Rick Rubin on Finding Your Life’s Work

Five years ago, I read this biography of you. It's called In the Studio. You and I were just talking about it before we started recording. One of my favorite ideas that I took away from that book, 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?

Yeah. If you're stacking a lot of things on top of each other, each one of those things becomes less important. So, if you have 10 things, each one of them is 1/10 as important as one by itself.

If you're making something and you want the least amount involved, those things have to be really critically curated, because they're doing the work of everything, and nothing is hidden. It's why it's not as easy as it sounds to do less. But when you see it, you can get the personality.

I'll give you an example with guitars. A lot of recordings are made where the guitarist plays, and then they double it and triple it, and they create this 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.

When 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.

What 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.

Mm-hmm.

You 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"?

I 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.

When you were 18 or 19 years old, was it just all music all the time?

Yeah. 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.

Hip-hop was just starting in New York City. It was still a totally underground movement, so the only place you could hear it was at one club downtown where I was going to school. There was only one club 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.

It was underground and not well thought of as music. It was street music.

Mm-hmm.

I 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.

I 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.

So, 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.

The 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.

But 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.

The 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?

Yeah.

So, this was your opportunity, essentially, your way into this.

The 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.

Is this the first single you put out? It sold 100,000 copies, or is that the same one?

Yeah, 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.

As a matter of fact, back then, most people who were not hip-hop fans didn't even acknowledge it as music. That's how far it was.

What did they think it was?

I 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.

Okay, that's—

That's how foreign it was.

When you were 18 or 19 years old, were you already studying older versions of music? Were you already going back?

I 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.

I do the same thing with biographies.

Yeah.

I 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."

Yeah.

I'll go in the bibliography and usually find books about the people who inspired them.

Same.

Do 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"?

It'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.

I remember going to a used-record store because the used-record store had all the cool older stuff, and they knew the most about music. 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.

I 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.

So, 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.

I want to tell you about the presenting sponsor of this podcast, Ramp. I have been reading a lot about SpaceX lately. SpaceX is one of the most valuable private businesses in the world, and one of the main themes in the history of SpaceX is constantly attacking and questioning your cost. 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.

I 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.

You thought music was going to be a hobby. You were going to have to get a day job—

Yeah.

—and then just do music.

I didn't know it was possible to be a job.

Yeah. Can you talk about that?

Yeah. I thought I would have a regular job. I didn't know anyone who did music professionally, or I couldn't imagine it. No one in my family was an artist, so it wasn't a realistic expectation.

I 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.

You were in a band, right?

Mm-hmm.

You played, I think, guitar.

Guitar. In a punk rock band, so it was very rudimentary.

Yeah, 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?

Yeah. 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.

It 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.

But how do you go from that to— is DJ the next route in?

The 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.

I think that’s an understatement. I mean, the beginning of hip-hop. I remember reading about the early founding of Def Jam.

Yeah.

When 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.

Mm-hmm.

Jay-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.

Yeah.

He says something that’s really great. He’s like, “I definitely couldn’t tell you that I could get rich from rap.”

Yeah. Yeah.

“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.

Where 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.

Is LL Cool J the first person you produced?

The first hip-hop record I produced was T La Rock’s “It’s Yours.”

Okay.

It was one single.

That’s the one that sold 100,000 copies—

Yeah.

—in 18 months.

And then LL’s first record was the first record after that.

But which is the one where you put “Reduced by Rick Rubin” on the sleeve, along with your dorm room address?

Yeah. 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.

This 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.

I 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.

So, he brings you a song, and there’s just too much. What are you taking away?

In 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.

The 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.

Almost like spoken word to a beat?

Kind of, but it was still in the rap style. It just wasn’t in a song structure. It was like Jamaican toasting.

The 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.

Okay, 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?

Probably not so different. It’s probably pretty similar. It just depends on the artist.

Because 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.

I 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.

Mm-hmm.

You have this idea of ruthless editing. I’ve heard you talk about it a few times on podcasts. Can you explain what that is?

Sometimes, for the sake of the whole work, removing things about it that you really love is part of the process.

If 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%.

It works in a different way. You have a better understanding of the work after the ruthless edit because you find out, especially with a group, 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.

If 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.

And 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.

Yeah.

And you say the album wants to have 10 or 12.

Yeah. Yeah.

There might be 3 that you can’t live without.

Yeah.

Is that the thought process?

It 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.

What 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?

In every domain, there are people who make beautiful things. I like people who make beautiful things.

But are you saying that their thought process is similar? Do you find similarities between their thought process and your push for the work?

Yeah. 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?

It does, but say more about this.

You’re at Shangri-La, and you walk through the space, and you see that it doesn’t feel like other places you’ve been.

Yeah.

It 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.

Yeah, 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.

But 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.”

It’s the same.

Yeah.

It’s the same.

Yeah.

It’s all the creative spirit.

I 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.

Eminem 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.

I 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?

It feels like his entire life is centered around writing words. He’s totally preoccupied with that, so he always has a notebook. He’s always making little notes. He writes in tiny letters, and he’s always making notes.

At 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.

He’s just writing. That’s what he does. He writes.

Does he apply that to other elements of making a song, though, not just writing? Because he does a lot of his own production, right?

He does, and I would say it’s the same type of obsessiveness. It’s what makes him great. He’s obsessed.

Have you come across anybody that you consider great who’s not obsessed?

I’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.

What do you think it is for you?

I don’t like to quit. I like to see things through. When I start something, I like to see what it can be.

From the outside, you have this very relaxed Zen vibe.

Yeah.

But I swear, I think underneath is a workaholic.

Oh, for sure.

Okay.

For sure. I’m a lazy workaholic.

A lazy workaholic. You have to say more about that.

That’s what it is.

Because it doesn’t feel like work? Explain.

No, no, no. I have to force myself to do it, but I do force myself. My demeanor would be to do nothing.

Rick, I don’t believe that.

It’s true.

No, you love this too much, though. What do you mean?

That’s the point. I love the beautiful thing, and it takes a lot of work to get to the beautiful thing.

You like the end result? Is that what you’re saying?

Yeah. 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.”

Mm-hmm.

That’s a great feeling. I like it enough for you to get to hear it.

Okay.

But all of the work up until then is like, “Oh my God, I have to go to the studio today.”

That’s surprising to me.

Yeah. It’s such a beautiful day. Wouldn’t it be nice to just go out and have lunch with friends? But 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.

No, you’d rather be out here barefoot, butt naked in the sun, I think.

Now. But not then. Not then.

Okay.

I like being outside. I like having fun with friends. I like hanging out with my family.

Do you like making podcasts more than music now?

I don’t know if 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.

I want to pull on this for a little bit, if you don’t mind.

Yeah.

I 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.

Yeah.

So are you more like Billie in that case? Do you like that it’s done?

I 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.

That’s the thing that’s addictive: that feeling when it’s like, “It’s not good, it’s not good, it’s not good, it’s not good.” We try this, we try this. This doesn’t work, this doesn’t work, 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.

That’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.

Mm-hmm.

When 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.

When it comes together, let’s say a band is playing and doing take after take after take. When it’s really good, we all kind of look at each other 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.

It’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.

Do you have to force yourself to do it?

Yeah.

Have you ever just given up in that moment and walked away for a little bit?

Mm-mm.

Okay, so you do have a really—

Yeah, good work ethic.

You have work ethic and discipline.

Yeah.

Okay. But it would still be—

It’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.

Explain what people do to kill these special moments, though, because you kept saying, “We have to protect this. We have to protect this.”

Once 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.

So 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.

I 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.”

Exactly.

When 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.

That’s it.

Then I’ll go back through when I reread the highlights. If it’s still interesting, it was interesting the first time.

Yeah.

Now it’s interesting the second time.

Yeah.

It’s probably interesting—

It’s interesting.

There are 10 million “mes” out there.

Yeah.

I’m not unique.

Same.

There’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—

That gets in the way.

Nothing. I’m thinking of nothing.

Yes.

That’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?

I 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.

I can remember the one where it became obvious to do the podcast was Dana White. Someone introduced me to Dana White.

I’m recording with him next week.

Great. He’s great.

He’s incredible.

He 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.”

That 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.

Deel 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.

We 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.

Mm-hmm.

I was listening to your podcast, “Broken Record.”

Mm-hmm.

Back in the day.

That was the format of that show: just talking to musicians.

And 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.

Yeah, amazing.

I used one of your episodes to prepare because he’s such a unique mind. He’s great.

Great.

It 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?”

What 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.”

That’s true.

He’s listening to the guest. He’s in the moment with the guest.

Yes.

And 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.

Well, 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.

I 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.

I can feel the music, and I can be transported by the music. Not all music, but good music. So I close my eyes, I feel it, and then at the end of it, I open my eyes, and I’m surprised where I am, because I’ve been gone when I’m listening.

So I listen deeply, and I want to know. I really want to understand things. 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.

I 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.

If 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.

So 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.

When I listen to your podcast, I feel you have this combination of sincere interest—

Yes, true.

—in the other human being.

Yes.

And a desire—I think you just said this, but the way I think about it, the way I think about you when I was on your podcast—is a desire not to form an opinion, but to understand.

That’s it.

That’s it.

I 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.

Yeah, there doesn’t seem to be an end to your curiosity either.

I’m interested. I’ve always been interested. I think of myself as a researcher. 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.

You think of yourself as a researcher?

Yeah.

That’s what I do most of the time: research.

Okay, I don’t know about this. Tell me about this.

Well, not a researcher in a professional way.

Mm-hmm.

But 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.

Is it all-consuming for you when you find these pockets of interest?

I’d say so. There’s no end. I don’t get to an end 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.

I 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.

That’s it.

There’s no fucking download number. There’s no “How many ads I sell?” It’s just like, that’s it.

Exactly.

And I’m terrified that one day I’m going to wake up and be like, “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

No, but the only reason that would happen is because something else would take over that you have to do, and that would be fine too.

I’m still terrified of it.

When I was 9 years old, I spent a lot of time practicing magic, like card magic, in front of a mirror.

Mm-hmm.

That 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.

So 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.

Then 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.

But that wasn’t a loss. I didn’t lose anything.

That’s a beautiful way to think about it.

Yeah. 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.

This 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.

Mm-hmm.

And 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.

True.

What you were saying—I think you called yourself a lazy workaholic.

Yeah.

I was saying “lazy alcoholic.” Lazy workaholic.

Yeah.

It’s almost like this isn’t work. This doesn’t feel like work to me.

Yeah. I was a little surprised by the way you described working in music. That does feel like work to you.

Yeah, for sure.

It’s also work because I have to show up. If you commit to 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.

That’s shocking to me, though.

At the time that I choose to do them, I want to do them. I know I want to do them, but still, it’s really nice not to have to get out of bed, or it’s nice to go for a walk on the beach.

So I think I might be well-positioned. 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.

Yeah.

So right now, I feel like I don’t work a day in my life.

Yeah.

I 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.

Yeah.

If 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.

Yeah.

But that’s the only time.

That’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.

But I feel you have complete control over your time and your life.

Yes.

How are you still.

I choose it, and I have to acknowledge, no one's forcing me to do this. I said I would show up. I have to show up.

But in your day-to-day, that still feels like work.

Yeah. It's like, I'd be happy not doing anything. Well, I don't know. I don't know if that's true.

There's no way.

Yeah, there's no way, because it's never been the case.

You could've stopped working decades ago.

Yes.

And I think you're addicted to making great shit.

Yes, and I'm lazy. It's a real part of it. I'm telling you an honest piece of this: every day, it's not like, "Let's go." Every day, it's like, "Oh, no, I have to go work."

You're disappointing me.

It's the truth. It's the truth.

I'm sad. It feels like, out of almost anybody in the world—

Yeah.

—that gets paid for being them—

Yeah.

—is you.

Yes.

And you're saying that's not the case.

No, I'm me. I'm definitely me. There is a part of me that doesn't want to show up for anything, and I have to overcome that every day. That's what I'm saying.

Did you ever spend any time with Tony Bourdain when he was alive?

Never have.

Were you ever a fan of his?

Yeah.

Okay. 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.

Yeah.

It was just directed at the worst thing possible: being a fucking heroin addict.

Yeah.

And 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."

Yeah.

And he goes, "I have to fight."

Yeah.

His writing's beautiful. He's like, "I have to fight that guy every single day."

Yeah. 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.

So I'm addicted to the magic part of it, but I'm not addicted to everything leading up to those magical moments. I'm patient. I'm patient enough to wait forever for that thing to happen, but it's not fun. 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.

But when the good thing happens, it's like, "Ah, there it is. That's why we're here."

That fishing analogy is really important to me. I've heard you say this a few years ago.

It's true. It's the best example.

I heard 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?"

He shows up and doesn't realize that Eminem treats it like a job. He shows up at 9:00 a.m.

Yeah.

He's in the studio writing and recording verses.

Yeah.

I 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."

Yeah.

Akon 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."

Yeah.

People misunderstood what Akon was saying. Eminem doesn't wait around for inspiration.

No.

He shows up every day knowing that if he does the work—

Yeah.

—then it will come.

Yes.

It's exactly what you're saying about fishing.

Yeah, and inspiration is a real thing too, but it's both. 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.

You 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.

Yeah.

You 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.

Yeah. 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.

It 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.

But how is that tied to these constraints that you put on the work?

That happens by coming up with a series of rules that only apply to this project. Those are the constraints.

In the Johnny Cash example.

In 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.

And then, in terms of the material that he would sing, I grew up with this image. What spoke to me about Johnny Cash was this image of the Man in Black, and the Man in Black is a mythical character. Yes, 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.

The man, Johnny Cash, could sing a funny song. The Man in Black probably wouldn't sing a funny song. So the material that we picked was always through the eyes of, what's something that the Man in Black—the legendary, mythological character—would sing? Those are the songs that we chose.

And so in this case, the constraints are you, Johnny, a guitar. I think he said he didn't even use a pick.

Yeah, he used his fingers on every guitar.

Every time he strummed the guitar, it was his fingers.

Yeah.

And you guys in a house.

Yeah, but a big part of it, too, is the choice of material. That's a big part of it for those albums.

And it's looked at through the viewpoint of not just a funny song, but something the Man in Black would do.

And not even just a funny song. It had to have a certain amount of gravitas to fit a mythical character singing it.

When I think about everything I've read about you, and as much as I've heard you speak, I feel like you would agree with the statement that great things can't be made by a committee.

Correct.

It would be unusual for that to be the case.

In many cases, it's just.

There 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.

Even 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?

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

That goes against exactly what you said. It's a different model. But then, like in 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.

In 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.

So, 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.

I’m reducing, I’m not producing.

I 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.

Mm-hmm.

There was a story that you told in there that was very fascinating, because Jimmy’s, I think, 10 years older than you.

Almost exactly 10 years older. Our birthdays are a day apart.

Yeah, 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.

Yeah.

And he goes, “I wish I could still make something that simple.”

Yeah.

And your response was, “I’m sure you can.”

Yeah. What do you mean?

Explain why he said that and what happens over time.

Yeah, because he was a producer.

As you learn more of what you can do, you tend to do that. They tend to get bigger.

At that point in time, I hadn’t done it enough. It was my first record. The Cult’s Electric was my first rock record.

This is after almost a decade in hip-hop, or half a decade in hip-hop?

No.

No?

No.

When was this?

Same time. This is like 19.

Is this when you moved to California?

No. This is still in New York.

Oh, shit. Okay. So this is the very beginning.

I’m still living in the dorm. I’m still living in the dorm at NYU.

Oh my God. I thought this was later. Okay, so this is the very beginning. So it’s as simple as—

Yeah.

It gets very simple because that’s all you can do.

Yeah. 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.

There 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.

I’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—

Yeah.

Different jobs.

He jumped around.

Yeah, different jobs: from engineer to producer, to record company owner, to then building businesses with his artists.

Yeah.

What do you think is special about him? What’s unique about him? Why was he able to do what he was able to do?

He’s got good taste, and he’s got a great work ethic. Those are the 2.

To 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.

Yeah.

Where he’s like, “It was always work. I never liked it.”

Yeah.

It was always a job.

Yeah.

Like, “I like certain parts of it, but I just…” He’s essentially just forced himself to do it.

He said something really interesting that I thought really summed it up, which was, “Jimmy is in the banking business.” These are his words. He said, “I’m in the banking business, and you’re in the church business, and that’s the difference.”

Explain that. I love this.

It’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.

There’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.”

Yeah. That’s the difference.

And Tom—

We’re different in that way.

And Tom goes, “I’ve never heard somebody describe music that way.”

Yeah.

Like, “This is going to buy me a house.”

Yeah.

There 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.

I can remember doing a session with ODB, Ol’ Dirty Bastard from Wu-Tang.

Wu-Tang Clan.

I remember being nervous because I’d never met him before, and his reputation preceded him, so I didn’t really know what I was going into. 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.

I 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.”

What was his reputation for you to do this, though?

All kinds of crazy things, like—

Violence?

Could 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.

We 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.”

Yeah. There are probably 100.

Yes.

Which I think you would agree with.

Yes.

And he’s like, “You just have to find the one that fits best for you.”

Yeah.

And 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.

I’ve always been true to what I feel, and it’s worked out. I suppose if it didn’t work out, then maybe I would have to try something else. But the fact that I’ve stayed true to what feels right to me and, luckily, by the grace of God, it has resonated with other people, it allows me to continue doing it.

I 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.

Is 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.”

Yeah.

Thomas Edison has this famous quote where he’s like, “We don’t know 1-millionth of 1 percent about anything.”

Yeah. I believe that. I believe we don’t know anything.

Yeah, so if you believe you don’t know anything, then the only other thing you could do is be guided by your intuition.

Yeah. 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.

AppLovin'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.

I 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?

He 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.

What’s the energy when you’re in the room with both of them, though?

Eminem 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.”

“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.

I think a lot of people know that he did Magna Carta Holy Grail, essentially, in 2 weeks.

Mm. He did the whole album in 2 weeks.

Most of his albums were made very quickly.

Yeah. 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.

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Some of them happen in a weekend—the whole thing.

That’s crazy.

Yeah. As opposed to Em, who will work on a song forever.

Yes. 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.

What do you think Em’s personality type is, then?

I 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.

Of the 2, which one do you think your working style is closer to?

I 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.”

Oh, 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.

Yeah.

Is that the way you think about it?

Yes. I’d say that’s accurate. Do you have anybody who plays that role in your life for you?

I don’t know if I do. I didn’t know if anyone produces me. Could they produce you? I don’t know if there’s anything to produce here.

Yeah. 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.”

Mm-hmm.

And 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.”

Yeah. I could see that you take a lot of input, but I think you would be resistant to it.

I won’t change my mind, but I’m open to hearing ideas and definitely open to help. If someone suggests something that makes it better, and I see that, it’s like, “That’s the best.” I’m not close-minded. Because someone offers information—even experienced wisdom—I might not always choose to use that information.

Do you think you have a big ego?

I don’t think so.

You have a lot of self-confidence, though.

I have a lot of self-confidence.

But they even said somebody met you when you were 19, and they were like, “That’s the most self-confident 19-year-old I’ve ever met.”

Yeah. 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.

So this confidence in your own judgment—because you were just saying you could have somebody who has a lot of experienced wisdom—

When 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.

What is your inner monologue like when you’re making something? Is it positive? Negative? Are you self-critical?

It 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.

Even today?

Even 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.

But 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.

So you would say you don’t have a self-critical inner monologue constantly playing in your mind?

Never.

It’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.

Yeah.

I 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.

That’s great.

I 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.

Yeah.

There’s nothing to be critical about because you did the best you possibly could have done.

In that moment.

Yeah. And then that was 10 years ago, and that was 5 years ago.

Yeah.

And then what we’re making today is—

Yeah, 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.

It’s really freeing. It’s helpful for an artist to think that way because usually, especially when we’re younger, we think the thing that we make is, “This is my magnum opus, and this is going to define me for the rest of my life.” 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.

What’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?

Yeah.

Usually, 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.

I’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?

Yeah, that sounds right.

I 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.”

What is the stuff that they’re afraid of, usually?

“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.

And 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.

Okay, 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—

Yeah.

It’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.

He 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.

It's really hard to get on stage, and there's 80,000 people screaming your name, and over time they just think there's some kind of. 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.

Yeah.

Like, “I’m not special.”

Yeah.

I 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.

Yeah.

Do 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?

I 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.

Two 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.

The 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.

So 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?

I 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.

Mm-hmm. What do you mean it’s not from you?

I’m in the service of it.

You’re a conduit? Is that what you mean?

Yeah, I would say that. I’m in the service of it. I’m devoted to setting the stage to allow it to happen, and I’m patient and waiting for it to come. It’s not like when it’s great, it’s like, “I did a great job.”

Mm-hmm.

It’s not that.

No, 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.

Jimmy 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.”

Yeah.

He'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.”

Yeah.

They’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.”

Yeah.

It’s just very, very common.

Yeah, yeah.

Like 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.

I 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.

Something 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.

He’s an inventor.

He wrote an encyclopedia while he was building his company on a history of gray dimensions, and he's.

Got it.

There's like f***ing 200 adventures in there. He is like, "Look at this little weird thing," and he’s completely obsessed. Obsessed.

But 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.”

Yes.

So, 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.

That’s it.

Sometimes 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.”

No, you don’t.

I’ve done that. I’ve done that.

What does your friend say?

It depends. Some are cool with it. Some are like, “He’s crazy.”

Okay. Well, say more about this.

Well, 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?”

It’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?

Same thing as James Dyson.

Exactly the same.

Yeah, 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?

Yeah.

“But I like this stuff that’s here. I go to the record store. I’m buying this stuff that I don’t like.”

It’s not real.

Yeah, so I was like, “I want the real one. Why don’t I just make what I actually like?”

Yeah.

And it wound up working out fabulously.

Yeah. 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.”

These 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—

I want it in the world.

You were willing to just make music at night and have a normal job because you liked doing it.

Absolutely. 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.

What would have to happen for you to basically disappear, stop working with musicians, and stop making podcasts?

I 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.

Mm.

That’s the job.

It’s not about, “I’m making this to show off to someone else.” I’m making this because I want to inhabit it. I make the music that I’m excited to listen to.

Now, 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.

This idea of the example that you use in the book of the house on the mountain—

That no one will ever see.

Say more about the thinking behind that, though.

Well, 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.

Often, 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.”

I 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.

Yeah.

It’s like, “What are you already doing—

Yeah.

—for you?”

And what will you do no matter what? What won’t you stop doing regardless?

I 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.

If you truly love what you do, they couldn’t pay you to stop.

Yeah.

I think it’s excellent advice for helping people find their life’s work. Rick, this was awesome. You’ve been a huge inspiration to me. I’ve used a ton of your ideas in my work, and I hope this is the first conversation of many between me and you.

Great. Pleasure.

Thanks for doing this.

Thank you.