is a desire not to form an opinion, but to understand.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nThat’s it.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nThat’s it.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nI just want to understand. I want to understand to broaden my scope, to see the world. I want to see the world through someone’s eyes. Someone made something that’s beautiful to me, and I want to understand how they see the world. Someone makes a great discovery, and I want to know what process allowed that to happen. I’m curious.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nYeah, there doesn’t seem to be an end to your curiosity either.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nI’m interested. I’ve always been interested. I think of myself as a researcher. When the internet came along, anything that I’m interested in, I’ll go forever, going deeper and deeper into a topic just to get any glimpse, and to read opposing opinions, and go deeper and deeper and deeper, just trying to understand. I’m curious.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nYou think of yourself as a researcher?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nThat’s what I do most of the time: research.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nOkay, I don’t know about this. Tell me about this.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nWell, not a researcher in a professional way.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nMm-hmm.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nBut anything I’m interested in, I want to know everything about it, whatever it is. Even mundane things. If I drink coffee, I want to find the best coffee. I want to read what every person who knows about the best machine says about every machine, and then test every machine. It’s just a fanatical devotion to finding the best version of whatever it is.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nIs it all-consuming for you when you find these pockets of interest?\n\nDavid Senra\n\nI’d say so. There’s no end. I don’t get to an end to that process. I admire people who do things for a very long period of time, and you can tell a lot about people by what they admire.\n\nI want to do these kinds of podcasts till I die. What does success look like for you in 5 years, in 10 years? One, that I’m still doing it, and 2, that I’m just making things that I’m proud of.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nThat’s it.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nThere’s no fucking download number. There’s no “How many ads I sell?” It’s just like, that’s it.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nExactly.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nAnd I’m terrified that one day I’m going to wake up and be like, “I don’t want to do this anymore.”\n\nRick Rubin\n\nNo, but the only reason that would happen is because something else would take over that you have to do, and that would be fine too.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nI’m still terrified of it.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nWhen I was 9 years old, I spent a lot of time practicing magic, like card magic, in front of a mirror.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nMm-hmm.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nThat was really fun, and there’s a whole community of magicians, including grown-up magicians. If you’re truly interested in magic, there are all these meetings, and they get together and talk about stuff. If you’re an outsider, everything’s a secret, but if you’re a magician, they love sharing.\n\nSo it’s a really cool community to be part of, and that was my community from 9 until probably 16. Those were the people I hung out with, and they were the people with whom we shared this interest. I just wanted to learn.\n\nThen music became more and more popular in my life, and at some point it was like, “I can’t do both.” These are both full-time occupations. And when I say occupations, I don’t mean jobs; I mean something to occupy my time. I can either devote myself to doing magic or devote myself to doing music, and at some point, music won.\n\nBut that wasn’t a loss. I didn’t lose anything.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nThat’s a beautiful way to think about it.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah. I let go of the thing that I loved for this other thing that I loved that just took on this new life. I’ve done music for a long time, and I like making other things too. If my life became about making other things more than making music, that’d be okay. It’s more about the making that excites me.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nThis is why I kept asking: Do you think you would make a podcast? We could have a conversation. We could be doing your show right now instead of mine.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nMm-hmm.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nAnd at the end of this hour or 2 hours, it’s done. We have something, and we could do it again tomorrow. The amount of time from creation to output is so much shorter than an album or even a great song.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nTrue.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nWhat you were saying—I think you called yourself a lazy workaholic.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nI was saying “lazy alcoholic.” Lazy workaholic.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nIt’s almost like this isn’t work. This doesn’t feel like work to me.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nYeah. I was a little surprised by the way you described working in music. That does feel like work to you.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah, for sure.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nIt’s also work because I have to show up. If you commit to being somewhere at a certain time, that’s work, because that morning I might wake up and think, “I don’t really want to do that today,” but I’ve agreed to it with other people. I’m going to be at this place, and we’re going to do this thing, so I have to show up. But most days I don’t want to do the things that I’m scheduled to do.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nThat’s shocking to me, though.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nAt the time that I choose to do them, I want to do them. I know I want to do them, but still, it’s really nice not to have to get out of bed, or it’s nice to go for a walk on the beach.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nSo I think I might be well-positioned. I’m just now getting advice from you because I’m a huge fan of you, and I respect the way you think. Anyway, I just did another podcast on the book you wrote, “The Creative Act,” by the way, and there are so many ideas that you put into words that were in my head, but I didn’t have words for.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nSo right now, I feel like I don’t work a day in my life.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nI feel like I wake up and I’m compelled. I don’t even know the word to use. There’s no doubt that I’m just on the right path.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nIf I were sitting here and we weren’t recording and I was just seeking your advice, I don’t feel like it’s work at all. The only time it feels like work is when I have to edit, which I fucking hate, but I do it anyway because I think it makes it better.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nBut that’s the only time.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nThat’s a good example. There are parts of it that aren’t always fun. When you’re committing time—time is our most valuable resource—and when we’re committing our time to doing something in advance, which we do, we preschedule, the day of, you don’t always want to do that thing.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nBut I feel you have complete control over your time and your life.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYes.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nHow are you still.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nI choose it, and I have to acknowledge, no one's forcing me to do this. I said I would show up. I have to show up.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nBut in your day-to-day, that still feels like work.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah. It's like, I'd be happy not doing anything. Well, I don't know. I don't know if that's true.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nThere's no way.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah, there's no way, because it's never been the case.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nYou could've stopped working decades ago.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYes.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nAnd I think you're addicted to making great shit.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYes, and I'm lazy. It's a real part of it. I'm telling you an honest piece of this: every day, it's not like, \"Let's go.\" Every day, it's like, \"Oh, no, I have to go work.\"\n\nDavid Senra\n\nYou're disappointing me.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nIt's the truth. It's the truth.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nI'm sad. It feels like, out of almost anybody in the world—\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\n—that gets paid for being them—\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\n—is you.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYes.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nAnd you're saying that's not the case.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nNo, I'm me. I'm definitely me. There is a part of me that doesn't want to show up for anything, and I have to overcome that every day. That's what I'm saying.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nDid you ever spend any time with Tony Bourdain when he was alive?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nNever have.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nWere you ever a fan of his?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nOkay. So I read all his books and watched all his shows. In his book, I was shocked because, first of all, he describes what it's like to be a heroin addict, which is insane. What you realize when you read Kitchen Confidential is that the same work ethic he used to score drugs as a broke junkie, once he broke that habit, he just applied it to writing and building TV shows. His work ethic was the same.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nIt was just directed at the worst thing possible: being a fucking heroin addict.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nAnd then he directed it in a positive, generative direction, and he took off. But he said something very similar to you. He's like, \"Somewhere deep inside me is this guy that just wants to smoke weed and lay in bed all day.\"\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nAnd he goes, \"I have to fight.\"\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nHis writing's beautiful. He's like, \"I have to fight that guy every single day.\"\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah. Now, what's also true is that I do have to fight that guy to show up, and there are parts of the job that are just like watching paint dry, waiting for something good to happen. But that moment of magic, when something good does happen, is the thing I'm addicted to—that feeling of, \"It wasn't good. It's not good. Oh my God, it's good.\" And it's like a miracle because nobody knows how or why that happened. It's not in our control. That's the other thing about it: it really is magic.\n\nSo I'm addicted to the magic part of it, but I'm not addicted to everything leading up to those magical moments. I'm patient. I'm patient enough to wait forever for that thing to happen, but it's not fun. Some people really look forward to fishing. It's like fishing. You can go out and spend a whole day fishing and not catch any fish. It's like that. You can work in the studio for a day or for a week, and nothing good can happen. That happens. It's out of our control.\n\nBut when the good thing happens, it's like, \"Ah, there it is. That's why we're here.\"\n\nDavid Senra\n\nThat fishing analogy is really important to me. I've heard you say this a few years ago.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nIt's true. It's the best example.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nI heard Akon one time describe working with Eminem. He shows up in Detroit and gives him a call. He's like, \"All right, I figure we're going to do a night session.\" These guys are usually nocturnal. He calls him at 7:00 p.m., and Em's like, \"Yeah, I'll see you tomorrow.\" Akon's like, \"Tomorrow? What are you talking about?\"\n\nHe shows up and doesn't realize that Eminem treats it like a job. He shows up at 9:00 a.m.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nHe's in the studio writing and recording verses.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nI think it's noon. He's literally in the middle of a verse, and he's like, \"Oh, I'll be right back. I'm going to take lunch.\"\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nAkon goes, comes back at 1:00, and goes back to work. At 5:00, he says, \"All right, I'll see you the next day.\"\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nPeople misunderstood what Akon was saying. Eminem doesn't wait around for inspiration.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nNo.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nHe shows up every day knowing that if he does the work—\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\n—then it will come.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYes.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nIt's exactly what you're saying about fishing.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah, and inspiration is a real thing too, but it's both. If you only wait for inspiration, it won't ever come. You have to work and be there and show up. If you're not in the practice of allowing the thing to happen, it won't happen. That doesn't mean it will. Just because you do show up doesn't mean it will happen, but if you don't show up, it won't happen.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nYou got me into Johnny Cash, who is a couple of generations before me, and not only was the music great, but I loved you describing what went into making it. Will you talk about that? There was something in the way I would distill down what you were saying: constraints are actually your friend.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nYou can't do everything. So if you artificially constrain yourself, it forces you to be more creative. Can you talk about this? I feel like you've used this a bunch in your career.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah. It's like the idea of creating a palette. The albums that speak to me most are the ones where, when you hear them, you know—if an artist has 20 albums, but you hear a song and think, \"Oh, that has to be on that album, that seventh album, because that's the only album that sounds like that.\" Even though the band always sounds like the band, this group of songs sounds different from all the rest.\n\nIt may be that it was either recorded in a different way, or all the songs were about a particular thing, or they were using different instrumentation than they used to use. I like it when an album stands alone outside of an artist's career as a defining moment in time. It's not just more of the same.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nBut how is that tied to these constraints that you put on the work?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nThat happens by coming up with a series of rules that only apply to this project. Those are the constraints.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nIn the Johnny Cash example.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nIn Johnny Cash's case, the first one was, I didn't know that it was going to be an acoustic album, which it turned out to be. But that was something that, through the process of recording, I learned: the most interesting version of this to me is when he's singing alone, which was really the demos in my living room, him singing me songs. That sounded better than when we went into the recording studio with musicians and played them with a band. It wasn't as interesting. I didn't know that in advance. That wasn't a premeditated idea.\n\nAnd then, in terms of the material that he would sing, I grew up with this image. What spoke to me about Johnny Cash was this image of the Man in Black, and the Man in Black is a mythical character. Yes, it's Johnny Cash, but it's not just Johnny Cash. It's like the mythical Johnny Cash—the Johnny Cash who's the Man in Black.\n\nThe man, Johnny Cash, could sing a funny song. The Man in Black probably wouldn't sing a funny song. So the material that we picked was always through the eyes of, what's something that the Man in Black—the legendary, mythological character—would sing? Those are the songs that we chose.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nAnd so in this case, the constraints are you, Johnny, a guitar. I think he said he didn't even use a pick.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah, he used his fingers on every guitar.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nEvery time he strummed the guitar, it was his fingers.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nAnd you guys in a house.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah, but a big part of it, too, is the choice of material. That's a big part of it for those albums.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nAnd it's looked at through the viewpoint of not just a funny song, but something the Man in Black would do.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nAnd not even just a funny song. It had to have a certain amount of gravitas to fit a mythical character singing it.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nWhen I think about everything I've read about you, and as much as I've heard you speak, I feel like you would agree with the statement that great things can't be made by a committee.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nCorrect.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nIt would be unusual for that to be the case.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nIn many cases, it's just.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nThere could be a band. It tends to water it down. So this is the case in companies, since obviously my main focus is on entrepreneurship.\n\nEven if there is a group, there's usually a main person. Is that the same thing in bands? Is there always one? There might be 4 guys in the band or 5 guys in the band. Is it usually the stronger personality that has more influence?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nIn a band, what makes a band great is how the different musicians hear music and play together, and it doesn't have to be a single point of view. The Beatles are a great example because John and Paul really were very different people and wrote different kinds of songs and approached music in different ways. Jagger and Richards, same. There's opposition there.\n\nThat goes against exactly what you said. It's a different model. But then, like in Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Tom Petty is really the flag bearer of the band, and everyone lines up behind Tom. They're all great, and they all can play great things, and they all add incredible things, but Tom is sort of the final word in what happens in that band.\n\nIn a band like U2, it’s democratic. Everybody in the band has to like it. If 3 of the guys like it and 1 of the guys doesn’t, it doesn’t happen. That’s another model that works for them.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nSo, if we go back to this idea of designing in constraints, your work with Johnny Cash was very simple. Go back all the way 40 years before that.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nI’m reducing, I’m not producing.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nI think in 2023 I listened to, I don’t know, 600 to 700 individual podcasts. I probably listened to 2 to 3 podcast episodes a day, so I don’t know, 700 to 900 episodes. I think the single best podcast episode that I listened to all that year was your episode on Tetragrammaton with Jimmy Iovine.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nMm-hmm.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nThere was a story that you told in there that was very fascinating, because Jimmy’s, I think, 10 years older than you.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nAlmost exactly 10 years older. Our birthdays are a day apart.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nYeah, and you tell this phenomenal story on the podcast of one of the first—it might have been the first time you met Jimmy Iovine. He said something that was so strange. You go to play something you’re working on.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nAnd he goes, “I wish I could still make something that simple.”\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nAnd your response was, “I’m sure you can.”\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah. What do you mean?\n\nDavid Senra\n\nExplain why he said that and what happens over time.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah, because he was a producer.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nAs you learn more of what you can do, you tend to do that. They tend to get bigger.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nAt that point in time, I hadn’t done it enough. It was my first record. The Cult’s Electric was my first rock record.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nThis is after almost a decade in hip-hop, or half a decade in hip-hop?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nNo.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nNo?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nNo.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nWhen was this?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nSame time. This is like 19.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nIs this when you moved to California?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nNo. This is still in New York.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nOh, shit. Okay. So this is the very beginning.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nI’m still living in the dorm. I’m still living in the dorm at NYU.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nOh my God. I thought this was later. Okay, so this is the very beginning. So it’s as simple as—\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nIt gets very simple because that’s all you can do.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah. It was very simple, but I stayed true to that as much as I can. There have probably been a couple of examples along the way where I may not have stayed true. Very few. If you look at my whole recorded discography, there may be 2 or 3 examples where it got out of control, or where the artist that I’m working with just had a very different vision, which does happen sometimes. Usually, we end up not working together again.\n\nThere have been 1 or 2 occasions where we ended up not even finishing a work because it was just too different. We just saw it in a different way. I had that experience with Joe Cocker. We went into the studio to record, and I had a specific vision of how I saw Joe Cocker and what I thought was great about Joe Cocker. He really had a vision of it being something different than that. We weren’t on the same page, and it didn’t jibe, so it never happened.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nI’m curious about your perspective, since you’ve known Jimmy Iovine for so long. He has another singular career, kind of in music the whole time, but he—\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nDifferent jobs.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nHe jumped around.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nYeah, different jobs: from engineer to producer, to record company owner, to then building businesses with his artists.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nWhat do you think is special about him? What’s unique about him? Why was he able to do what he was able to do?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nHe’s got good taste, and he’s got a great work ethic. Those are the 2.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nTo me, in my mind, you 2 are very—almost, before this conversation I’m having with you, almost at opposite ends of the spectrum. I felt like you were drawn like a moth to a flame by what you want to do.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nWhere he’s like, “It was always work. I never liked it.”\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nIt was always a job.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nLike, “I like certain parts of it, but I just…” He’s essentially just forced himself to do it.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nHe said something really interesting that I thought really summed it up, which was, “Jimmy is in the banking business.” These are his words. He said, “I’m in the banking business, and you’re in the church business, and that’s the difference.”\n\nDavid Senra\n\nExplain that. I love this.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nIt’s that I’m doing a passion and belief, and he’s doing a bottom line. What’s going to work? What’s going to be good for business? It’s just 2 different things, 2 different mentalities.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nThere’s a great line in The Defiant Ones where he’s producing Tom Petty, and he hears a song, and he goes, “This is house music.” Tom goes, “What do you mean?” He goes, “Find me 8 more albums.” He goes, “That song’s going to buy you a house.”\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah. That’s the difference.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nAnd Tom—\n\nRick Rubin\n\nWe’re different in that way.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nAnd Tom goes, “I’ve never heard somebody describe music that way.”\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nLike, “This is going to buy me a house.”\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nThere are a bunch of stories that Jimmy tells in that podcast with you about the crazy things that you see in the music business. I think he tells a story of Phil Spector coming to the studio in a butcher’s outfit, with guns strapped to him everywhere, and David Geffen’s in the studio, and John Lennon’s getting drunk. Do you have any things that stand out from what you’ve seen inside the studio? I’ve never heard you tell any of these stories.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nI can remember doing a session with ODB, Ol’ Dirty Bastard from Wu-Tang.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nWu-Tang Clan.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nI remember being nervous because I’d never met him before, and his reputation preceded him, so I didn’t really know what I was going into. I thought, “I’m going to bring my dog.” I had a Puli, which is a dog that has dreadlocks. Whatever’s going on, if you see a dog with dreadlocks, it’s interesting. It’s fascinating in its own way.\n\nI also had a friend of mine filming everything because I thought, “Well, if there’s a camera and if there’s a dog, it’s going to be okay.”\n\nDavid Senra\n\nWhat was his reputation for you to do this, though?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nAll kinds of crazy things, like—\n\nDavid Senra\n\nViolence?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nCould be violence. Could be a lot of things that would not be good, and just things I wasn’t really prepared for. But I loved him. I was a fan. We walked in, and he looked and pointed at the dog, and he said, “He’s okay.” Then he pointed at the camera: “He’s got to go.” I was like, “Okay.” The session ended up going pretty well.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nWe mentioned Tobi Lütke earlier, and in the conversation I had with him that was very fascinating, he said something where he was just like, “There’s not 1 right way to do things.”\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah. There are probably 100.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nYes.\n\nWhich I think you would agree with.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYes.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nAnd he’s like, “You just have to find the one that fits best for you.”\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nAnd just do that. You would think this German computer programmer and engineer would be very rigid, but when you talk to him, he essentially just runs his life by intuition. You are all intuition—all intuition. Explain why, essentially, your entire life is, in my opinion, managed or run by your intuitive feelings.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nI’ve always been true to what I feel, and it’s worked out. I suppose if it didn’t work out, then maybe I would have to try something else. But the fact that I’ve stayed true to what feels right to me and, luckily, by the grace of God, it has resonated with other people, it allows me to continue doing it.\n\nI suppose if that didn’t happen, I would just make things for myself on a small level, keep doing it, and have a real job.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nIs your being guided by intuition tied to a skepticism of human knowledge? I think you’ve said, “I think we know very little about everything.”\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nThomas Edison has this famous quote where he’s like, “We don’t know 1-millionth of 1 percent about anything.”\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah. I believe that. I believe we don’t know anything.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nYeah, so if you believe you don’t know anything, then the only other thing you could do is be guided by your intuition.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah. And to try things and see what works. Just because 1 thing works doesn’t mean that’s the way it happens. That’s a way that happened to work in that case.\n\nAppLovin's Axon connects you with over a billion potential new customers inside mobile games. Axon allows you to capture undivided attention. Axon ads are full-screen video ads that are watched for an average of 35 seconds. That is retention that blows other ad platforms out of the water. You can launch on Axon in minutes. You set the goal, and Axon achieves it. There's no complex setup, no expertise needed, and Axon scales quickly. They can put your ads in front of over a billion potential customers. Other businesses have seen immediate results, have scaled to hundreds of thousands of dollars of spend per day, and increased their revenue by millions. So, you want to get started quickly before all your competitors are on Axon. And you can do that by going to axon.ai/senra. That is axon.ai/senra.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nI heard you one time compare and contrast the approach of Jay-Z to Eminem. You worked with both of them. Can you talk about just how different they are?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nHe writes down the lyrics, and he’s really studious in the way that he works. He’ll also record take after take after take once it’s written and try different things. Jay is much more spontaneous. It all happens in his head, and then he’ll get up and say it once or twice, and that’s it.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nWhat’s the energy when you’re in the room with both of them, though?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nEminem is totally involved in every aspect of everything, and Jay is like, “Play me a bunch of stuff. If I hear something I like, I’ll think about it, and if not, I’ll see you tomorrow.” Jay will only be there when he needs to be there. If he hears something that sparks an idea, he’ll sit and just say, “Play it over and over again.”\n\n“Play the music over and over again,” and he sits in the back. It goes on long enough that you forget he’s even there because he’s just silent in the corner, sitting on a couch and listening over and over again. 30 minutes—25 minutes later, he’s like, “I got it,” jumps up, runs into the room, hits record, and does the whole thing just from his head. It’s amazing. He’s the only person I’ve ever seen do that.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nI think a lot of people know that he did Magna Carta Holy Grail, essentially, in 2 weeks.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nMm. He did the whole album in 2 weeks.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nMost of his albums were made very quickly.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah. What’s always interesting to me is that, yes, he recorded them in 2 weeks, but these ideas—he’s been refining them. It’s not like when he’s not in the studio, he’s not thinking about them. He’s refining these ideas over a long period of time.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nSometimes yes, sometimes no. Some of them happen in a weekend—the whole thing.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nThat’s crazy.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nYeah. As opposed to Em, who will work on a song forever.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYes. Very different. Just 2 different styles. Both amazing, but they just come at it from different directions. I think it’s just different personality types.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nWhat do you think Em’s personality type is, then?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nI would describe him as obsessive. He’s really a perfectionist, willing to do whatever it takes for it to be great—diligent and hardworking. Jay’s much more relaxed. It just kind of happens for him. He’s doing it, but it’s just a different style.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nOf the 2, which one do you think your working style is closer to?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nI do different things, so it’s hard to say. What I do changes according to who I’m working with. Whatever the artist needs is what my job is. In some cases, it’s totally hands-off, and in some cases, it’s, “Well, we’ve got to start from the beginning and try to figure this out together.”\n\nDavid Senra\n\nOh, so you know what? I’m thinking it’s kind of tied to what you were saying about being a professional listener—that you take a sincere interest in the person, whether you’re recording a podcast with them or you’re working with them in the studio. Your goal, if I’m reading this correctly, really has nothing to do with you. You feel you’re an act of service, trying to get them to be the best version of themselves.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nIs that the way you think about it?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYes. I’d say that’s accurate. Do you have anybody who plays that role in your life for you?\n\nDavid Senra\n\nI don’t know if I do. I didn’t know if anyone produces me. Could they produce you? I don’t know if there’s anything to produce here.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah. I don’t know. Luckily, I have friends and family who are not particularly interested in what I do. So I have reality around me—a lot of just, “That’s crazy,” and a lot of, “That’s a bad idea.”\n\nDavid Senra\n\nMm-hmm.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nAnd it’s interesting for me because some ideas I hear, “That’s a bad idea,” and it’s like, “Okay, maybe you’re right.” And with many ideas, it’s like, “I’ll show you. It’s a good idea. I feel I have to do this.”\n\nDavid Senra\n\nYeah. I could see that you take a lot of input, but I think you would be resistant to it.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nI won’t change my mind, but I’m open to hearing ideas and definitely open to help. If someone suggests something that makes it better, and I see that, it’s like, “That’s the best.” I’m not close-minded. Because someone offers information—even experienced wisdom—I might not always choose to use that information.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nDo you think you have a big ego?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nI don’t think so.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nYou have a lot of self-confidence, though.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nI have a lot of self-confidence.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nBut they even said somebody met you when you were 19, and they were like, “That’s the most self-confident 19-year-old I’ve ever met.”\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah. I think that’s the mix. Luckily, I learned to meditate when I was young, and meditation has been a big part of my life. So it’s never been about ego. It’s never been about me. I’m confident in being able to share what I’m experiencing. I hear something like, “That’s amazing,” and I hear something else that’s like, “You know, it’s not good enough,” and nothing anyone can say will tell me otherwise. It’s like I know. I can feel it.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nSo this confidence in your own judgment—because you were just saying you could have somebody who has a lot of experienced wisdom—\n\nRick Rubin\n\nWhen I say confidence in my own judgment, this is how I see it. I’m not saying I’m right. I never say, “I’m right,” or “I know what’s best.” None of those things. This is how I see it. I see it clearly. This is how I would vote for it. If I get to vote, I vote for this. But it’s not my way or the highway at all.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nWhat is your inner monologue like when you’re making something? Is it positive? Negative? Are you self-critical?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nIt depends. I would say it’s rarely critical. What I usually use is that it starts apprehensively when we start, because it could be anything. At first, it’s scary because I don’t know what’s going to happen.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nEven today?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nEven today. There’s usually an expectation because I’ve had success in the past that if I’m there, it’s going to be great. So I feel this pressure of expectation, and I know I can’t control anything. It’s going to be the way it’s going to be. I know I’m patient, and I know I’ll wait until it’s great. We start by experimenting and seeing what it could be, and as soon as there’s a glimmer—as soon as I hear something that’s good—I relax.\n\nBut until then, it’s too open. It could be too many things. Once something lands, whatever it is, I relax. It’s like, “Okay, we have at least a direction to move in.” It doesn’t mean we stay in that direction forever, but having a direction is better than not having a direction. When we start, we don’t have a direction.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nSo you would say you don’t have a self-critical inner monologue constantly playing in your mind?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nNever.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nIt’s interesting. The reason I ask you this question is because I was with an entrepreneur yesterday. The guy’s worth $10 billion, and he wakes up every morning at 5:30 just assuming he’s going out of business. He’s essentially paranoid. He lives a paranoid life, and that’s why he thinks he’s good. This is very common with a lot of people.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nI used to have a self-critical, kind of mean voice. I was fucking pretty mean to myself. This guy named Brad Jacobs—we actually had him on the show, and I’ve talked to him a bunch—and he used to have that too. Now he’s in his 60s, and he’s like, “It’s counterproductive. It’s not helping anything.” I talk about this on the podcast. You can hear me mentioning it over and over again for a few years, and then one day I just fucking snapped, and I don’t do that anymore.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nThat’s great.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nI went back and was reading my notes on you, and I was telling my partner, Rob, about this—just the way I look at the work we’re doing now. I like your framework: If you look at your work, it’s just like an entry in a diary.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nThere’s nothing to be critical about because you did the best you possibly could have done.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nIn that moment.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nYeah. And then that was 10 years ago, and that was 5 years ago.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nAnd then what we’re making today is—\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah, and I might not do the same thing I would have done 10 years ago, and that’s fine. But I don’t have any regrets about “10 years ago, that’s what I thought.” That’s real. Each of those installments is real, so it’s always true. It doesn’t mean that’s who you are forever. That’s who you are in that moment.\n\nIt’s really freeing. It’s helpful for an artist to think that way because usually, especially when we’re younger, we think the thing that we make is, “This is my magnum opus, and this is going to define me for the rest of my life.” It’s a daunting hill to climb. But when you realize, “This is just the one today, and we’re going to make another one tomorrow. Hopefully, the one tomorrow is going to be as good as or better than the one today,” it takes away a lot of the pressure.\n\nWhat’s true today? What’s the one I usually say? If you’re excited to share it with your friend, that’s the measure. If I’m working in the studio, long before a record comes out, and we’re making something, if someone comes in and I’m excited to play it for my friend—who has good taste and who I know likes good music—it could come out then. If I want to play it for them, that’s good enough for everybody. Do you know what I’m saying?\n\nDavid Senra\n\nYeah.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nUsually, artists will feel like, “Well, I’ll play this for my boys, but it has to be a lot better before regular people can hear it.” That’s ridiculous. As soon as I like it enough to share it with 1 person, chances are it’s ready for everybody.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nI’ve seen you talk to a ton of musicians and artists on camera. I just finished rereading a profile that was in Colossus Magazine on Josh Kushner, and it starts with him coming to seek your counsel. There are a ton of people who come to seek your counsel. I feel like your modus operandi is holding up a mirror to them and just telling them to do what they know they want to do. But it’s somehow more valuable if they hear it from somebody else. Does that make sense to you? Do you resonate with that at all?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah, that sounds right.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nI mean, there are occasions where someone will come to me and say, “I’m thinking about doing this crazy thing,” and I’ll say, “Mm, I wonder about that.” But more often than not, when people share their hopes and dreams, that’s all you need to know. It’s like, “These are my hopes and dreams, but I’m afraid of this, this, and this.” Most often, it’s, “Go with the hopes and dreams. Don’t worry about any of that stuff, because that stuff doesn’t matter.”\n\nWhat is the stuff that they’re afraid of, usually?\n\nRick Rubin\n\n“What someone is going to say? Will I be able to keep doing it? My last one was successful. What do I do now?” Success is a funny thing. When you’re young and you get successful quickly, no one is prepared for that. It’s awkward and uncomfortable, and you think that’s the thing you want, but when you get it, it’s not what you think it is. It’s very different.\n\nAnd there are all these pressures that come with it that no one is ready for, and no one learns how to do. It’s not as though the people you learn good habits from over the course of your life know how to deal with it, because they never got famous or successful overnight. It’s a weird thing. A lot of artists kind of implode in success.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nOkay, so I want to ask you: Why have you not imploded over this many decades? One of the most interesting things that Jimmy Iovine told me—we talked a lot about this, because I’m obsessed with people who are further down the line than I am—\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nIt’s like there’s wisdom they gain from experience. I got the book knowledge. I need the stuff that’s not in there, that they can tell you. Jimmy was just like, “Most people cannot handle stress.” You guys have been around some of the most talented people, genius-level talents, who have completely imploded, maybe destroyed their lives, maybe died prematurely.\n\nHe broke it down into 4 things for me. He said, “People can’t handle stress, and these are the pitfalls, David, that you should watch out for.” The 1st was drugs, the 2nd was alcohol, the 3rd was women, and the 4th was megalomania.\n\nIt's really hard to get on stage, and there's 80,000 people screaming your name, and over time they just think there's some kind of. They're not even human anymore, which you seem to be like, \"I'm not special. I have no.\" I know you say you have no talent and all this other shit.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nLike, “I’m not special.”\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nI think there’s a lot of wisdom to that. It’s just like, man, there are 10 million “mes” and 10 million “yous” all over the world, or whatever that is.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nDo you think Jimmy’s perspective on that is complete? The people that you’ve seen who had talent and success and then destroyed it—is there anything else that he’s missing?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nI think those are all of them, because the last one takes into account a lot. There’s both the mask of overconfidence and ego, which is hiding insecurity, or there’s the insecurity—but they’re really the same thing. They’re just presenting in 2 different ways.\n\nTwo people have the same overnight success. One of them gets really boastful: “I’m the greatest that ever lived.” The other one is like, “Oh, my God, they’re going to find out that I’m really a fake.” But those are both the same people. They’re 2 sides of the same coin.\n\nThe megalomania is a way of hiding the insecurity. It’s a brave face. They might not know this. They rarely know it. It’s different sides of the same imbalance.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nSo that leads me to the question I hinted at, or maybe even said: How have you sustained success over such a long period of time?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nI think the fact that I learned to meditate when I was young and always had a grounded perspective, and the fact that I know it’s not me. It’s those 2 things. I’m grounded, and I know I’m lucky to participate in this magic that’s happening. I get to be in the room when it happens, but it’s not from me.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nMm-hmm. What do you mean it’s not from you?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nI’m in the service of it.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nYou’re a conduit? Is that what you mean?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah, I would say that. I’m in the service of it. I’m devoted to setting the stage to allow it to happen, and I’m patient and waiting for it to come. It’s not like when it’s great, it’s like, “I did a great job.”\n\nDavid Senra\n\nMm-hmm.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nIt’s not that.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nNo, I think the people who sustain greatness over time, even if they do something great, don’t rest on their laurels. They don’t go to sleep on wins. They just make something great. They’re like, “All right. Try to do it again the next day.” They don’t really think too much.\n\nJimmy Iovine—I keep bringing him up—has that great line: “I don’t have a rearview mirror, and I don’t have a trophy room.”\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nHe's just like, \"I don't give a.\" Even when he did the show, he was like, “I don’t want to talk about the past. I want to talk about what I’m working on in the future.”\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nThey’re all like that. I just had lunch with Jeffrey Katzenberg, and it was the same thing. He was like, “Yeah, we can do the show, but I want to talk about what I’m working on now, not just what happened at Disney and everything else.”\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nIt’s just very, very common.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah, yeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nLike staying in the moment, being present. Tell me if you disagree with me, because, again, I have this interpretation of you in my mind. I’ve been a fan of yours for a very long time, and I keep coming back to this sustained success over a long period of time.\n\nI talked to James Dyson, the guy who invented the vacuum cleaner. He’s a fascinating person to me. He was the number 1 person I wanted to meet, because his 1st autobiography, I think, is so great. It’s all about him enduring through struggle and refusing to quit.\n\nSomething I didn’t understand—even though I read his 1st autobiography 5 times and his 2nd autobiography 2 or 3 times—is that I love obsessed people.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nHe’s an inventor.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nHe wrote an encyclopedia while he was building his company on a history of gray dimensions, and he's.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nGot it.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nThere's like f***ing 200 adventures in there. He is like, \"Look at this little weird thing,\" and he’s completely obsessed. Obsessed.\n\nBut what I didn’t understand about what was driving him was that he told me this great story on the podcast. He said, “This is my simple organizing principle. I pick up a product, right? A cup. I pick up a product. It exists. I go, ‘How can I make this product better?’” He makes it better, puts it back down, waits a little bit, picks it up, and goes, “How can I make it better?” He makes it better and puts it down. He goes, “I just do that over and over again. I’ve been doing it for 50 years.”\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYes.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nSo, if I had to guess what your organizing principle was—and I think it also influences the sustained success that you’ve had—it’s just making things that you yourself like.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nThat’s it.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nSometimes I’ll go into a friend’s house and think, “The furniture in here isn’t arranged in the best way. Maybe I’ll rearrange the furniture.”\n\nRick Rubin\n\nNo, you don’t.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nI’ve done that. I’ve done that.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nWhat does your friend say?\n\nDavid Senra\n\nIt depends. Some are cool with it. Some are like, “He’s crazy.”\n\nRick Rubin\n\nOkay. Well, say more about this.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nWell, it’s just seeing the possibility. I’ve worked on a lot of living spaces, and the idea of designing a house from scratch is a daunting one to me. I can’t imagine doing that because there are too many options. But if there’s a house that exists, I might be able to see, “What’s the best version of this thing that already exists?”\n\nIt’s the same with music. I hear what’s there, and now, what’s the best version of this? What can we do to make it better?\n\nSame thing as James Dyson.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nExactly the same.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nYeah, and I feel like you did this from the jump, when you were like, “Well, I’m in the club. I’m obsessed with going to the club. The hip-hop club is incredible,” right?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\n“But I like this stuff that’s here. I go to the record store. I’m buying this stuff that I don’t like.”\n\nRick Rubin\n\nIt’s not real.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nYeah, so I was like, “I want the real one. Why don’t I just make what I actually like?”\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nAnd it wound up working out fabulously.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah. But, again, I didn’t know in advance that it would work out fabulously. It was just, “This is what I want to hear. I’m making it for me.”\n\nDavid Senra\n\nThese are my favorite kinds of people because, again, it goes back to why you’re doing what you’re doing. You’re doing it because you wanted to make it—\n\nRick Rubin\n\nI want it in the world.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nYou were willing to just make music at night and have a normal job because you liked doing it.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nAbsolutely. I never thought of any of this as a job. It’s never been about that. It’s only a job because I’m committed to showing up. That’s what makes it a job. The actual craft of making things is what I like to do.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nWhat would have to happen for you to basically disappear, stop working with musicians, and stop making podcasts?\n\nRick Rubin\n\nI think I would just keep making things for myself. I give the example in the book of moving into a house on top of a mountain that no one could ever come and visit, making it the place that you most wanted to spend your time, and really curating it to your taste.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nMm.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nThat’s the job.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nIt’s not about, “I’m making this to show off to someone else.” I’m making this because I want to inhabit it. I make the music that I’m excited to listen to.\n\nNow, it’s ridiculous. It doesn’t work out that way because, in making the music, we work on it and listen to it 1,000 times. Then, when it’s done, it’s fine if I never hear it again. I never put on music I worked on, which is funny because I’m making it to be the perfect version of what I want to hear. But in the process of doing that, there’s so much listening involved that it’s not fun for me to go back and listen to it. I want to hear something new.\n\nThis idea of the example that you use in the book of the house on the mountain—\n\nRick Rubin\n\nThat no one will ever see.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nSay more about the thinking behind that, though.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nWell, I just know that for me, I don’t decorate my home to impress someone else. I decorate my home to be the best version of the house that I want to live in. It’s not typical. I’m willing to go to extremes to make the thing that I want to inhabit. It’s not for anyone else; it’s just for me.\n\nOften, if other people do happen to come over, they’ll say, “Wow, I’d love to live in a place like this. I’ve never been in a place like this.”\n\nDavid Senra\n\nI think the metaphor that you’re using there is almost like a map for people to find their life’s work if they haven’t found it yet.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nIt’s like, “What are you already doing—\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\n—for you?”\n\nRick Rubin\n\nAnd what will you do no matter what? What won’t you stop doing regardless?\n\nDavid Senra\n\nI always say, people say, “If you love what you do, you would do it for free.” And I say, “No, there’s another level to loving what you’re doing.\n\nIf you truly love what you do, they couldn’t pay you to stop.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nYeah.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nI think it’s excellent advice for helping people find their life’s work. Rick, this was awesome. You’ve been a huge inspiration to me. I’ve used a ton of your ideas in my work, and I hope this is the first conversation of many between me and you.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nGreat. Pleasure.\n\nDavid Senra\n\nThanks for doing this.\n\nRick Rubin\n\nThank you.","tldr_md_alt":"- **Rubin的核心创作法则——少即是多，但要做到少，必须先做更多——贯穿整场对话。** 堆上10样东西，每一样的重要性就只剩单独存在时的十分之一；吉他声叠到两层、3层，结果是“你听到了吉他，却听不到有人在弹吉他”。最后留下的少数元素必须被无情筛选，“因为它们承担了一切，而且没有任何东西可以藏起来”。\n- **Def Jam起步于一次对真实性的套利：市场上的嘻哈12英寸单曲由外部专业人士制作，做的是“好莱坞版本”，而真正的产品只存在于市中心那家每周营业一晚的俱乐部里。** Rubin的第一张唱片、T La Rock的《It's Yours》，只是想“把俱乐部里的能量捕捉到唱片上”；业余身份反而成为优势，这张唱片在18个月里卖出约10万张，属于永远不可能上电台的音乐。当时“没有上行空间，也没人想过还会有其他人喜欢这个”。\n- **他的剪辑方法是一套可重复的流程，而不只是品味：如果手里有100%，目标是70%，就要强迫自己先砍到40%，再把需要的部分加回来。** 与 Red Hot Chili Peppers 合作时，他们会录下40-50首歌，再进行A/B/C投票，所有人都选A的歌才会进入专辑——“经过无情剪辑后，你会更理解这件作品”。先找出“无论如何都不能舍弃的那些，哪怕只有很少几首”，再从那里开始搭建。\n- **最能暴露Rubin本人的自白是：“我是个懒惰的工作狂……” 他的本能状态是无所事事，却必须逼自己到场；他真正上瘾的是魔法降临的瞬间——“不行，不行……天啊，行了”——之后还得保护它，“因为它极其脆弱”。**他的工作模型是钓鱼：可以一整天什么都钓不到，但“如果你不去，就不会发生”。\n- **Senra对 Tetragrammaton 为何有效的判断是：Rubin是一个“职业听众”；Rubin完全接受了这个定义。** 深度聆听音乐对他而言“完全是一种迷幻体验”，他认为这或许让自己一生都不需要喝酒或吸毒；这种聆听训练了他不带评判地理解他人的姿态：“我的看法不属于其中，我只想真正理解。”这档播客源于他与 Dana White 的一次3小时谈话。\n- **关于组织结构，他认同“伟大的东西不可能由委员会制造”，但不存在唯一正确的治理模式。** The Beatles 和 Jagger/Richards靠彼此对抗运转，Tom Petty是拥有最终决定权的旗手，U2则要求全员一致；同样，Jay-Z在沙发上坐25分钟后，就能把脑中的整段表演录下来，而 Eminem “会永远打磨一首歌”。两者都很出色，只是运行系统不同。\n- **在看了几十年天才自我毁掉之后，他给出的长寿公式是：从年轻时开始冥想，再加上“我知道这不是我……我是在为它服务”的认知。** Rubin认同 Jimmy Iovine 总结的4个陷阱——毒品、酒精、女人、自大狂——并补充说，自大狂与冒名顶替者式的恐惧是“同一枚硬币的两面”，吹嘘是对不安全感的遮掩。他留给Senra的毕生事业测试是：在一座无人会造访的山上建一栋房子，纯粹按自己的品味完成；“如果你真的热爱自己做的事，他们出多少钱也买不走你停下来的念头”。","digest_md_alt":"### 1. 少即是多——但要得到“少”，必须先做更多\n- Rubin的算术，是Senra说自己每周都会想起的观念：堆上10样东西，“每一样的重要性都只剩单独存在时的十分之一”。元素越少，每一项就越必须“经过极其严格的筛选，因为它们承担着一切，而且没有任何东西可以藏起来”——所以“做到少并不像听起来那么容易”。\n- 他这样解释吉他的例子：把一段吉他声叠成两层、3层，形成一堵声墙，“你听到了吉他，却听不到有人在弹吉他……它变得更普通、更无个性”。只留一个演奏者，让手指摩擦琴弦的声音清晰可闻，“会更有人味”。他要寻找的是：“独特的本质能够显露出来。”\n- 谈到伟大作品背后的工作量时，Rubin说自己从未计算过投入，因为那是“一项使命，也是一种热爱”；需要大量工作这一事实，“根本不在考虑范围内”。\n\n### 2. Def Jam是对专业人士听不见的场景进行套利\n- Rubin在 NYU 宿舍生活的年代，嘻哈只存在于市中心一家每周开一晚的俱乐部，以及 Bronx 和 Brooklyn 的社区中心；每两三周发行一张新的12英寸单曲，没有专辑。这是“街头音乐”，不喜欢它的人“甚至不承认那是音乐”——“Elvis和摇滚乐当年也是一样”。\n- 缺口在于：这些单曲由其他音乐类型的专业人士制作——“一个有经验的外部人士在制作他们以为的嘻哈……也就是好莱坞版本”。Rubin的第一张唱片、T La Rock的《It's Yours》，目标只是“把俱乐部里的能量捕捉到唱片上”；“正因为我不知道自己在做什么，结果才忠实于嘻哈本来的样子”。它在18个月里卖出约10万张，属于永远不可能上电台的音乐。\n- 谈到预期，Senra提到Jay-Z在10年后已经知道，嘻哈“在消失之前会先大得多”。而10年前的Rubin会说：“我不会说它总有一天会变大……当时没有上行空间。”他还默认音乐永远不可能成为一份工作——家里没人是艺术家，他原本打算找一份普通工作，同时继续做音乐。\n- 他的研究习惯当时已经成形：听到 MC5 后去二手唱片店，请店员把他引向 Iggy and The Stooges；他总是在追寻与自己所爱相似的音乐，或启发了它的音乐——就像Senra通过传记的参考书目不断向前挖掘。\n\n### 3. “Reduced by Rick Rubin”：把The Beatles的结构套用到笔记本里的押韵文字\n- LL Cool J第一张唱片上有一条著名署名，封套印着Rubin在宿舍的地址：“Reduced by Rick Rubin”（由 Rick Rubin 精简）。他当时以为“制作”意味着把东西搭建起来，“但我实际做的是拆解和精简”。这个署名是在18-19岁时想出来的，此后他一直坚持这一理念。\n- Def Jam之前的说唱唱片还算不上歌曲——“有人开始说唱……然后说完”，更像一段“牙买加toast式”的独白。LL带来的是顺序完全打乱的歌词笔记本；而Rubin对音乐的全部理解都建立在 The Beatles 之上——“有史以来最伟大的词曲作者”，歌曲结构“极其规整、紧凑”。因此，他把副歌、重复句和结构引入其中。\n- 40多年过去，这份工作“可能没有太大不同”：找到每位艺术家的本质，而这个本质“往往需要被剥离，但最终要剥离到他们本来的样子”。刚刚完成的 The Strokes 专辑就是如此：“他们是5个人组成的乐队，所以听起来就像一支由5个人组成的乐队……听起来就是他们本来的样子。”\n\n### 4. 无情剪辑：先砍到40%，再靠自己加回70%\n- 方法是：如果手里有100%，知道目标是70%，不要只削掉30%——“强迫自己先做到40%，然后把必要的部分加回来，回到70%……经过无情剪辑后，你会更理解这件作品”。有时这意味着“删掉作品中你真正喜爱的部分”。\n- Red Hot Chili Peppers 的执行方式是：每张专辑录40-50首歌，所有人进行A/B/C投票；全员一致选A的歌曲进入唱片，意见分裂的歌曲可能被放弃——“这是一个民主流程，直到最后只剩下大家共同认为我们能做出的最好东西”。\n- 搭建的原则是：找出“无论如何都不能舍弃的那些，哪怕只有很少几首”，再从那里开始构建。而这其实不只是音乐问题——Shangri-La、他购买的物品和唱片都共享同一种审美：“我做的大多数事情其实都不是关于音乐。我只是恰好在音乐行业工作。”\n\n### 5. Eminem的执着，以及Rubin的自白：“我是个懒惰的工作狂”\n- Rubin认为，Eminem可能是他合作过的最执着的艺术家，因为“他整个人生都围绕着写词展开”——一本又一本的笔记本，字写得极小。有人问他是不是又要写一首新歌，他回答：“不是，我只是在保持这套技能活跃。”大约90%的内容永远不会出现在任何一首歌里。\n- 执着并不是唯一的路径：“对一些人来说，工作伦理就是他们成为自己的原因；还有一些人天赋极高，只需要足够的工作伦理，就能把事情推过终点线。”Rubin自己的驱动力是：“我不喜欢半途而废……一旦开始做一件事，我就想看看它最终能成为什么。”\n- 随后他承认：“我是个懒惰的工作狂……我的本能状态是无所事事。”他喜欢的是按下发送键，而不是之前的苦工——“天啊，我今天还得去录音室”；但他最初25年都在纽约“每天每周7天、每天16小时待在一间黑屋里”。Senra拿 Anthony Bourdain 作类比，Rubin回应说：“我每天都得和那个人斗争。”Rubin回答：“是的。”\n\n### 6. 他真正上瘾的是魔法降临的瞬间，以及保护它\n- 那个揭示性时刻通常是：“不行，不行，不行……也可能只是个错误。机器可能根本没正常工作……但我们突然听到的东西真的很酷。”它是在过程中“被召唤出来的……像一个奇迹”；而“之后整个流程剩下的部分，就是保护它，因为它极其脆弱”。当一次录音顺利进行时，没人愿意让它结束——“我们知道一旦停下来，就无法控制它了”。\n- 意识到这一点反而可能让保护它变得更难，就像高尔夫球员的“易普症”： “一旦你开始思考它，而不是单纯地处在其中，你就再也做不到了。”Senra也提到 Steph Curry：有人问他投篮时在想什么，他回答：“绝对什么都没想。”这和Senra划书时报告的那种“什么都不想”是同一种状态。\n- Rubin称钓鱼是“最好的例子”：你可以花一整天钓鱼却一无所获，就像在录音室工作一天或一周，也可能什么好东西都做不出来。Senra补充了 Akon 讲述的 Eminem 故事——早上9点开始，中午12点写到一半时吃午饭，下午5点完成；而Rubin的规则是：“如果你只是等待灵感，它永远不会来……你去现场不代表事情一定会发生，但如果你不去，它就不会发生。”\n\n### 7. 职业听众：做播客只是他日常生活的延伸\n- 一切起源于 Dana White：两人在Rubin家外聊了3个小时，Rubin随后问：“你介意我把这段录下来吗？”那一刻“有点像突然意识到，原来做播客就是这样。我本来就在生活中做这件事”。\n- Senra判断Rubin是“职业听众”，Rubin接受了这个定义，并将其追溯到自己聆听音乐的方式：闭上眼睛，“完全是一种迷幻体验”；Rubin说，这或许让他一生都不需要喝酒或吸毒，睁开眼时甚至会惊讶自己身在何处。大多数对话不过是“两个等着轮到自己说出想法的人”。\n- 他的姿态是：“我也不带任何评判……我的看法不属于其中。我只想真正理解对方分享给我的东西……也许是我理解错了。我什么都不知道。”真正被听见会让人“卸下防备……因为这种体验太罕见了”。\n- 他对自己的定位是：“我把自己当作一个研究者。”Senra随后举自己的例子：追踪一个平凡兴趣的每个细节，甚至测试咖啡机——“没有终点，我无法把这个过程走到尽头。”至于他为何为音乐放弃了9-16岁时所在的社群和那种魔法，他说：“我为了另一个所爱之物，放下了原本所爱的东西……那不是一种损失。”\n\n### 8. 约束造就专辑：Man in Black的过滤器\n- 约束是“一套只适用于这个项目的规则”，它们可以让一张专辑“脱离艺术家整个职业生涯，成为某个时间点的标志性作品”，而不是“又一张差不多的作品”。\n- Johnny Cash的案例中，采用原声并不是事先设计好的——客厅里的试听录音、Cash独自演唱，胜过了完整乐队参与的录音室版本（“我事先并不知道这一点”）。而且所有素材都经过神话形象的过滤：“Johnny Cash这个人可以唱一首滑稽的歌，但Man in Black大概不会。”歌曲需要具备“那个传奇的、神话般的人物”的庄重感。每一下扫弦都直接用手指完成，没有拨片。\n\n### 9. 教堂与银行：Jimmy Iovine的对照\n- 早期有这样一段故事：Rubin还住在 NYU 宿舍时，把自己的第一张摇滚唱片放给 Iovine 听——那是与嘻哈作品同期制作的 The Cult《Electric》。Iovine说：“我希望自己还能做出这么简单的东西。”Rubin的解释是：制作人越了解自己能做什么，“往往就越容易把作品做大”。而他始终保持简单，整个唱片目录里“可能只有两三个例子”失控了；一张 Joe Cocker 唱片因为双方理念冲突而夭折，最终没有完成。\n- Iovine对两人差异的总结，经Rubin转述是：“我做的是银行生意，你做的是教堂生意，这就是区别”——一边是热情与信仰，另一边是利润底线。Senra还讲到，Iovine听到一首 Tom Petty 的歌后宣布：“这是house music……这首歌会给你买下一栋房子。”但Rubin认为Iovine的优势依然归结为两点：“好的品味，以及……出色的工作伦理。”\n\n### 10. Jay-Z与Eminem：为什么不存在唯一正确的结构\n- Jay-Z的工作方式在Rubin的经验中独一无二：“放一堆东西给我听。如果我听到喜欢的，我会想想；如果没有，明天见。”随后他坐在沙发上沉默，单曲循环25-30分钟，最后说：“我懂了。”整首歌就这样从脑中直接录下来。他的大多数专辑都完成得非常快，《Magna Carta Holy Grail》大约用了2周，有些完整项目甚至一个周末就做完。相比之下，Eminem的方式更有书卷气、更像学生，“一遍又一遍地录”，会“永远打磨一首歌”。\n- Senra关于委员会的观点得到Rubin一句“正确”回应——委员会“往往会把作品稀释”；但Rubin随即用乐队的治理模式把问题复杂化：John和Paul，以及 Jagger/Richards，靠彼此对抗运转（“这恰恰违背了你刚才说的”）；Tom Petty是掌旗者，拥有最终决定权；U2则是纯粹民主制——3个人说可以、1个人说不行，这首歌就会被否决。\n- 他还贡献了一段录音室轶事：Ol' Dirty Bastard 的名声在外，Rubin在一次合作前有些紧张，于是带上自己那只长着脏辫的 Puli 狗和一位负责拍摄的朋友。ODB指着狗说：“它没问题。”随后又指向摄像机：“他得走。”这次录音最终进行得很顺利。\n\n### 11. 如何持续做下去：没有自我，没有自我批判，以及山上的房子\n- Rubin之所以跨越50年没有自我毁掉，靠的是从年轻时开始冥想，以及“我知道这不是我……我是在为它服务。我专注于搭建舞台，让它能够发生”。他有信心，但不宣称自己一定正确：“我从不说‘我是对的’……如果轮到我投票，我会投这一票。但绝不是非得按我的方式来，否则免谈。”\n- Senra转述 Iovine 对成功的4个陷阱总结：毒品、酒精、女人、自大狂。Rubin认为这份清单已经完整，因为最后一项涵盖了两种表现：吹嘘自己，以及害怕别人发现自己其实不够格——“他们其实是同一种人，是同一枚硬币的两面。自大狂是隐藏不安全感的一种方式。”一夜成名“是一件很奇怪的事……很多艺术家会在成功中自我瓦解”。\n- 他没有持续自我批判的内心独白，只有开始时的忐忑，因为“它可能变成任何东西”；直到“一丝微光”出现，他才放松下来。每件作品都是一篇日记：“那一刻的你就是那样……这真的让人自由。”他的分享标准是：“只要我喜欢到足以拿给一个人听，它大概率就已经准备好面对所有人了。”\n- 关于如何找到毕生事业，最后的路线图是：在一座无人会造访的山顶建一栋房子，完全按自己的品味布置——“我制作自己兴奋到想听的音乐”（尽管他从不重放已经完成的唱片）。问题在于：“无论如何你都会做什么？不管发生什么，你都不会停止做什么？”Senra最后的总结是：“如果你真的热爱自己做的事，他们出多少钱也买不走你停下来的念头。”","shows":{"name":"David Senra","hosts":"David Senra"}}