The Rick Rubin Interview

hi everybody I'm Rick biato today I'm<br>introducing a legend and music<br>production Rick Rubin from co-founding<br>Death Jam records to producing iconic<br>albums for artists like Johnny Cash Red<br>Hot Chili Peppers beasty boy System of a<br>Down Tom Petty and rund DMC Rick Rubin<br>has shaped the sound of multiple<br>Generations across genres from hipop to<br>rock metal and Country he's also worked<br>with artists like Slayer Kanye West and<br>Adele showcasing his versatility and<br>genius his minimalistic approach and<br>deep focus on the artist's authentic<br>sound has earned him the reputation as<br>one of the most influential producers of<br>all time here's my interview Rick<br>welcome even though I'm at your<br>place it's great to be here thank you<br>for inviting me thank you for coming<br>great to see you we talked yesterday for<br>a bit and touched upon a little bit of<br>your beginning I asked you about playing<br>guitar for example or playing<br>instruments and I know that you've said<br>uh I don't really play instruments and<br>things like that but that's not entirely<br>true you started you played guitar as a<br>kid a bit I played punk rock guitar okay<br>power chords things like that yes enough<br>to go out and play gigs enough to go out<br>and play gigs but not enough to play<br>very well tell me a little bit about<br>your background how did you get into<br>music when did you know that you had<br>this gift for being a music producer I<br>didn't I never knew that uh<br>I first connected with music I want to<br>say it was about 3 years old it was um<br>The Beatles version of the Chuck Berry<br>song rock and roll<br>music and I can remember the feeling in<br>my body of dancing around hearing that<br>song and feeling like this is something<br>different even though I was three I knew<br>that that was different than other<br>things and have been in love with music<br>ever since did your parents encourage<br>any type of<br>um uh listening to music at home did<br>they each have their own style of music<br>that they like to listen to I wouldn't<br>say it was encouraged but I did it all<br>the time okay um I listen to music<br>pretty<br>constantly<br>self-directed um I took control of the<br>uh radio when we whenever we were in the<br>car with the family I would only listen<br>to the things that I want to listen to I<br>didn't rarely want to listen to what my<br>parents wanted to listen to<br>although my Dad loved Latin jazz so when<br>I did get to hear that and I think<br>hearing it when I heard it as young as I<br>was probably had a positive effect are<br>there recordings of your punk rock band<br>there are two I made a a 7<br>in and a<br>12in um recording of a band my really my<br>second band which was called hose<br>they're out of print I think they they<br>were maybe 500 copies of each uh but it<br>exists in the world you went to NYU 1981<br>mhm and what were you majoring in at the<br>time I started as a philosophy major I<br>was a philosophy major for two years and<br>then switched film and television so how<br>did you get connected to the music scene<br>in New York City what were you doing<br>were you going out and seeing F all the<br>time were you going to clubs what were<br>you tell tell me about that I went out<br>every night I would go to cbgbs and I<br>would go to Madison Square Garden so on<br>the same night I saw David Bowie at<br>Madison Square Garden and then later<br>that night the Bad Brains of cbgbs I<br>went to Dan atua pretty much every night<br>and there was an Eclectic group of<br>artists performing there on the first<br>floor and then on the second floor was<br>djed music so you could hear dance music<br>and then on the third floor there was a<br>third kind of music playing so you could<br>go from Flor to floor and hear a lot of<br>different music and I would go there all<br>the time New York was a New York City<br>was a very different place back then<br>than people when people go visit it now<br>or even 30 years ago it's very it's the<br>the 80s was a very different time there<br>talk talk about that about the the<br>diversity yeah it was it was um fairly<br>run down yes there were a lot of boarded<br>up buildings there were so so many<br>nightclubs and so many<br>even late night clubs and then after<br>hours clubs that you you could stay out<br>till the next day every day if you chose<br>to and a real wide variety of music from<br>real heavy disco<br>to at first you could only hear hip-hop<br>on occasion like um there was a a club<br>called N<br>Grill which was the only place downtown<br>where you could hear hip-hop music I<br>think it was Tuesday nights and um and<br>that was only so only once a week you<br>couldn't really hear hip-hop other than<br>that you could hear dance music pretty<br>much all the time and then they were<br>fairly regular punk rock or Rock shows<br>and I would go to the the rits and The<br>Peppermint Lounge both The Peppermint<br>Lounge Uptown and then The Peppermint<br>Lounge downtown when it moved I saw<br>Black Flag play at the Uptown Peppermint<br>Lounge I saw Africa bamban Africa<br>bambata and soul Sonic force in the<br>downtown Peppermint Lounge I saw so many<br>shows at the Ritz I saw everybody at the<br>Ritz do you think that because New York<br>was more rundown and musicians were able<br>to live in Manhattan and in New York<br>City in general that that there was a<br>lot more diversity and and intermixing<br>of of genres or just even the ability<br>you're talking about all these different<br>genres of music that you're able to go<br>see I wouldn't say it was purely music<br>it seemed like a lot of young artists of<br>different kinds lived in New York at<br>that<br>time Soho really was artist then yeah it<br>it isn't it isn't really anymore right<br>but it really was then and you had the<br>sense of um more of an artistic<br>Community how did you get involved with<br>starting your label starting Def Jam the<br>first rap record I made was called it's<br>yours with Tac and Jazzy J and that<br>happened because I I saw the treacherous<br>3 play at Negril treacherous 3 were my<br>favorite group of the rap groups I met<br>kol Modi who was the leader of the<br>treacherous 3 and asked him if we could<br>meet and the the reason I wanted to meet<br>was I would go to NE Grill every week I<br>love this music and I felt this energy<br>in this place but the records that you<br>could buy at that time didn't really<br>sound like that now there were probably<br>three treacherous three songs 12in<br>singles on the enjoy label that really<br>sounded like rap records but the<br>majority of the rap records that were<br>coming out which were few and far<br>between you know one or two a week maybe<br>singles no albums at this point in time<br>were made by professionals and the<br>professionals didn't know what rap was<br>so they made them sound more polished<br>and more like really R&B records Than<br>Rap records whereas if you went to a<br>club and you saw the DJ culture and you<br>saw the drum machines and the DJ culture<br>it was much more of a raw experimental<br>Music Live than the records showed so I<br>wanted to make a record first I wanted<br>to make a record with the treacherous 3<br>cuz they were my favorite group they'<br>already made three great records and now<br>they had signed to Sugar Hill which I<br>didn't know what that meant but they now<br>had records on Sugar Hill and they<br>stopped being great so and again I know<br>nothing about the music industry nothing<br>um all I know is I love this music I<br>meet a guy in my favorite band who made<br>great music and now he's making not as<br>good music right and I want to say let's<br>try doing this together and he says I<br>can't I'm signed Sugar Hill okay and I<br>didn't I didn't even know what it meant<br>and he said but if you want to make a<br>record talk to Special K another member<br>of the treacherous 3<br>Kevin his<br>brother is T Rock and his brother is not<br>signed and he's really good so that's<br>how I met til Rock and then um we<br>recorded this song it's yours<br>and I had a drum machine that I borrowed<br>from there was a band uh a punk rock<br>band called The<br>speedies and Eric the guitar player in<br>speedies lived in my dorm room and I<br>borrowed his drum machine<br>what kind of drum machine was that an<br>808 okay so I had that in my room he<br>didn't he didn't really use it anymore<br>so I kept it in my room for a long time<br>and program loads of Beats just for fun<br>just fun and it's really easy to program<br>I still don't really know the right way<br>to program it I know how I programmed it<br>because I didn't have the instruction<br>manual so I just found a way to make the<br>sound come out and I had a PA in my room<br>in my dorm room um and a a DJ setup<br>because I was a DJ at that time and I<br>would J at the<br>parties in the dorm and sometimes<br>outside of the dorm and sometimes at<br>danceria but mainly djed in the dorm<br>okay at that time most of the rap<br>records that were coming out were like<br>Curtis blow or Jimmy Spicer they were<br>the<br>rapper and when you went to the club you<br>saw that the DJ was a really integral<br>part of the way the music music<br>worked<br>and and I said I I feel like instead of<br>it being a TAA Rock record it would be<br>better if it was a TA Rock and and<br>whoever your DJ is right and he didn't<br>have a DJ and my favorite DJ was Jazzy<br>Jay who also would DJ at Negril would DJ<br>at then the Roxy when the Roxy Negril<br>moved over to the Roxy and the scene<br>that became at the Roxy was the same<br>scene as Negril just in a bigger<br>venue um so I asked Jazzy if he would do<br>the record and um and he agreed and then<br>it became T Rock and Jazzy J and that<br>record was done with a beat that I<br>programmed Jazzy J<br>scratching and T Rock riding the Rhymes<br>and where did you record that at power<br>play a recording studio in Long Island<br>City which advertised in the Village<br>Voice and it was the cheapest recording<br>studio you could find it was $40 an hour<br>and we recorded in 3 hours<br>okay and what was that experience like<br>so you didn't did had you ever been in a<br>studio before one time before with my<br>punk rock band or two times before with<br>my punk rock band but still power play<br>and you know go in for a few hours and<br>record essentially live I only cared<br>what it sound like sounded like I didn't<br>care how it got to sounding like it<br>sounded you know if the meters were<br>pinned in the red sometimes the engineer<br>would say well you know the meters are<br>it's like but it sounds good I don't<br>care I never cared what technically was<br>happening as long as the sound coming<br>from the speaker sounded good so my my<br>only memories of it were having fun in<br>the studio trying to make something that<br>sounded exciting that we all left happy<br>with I'd like to take a second to talk<br>to you about this channel of the people<br>that regularly watch my channel 58% are<br>actually not subscribed so I encourage<br>you to hit the Subscribe button now this<br>will help me to get even more of my<br>dream guests and continue to grow my<br>channel thank<br>you when you say that you didn't that<br>those records that were done up till<br>that time sounded like R&B records they<br>were done like R&B records right because<br>the people that were working on them did<br>R&B yeah but when you'd go to the club<br>and you'd hear it it'd be coming through<br>a PA system and it would have a<br>completely different sound to it well<br>beyond that y the R&B records at the<br>time were mainly live bands<br>whereas at the club it would be a<br>mixture of drum machine and break beats<br>so even though a<br>breakbeat is is essentially a live<br>performance right it's such a small<br>piece of a live performance and it's<br>usually a drum break and the DJ is<br>scratching so much that it's obscuring<br>the live performance aspect of it the<br>live performance aspect of it is still<br>important it's the reason it's chosen as<br>Source material but it's definitely<br>manipulated into something new and that<br>new thing is very<br>raw and it's exciting it sounds<br>alive um so that was really what what<br>the key was bringing the DJ to the<br>Forefront<br>and focusing more on<br>the power and energy<br>coming from this mix of drum<br>machine aggressive<br>scratching um often minimal which was<br>different than the R&B records wouldn't<br>be minimal they'd be a normal a normal<br>R&B record with a full band playing were<br>people<br>incorporating uh uh the 808 for example<br>the drum machines in their they were<br>were were they using them in their live<br>performances there was one DJ who wore<br>an 808 with a guitar strap on it not<br>when he was using it but just around the<br>club okay um and I think that was Grand<br>Wiz grandmas wizard whz used in 808 it<br>wasn't more popular than any other drum<br>machine it had gotten phased out<br>essentially I think around 83 or so by<br>Roland I believe it was a obsolete<br>machine yeah which which then became one<br>of the most popular you know sound yeah<br>to be used later um we used it on a song<br>uh beasty Boy song called Brass Monkey<br>which has<br>a it's a fast 808 beat that sounds like<br>it ended up there ended up being this<br>whole movement called Miami base yeah<br>that all kind of sounds like that um<br>this<br>fast 808 music on that be record one of<br>the tracks has the reverse<br>you have a reversed 808 on it yeah it's<br>I think Paul R that's right now here's a<br>little story I got to tell about three<br>bad brothers you know so well it started<br>way back in history with that Ro and me<br>been had a little horsey named Paul R<br>just me and my horsey in a court of beer<br>riding cross the land kicking Up Stand<br>sharing splices on my Tails cuz I'm in<br>demand one lonely<br>I all by myself without no the sun is<br>beating down on my baseball hat the air<br>is getting hot<br>the so Rick at this time to do a reverse<br>beat like that you have the program beat<br>and you literally would reverse the tape<br>yeah and I believe it was Adam Ya's idea<br>to do that to to use the 808 backwards I<br>want to back up a little bit because<br>before we get to the Beasty Boys how did<br>the label how do you actually start a<br>record label how did you know how to do<br>that how did you learn how to do that<br>because IID made the two punk rock<br>sing a single in an<br>EP uh there was a record store called 99<br>records Ed Balman was the proprietor of<br>99 records it was mainly an uh import<br>record store mostly dance music but they<br>had some punk rock and it was downstairs<br>tiny little store under an Italian<br>restaurant I I believe and I would hang<br>out in that store every day and they put<br>out some of their own records they put<br>out ESG Glenn<br>branka uh liquid<br>liquid um the bush<br>tetras so because I used to hang out<br>there all the time when I recorded the<br>first punk rock records I asked Ed at<br>the<br>store how do I make a record and he<br>walked me through the process of there's<br>a place in Brooklyn that can make the<br>labels there's a place you can have the<br>the the uh jackets made here but there's<br>a place in Canada that makes them even<br>better quality okay he told me about a<br>pressing plant he told me about a<br>mastering engineer and just walked me<br>through all the steps he's like you go<br>here you do this you go here you do this<br>and um and then when I had 500 records<br>he offered to distribute them for me<br>which he did B of his record store so<br>that was how it started first and then<br>we<br>with the first rap record it was<br>recorded the same way and I was planning<br>to do the same steps and then Jazzy J<br>who was the DJ on the record called me<br>and he said I just met this guy Arthur<br>Baker and he's got a label called<br>StreetWise and I think he'll really like<br>our song so will you come up and meet<br>him so I went up to Shakedown sound<br>which was the studio that Arthur had and<br>I played him it's yours and he loved it<br>and he said we'll put it out on they had<br>a sublevel of StreetWise called party<br>time and I said well I want it to be on<br>Def Jam but it'll it we can have our<br>logo on it and you can do it cuz again I<br>didn't know how to do any of the parts<br>of it right but I just knew I wanted to<br>be able to make records so he made that<br>record had the it was the first that's<br>the first record to have a Def Jam logo<br>on<br>it and and that came out the label says<br>party time but on the sleeve it says has<br>the de Jam logo I started getting demo<br>tapes to the dorm room at NYU because of<br>it's yours so people liked it's yours<br>the address of Death Jam was five<br>University Place which was winstein<br>dormatory um and I started getting demo<br>tapes and AD Rock from the Beasty Boys<br>Adam haritz would listen to the demo<br>tapes and he said I heard there's this<br>demo tape I think you really like and<br>that was L Cool J it said ladies love<br>Cool J and then LL came to visit or I<br>called LL and he came came to the door<br>room yeah yeah he was 16 I remember the<br>first thing he said when I opened the<br>door he's like are you Rick and I said<br>yeah he I thought you were<br>black at that time nobody white was<br>involved in rap music at all it was a<br>really small movement and completely<br>underground um but El came<br>over he had a book full of Rhymes rhymed<br>for<br>me um and then we decided to<br>make a recording which we then moved<br>instead of power play that was the first<br>one cuz it's yours we made it power play<br>the first record we didn't make it Power<br>Play was I need a beat was ll's first<br>record and we recorded that at what I<br>called Chun King Chun King's house of<br>metal um because it was it was really<br>called Secret Sound and it was such a<br>dump it was worse of a dump than<br>it was worse of a dump than the place we<br>had been recording before up five<br>flights of stairs in<br>Chinatown and the proprietor's name was<br>John King so I called it Chun King House<br>of metal um because I wanted it to have<br>more cache than what it really was which<br>was this really bad<br>place<br>um Rick would they have a 2in 24 track<br>or was this on 16 track 16 1624 they had<br>great equipment they had the reason we<br>went there there was an engineer named<br>Jay Bernett okay who made a record that<br>I loved that was hard to get it was hard<br>to get and hard to hear but sometimes<br>you'd hear it at the rap clubs called it<br>was called drum machine okay have you<br>ever heard it no I'll play it for<br>[Music]<br>you out<br>[Music]<br>it out it sh it sh<br>it the the<br>[Music]<br>[Applause]<br>[Music]<br>that is amazing so I heard that and I<br>met that guy and then that record you<br>couldn't really get so I asked him if we<br>could re-release it on Death Jam because<br>it was impossible to get and I just<br>liked it and then he had the idea<br>because he knew Adam ya from Shakedown<br>Arthur Baker's Studio he was an engineer<br>who worked sometimes at sh down and<br>he said what about if Adam wraps on<br>it and they did a new version of it and<br>that was I think the fourth the fourth<br>12in single we released stune Jam but he<br>recommended he's like there's a studio<br>instead of going to power play there's a<br>studio downtown that has a a<br>NE it was an<br>8028 so a Class A old NE I didn't really<br>know what any of this stuff was but he's<br>like this is better equipment you may<br>want to work in this place wow so and I<br>didn't know this at the time but that<br>place was really a front for a drug<br>running operation it really was the<br>studio was only uh really a money<br>laundering operation for a different<br>business again I didn't know any of this<br>so we recorded ll's first record I need<br>a beat there LL was I think 16 at the<br>time and that was the first release on<br>the new Jam like the the maroon label<br>proper Def Jam Release when you say<br>release where would the how would you do<br>distribution I'm comfortable asking<br>questions so I would go I had friends at<br>I was friends with Tom Silverman at<br>Tommy boyy records so he would have been<br>a mentor I was friends with there was<br>the promotion man at profile records but<br>I would talk to people who are in The<br>Independent Record business and you know<br>I'm a kid in school interested curious I<br>like their music and just had questions<br>how do I do this where do I go and I got<br>a list of the I think at that time there<br>were either 12 or<br>14<br>Independent Record Distributors around<br>the<br>country um there was one big state in<br>Texas Ms in maybe<br>Atlanta um crd I think was in California<br>I can't remember them all um but there<br>were these little Independent Record<br>Distributors and we I'd call them send<br>them the record and then they'd order<br>you know send me 50 copies send me 70<br>what would be a typical pressing 500<br>maybe a start might have been 500<br>depending on the record like in the case<br>of LL we may have even sent the song<br>around in advance to get a sense but we<br>we had it set up where we could get<br>reorders relatively<br>quickly so it was always just keeping<br>enough stock in advance of whatever the<br>orders were and just running it like a<br>you know like a business and were you<br>keeping this stuff in your dorm room<br>yeah I mean that we had it got to the<br>point where behind the front desk at the<br>dorm when you come in there was the mail<br>room and eventually a room probably<br>about this size ended up being<br>completely filled with Bo of Records um<br>once things got going and so many<br>started being ordered that we started<br>getting thousands and thousands of boxes<br>of Records right now were your parents<br>saying Rick what are you doing are you<br>were were you uh I don't think they were<br>particularly interested I they they<br>weren't really following so they didn't<br>even know what was going on not really I<br>I mean unless I told them about it did<br>you end up finishing your degree I did<br>so that would have been let's see<br>85 85 85 86 87 there's a lot of stuff<br>that was happening in that time period<br>can you talk talk about that I remember<br>LL was first yep I was working on the BC<br>Boys album already<br>then and<br>then we made run dmc's raising hell that<br>was also right around that time and that<br>was a that was a big deal because they<br>were they were my favorite rap group in<br>the world they were the Beatles of rap<br>music<br>and they came to my dorm room and asked<br>me if I would work with them which was<br>insane because they liked it's yours so<br>then I start we started working on that<br>record and that was different I also got<br>to meet them on the on the album<br>before before raising hell um their<br>second album was before raising hell I<br>played guitar on one song<br>poorly you know bar chords something<br>simple with rund DMC<br>you had um when you did the<br>Aerosmith uh<br>collaboration Aerosmith was really on<br>the outs at that time they were their<br>career was essentially over yeah is it<br>true that the guys that run you guys<br>didn't want to do the song when you<br>suggested doing Walk This Way that they<br>didn't want to do it they were up for<br>using the music they were up for the<br>track yeah but they didn't want to say<br>the words they didn't want to do a cover<br>song they loved the music but they<br>didn't like the song okay so how did you<br>convince them to do that I don't think I<br>was able to convince them and Russell<br>who is Run's brother eventually said<br>just do what Rick<br>says that's how I think it<br>happened and and I explained to them it<br>was a demonstration of something it was<br>the purpose of the song of doing that<br>song we' already finished the album yeah<br>and I listened to the album and I felt<br>like something was missing and I had<br>this experience in California where um<br>someone in the record business who was<br>trying to get me to come work there said<br>um what do you<br>attribute the success of rap to after<br>all it's not music and I remember<br>thinking it's interesting this guy's<br>like wants to be in business with me and<br>he's telling me that what I'm doing is<br>stop music right it's interesting yeah<br>and I feel like there's this disconnect<br>people if you didn't understand you just<br>don't understand it right and then I<br>started thinking about how could you<br>explain it how could I explain to this<br>person how could I give a musical<br>demonstration that this is not only is<br>it music but it's familiar music and I<br>thought about well if I can find a song<br>that's a known<br>song that<br>functions essentially like a rap record<br>but isn't a rap record but could<br>function just as well as a rap record<br>that would explain it and the first song<br>I thought of was Walk This Way which is<br>he's rapping stepen Tyler's rapping 100%<br>he's not singing a Melody no you would<br>hear the beat of Walk This Way played in<br>a rap club already you'd never hear the<br>song right but you'd hear the beat so it<br>was in the<br>cannon like there's there's a cannon<br>of accepted Beats<br>in hip-hop at that<br>time and you could stray from it and you<br>could add to it but there were certain<br>things like Apache you know when you<br>hear Apache you could picture somebody<br>uh spinning on their back because it was<br>the music that was used by break dancers<br>all the time I don't know how it became<br>the theme song for break dancing but it<br>it became that and there were all of<br>these beats that if you went to the rap<br>clubs<br>there were certain breaks that you would<br>hear everywhere Billy Squire's big beat<br>another one never heard the song right<br>but you'd<br>hear the the drum sound and that first<br>little the first beat you might hear I<br>love the big beat that much of it<br>probably places that had actual exposed<br>drum beats yeah it was a break yeah an<br>Apache has a big breakdown section with<br>a bongo people called it Bongo Rock but<br>it was Apache who facilitated getting in<br>touch with Aerosmith When you my idea<br>was to do the song yep and I recorded<br>the<br>track and then the profile who was label<br>contacted Aeros Smith okay and I was I<br>was surp I grew up loving Aeros Smith I<br>saw Aeros Smith I saw Aeros Smith play<br>at JFK stadium in front of 70,000 people<br>the first Stadium show I ever was at and<br>that was in either 77 or 78 then I saw<br>them play at Nassau<br>Coliseum and then the next year they<br>played at a club called speaks which was<br>maybe 500 people so I saw the I saw the<br>band crumble yeah but they were still<br>aosmith right and we were still you know<br>even though Run DMC was runmc it wasn't<br>aosmith runmc had never played in the<br>stadium<br>runmc it was still big fish in very<br>small pond right so the label reached<br>out and Stephen and Joe showed up and I<br>was shocked but they did did they play<br>along with the track that you had is<br>that how that i' had already done the<br>whole track and Joe added<br>guitar<br>and uh and Stephen sang I'm play the<br>track<br>here so that's scratching and a program<br>beat<br>that's Jo Perry playing and the<br>scratching was I might have scratched<br>from the original record to get<br>[Music]<br>that with a little K like this<br>[Music]<br>in<br>[Music]<br>the that guitar work that's Joe and I<br>would not have played that if I if I was<br>playing guitar on the track I wouldn't<br>have played that so when they came in to<br>record the guitar parts when Joe was<br>playing it there you're you're there and<br>me run and& D and step were all in the<br>studio at the same time and it was for<br>some reason cuz I guess cuz the label<br>set it up it was a studio Uptown that<br>I'd never been to before when Joe was<br>playing on it you must have it must have<br>been fun right to hear him play that<br>riff absolutely absolutely and I<br>remember um he played a solo that I<br>thought was not great and I said I feel<br>like you could do better if people I<br>said if people hear this they're going<br>to think Brad played it which is the<br>other guitar player in Harold<br>Smith ouch Jo was like let me do another<br>another take and this became a massive<br>hit yeah but again you could never<br>expect it you could never expect it it<br>it did have a purpose but it didn't have<br>a the purpose wasn't to be a hit it was<br>to<br>explain rap music is not foreign that<br>was the purpose of the song it was a<br>educational uh experiment or an exercise<br>it revived Aeros career completely they<br>went on to have the one of the few bands<br>that went on to have a second career<br>yeah again all miraculous it did happen<br>do you think it connected with people<br>because they already were familiar with<br>this kind of kind of like you giving the<br>example to to the an anr guy that this<br>totally makes sense to people well I<br>remember the first station to play it<br>was wbcn in Boston and air Smith's a big<br>deal in Boston yes and the first time<br>they played it<br>people called up angry take that crap<br>off the air okay they were insulted and<br>then a week later it was the most<br>requested song on the station so it<br>definitely polarized the audience but it<br>had energy and um and then based on the<br>success on bcn it spread to other<br>stations but it was<br>primarily Rock and alternative stations<br>that played it it wasn't R&B or or um<br>Urban stations that played it the idea<br>of having real guitar along with program<br>beats and things like that like with the<br>beasties that you had you had guitars<br>you had programming you had real drums<br>on some tell me about your how the the<br>you started working with the Beasty Boys<br>how did that come together yeah so I was<br>a DJ yep and they had made a record<br>called Cookie Puss which was a hip hop<br>related I guess you'd say it was a<br>novelty song cuz it was like a prank<br>phone call to a carll ice cream shop oh<br>yeah yeah over a funk beat done with<br>scratching and I remember that I would<br>hear that song on like College radio<br>stations and I really liked it I<br>remember I was in San Francisco with my<br>punk rock band when I first heard it and<br>really liked it and<br>then Adam Harvest was also in a group<br>called Young and the useless and the<br>singer of that group's St was Dave<br>skillin and I was a friend of Dave<br>skillin<br>and Dave introduced me to Adam and then<br>eventually through Adam I ended up<br>meeting the other guys in the band and<br>then because they were doing they were a<br>punk rock guitar band at the time and<br>they wanted to do Cookie Puss which was<br>their new single live and they couldn't<br>really do it because it was a DJ piece<br>so they asked if I would DJ for them and<br>also I had a bubble machine and they<br>like the bubble machine which I which I<br>adopted it was at the dorm and we'd use<br>it sometimes cuz it was so ridiculous<br>uhhuh so they like the idea of that I<br>could DJ and bring the bubble machine<br>let me play a couple songs from that no<br>sleep<br>too that's me play the<br>[Music]<br>car that's a DX drum machine<br>F on the P never ever for metal a<br>running hotter than a boiling CH my job<br>a job it's a damn good time City to City<br>I'm running my ride location to around<br>the nation be boys always on<br>vacationing to table I do it I<br>I'm your money I'm taking the watch only<br>going to sh at the to working 9 to5 the<br>p boys had the gun kicking it<br>live Rick so that's you playing guitar<br>on that yeah it's pretty rudimentary<br>that answers so many<br>questions I don't know I think that<br>you're that I think you underplay a<br>little bit on this I don't know what<br>kind of guitar did you have at the time<br>that would have been a Gibson SG Jr that<br>was the band that I had my punk rock<br>band and that was still my guitar and<br>that's a guitar that when my apartment<br>got broken into New York got sto Sten<br>where would you have recorded that that<br>that was recorded at Chun King House of<br>metal okay I think our Focus really was<br>on the words and the vibe of the wraps<br>and in this case it was just like a rock<br>track it wasn't like uh the it was<br>something to to actually just sing and<br>rap pretty much it was more like a<br>vehicle for the vocals but I mean it's a<br>rock track though well that's the music<br>I liked you know I grew up listening to<br>rock music and that was my taste so this<br>blending of rock and rap seems very<br>natural it was completely natural and<br>and connected with people it did it<br>connected with me because it was my<br>experience but it connected with other<br>people because it was their experience<br>it was just no one had done it but it<br>wasn't um extraordinary in any way it's<br>we think of Music in genres and we think<br>they are like there are country people<br>who listen to country music and there<br>are Rock people who listen to rock music<br>when in<br>reality a lot of people listen to all<br>different kinds of music so I listen to<br>a lot of rock music and I listen to a<br>lot of hip-hop and this is the result of<br>that and the and the fact that it was<br>popular tells you there were a lot of<br>people who like those two things too<br>right just hadn't happened yet when I<br>hear you say CU you're a modest guy Rick<br>when I hear you say I don't know<br>anything about I was referring to the<br>Anderson Cooper interview I don't know<br>anything about equipment I don't I don't<br>no but I'm telling you like if we went<br>to a studio I could not run a session<br>myself I couldn't record it but you know<br>what the gear is you know you know the<br>difference between a NE and an API I do<br>because I've been in places with both of<br>them yes but it doesn't matter yeah what<br>I'm saying is for the technical people<br>who work with me yeah the skill they<br>have yes I don't have that skill I can't<br>do their job I can't sub for them I<br>can't get by I cannot do those jobs I<br>need a technical person who knows how<br>the studio works and I can say more of<br>this less of that and that's always what<br>I've done but you have this really<br>unique ability to pick people out that<br>are really gifted at that like you have<br>you have a great year for records that<br>sound great and you always have found<br>the best Engineers to work with and<br>things like that yeah and sometimes been<br>luck and sometimes it's been seeking out<br>based on hearing something I'll hear<br>something like that sounds better than<br>everything else who's the<br>engineer maybe we can try working<br>together when I interviewed Brendan<br>O'Brien I he told me that George tulius<br>you hired to do the black crow record<br>you said find the best engineer in town<br>yeah and use the use him yeah whoever it<br>is yeah and Brendan was working at<br>Southern tracks Brendan O'Brien and<br>Brendan uh recorded the album and then<br>and mixed the record I believe and then<br>Brendan told me you convinced him to<br>come out to LA to work on the Chili<br>Peppers record he and his wife they took<br>a big leap and did that because of you<br>he credits you for doing that I believe<br>that Andy Wallace worked on on the like<br>the Slayer record well I want to talk<br>about that Andy Wallace was one of the<br>house engineers at Shakedown where Adam<br>yaak worked okay and where this Arthur<br>Baker studio so because Adam worked<br>there we would hang out there sometimes<br>we were all kind of friends with Arthur<br>Baker and you know for kids in school<br>getting to hang out at a real recording<br>studio was like it was just a cool thing<br>to do yeah so we would get to hang out<br>and just see what was going on and they<br>had there were uh two DJs who work there<br>who called themselves the Latin Rascals<br>who did these tape edit<br>remixes that got very popular and they<br>were super cool guys and they would just<br>like make repeat pieces of tape and<br>splice them together and sometimes you<br>know there'd be a thousand splices in<br>the course of a mix all hand done all<br>before sampling amazing so it was a<br>really creative time in music<br>where the the language of hip-hop was<br>being developed before the what became<br>the tools of hip-hop like<br>sampling existed I remember when we when<br>the first sampler came and we had our<br>first sampler and um and that just<br>changed the way we could do because<br>before sampling if you wanted to use a<br>brake beat you djed or I would DJ The<br>Brak beat I would DJ it and the way we<br>typically do it is I would play let's<br>say it was it was walked this way for<br>example I didn't I I programmed the beat<br>for Walk This Way but had I used the<br>brake beat the way it would have worked<br>would have been B that b Bo boom do<br>stop and then B that b bo b that so<br>every other one would happen on track<br>one and then on track two you'd fill in<br>the in between so you'd listen and you'd<br>hear that b bo bo that and then that b<br>boom bo that and the SEC the first one<br>would play again on track one and then<br>you do it on track two but part of it<br>also<br>was because you were dejing it it wasn't<br>perfect but that was part of what was<br>good about it you you You' try to get it<br>but if it was too perfect<br>it wasn't really interesting so it was<br>finding this balance of like sometimes<br>when you just make it it sounds it<br>sounds interesting so the track sounds<br>much more alive than when you just<br>sample a loop over and over again<br>because it's a performance it's a<br>performance yeah okay so Andy was<br>working Andy Wallace he was working at<br>the studio at not at Chung King the the<br>engineer at Chung King whose name was<br>Steve ET Steve Steve Ettinger was his<br>full name but Steve ET was what he<br>called himself and he was the house<br>engineer I recorded most of the things<br>that I recorded with him most of the rap<br>records and then Andy was one of the<br>house engineers at Shakedown along with<br>Jay brunett he might have mixed No Sleep<br>till Brooklyn he he mixed one of the<br>rockier songs on the beasties record and<br>I think that was the first time I worked<br>with them and then and we'd become<br>friends and then I was going to<br>California to make my the first record I<br>made in California was slayer's first<br>album r Raining Blood rain in blood rain<br>in blood yeah song's called Raining<br>Blood Raining Blood rain in blood is the<br>album asked him if you wanted to<br>engineer the record and I played<br>him I remember this he came to my where<br>I was living which was on um Broadway in<br>this weird Loft so I had moved out of<br>the dorm and we had already bought the<br>Death Jam building but it wasn't ready<br>for me to live in yet so I was living in<br>this weird it was really a hallway<br>where they put up a sheetrock<br>wall so that the hall so you could so<br>the hallway became smaller and my<br>apartment was the other half of the<br>hallway okay so it was really long and<br>Tall yeah but super narrow right and I<br>remember Andy came over and I played him<br>I played him a few different records<br>ACDC Metallica and I had a theory now<br>this is again this is not based on being<br>a musician this is not based on being a<br>technical person this is based on being<br>a fan and theoretical just<br>thoughts so when I hear very fast music<br>like<br>Metallica And The Sounds are big sounds<br>like on rock records the whole thing<br>gets blurry and you can't really hear it<br>talking about fast tempos right fast<br>tempos if you're playing if the music is<br>fast and if the sounds are big yeah<br>there's not enough space for those big<br>sounds to live next to H to happen next<br>to each other right there's no<br>punctuation yes it's just it becomes a<br>blur and I played him a Metallica record<br>as an example of what I thought was<br>wrong and I said would it be possible to<br>record in such a way<br>that it was hard sounding but everything<br>was short because it's fast and we want<br>there to be<br>this I didn't want it to be a blur of<br>bass I wanted it to be uh a pulse to<br>really feel the<br>pulse and um and he said I think we can<br>do that let me play something off that<br>yeah<br>[Applause]<br>[Music]<br>[Applause]<br>[Music]<br>[Applause]<br>n<br>[Music]<br>w<br>[Music]<br>[Applause]<br>CH in prator I love this object alive<br>awaiting<br>risal death will be<br>there sky is tur red return return to<br>power off near follow to me in the sky<br>above some rof Stone<br>[Music]<br>that's it the perfect example of what<br>you're talking about it has incredible<br>Clarity with all the double kicks and<br>when you're playing at a Tempo like that<br>especially with double bass drum it can<br>get completely blurry bully yeah it<br>could you could just lose it in a d of<br>sound and I think both this is<br>interesting never thought about this<br>before but listening to that and talking<br>about the early hip-hop records in both<br>cases not having the experience of the<br>right way to do it were part of the key<br>like if I was an<br>experienced heavy metal<br>producer I would use the<br>tricks that I'd used<br>on other heavy metal records because<br>that's what people do you know you learn<br>the ways to do it because I hadn't used<br>R&B records I didn't take the tricks of<br>R&B records and taint hip-hop right and<br>I didn't take the tricks of rocking big<br>rock records or heavy metal records and<br>taint speed metal it was more<br>subtractive than<br>additive in both of those cases it was<br>getting back to the essence it wasn't<br>making it wasn't doing the professional<br>thing it wasn't using all the<br>normal tricks<br>of of The<br>Craft it was reducing them to only what<br>was essential with the particular case<br>in mind now were they on they were on<br>Def Jam they were on Def Jem this is to<br>me the kind of quintessential Slayer<br>record here and here you are never<br>really produced a uh metal record and<br>yet you produced one of the<br>quintessential thrash records and and I<br>think it was that the reason why though<br>I think the reason was I didn't have the<br>baggage of what the old way of doing it<br>was and in this in both of these cases<br>these forms of Music were so new yeah<br>that the old way would have lessened<br>their impact it wouldn't have made them<br>better I can give you an example of<br>where that happened I loved Go Go music<br>and um Trouble Funk in particular but<br>there was this whole uh movement of go-<br>go in DC I learned about it right after<br>hipop and I loved it and then Island<br>Records signed all of the go go groups<br>and then they were thinking this is<br>going to be the next thing after hip-hop<br>and they put them with producers real<br>producers and all of it got watered down<br>and just turned into regular music when<br>what go go actually was was this<br>incredible thing that pretty much nobody<br>heard unless you went to a club I made<br>one record uh Junkyard band for Def Jam<br>a single have you ever heard that I have<br>not no can you go it probably YouTube<br>now what made the Junkyard band the<br>Junkyard band was they didn't have real<br>instruments they played on garbage so in<br>some sense it's not the perfect<br>illustration of go go but it's still a<br>raw recording of go go<br>[Music]<br>hey<br>we<br>hey<br>we hey anding me we<br>eat hey<br>anding every morning about to call a new<br>on the people started having some<br>f m oh what should I<br>do to the go go and have some fun<br>to hey that brok b<br>uh-huh hey that brok<br>b Why didn't this take off this style of<br>music I have no idea I do think the the<br>sound of the produced records undermined<br>the strength of Gog go<br>so the world never got to hear hear the<br>experience of go go if you went to the<br>go go it was one of the greatest<br>experiences of my life so it really<br>mirrors you going to see these the these<br>rap artists and and you the experience<br>in the club and like well the records<br>don't sound like this yeah so how do we<br>make them sound like that yeah and in<br>the case of Slayer seeing them live and<br>and seeing this is a new thing this it h<br>it has to be presented if you try to<br>make<br>it like a a traditional Rock<br>thing it it won't perform it's not what<br>it<br>is recognizing the differences and then<br>allowing or supporting the thing to be<br>what it really is when you were um<br>working on Slayer record how long would<br>these projects typically take do do all<br>records take different amounts of time<br>yeah all records take different amounts<br>of time beasty Boy album took two years<br>the Slayer record probably<br>took four weeks I'm guessing is that<br>because the songs were finished and it<br>was just a matter of getting the<br>performances yeah I went to um Tom I<br>think it was Tom's<br>mother's garage is where Slayer<br>rehearsed so I would go to rehearsal and<br>we would kind of work through the songs<br>there although honestly slayer's Vision<br>was very complete the way they played<br>the<br>songs everything about them it it that<br>was what they did and my job was really<br>just to document it as well as possible<br>clearly as possible one of the records<br>I'm going to kind of go out of order<br>here but one of the records we had<br>talked about yesterday the uh Tom Petty<br>wild flowers record which to me is one<br>of the most beautiful sounding<br>[Music]<br>and you way to turn it<br>up you belong among the wild<br>flowers you belong in a boat at at sea<br>Sail<br>Away kill off the<br>hours you belong somewhere you feel<br>free run<br>away find you<br>lover go away somewhere all brighten<br>you I have seen no<br>other who<br>Compares with<br>you you belong among the wild<br>flowers you belong in a boat out at<br>Sea You Belong With Your Love on your<br>own you belong somewhere you feel free<br>[Music]<br>[Applause]<br>[Music]<br>[Applause]<br>[Music]<br>this is so beautiful the sound of it<br>it's immaculate and it has so much feel<br>I mean it's really those Acoustics<br>everything about is that Tom playing the<br>acoustic on there the feel of it is Tom<br>and Mike Tom and Mike yeah the feel is<br>so just it has so much Vibe yeah and it<br>sounds it's actually a more complicated<br>record than you might I don't know how<br>much you've ever analyzed the song<br>production wise a lot happens in this<br>song for the typically when you hear it<br>you think acoustic guitar and vocals<br>essentially but there are so many events<br>musical events that subtle musical<br>events that happen throughout the song<br>if you want to listen to it we could try<br>to talk through them it's it's pretty<br>interesting yeah yeah<br>yeah this is I'm in Mike<br>playing Fon<br>is is kind of ghosting on time not<br>really<br>playing away kill off the<br>hours you belong somewhere you feel free<br>[Music]<br>and<br>[Music]<br>piano where all brighten<br>you I have<br>seen no<br>other<br>comp octave down on base<br>Oregon wild tambourines yeah oh yeah<br>Bo<br>SE and piano still<br>there you belong somewhere you feel<br>[Music]<br>free this is<br>horns Kick Drum snare which we hadn't<br>really heard before<br>[Applause]<br>perfectly balanced<br>[Music]<br>everything run away<br>go I think there's harmonium<br>here your yes oh I hear that you deserve<br>kick deepest of cover<br>percussion might be a Shaker<br>[Music]<br>butang are<br>[Music]<br>back the arpeggiated<br>[Music]<br>piano you Bel somewhere you feel<br>free you<br>belong yeah it's like a second set of<br>horns come<br>[Music]<br>in yeah it's a bigger horn section than<br>than<br>earlier you can hear that harmonium<br>there yeah and and I remember things<br>like when the Tam when the tambourine<br>goes away the Shaker comes in and it<br>it's all<br>orchestrated it wasn't recorded like<br>that it was recorded as it's it started<br>as Tom and Mike playing and Tom singing<br>and then all of the production got<br>overdubbed would you call that an<br>additive production in that way yeah in<br>that way but what's cool about it is it<br>all happens in such a subtle way that<br>none of it's like and now here's the<br>horns or you know what I'm saying it's<br>like everything's understated and it<br>serves a function and even some of the<br>things that you don't hear like um the<br>tambourine or the triangle<br>subconsciously you the the track is<br>evolving it's staying interesting to<br>your<br>ears whether you can hear it or not<br>whether you could tell or not these<br>little moments are happening along the<br>way way that are keeping you occupied<br>and keeping again<br>subconsciously keeping it fresh this<br>particular record we talked yesterday a<br>little bit about this<br>song you don't know how it feels<br>yeah there no<br>[Music]<br>symbols I don't think we ever put<br>symbols on interesting<br>let me run with you tonight I'll take<br>you home a Moonlight<br>[Music]<br>ride there's someone I used to see but<br>she don't give a damn for<br>me but let me get to the point let's<br>roll another join and turn<br>radio L I'm too long to be<br>proud you don't know how it<br>feels you don't know how it<br>feels to be<br>me people come oh I hate to stop that um<br>what was the idea behind recording the<br>drums without the symbols because we<br>thought of it as a roomy drum sound if<br>you listen to drum tracks and if you put<br>up the room sounds the symbols are<br>always a loudest splashiest thing and<br>they end up taking over the track right<br>so it becomes a limitation in what you<br>can do later and I remember asking Steve<br>when he played this to not not hit the<br>symbols at all and if there were going<br>to be symbols we would overdub them and<br>then and I think the plan was always to<br>overdub them but for whatever reason we<br>just never did and it just probably<br>never seemed necessary and the<br>compression on the room mics is what<br>gives it that the big room sound and<br>that's the sound of um Sound City which<br>is a remarkable sounding place to me<br>when I hear that it's you know just a<br>perfect example of of a fat real drum<br>sound what what records are you a fan of<br>that you that you like uh that would<br>have a sound like that the drum sounds I<br>like I like like acdc's Highway to Hell<br>album those are drum sounds that I<br>really like but one of the things that<br>I've come to learn um I didn't know this<br>early early in making records but I've<br>learned it is it works better<br>to instead of imagining a like an ACDC<br>like drum sound on your record whatever<br>the thing that you have in front of you<br>whatever the snare drum you're<br>using the best version of that drum<br>sound is going to be better than trying<br>to make it sound like ACDC right so<br>early on we would try to make things<br>sound like things we<br>liked it doesn't it does not work but if<br>you take whatever it is and make it<br>sound the best it can possibly sound<br>it's going to sound interesting you may<br>have to switch out the snare you know<br>that that's another possibility<br>but<br>typically using the things you have and<br>making the best of what those things are<br>instead of trying to turn them into the<br>thing that you wish they were is a<br>really good uh is a good way to go the<br>other thing about this is that Tom's<br>voice the blend of it in with the with<br>the tracks has such a unique sound to it<br>I can't even tell if there's Reverb on<br>The Voice I don't think there is just<br>the tone of it is just fantastic timeas<br>that that goes to also what I was saying<br>about whatever the thing in front of you<br>is make it sound the good version of<br>what that is in a way that goes to the<br>vocal not having Reverb it's like what<br>is his voice really sound like and how<br>do<br>we put it up front where it feels like<br>he's singing into your ear and really<br>hear like sometimes you can even hear<br>him breathing or a mouth pop not look<br>looking for Perfection so much as<br>looking for reality and getting closer<br>to who he is to where you feel like he's<br>singing to you I asked you yesterday<br>when we were talking about that about<br>having the dry vocals without Reverb for<br>people that that are not technical he's<br>out in front he's talking to the to the<br>audience he's out he's the leader of the<br>band and his voice is out there it's dry<br>let's say and then the band is behind<br>him kind of how it would be spatially do<br>you think in that way or your thing is<br>for the clarity so you can hear the<br>lyrics The Clarity hearing the words and<br>hearing the human behind the<br>words something where I can feel the<br>person more now someone like Tom would<br>he have would he have had a particular<br>microphone that he likes on on his voice<br>or is this something that you would want<br>to be involved in choosing if there was<br>one that he liked we would probably use<br>it if he didn't have one that he liked<br>we'd probably test a few and all say<br>what sounded best how much is the<br>artist's comfort in what they're doing<br>important to you it's very important<br>unless it undermines what we're doing<br>which it can be the case it's rare it's<br>rarely the case but sometimes there's<br>just a disconnect like I got to do a<br>track with Rory Orbison he really didn't<br>want to sing the high note at the end of<br>the song and you really want Roy Orbison<br>to sing the high note at the end so it<br>was not he wouldn't have chosen to do<br>that but I didn't feel like it was a<br>proper Roy Orbison record if he didn't<br>do that when Tom was writing lyrics for<br>this were the songs were his lyrics done<br>did you guys talk about them um how what<br>was his process like he would call me up<br>to come over to his house in um<br>enino and play me typically three or<br>four songs at a time and we would do<br>this over this album was another album<br>was probably a 2-year period from<br>starting until it was done it wasn't 2<br>years of working every day but it was<br>here's a batch of songs let's talk about<br>them here's another batch of songs let's<br>talk about them and got to the point<br>where there were probably maybe the<br>first time we went in there might have<br>been 10 or 12 Songs might have even been<br>less but I think it was 10 or 12 songs<br>that we went in and recorded and then we<br>did that whole same process again over<br>more time and the goal of the studio<br>recordings was just getting the basic<br>track and we tried to do that as quickly<br>as possible and then all of the<br>production happened in Mike Studio after<br>and that<br>took a long time and I could remember<br>you know I would drive from Hollywood<br>out to the valley it would take about an<br>hour to get there and then we might<br>spend the whole day working<br>on the bass on one song would be typical<br>Mike would usually play the the base mhm<br>and we would go phrase by phrase like<br>like he might play a pass first and then<br>we would think of it like um like the<br>orchestration of the song like more in<br>the Beetles way like in each moment what<br>can the bass do that advances the story<br>and it would take a long time when Tom<br>would play you uh demos would he<br>actually have recorded demos of the<br>songs typic recorded demos sometimes he<br>play the songs on acoustic guitar or<br>sometimes he'd play me the demo and then<br>we'd talk about it and I'd say can you<br>play it and what's it like if we double<br>the precourse for example what would<br>that sound like and he would do that and<br>we would work on the shapes of the songs<br>just acoustically before how often would<br>you guys use click tracks and<br>historically on records you made how<br>often would click tracks be used we go<br>through phases some drummers love click<br>tracks some drummers only want to play<br>as a drummer I work with Chris Dave<br>who's maybe I think maybe the best<br>drummer in the world he only likes to<br>play with a click track now he plays<br>great without it he really likes to play<br>with it<br>so I I wouldn't um I wouldn't argue<br>right and there are some bands that<br>don't like to play with click tracks but<br>the click track could help so what we<br>might do is use the click track in<br>rehearsal to get used to playing it in<br>one<br>tempo and then take the click track off<br>when when we record it and sometimes<br>they can do it and sometimes they can't<br>right but I would say often we don't use<br>them often we don't need them often<br>we're looking for something different<br>than what the click track<br>provides um but it really depends on the<br>artist so in and in Tom's case we would<br>rarely use the click track if the band<br>was playing together but on a song like<br>wildflowers you need the click track you<br>would probably get any of the acoustic<br>songs that we would build another one<br>would be um only a broken heart that one<br>for sure was played to a click<br>[Music]<br>track and this was just two guitars to a<br>click track first and then the drums got<br>added after everything got added<br>[Music]<br>after here comes that feeling<br>you could hear it<br>it's but it's part of the strength of<br>the song This song without a click track<br>this song wouldn't be what it<br>is I'm Not<br>Afraid any<br>[Music]<br>anymore it's<br>only a<br>pro broken<br>heart I know the place where you keep<br>your<br>secrets out the b the<br>sunshine down in a<br>valley but I not<br>afraid in<br>anym it's<br>only Tom is such a great hook<br>writer I mean he really would come up<br>with the most brilliant hooks he was<br>unbelievable unbelievable unbelievable<br>talking about click<br>tracks I think in General all of the<br>philosophical ideas of<br>like we need it's better to make music<br>with a click track it's better to make<br>music without it's better to record on<br>tape than digital it's better to rec<br>whatever they are it it is always case<br>specific right there are no right<br>answers right and sometimes it's nice to<br>record in tape sometimes it's nice to<br>record digitally and there's not a right<br>or wrong there might be a right or wrong<br>for a song or for a project<br>right but there are no rules like that<br>and it's it's real uh there's a real<br>freedom in knowing that none of the<br>rules<br>about the right way to do it none of<br>those ex none of those are real those<br>are all madeup rules and you can discard<br>all of them you could use them if<br>they're helpful but as soon as they get<br>in the in the<br>way discard them<br>and there there truly is no right way to<br>do any of it we talked yesterday about<br>many bands like to record the drum track<br>and then add the guitars and then add<br>bass and then add the vocals last or<br>they have their own order some like to<br>do AC acoustic guitar and vocals to a<br>click track and then add the drum track<br>and then build it up from there but and<br>artists have their own way of doing it<br>and again there's no right or wrong way<br>and it can be changed throughout a<br>record the song with a click track and<br>there are some bands who really thrive<br>on the way that they do it and it's okay<br>I remember um when I produced Lincoln<br>Park the first time the idea of them<br>playing together as a band was so alien<br>to them they in the past they I think<br>they'd made three records before that<br>not only had they never played together<br>on any of their records They never<br>played their songs together until they<br>played them on stage they were always<br>made in the studio that's how they<br>worked so we tried doing it in Stu we<br>tried playing together in the studio and<br>it was interesting sometimes but it<br>didn't have to be that way it's always<br>interesting to test you know to test<br>those the way you've done it before is<br>there a new way or an old way that works<br>better we don't know until we test it<br>but to assume there's the one way is<br>never the case you never know I want to<br>move back in time here um I want to talk<br>about the Chili Peppers you've worked<br>with the Chili Peppers many times but to<br>me um one of the most important records<br>of the 90s blood sugar Sex Magic I want<br>to play that exact song Here CU that is<br>a amazing song<br>[Music]<br>[Music]<br>[Applause]<br>[Music]<br>[Applause]<br>[Music]<br>[Applause]<br>[Music]<br>[Applause]<br>[Music]<br>he<br>BL sugar sish in my dish how many pieces<br>do you wish step into a heaven where I<br>keep it on the soul side girl Me Be My<br>Soul Every Woman<br>afro to create a state of sexual life<br>kissing her virginity my I with the<br>withar<br>[Music]<br>she magic Sex Magic Sex<br>[Music]<br>Magic she magic Sex Magic sex<br>magic crazy she has a Sex Magic Sex<br>Magic blood suar baby she magic a Sex<br>Magic a Sex Magic<br>[Music]<br>now to me that's one of the best<br>sounding tracks it sounds phenomenal it<br>sounds great when you hear that don't<br>you yeah I haven't heard it since<br>probably since we madeit it and it<br>sounds really cool it sounds it's just<br>so there you have to also keep in mind<br>they're really a good band yeah it's<br>like they're an incredibly good band<br>talk about how important that is Rick<br>it's that's why I say I'm not a<br>musician there's some of the best<br>musicians in the world Chad flee and<br>John those three musicians I don't know<br>that you can find better musicians than<br>those three musicians it's Peak whether<br>you like their music or not their<br>ability to play is amazing on another<br>planet yeah so what you're hearing is<br>yeah it sounds good but it it sounds<br>good because it's them playing it if<br>three other people were playing they<br>instruments it would not it wouldn't<br>sound good right with the same setup<br>it's in the touch you know it's the it's<br>them the way they attack their<br>instruments obviously some good choices<br>were made in mic placement but you could<br>have the exact same mic placement with<br>someone else playing and it would not be<br>that now how long did that record take<br>to make I think we're in the house for<br>either six weeks or two months something<br>like that and was that a record where<br>most of the lyrics would be<br>done let's talk about leading up to that<br>album because it was very interesting<br>leading up to the album okay the band<br>was on Emi<br>records and they decided to leave Emi<br>and originally they were going to sign<br>with epic there was some complication<br>and this was over more than a year so we<br>had worked on on we had been doing<br>pre-production for about a a year<br>thinking we were going into record and<br>then all of the business complications<br>which were completely out of our control<br>they like you can't record yet if you<br>record it it's still under your Emi<br>contract then epic's trying to work out<br>a deal with Emi but it's not happening<br>and we were just in this limbo phase so<br>ended up writing probably the equivalent<br>of a whole another album and worked for<br>a whole another year in preparation just<br>because we couldn't go into the studio<br>so part of what makes that album that<br>album is it was essentially<br>two album Cycles worth of writing and<br>preparation before we ever went into the<br>studio wow so by the time we went in<br>they were in very good they were very<br>well prepared they were two albums<br>prepared do you find that writing is<br>like working out the more they write the<br>more in shape they get or is it that the<br>inspiration just randomly a song will<br>come out of the blue I think both are<br>true I think there is a a writing muscle<br>that when you practice it you get better<br>and the more you do it the the better it<br>is that said there are these moments of<br>inspiration that you that are outside of<br>that realm where something comes and<br>it's not based on your practice or or if<br>it is based on your practice it's some<br>tangential you know it's not just<br>another day it's not doing your daily<br>office hours of writing right something<br>else happens but you can't depend on<br>those you can't wait for those so it<br>really is both both are true if you had<br>to say on on that particular record were<br>there songs that were late songs that<br>were stand up I honestly can't remember<br>the order of the songs but I will say<br>before we go into the studio let's say<br>we have a list of 25 songs and let's say<br>we were to prioritize those songs in<br>terms of<br>favorites before we go into the studio<br>and then we record all 25<br>songs after the recording it's an<br>entirely different priority list so I'm<br>wary to ever prioritize<br>anything until it's done because<br>sometimes one of your least one of the<br>songs on the C list you know you have<br>the a list and the b list and then the C<br>list if you get to it sometimes the C<br>the songs turn out to be the best songs<br>on the album because things happen and<br>sometimes a songs might not be the best<br>might not even make the album once<br>they're recorded because stuff<br>happens and we're not in control of it<br>there there's a Tom Petty song called um<br>climb that hill climb that Hill again<br>when he wrote it and played it for me I<br>thought this is the best Tom Petty song<br>I've ever heard and we tried recording<br>it and we recorded it for maybe the echo<br>album maybe and then it just wasn't it<br>wasn't good enough could never get it<br>and then we tried recording it again we<br>recorded a few times and it it ended up<br>coming out on something but it still was<br>not close<br>to what it could have been and I can't<br>tell you why I don't know why we never<br>cracked the code in studio interesting<br>there are two different versions that<br>are floating around both of which are<br>okay but none of them rise to the<br>potential of the song how many extra<br>songs do you like to have do you have do<br>you have an idea making a record that<br>this record is going to be 10 to 12<br>songs but I want to record 16 or is it<br>you record as many songs as you feel are<br>worthy of doing I I like to record every<br>single song we have I I don't rule<br>anything out and um it's not uncommon to<br>record 30 songs for a for an album that<br>will not have 30 songs and what's the<br>process of going through deciding on<br>what's going to make the record a<br>democratic process within the band we<br>all like in the Chili Peppers usually<br>like half of it becomes very<br>obvious like everybody votes and then<br>half of the songs everybody voted for<br>and those are those are on yeah yeah<br>yeah and then only the then the second<br>half is what's in question and then we<br>and then typically it'll be which song<br>has F it's usually five votes cuz the<br>four band members MERS and me I get a<br>vote and we all vote and then<br>we tally up and then we see what what<br>fits where but then sometimes when you<br>get past the Democratic part where all<br>the five votes are in all of the four<br>votes are in and then what happens after<br>that is more like let's start over let's<br>rethink cuz sometimes there's a song<br>that's not obvious but has some charm<br>that somebody might want to really argue<br>for and we listen you know all we talk<br>about it it never gets I would say it<br>never gets ugly um and the real job is<br>getting to that you know when we agree<br>on eight out of 12 we're in pretty good<br>shape right you know and usually the the<br>problem in deciding the others is<br>there's too many good songs it's never<br>we're never in a situation where there<br>aren't enough good songs with a band<br>like the Chili Peppers it's always like<br>how are we going to do it not how can we<br>do a single album that's the argument is<br>like we want people to hear these songs<br>we like these songs that's so that comes<br>up were you guys surprised at how big<br>that record was I'm always surprised I<br>I'm always surprised when anybody likes<br>anything because there so there's so<br>many<br>um barriers in the way of things getting<br>through you know you can have yes uh<br>someone can put out an album I remember<br>the the first System of a Down album<br>came out on<br>911 wow nobody was talking about music<br>at that time they they work their whole<br>lives to make their first album that's<br>right and the day it comes out there's a<br>catastrophe yeah and they have a song<br>with lyrics about Jihad yeah it was<br>unbelievable the time it was remarkable<br>so you can't you there are so many<br>things that get in the way or you know<br>Beyonce decides to put out her album on<br>that day like we have no control of that<br>yeah so there's so many factors anytime<br>anything gets through it feels like a<br>win we talked yesterday a little bit<br>about this song<br>[Music]<br>sometimes I feel like I don't have a<br>partner sometimes I feel like my holy<br>friend is the city I live in the city of<br>Angel lonely as I am together with<br>cry I drive on the streets cuz she's my<br>companion I walk through a Hills CU she<br>knows who I am and she sees my good<br>deeds and she kisses me<br>Wy L never worry now that is a<br>[Music]<br>lie I don't know want to<br>feel like I did that day take me to the<br>place I<br>love take me all way I don't ever want<br>to<br>feel like I did that day but take me to<br>the place I<br>love take me all<br>away<br>yeah yeah<br>yeah this to me Rick sounds every every<br>song on here just sounds like it just<br>played live yeah it really does yeah it<br>was when I<br>interviewed Brendan he talked about the<br>intro that you guys added that later<br>John came up with the picking thing and<br>that was a an overdub but the rest of<br>the track literally sounds the base part<br>when I hear it like all the little fills<br>in there the extra little you know cross<br>sticks and the snare and everything<br>everything just sounds played right by<br>them it is it is it's it's live and the<br>the way the song came about was<br>different for them because they'd never<br>done a song like that before they talk<br>about that historically they were a a<br>band that played Funk music with rap<br>vocals yes and that was the chili pepper<br>sound MH this was a song that wasn't<br>supposed to be a chili pepper song and<br>it was a lyric that or a poem that<br>Anthony had written and um I was looking<br>through his lyrics I went to his house<br>and he was just showing me his lyric<br>books and I was looking and I said<br>what's this one and he said that's not<br>for the chili peppers and I said well<br>read it to me and he read it to me I<br>like it's really beautiful why would you<br>say it's not for the Chili Peppers he's<br>like it's not what we do and I said what<br>about what about playing it for the<br>other guys singing it to the other guys<br>and he was shy about it but he said he<br>would play it for John he would sing it<br>for John okay and he sang it for John<br>and John came up with the guitar part<br>and<br>then John and Anthony brought it to the<br>studio with the guys that the rehearsal<br>um which was the alley was where we were<br>rehearsing have you ever been in the<br>alley super cool place John and Anthony<br>sang sang it for flee and Chad and they<br>loved it and then it became a chili<br>pepper song and because of that it then<br>broke open the frame of what the Chili<br>Peppers were to it could be anything<br>right that was really big thing it was<br>it it it it was knowing that they were<br>more than a sound that if the four of<br>them liked what they were making and if<br>it was a true expression of the music<br>that they made together that's what the<br>Chili Peppers was the Chili Peppers were<br>not<br>um rap lyrics with funk roofs that was<br>an aspect of them but it wasn't it<br>didn't Define them I've seen the Chili<br>Peppers play many times as a matter of<br>fact they're one of my favorite bands<br>live they're an amazing amazingly fun<br>band to watch unbelievable and they such<br>good musicians they're such good<br>musicians they sound like the record<br>they are they have incredible energy<br>their music connects with people even<br>today kids it's ageless really why do<br>you think that is I I don't know but I<br>think there's a a spirit and energy in<br>the music it's<br>free like they're they're<br>really rooted in this thing and it's not<br>an intellectual process they're feeling<br>something and if it comes through them<br>and we're lucky enough to get it see it<br>see it come through them because it<br>really does come through them and we get<br>to a section where John's plays a solo<br>and it feels like the sky opens up right<br>it's<br>insane and it's different every time and<br>it's just like it's coming<br>through it's wild it's wild to see it<br>happen like listening to um under the<br>bridge the song is Beautiful the guitar<br>part is beautiful the Baseline is<br>unexpected and wildly cool yes wildly<br>cool all the parts all the parts are<br>interesting none of them are ordinary<br>yeah you know it could be it could sound<br>like a little folk song yeah but they're<br>so original in their musicianship what<br>they bring to it it's remarkable and<br>they and you've seen them live and you<br>know that's how they it is how they are<br>it's how they are it is them they play<br>like that and if you put mics in front<br>of them it still sounds like that I find<br>that they don't get in each other's way<br>with their arrangements with their parts<br>they come up with flea's part he plays<br>chords in it then he goes to single<br>notes and there's spaces in it and<br>John's part is just has its own space<br>it's got its own Groove to it and Chad<br>is doing his own thing and they're<br>really almost like an orchestra or<br>something it is it's it's an orchestral<br>Arrangement played on three instruments<br>there's very few bands that are like<br>that that really can kind of connect<br>through multiple generations and they've<br>been able to do that they're just<br>tapping into something that's really<br>happening and everyone can feel it not<br>Everyone likes it but I think even<br>people who don't like it if you go see<br>it you'll feel something's happening<br>absolutely something is happening and<br>it's it feels like it's bigger than the<br>guys on the stage like it's<br>some energetic transmission that's going<br>on and it's always there it's not like<br>they have good nights and they have bad<br>nights they do have good nights and bad<br>nights and it's always there right<br>regardless yeah I've never seen them<br>not just summon the energy of the planet<br>in their playe I want to play um<br>[Music]<br>s exp from China try to steal your<br>mind's eltion the little girls from<br>Sweden dream of Silver Screen quotation<br>and if you want these kind of dreams<br>it's California C<br>[Music]<br>it's the edge of the world in all of<br>Western<br>Civilization the sun may rise in the<br>east at least it's settled in a fin<br>location it's understood that Hollywood<br>s SC forication<br>[Music]<br>hey Sergeant bar while to break the<br>spell of Aging Celebrity Skin is this<br>your skin or is that war you're<br>waging first born<br>unicor High cool sof<br>po G of Califor<br>G of<br>[Music]<br>Cali gam of<br>Cali team of<br>[Music]<br>Califoria that is a fantastic vocal<br>performance by Anthony I was trying to<br>find out who mixed This Record do you<br>remember who mixed it we started doing<br>this thing with um<br>we called them<br>shootouts where we would<br>give three songs three different songs<br>from the album like the same three<br>different songs to three different<br>mixers to maybe six different<br>mixers and have them mix it and then we<br>would listen to them blind without<br>knowing who mixed<br>what and I I think it was this album<br>where we had an idea of what the album<br>was going to sound like and there was<br>one of the mixers<br>it really sounded exactly like we<br>thought it was going to sound and then<br>there was another one that was not like<br>we thought it was going to sound and we<br>loved it okay and we ended up going with<br>that one and I think that might have<br>been this one and it might have been<br>Ryan but I'm not sure okay let's I want<br>to talk about mixing and you're<br>listening like where's your place to go<br>to check a mix typically in the car okay<br>I like to listen in the car I can<br>remember with Tom Petty we were mixing<br>wild flowers and there was a rented<br>Toyota that Richard Dodd the engineer<br>had and that was our reference sound<br>system for wild flowers and we'd bring<br>cassette tapes from the studio out and<br>listen in the car and we would obviously<br>work on on the mix in the studio and<br>want it to sound great in the studio but<br>if it didn't sound good in the car it<br>didn't matter and it was always that was<br>the final the final test was was the car<br>nowadays people listen on phones yeah<br>and records that weren't made to be<br>listened on phones but a great mix<br>sounds great anywhere these sounds all<br>all these songs sound phenomenal on the<br>iPhone did you ever imagine that people<br>would be carrying around little things<br>like I will tell you I remember in the<br>old days back when we still had tape<br>machines and stuff we used to have this<br>little speaker called an orone yep so<br>even though we would mix on bigger<br>speakers we would always listen in the<br>mix back on the orone and if it didn't<br>sound good on the orone which was not a<br>great sounding it was a sort of like the<br>equivalent of a transition radio and if<br>it didn't sound good on that something<br>was wrong there was also a tape machine<br>an<br>aex halfin tape machine that had a<br>speaker oh and that that could also<br>function instead of the if we didn't<br>have the orone if we had that half in<br>machine we would listen on that little<br>speaker and if it sounded good like if<br>you couldn't hear the bass on the little<br>speaker Basse might not be loud enough<br>right or the kick drum if you couldn't<br>hear the kick drum there we got to look<br>at it and you've had many different<br>people mix mix records over the years<br>absolutely whoever whoever wins the<br>shootout basically is okay is how it<br>works and the same with mastering many<br>different mastering people it ends up<br>being some of the same ones because they<br>end up winning a lot but um I'm always<br>open and if I hear a record that I think<br>sounds great I will test out either the<br>engineer or whoever bed it I'm always<br>trying<br>to find the best people and and another<br>other thing that's interesting is<br>sometimes it's the right person for the<br>right project where one mix engineer<br>just hears it in a way that's<br>interesting doesn't mean that they're<br>the right person to mix everything but<br>for some reason they have a a sense of<br>this project and really bring something<br>to the table so we're always looking for<br>anyone who can help make it as good as<br>it could be I want to move on to a<br>System of a Down great rolling suicide<br>[Music]<br>[Music]<br>[Music]<br>wake up wake up grab put a little makeup<br>I just the P away theup away why you<br>leave the keys up on the table here you<br>go create another table you wanted to<br>grab Rush put a little makeup you want<br>it to I just the with the shakeup you<br>want it to why you leave the K up on the<br>table you want it to I don't think you<br>trust<br>in<br>my self-righteous<br>Su<br>I<br>cry when Angels deserve to<br>die wake up wake up Grand should put a<br>little makeup I just got the I just got<br>the you the ks upon the<br>table you want to a little makeup you<br>want to I the the shake you want to the<br>K upon the<br>table okay so a song like this that is<br>really multiple genres put together<br>right I mean how do you how would you<br>say that I I remember playing this for<br>Tom Mel and him saying that's crazy<br>person's<br>music it's sounds so normal now I've<br>heard it so many times but the first<br>time I heard it I was like wow it's<br>definitely a head scratcher at first how<br>do they present a song like this to you<br>they just play it for<br>me the singing choruses are so<br>undeniable yes like the it and we stop<br>but it it where it goes from there is<br>really dramatic and beautiful and<br>Technicolor you know it's like it's wild<br>that the quirkiness of the verse and I<br>can remember talking to Serge like<br>really this is how it goes he's like<br>yeah this How it Go and he's like I'm<br>going to say it and then I'm going to<br>you know I'm going to sing it and then<br>I'm going to repeat it<br>and like<br>okay okay when you find a band like this<br>that is so<br>unique and I think a lot of the projects<br>that you pick to work with are so unique<br>there's really no other Chili Peppers<br>out there there's no System of Down out<br>there is that helpful with to find the<br>audience for music like this you think<br>that no it's the opposite it's much<br>harder yeah it has to be so good that<br>you like it in spite of the fact that<br>it's crazy person's music I remember<br>when we put out the first System of a<br>Down album the self-titled one yeah yeah<br>the program director at krock which was<br>the premiere station that would play<br>that kind of music in the world yeah<br>said and they're an LA band and it's a<br>la station they said we will never play<br>this band on our station never and again<br>A year later number one requested group<br>on the station there so it's like with<br>all of these things we're fighting<br>uphill because they're not really<br>supposed to be popular right they're too<br>weird you were label president and then<br>you're a producer they're two completely<br>different different roles are they<br>related at all well for me they are in<br>that I like weird things I like being<br>surprised I like hearing something I<br>haven't heard before I like being<br>challenged by<br>music and when something can do that and<br>I like it instead of just being annoyed<br>or hate it which can happen you know<br>when something's really is just not for<br>you not my cup of tea that happens a lot<br>MH but when it's something I haven't<br>heard before and it's really compelling<br>and exciting to listen to I want to<br>nurture it now with system of it down I<br>can't I don't think I thought this is<br>going to be as as popular with none of<br>the Bands none of the artists I work<br>with do I think this is going to be<br>popular it wouldn't be realistic you<br>know if you saw system of down when I<br>saw System of a Down playing at The<br>Viper Room 200 people going crazy<br>and them doing sort of these like um<br>Armenian folk dances and playing heavy<br>metal like I laughed the whole show it<br>was ridiculous yeah but I loved it yeah<br>but any thoughts of like this is going<br>to be big couldn't you could not have<br>that thought it would be<br>insane but I loved it so it made sense<br>it made sense it's based on the emotion<br>of it more than the where does this this<br>fit I never I never consider where does<br>this fit it's something I wrote In the<br>book The Audience comes last yeah I I<br>really believe that not because um it's<br>if you start making decisions based on<br>what you think they'll like you're going<br>to water it down the best version of it<br>is the real version and then some people<br>will love it and some people hate it and<br>it's okay that's how it's supposed to be<br>right if you water it down to for more<br>people to like it then the people who<br>like it won't like like it as much and<br>for the other people it'll be it'll be<br>passable it'll be okay middle of the<br>road wants to be middle of the<br>road a lot of people apparently<br>unfortunately I don't know I don't know<br>it seems strange to me I thought that<br>was a trick question right no it seems<br>strange to me no I agree 100% okay this<br>is an incredibly important collaboration<br>that you had with Johnny Cash I'll start<br>with this<br>[Music]<br>I hurt<br>myself<br>today to see if I still<br>feel I<br>focus on the<br>pain the only thing that's real<br>the needle tears the<br>hole the old familiar<br>sting try to kill it all<br>way but I<br>remember<br>everything what have I<br>become my sweetest is<br>friend<br>everyone I<br>know goes<br>away in the<br>A and you could have it<br>[Music]<br>all my Empire of<br>dirt I will let you down<br>I will make you<br>[Music]<br>Hur I wear this Crown of<br>Thorns upon my Liar's<br>chair full of broken thoughts<br>I<br>cannot<br>repair beneath the stains of<br>time the<br>feelings<br>disappear you are someone<br>else I am still right<br>[Music]<br>here what have I<br>[Music]<br>become my sweetest<br>friend<br>everyone I<br>know goes<br>away in the<br>end and you could have it<br>all my<br>Empire of dirt<br>I will let you<br>down I will make you<br>hurt if I could start<br>again A Million Miles<br>Away I would keep<br>myself I would<br>find a way<br>now that song I couldn't stop yeah tell<br>me about the choice of that song at that<br>time I had already made Five albums with<br>Johnny this was on the sixth album and<br>we were always looking for songs he<br>would write one or two songs typically<br>on an album and then the rest would be<br>covers and what I came to realize was<br>the thing that<br>would the things that worked<br>best the key was the lyrics and that if<br>the lyrics were right it didn't really<br>matter what genre the music was or where<br>it came from I remember one of the early<br>ones we did a sound garden song I was<br>rusty cage cage and that was one of the<br>first ones where Johnny I remember<br>sending him the the Chris you know the<br>Chris Cornell version sound Garten<br>version and he listened to it and he's<br>like you what are you thinking like I<br>can't sing that um if you know it would<br>be interesting can you play can you play<br>a minute not of that can you play a<br>minute of the 9in nails version of her<br>because it's it's interesting to hear<br>cuz when I sent him the 9inch nail song<br>he just thought I was crazy but listen<br>to it and you'll you'll<br>[Applause]<br>see<br>I hurt myself<br>today to see if I still feel<br>I focus on the<br>pain the only thing that's<br>real the<br>needle te a<br>whole the old<br>familiar<br>State try to kill it all away<br>but I<br>remember<br>[Music]<br>[Music]<br>everything you know it's very faithful<br>actually minus the really dissonant<br>chord that's in there yeah it's very<br>faithful to the original the sound<br>like in trans version this beautiful<br>song is buried yes in this sound and<br>that's what he was going for and it's<br>beautiful it's a it closes a magnificent<br>album yeah but when I played that for<br>Johnny he didn't hear the song Were You<br>There When you played it for him person<br>I sent him a CD a burned CD but probably<br>25 potential songs and that was number<br>one I remember because and then he when<br>he called me back he didn't respond he<br>didn't respond to that one he responded<br>maybe to a couple of others and then the<br>next CD I sent him it was number one<br>again it's one of the only songs that I<br>I probably sent him three times uh in<br>these compilations I would send of songs<br>to consider and he never responded and<br>then finally I said there's that song<br>that I sent you and um and he's like<br>yeah I don't hear it at all<br>and then I think I might have done a<br>demo I think smoke I was in the studio<br>with Smoky hormell working on something<br>else and I had Smokey Play the acoustic<br>part and I might have sang the vocal<br>myself just as a demo of like more like<br>what the Johnny verion would be like and<br>I said it can sound like this just read<br>the lyrics yeah yeah and um and I think<br>that was what convince me he's like okay<br>I'll only do it when we're together<br>because sometimes I would send songs and<br>he would have musicians in he was too<br>ill to travel and<br>um we would get together on occasion but<br>we were working a lot at that time<br>because he wasn't able to he wasn't able<br>to tour he wasn't able to travel um he<br>could only sing when he could sing so he<br>would try singing every day but he<br>couldn't sing a lot of days yeah so it<br>it we couldn't be in the same room I<br>would be there forever and very little<br>would get done um and he was also really<br>down on himself when he couldn't do it<br>so it would be be frustrating so we set<br>it up where he could work at his house<br>musicians would show up every day they<br>would record every day and if they would<br>get anything that would be the basis<br>that we would start with to work from<br>but this was one he said he didn't want<br>to do that way he wanted to do this one<br>when we were together and he was<br>planning on coming to California it was<br>probably might have been the last time<br>he came to California and we we recorded<br>it together with the band and everything<br>and I remember the buildup at the end of<br>the song We I had all these different<br>instruments in my studio and we Benmont<br>was the keyboard player in each spot<br>where it keeps developing we would try<br>every keyboard in the room just see what<br>sounds good try that one the con organ n<br>that's not it let's try this one try the<br>base the best pedals what does that do<br>and just like trying to find this and<br>it's another example of technically it<br>um not being done properly like at the<br>end of the song it gets completely<br>distorted and the meters are in the red<br>in the like it was and and um but it<br>sounded like that you know it's like<br>it's okay it's like I know technically<br>the equipment's not supposed to do these<br>things and technically it sounds it can<br>sound like it's<br>broken but that's the<br>sound that's what it is that's where the<br>emotion is right so it's okay you know<br>I've been in sessions where the speakers<br>have caught on fire for real for real<br>then you know you have something well<br>it's interesting you know you know at<br>least yeah something something happened<br>speaking of Rusty Cage it's another one<br>I wanted to talk about<br>here you wired me awake and hit me with<br>a hand of broken<br>Nails you tied my lead and pull my chain<br>to watch my blood begin to boow<br>oil but I'm going to<br>break I'm going to break my going to<br>break my rusty cage and<br>run I'm going to<br>break I'm going to break my going to<br>break my rusty<br>cage and<br>run too cold to start a fire I'm burning<br>diesel burning dinosaur<br>[Music]<br>bones I'll take the river Down The Still<br>Water and ride a pack of<br>dogs I'm going to<br>break I'm going to break my going to<br>break my rusty cage and<br>run I'm going to break I'm going to<br>break my going to break my rusty page<br>[Music]<br>and<br>[Music]<br>run when the forest Burns along the<br>road like God's eyes in my<br>headlight when the dogs are looking for<br>their<br>bones and it's raining ice picks on your<br>steel<br>sh I'm going to<br>break I'm going to break<br>my I'm going to break my rusty cage and<br>run I'm going to<br>break I'm going to break<br>my going to break my rusty cage and<br>run I'm going to<br>break I'm going to break<br>my going toak break my rusty cage and<br>run I'm going to<br>break I'm going to break<br>my going to break my rusty<br>[Music]<br>[Applause]<br>cage<br>now that sounds like a Johnny Cash song<br>yeah I forgot that the band came in in<br>the second half I didn't I didn't<br>remember that it was cool good surprise<br>when he gets to the bridge and he does<br>the spoken word it's so Johnny Cash yeah<br>when you send him that song though he he<br>was well play a little bit of the sound<br>guarden version and you'll see why<br>[Applause]<br>[Music]<br>[Applause]<br>[Music]<br>[Applause]<br>[Music]<br>[Music]<br>oh you me awake can hit me with a hand<br>of broken nails<br>yeah you T my lead and hold my chain to<br>watch my blood begin to<br>Bo but I'm going to<br>break I'm going to break mine I'm going<br>to break my rusty C<br>you yeah I'm going to<br>break I'm going to break my I'm going to<br>break my RO in<br>[Music]<br>G and<br>so he heard that and he's thinking what<br>am I what are you thinking what are you<br>thinking have you ever heard how I sound<br>have you ever heard have you ever heard<br>me sing have you ever heard any of the<br>music I've ever made over 50<br>years and yet he you guys made it a<br>Johnny Cash song we did I love Rusty K<br>just one of my favorite sound garden<br>songs and um I remember when I heard<br>Johnny's version I thought<br>that's<br>amazing I mean<br>so so great that whole second album Tom<br>peny and the Heartbreakers with the band<br>and the way it started was um Tom was<br>going through a<br>divorce and kind of in<br>a weird place and he loves to play bass<br>and he loves Johnny Cash okay and I said<br>I'm making an album with Johnny Cash you<br>want to you want to play bass he's like<br>abs absolutely it playing base yeah okay<br>and then I asked Mike if he would come<br>and play and then it ended up being all<br>of the Heartbreakers but we had it set<br>up where anyone could pick up any<br>instrument and play it but for the most<br>part I mean Tom did play some he might<br>have played some guitar might have<br>played some piano but for the most part<br>wanted to play bass just cuz it was fun<br>for him and everyone else just picked up<br>whatever was interesting and sometimes<br>even we would do one take it's like oh<br>let me let me switch from guitar to<br>piano and see what that sounds like and<br>really a fun session Johnny at the time<br>when you first started working with him<br>and I've heard you talk about this that<br>he was<br>playing um you know the kind of clubs<br>like dinner clubs or something like that<br>dinner theater was kind of like where<br>Aerosmith was at the time he'd been<br>dropped from two labels he probably<br>hadn't had a popular record in 25 years<br>yeah and the popularity of these records<br>did that surprise him it completely blew<br>his mind<br>he couldn't believe it he loved it he<br>loved the acceptance of young people on<br>the first album we put<br>out it really changed everything and<br>then when hurt happened and it was<br>really a big hit which again was not<br>expected he was<br>ecstatic it was really a beautiful<br>um a beautiful life Arc that he had all<br>the success<br>and then went through a little bit of a<br>down period and then he had the most<br>success in the se he was the biggest<br>selling artist on Columbia Records he<br>sold more records than everyone all the<br>other artists on Columbia combined wow<br>and then they dropped them yeah and then<br>he signed to Mercury and then they<br>dropped him and then he was just um in<br>his<br>mind he was done you<br>know and when we met the first time he<br>he he didn't know anything about me he<br>didn't know who I was but he didn't he<br>he was more curious why I was interested<br>why would anybody be interested that was<br>the<br>feeling what do you what do you think<br>you can do with me that no one else has<br>done for the last 25 years and what did<br>you say I said let's just make something<br>great what did the songs that you want<br>to sing like play me the songs that you<br>grew up singing and and I didn't I<br>didn't know I just said I just have a<br>feeling something good will happen<br>Johnny's gone Tom's Gone Chris Cornell's<br>Gone Chris Cornell's gone when you hear<br>them they're here though kind of like we<br>were talking about yesterday yeah time<br>travel yeah does it ever get you down<br>though thinking about it h I would say I<br>miss them mhm I still feel connected to<br>them and I and I do miss<br>them but it's<br>it's the way it is like it's like the<br>cycle of life<br>we're that's where we're all going<br>that's how it works I want to ask you<br>about creativity because this is a topic<br>that you talk about in your book if<br>someone doesn't Discover a piece of<br>music that someone else will at some<br>point there's a stream of ideas out<br>there that you just have to connect into<br>yeah how do you get better at doing that<br>I think what's helpful is to have a<br>confidence in when you feel it to act on<br>it because when you feel it if you don't<br>act on it chances are someone else will<br>do it what I would say like tuning the<br>antenna is really paying attention to<br>what's going on in<br>you and noticing what are the things<br>that really light you up what are the<br>things that take your breath away and it<br>could be in music but it could be in<br>nature it could be<br>anywhere why why do the what happens<br>when you see something in a movie that<br>you're like can't believe it happened<br>and you get really taken by it or when<br>you see a dramatic Sunset what happens<br>and tune into that feeling of I would<br>call it<br>awe and then when you're making<br>things that's kind of what we're<br>reaching for there's not a formula to<br>get there but and the only way you know<br>that it happens is when you can feel it<br>inside it's like it's a this internal<br>process of you lean<br>forward you want to hear what happens<br>next you're Cur you know it it Sparks<br>your curiosity you know if you want to<br>stop it you know that that's not that<br>experience these are experiences that<br>you want you wish could go on forever<br>they're<br>ecstatic and finding those ecstatic<br>experience and being when you're making<br>things being patient enough to be<br>surprised by them cuz that's that's how<br>it happens it doesn't happen rarely<br>happens through intention it happens<br>more by accident while you're planning<br>something else it it comes upon you and<br>you recognize it in the moment like the<br>first giant cash album we made wasn't<br>planned to be that it was those were<br>demos recorded in my living room of him<br>playing me songs that we were they were<br>demos to figure out which songs we were<br>going to record in the studio with a<br>band that's what they<br>were they were recorded properly but<br>only for my purposes not for right never<br>thought they would be a record it wasn't<br>the idea wasn't Let's do an acoustic<br>record at all the idea was let's figure<br>out what songs are interesting for you<br>to sing and then we'll figure out how to<br>record them mhm and then we went in with<br>went in with Johnny and at least two<br>different bands at two different times<br>playing those<br>songs and they weren't better and even<br>though we have the best musicians and<br>we're spending all this money in the<br>studio and it wasn't better the stuff we<br>recorded in the living room was had more<br>emotion to it we didn't know that in<br>advance and allowing you know being open<br>enough that just because you put time<br>and eff effort or have experts working<br>on it or<br>um any of the things that make you think<br>it's<br>better it always comes back to close<br>your eyes and listen which is the<br>sometimes it's the five minute demo<br>right that's better than you've heard so<br>many cases where people talk about the<br>records not really good well the demos<br>were so great it's an old story right<br>but if the demos are great then and if<br>you don't beat<br>then that's the record and it's okay<br>right it's<br>2024 now when we're making this uh<br>interview I call them conversations yeah<br>is it difficult for people to be<br>original when so much music has been<br>written no not at all it's everything's<br>already been done and your job is to<br>find the new way to do<br>it and it we it happens all the time and<br>one of<br>the magic pieces of the formula is when<br>things that are not normally put<br>together are put together the example of<br>AOS Smith and rund DMC right that was<br>again it wasn't done with the idea of it<br>being popular but it was an unusual<br>combination and the unusual combination<br>allowed something to happen let Zeppelin<br>have a song called dire maker mhm I<br>didn't know this but that's their<br>attempt at playing Reay Reay yeah it<br>doesn't sound like Reay no it sounds<br>like a cool Ed Zeppelin song right so<br>it's different because they're different<br>they they interpret music in their way<br>so starting with things that exist in<br>the<br>world and putting them through your<br>filter you might find something you know<br>James Brown started I didn't know this I<br>just learned this recently from new<br>documentary James Brown started as a<br>little Richard almost a little Richard<br>cover act and sometimes when Little<br>Richard couldn't make a show James Brown<br>would fill in for him I never made that<br>connection before but then he became<br>James Brown right what is your Discovery<br>mechanism for new music typically um<br>usually it's Word of Mouth someone<br>someone suggests listening to something<br>or I just come across something in the<br>world um there's an album I made uh<br>album that came out came out this year<br>or last year Marcus King yeah I know<br>Marcus um I just came across<br>him playing he was playing i' had never<br>heard of him before he was playing uh at<br>the Grand Old<br>opri I think he was 22 years old at the<br>time and I saw this guy on video on<br>YouTube blew me away contacted him and<br>we made this really cool album and he's<br>amazing we talked yesterday a bit about<br>YouTube this is going to live on YouTube<br>this video um one of the things about<br>you YouTube is that you can find just<br>about anything there especially stuff<br>that's unreleased or that is not in<br>print anywhere we live in a time where<br>our phones can carry all types of music<br>do you think that music is devalued in<br>any way because of that or it's just a<br>convenience of the modern world I think<br>both are true I think the convenience is<br>incredible I love being able to listen<br>to whatever I want whenever I want<br>wherever I am and it has change the way<br>we listen so<br>that in the past when you would buy a<br>particular album and live with that<br>album you had a different relationship<br>to it than when it's something that's<br>just in the<br>Stream and even today when a new album<br>by an album artist that I love comes out<br>I probably don't listen to it as much as<br>I would have in those<br>days I don't know if it's a negative or<br>a positive it just is it just is what it<br>is I suppose I could choose to force<br>myself to listen as much as I used to<br>but this feels it feels okay Rick I<br>appreciate you having me here today this<br>has been amazing I look forward to<br>um to seeing what you do here over the<br>next few years and uh what kind of music<br>you're making and uh once again it's<br>such an honor to to be here and talk<br>talk to you cool my pleasure thanks even<br>though we're done can I play a couple<br>songs absolutely play um pull up Marcus<br>King there's a song on his album I'd<br>love you to hear Marcus King came by my<br>house when he was 16 years old with his<br>dad and he played for me and sang and he<br>was amazing he unbelievable unbelievable<br>he's unbelievable uh song called Delila<br>is it on mood swings yeah yeah here it<br>is<br>[Applause]<br>when I first met<br>you didn't know a damn<br>thing just said out to try to find my<br>way