[Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] conversations with Tyler is produced by the mercada center at George Mason University Bridging the Gap between academic ideas and real world problems learn more at marcus.org for a full transcript of every conversation enhanced with helpful links visit conversations withth tyler.com hello everyone and welcome back to
conversations with ER today I am here with Rick Rubin the Rick Rubin who was one of the greatest musical producers he has worked with among many others Jay-Z Kanye Public Enemy many of the stars of early rap music many of the stars of heavy metal ACDC Red Hot Chili Peppers Five albums there Dixie Chicks Johnny KES Tom Petty MC Jagger Neil Young Adele and many more and he has done an amazing
2hour Hulu special with Paul McCartney but most notably as of late this January Rick has has a new book out a fascinating look at creativity called the creative act a way of being Rick welcome thank you for having me sir what can we all do to become better listeners and I mean to other human beings not of music not yet I would start with the the
thought to truly hope to understand what the other person is saying and most of us when listening are formulating an opinion in either in response what are we going to say in response what do I think about this or looking for something to disagree with or a piece to latch on to but some we we we take a little piece and then tune out from what's being said so would say any
ability to turn our own filters off forget about what we think not not be analytical at all and only listen with the idea of truly understanding what the person is communicating and then asking questions if there's anything that that we don't completely understand or anything that might be different anything that seems odd that the person is saying I'm not saying challenge them
I'm saying oh why is that the case how how did you get to that because when we truly open ourselves to people they tell us everything and we can learn a tremendous amount every whatever I know is is from talking to people you know reading talking to people we get information from outside of ourselves we're we're not making it up it's not starting in us so we're doing a
disservice when we're listening to someone and we're formulating what's going to happen next or judging them or anything like that in music what is it you do to become a better listener to the music I think it just comes out of a love a love of doing it spending time with my eyes closed listening with something I did through my whole childhood it was my deepest connection
to anything was music and it it just comes through love and devotion what is the listening moment and actual Buddhist music that interests you the most so for me it's Tibetan Sacred Music but for you it might be something else what what is that moment in listening to such music that that grabs your attention the most I I think it's different at different
times like the sound of a chime or a Tibetan bowl and listening to How it changes over time and how it dissipates and how it hangs in the air for a period of time that seems impossible and how we can hear it get quieter and quieter and quieter and it gets so quiet eventually we can't tell are we still hearing it anymore there's something about what is
and isn't here that comes up through that experience of questioning our own senses of what we're hearing and what we're not hearing and I like that feeling you talked about that hanging Sensation from Tibetan Ball music what is a moment of of hanging or near- hanging silence in so-called popular music that you find fascinating I think about this a bit I would say the closest thing that
that comes up is in classical music and in the different interpretations of the same pieces when you're familiar with what's coming and it doesn't happen the way you think it's going to happen I mean the notes it's written and the notes are the same notes and the first one that came to mind was Glen G's early version and later versions of the variations the in the early one it's
played very quickly and very a great deal of dexterity and in the later one one there are times when the next note seemingly never comes and it's fascinating I actually prefer that one and that gives me that same feeling of the notes hanging in space it's also interesting that The rhythms change where once we understand a certain Rhythm that the
notes come in when we learn that and learning how a song goes to hear them come in a different rhythm is fascinating it really just lights up things in the brain I believe that later G recording is 79 minutes whereas the first G recording is 45 minutes and some of that is adding in repeats but he's also playing much more slowly yeah and and it's I feel like in
this in the speed in the slowness of it there's so much more emotion between the notes that we can feel that the earlier one is more of a showy is a shower rendition and the later one is more of a A Soulful rendition for me as a music producer what do you think of the 17 minutes of silence before the final track on Nirvana's nevermind album I think it's cool I I like I like anything that
breaks the norm is interesting and it forces The Listener to engage in in the music in a different way the purpose of something like that is to feel like the album's over and you you're going about your business and you forget you even listening to it and then you're surprised by this thing that happens so it forces you to pay attention in a way that doesn't come so naturally it
essentially tricks the audience into forgetting that they were listening to music how have you been influenced by the painter mandrian is one of the painters that really spoke to me when I was going to to film school and I remember being fasc fasinated by the geometric shapes the particular colors the the the way it made me feel and the fact that I was
living in New York at that time and it had an urban sensibility it almost felt like a a a subway map there there was something something about it that just spoke to me that changed my understanding of what fine art could be now as you know the New York Avant guard of the 50s and 60s was greatly influenced by John cage you're coming a bit later coming of age in the 80s is
that an influence on you as well and if so what did you take from cage one of the greatest things I can remember reading was uh a story in Cage's book I think it's called silence he tells the story where he's driving he's on his way to do a Q&A and he was going over the five answers that he prepared that he would use randomly for whatever questions were asked and uh and I just
thought that was beautiful KGAN that his philosophy extended past his music to a way of being in the world I I really appreciated that what does it mean to have a moment of silence or near silence in rap music which seems to always be moving right does that work you could definitely have a moment of silence i' I I'm sure I've produced records that have moments of Silence in them where we're
doing a transition from one energetic feeli to another there's one that comes to mind I think it's on a Beasty Boys album where there's a a certain Rhythm pattern going for a period of time then the song stops and then a new thing starts it'd be like a repre of sorts but similar to what we discussed with the with the Goldberg Variations it comes back in a
halftime or much slower rendition to what was happening before to shed new light on it what from non-western music has influenced you the most I I think minimalism in general in minimalism in art has probably influenced my taste and my taste influences the work that I make so the idea of trying to use the least the least amount of information to get a
point across and I I would say also poetry probably has has had that had an impact in that same way what do you think of pygmy vocal music like the tuen music no a lot of bucketing it's not throat singing it's highly complex I'm not aware of it oh you should look into pygmy vocal music I'll send you a reference afterwards I will please send it to me thank you what have you learned
from Sherlock Holmes stories to look closely at things to look deeper to pay attention to notice what maybe others aren't noticing and how exactly do you characterize his special skill because to the outside reader it seems like he's making things up are those acts of creativity on Holmes's part or are they act of noticing well I think they're the
same thing I think creativity is acts of noticing nothing comes from us we're not the the Creator isn't making the thing the Creator is recognizing the thing noticing the thing and then sharing it in a way where the audience can hopefully get a glimpse of what we've noticed is contemporary music too loud there's a brightness to the sound right especially digital production it doesn't
bother me when we the other I I like music that sounds good there's some music that I think sounds very aggressive and abrasive and essentially too loud that really works um probably I don't listen to very much of that music but I would say if I was looking for a particular energy in music whatever would sound like too far in that world would probably sound right to me do you
think the wides Sprint Advent of streaming threatens the economic viability of a success uccessful ecosystem for musical production and sale I think it can be I don't think it is yet if you look at the history of recorded music at the time that the Beatles were making albums I think they were paid several pennies per album sold and then over time the artists got more
leverage and were able to negotiate better deals and I think it finally culminated in the old music business with Michael Jackson who was getting maybe $2 per album that was sold which was much more than everybody else in the early days of the of singles people were paid very little so every time there's a new format of Music the rights holders
seem to take advantage that and like when CDs first came in artists got paid less on a CD than they did for vinyl or and and it's been every time every time there's a new format the artist gets paid less Now it only gets they only get paid less until their attorneys realize oh in our next deal we're going to negotiate to have better digital rights or better whatever
it is and then it eventually evens out because ultimately the artists have a great deal of Leverage like now for the handful of the biggest artists in the world they probably make more money through streaming music than anyone has ever made in the physical world of music it's it's very much of a top- Down thing it's only the very top percent who have
that eventually hopefully it'll get more Equitable it it always has like in in in every case it has so I'm optimistic that it will again do you worry about the decline in music education in American schools does that matter for popular music in the future or do people just teach themselves there's YouTube there's streaming whatever I don't think it matters I I like I like the idea of
learning what you want in school and if you want to learn music it would be nice to have that option but I think that people learn the things they love whatever they are not in school some commentators have argued that because of streaming listeners consume too much old music and not enough new music and indeed if you look at Spotify data how much people listen to older music seems
to be rising steadily is that good is that bad it's a sign of good taste it makes it harder to break in how do you think about that I don't think about it I don't think it matters if people are drawn to older music because they prefer it that's fine I I think the idea of people listening to what they like is a good idea and on occasion there's a new
piece of music that really captures someone's attention I'll say the the most difficult thing about it now is that all of it has a disposability that it didn't have before so in the old days you would buy a piece of music you would own it and you would be invested in that piece of music is yours now everything's available which is fantastic and I love it as a fan I
love it and when something comes out by an artist that you love it doesn't have the same gravitas that it once had it's on this conveyor belt of Music That's always going by so even the thing you love you listen to it but then there's something new right behind it coming right behind it always something new coming right behind it so I don't know how the how the music of
today can get to the point of the cannon of the music of the past based on that shortterm the fact that the music goes by so quickly even the things we love the the shelf life is very short now or very long right well it really changed with streaming it really did like that was the the biggest change and and I I was very Pro streaming early on and it
I'm surprised I I didn't know that that was going to be one of the uh one of the things that changed but it's interesting with all of these things we never know what going to change like we can we take what's good and think about the parts that aren't as good but ultimately knowing that if this afternoon I want to listen to The Talking Heads I don't have to go to the store to try to find it
that I could listen to anything I want to listen to anytime on a whim it's a really beautiful way to Live 5 years from now do you think artificial intelligence will be creating good interesting music I don't think so but I don't know enough about it I feel like what makes art good is the point of view it's not the actual content itself but it's the humanity in it it's the soul in it that
makes it good and I don't know that AI generated art will have the soul that the soul is that element that makes something it's just decorative art I would say at this point is current satellite radio realizing its potential how could it be better h i quite like it I like the fact that it's in most cars and I feel like I get to hear music on satellite radio that I
don't hear in other places I listen to the Frank Sinatra Channel quite a bit and I love that and the Grateful Dead channel and and I'm relatively new to the Grateful Dead I like those very much so I don't know how it could be better be interesting to think about though I've never thought about it I'm happy I have it I'd like for there to be more single artist channels I like it very
much but the idea of overdosing on an artist for two weeks and then moving on to me is quite appealing yeah but if it was overdosing for two weeks if everybody did that then having the you know the uh I don't know who would be the Cure channel for two weeks would be great but then when everybody has had their two weeks and the Cure channel is there
forever considering it seems like satellite seems to have limited bandwidth is that true I don't know that either I believe so at least in in economic terms but they had Led Zeppelin channel for 2 weeks and I would have gladly they had had that for a year or longer yeah it seems they can just set up temporary channels if the right soldiers agree yeah and and I listen to
The Beatles Channel all the time I love the Beatles Channel as do I it was funny one of the things that when I was talking to Paul McCartney I one of the first things I said to him was like oh yeah you you make all the music that's on the Beatles channel right that's who you are you're the guy who makes the music for The Beatles Channel when you were speaking with
McCartney what was the most McCartney esque moment or anecdote that you have from that which part of that was Supreme McCartney for you I think when he went went to the piano and started playing there was one point where he was giving me a lesson about how to write a song and the way he teaches children to write songs and it was very rudimentary and he was playing
along and showing me something very simple and he was playing it over and over again and then all of a sudden through this exercise of very simple nothing changing all of a sudden one of the incredible Beetle songs comes out and it was like I I couldn't believe it I couldn't believe it was that simple watching it happen was mind-blowing you've watched the get back sessions
movie right by Peter Jackson as a music producer what's your takeaway from that as a Beatles fan I just love seeing anything with the Beatles in it I you I I can't get enough I can't get enough but it must have in some way revised your view of the Beatles what's what's the Basi and update so to speak did you ever see the movie about Metallica
Metallica made a movie called I think it was called some kind of monster no okay what's interesting about that movie is they're the biggest band in the world at the time that they make the movie and they make this documentary film and in the film they're completely lost completely lost creatively and and I thought it was really bold for them to put it out because it was so
revelatory and I suppose because I've been around a lot of musicians at all different stages of their work the idea that until it's really good there's times when nobody knows what they're doing that's kind of normal so I guess the thing that I took away as most astounding was when a song Would pop up in the movie out of seemingly boredom just a song Would pop up
and it would be songs that we've listened to our entire lives it it was thrilling and it was a reminder of that's what it's always like yes on the one hand it's shocking and on the other hand that's what it's always like I was struck by just how much Paul was the guy who got things done I had always known that but the extent of it seeing it before your eyes yeah to me was a shock
yeah he's the he was the Craftsman in the Beatles he was the record maker in the Beatles everyone brought something really special to The Beatles and that said Paul in many ways was the glue that allowed it to to be what it could be what is for you a very underrated solo Paul McCartney song Maybe Helen Wheels why do you like that how don't I just remember hearing it on the radio
when I was a kid and sounded it sounded different than other things I think I think it's the difference of it I don't think he has any other songs quite like that putting aside all the people you've worked with but who or what is it in music right now that you're especially excited about the sense of looking forward to something when a certain book
comes out like before you well your book's not out yet but I have a copy but I was looking forward to that in some very definite way what is it you're looking forward to in the current stream it's funny but there's um I like pro wrestling and WrestleMania is coming up in April and I'm looking forward to uh wrestle Mania in Los Angeles why do you believe pro wrestling is the most
accurate representation of life as you once said you're free to repudiate your own words but yeah no no no I'm I'm I I I I'll stand by that that that sounds solid pro wrestling is part made up well it's made up and rooted in real life and real life is made up and rooted in real life so wrestling is more a more honest depiction of the world than everything
else that that acts like it's not made up and who is the pro wrestler in particular that you look forward to this season it's Roman Reigns who's the head of the table and he's a fantastic character these days what's your favorite Opera and why I don't listen to very much Opera I listen to the Maria Callis channel on Pandora sometimes but I don't know what pieces
come from where I like Don Giovani very much perhaps that's my favorite maybe I'll start with that one is there a particular version Oh I think kenis is the best Theodor kenis and then Colin Davis would be my second choice but there are many fine recordings of it please send me links to both I will send you that absolutely both because I like I like to compare
great you came of age in New York City you went into hipop early on but you went to all these these Punk clubs from what I gather how did that feed into your work on heavy metal and Hip Hop this Punk background I was a a punk fan before I was a hip-hop fan Punk the punk Revolution was really exciting to me because it felt like it was being made by people who weren't technically
musicians and the music that it was placing would be things like Electric Light Orchestra and who who I love as well and uh yes and uh these very studied virtuoso musicians and punk rock came along and it was anti and I and I like that idea that this is for everybody it was really Democratic a democratic kind of music and it was it seemed to be young people with who had
energy usually anger against things that they saw that didn't seem right now in England it was all about class struggle in the US my experience of Life Class struggle didn't really exist so when American band started doing music inspired by English music talking about class struggle it didn't really resonate with me whereas the Ramones The Ramones were my band The
Ramones had the energy of punk rock but lyrically they weren't an overt political band which made sense for the world that we grew up in where I grew up was not so far from where the Ron grew up and it made sense for our world the the first American punk band po you know the second wve punk band that really made sense to me was Minor Threat and that was Ian makai's band he later had a
group called fugazi which is fantastic as well but threat talked about social issues that were applicable to our life so it felt more true to me and I I Lov their music and I love the energy of punk rock music and I felt like a lot of what I liked in heavy metal growing up before punk rock was even more charged in punk rock and I tried to bring that aesthetic or and
when I say I tried to bring that aesthetic it's not really right that's looking back at the time the music I liked was punk I experienced the energy of punk and then when I was making heavy metal records let's say because I had the love of punk rock I understood this extra gear that the music could go to that it hadn't gone to in the heavy metal days but did go to in the punk
rock days so for example with Slayer trying to bring the power of punk rock but with the Precision of heavy metal because Slayer was a heavy metal band they were a punk rock heavy metal band but they were definitely a heavy metal band and did you draw much if anything from disco in those days or that was an ethema no I always loved disco I I may
not have loved all disco but I like dance music I love all kinds of dance music and the best of disco is the best of dance music and you grew up in Long Island is that correct yes do you feel that growing up on Long Island rather than S Manhattan has helped you understand the musics of the rest of America better and if so how I would say growing up where I grew up was a miracle
it plays such an important role in my understanding of or or relationship to culture not growing up in Manhattan was more of an experience like the rest of the United States but I was close enough to Manhattan to be able to get there I could go to to a museum I could go to a Bradway show I could go to to the theater I could do things that if I was growing up in a true truly rural place I
couldn't do so in some ways I had the The Best of Both Worlds I was close enough to get to the city and understand what was going on in Fine Art and live in the suburbs and experience what Americans like and and it was again pure luck and luckily my tastes share those two I I got to experience both of those lives growing up and either one of them without the
other would be out of balance for me having grown up in New Jersey I feel very much the same way now you once said I'm not sure if this was ironic or serious but that for you the ideal Act of musical production would be never to even meet the artist yes that's true did you mean that literally or how should I interpret that no you interpret it how you like I meant
it literally why is it better not to meet the artist so some art collectors they say I never want to meet the painter I just want to look at the painting more objectively is it like that yeah the idea is having the biggest impact on the work with the least amount of fingerprints so I want the work to be wholly the artist's work the less I can
do the better provided it's the best work the artists has ever done in their lives so my role is to support the artist in doing the best work of their lives and again if it's needed my fingerprints are all over it but my preference is to have as little involvement as possible so the ultimate version of that would be to know that an artist wants to work with me for that
somehow to be arranged for me to never meet the artist or speak to them and have them make the greatest work of their lives knowing that we have this connection is this related to why you don't use more editing software when do you mean using editing software explain well you're the one who's there I'm just guessing from what I hear but I have the sense that the
decisions come from you interacting with the artist rather than you doing everything out of board giving commands to software but again your account is the definitive one I share my opinion and more often than not in some cases let's say I listen to a a body of an artist's work and they ask my opinion and I'll I'll make you know uh hundred notes and I'll know inside of myself
that of these hundred notes maybe five of them will make or break the work I'll share all 100 notes and if the artist chooses not to incorporate the five that I know are going to make a difference then I might have a second conversation but still it would be ultimately the artists always the artists um I don't want to convince anyone of anything I I would like
to State what I see and then the artist is up to take that information and use it as they wish but you must be an above average Persuader right I feel like I have that ability but I don't like to use that ability and and I I feel like it's a um maybe that's why you're above average maybe I I I feel like it's getting someone to do what you want is not
that's not the reason for somebody to do something I I don't like that idea but say you're George Martin you're an ABY Road studio and George Harrison thinks Paul McCartney wants to put two complex a baseline into uh something or While My Guitar Gently Weeps which in my opinion made those songs much much better you've got to persuade someone of something right I don't know I don't know about
that I'm not sure and I'm not sure that that's how it went down yes do you know what I'm saying in in that yeah I don't I don't know that I think more often than not the people involved D in the making of art who are not the Creator do more harm than good so I'm very much of the mind not to do harm and I don't think that I know everything I don't I
don't think that my opinion necessarily has more validity than someone else's so I like to really have the conversation and get to the bottom of it through through talking and ultimately and and I've had it happen where artists will just flat out reject what I'm saying it's like that's fine or and I've had the opposite I've had artists like tell me more I want to do more what you
want like I'm open to doing it I'm open to participating as much as they want but I don't want to convince someone to do something even if I think it's better I I I don't feel good about that you've also claimed you don't really play any musical instruments now that's a matter of degree but you feel that helps you as a producer that I don't that it helps me
that I don't that you don't very much I mean you must have been right yeah but I don't think think it I honestly don't think it helps or hurts it just is what it is my involvement is purely about taste it's not about technical skill and it's not about technique unless there's something that I noticed in the past that I share like oh I remember so and so did it like this you want to try that
that would be the extent of something either technical or musical but other than that it's more this is the part that's interesting to me this is the part that's less interesting to me is there any way to make this part that's less interesting as interesting as this part that's most of my job how much of your value added do you think is choosing the right
Talent so one of my friends who's a fan of yours described you was one of the greatest Venture capitalists of all time so you could see or feel that certain artists had it in them to do great work with you with others and a lot of them were not well known until you worked with them so some of it is you made the music better but some of it is you chose properly what is it you look for when
you're choosing people to work with I would say it's like falling in love you can't I can't say why it's why do you love something why do you love the things you love it's not it's not intellectual it's a feeling and you feel it and you want to hear more you know you want to hear more you're you're you lean forward you want to hear more there's certain artist when they make music I
want to hear all their music I am less focused on this sounds like a hit song I don't I don't care so much about that I'm more interested in it in how I perceive the artist and whether I'm interested in their body of work or not when you were a kid you've said you did a lot of magic magic tricks how did that influence your later approach to music
production certain things like um understanding Mr direction or the surprise that comes up in the jux depos of things that creates an illusion those things work in music so I I can't think of a song in particular but there there's a song that starts the first song on an album that starts with a very small sound and it's it's rocking but it's a very small sound and it goes on for a
while and then it breaks into to a very big sound and because there's no context before the small sound and the small sound goes on long enough you might think that's the whole like that's what it is so that would be something that would be rooted in a a magician's principle of creating uh an a certain expectation and then the surprise of changing it is uh enthralling for the
audience why is it that there are so few really good live albums or perhaps you disagree or is there something that's just very difficult in their production I don't know I don't know if I like who live it leads James Brown at the Apollo Nirvana MTV special Almond Brothers fil more East Johnny Cash at falson prison there's some I even like wings over
America but there aren't that many I really want to go back and listen to I'm thinking about why that is Kiss Alive was another seminal Kiss Alive 2 was actually the they they broke based on live records and Frampton Comes live was another that's good yeah there's another one and my favorite I I I mentioned earlier I'm kind of new to the Grateful Dead their album called the
Reckoning is my favorite of their albums and that's live album It's like a live acoustic album and most Jazz records are ultimately live albums even if they're live in the studio they live albums M maybe the difference between a great live album like if we if we consider jazz albums The reason an album might be better live in the studio in instead of live in front of an audience isn't so
much because the audience is there but just because of the ability to record it better that would be my guess because so many Rock Records we like Studio albums are essentially live records in the studio the greatest ones of all time I once saw plant and Page live and they were very tight but I came away with the impression that Led Zeppelin was more of
a studio band than I had thought that there was a sense of texture in the actual albums that was missing in the concert and I I felt a little flat going out oh I'm supposed to love these guys I do love them but it wasn't the same for me and then I saw a ver current version of Queen and you think oh they're the ultimate Studio band and they were
amazing live and I was still puzzled over that yeah it has to do with the production is a big part of it so in the case of Leed Zeppelin Jimmy peder's production is astounding and and it definitely takes it beyond what the live recording can do it starts like in in each case in the case of Le Zeppelin it starts as a live recording in the studio and then he adds layers and layers of
embellishment that make it like a a symphonic recording rooted in a live rock band recording but if you see the Ron's you know the Ramon's first album is recorded all or Beatles first album was recorded just quickly Black Sabbath first album was recorded in a few hours those are essentially live records and I think the reason that they might sound
better or I guess the mc5's first album is a live album too should I think of Black Sabbath as just being Jazz you can I mean it's very Jazzy it's very very Jazz influenced and that's why they're great as I'm sure you know Jeff Beck sadly just passed away how is it you think about the nature of his genius I think he's one of the greatest guitar players of all time maybe the greatest
maybe the greatest what I love about him is that he plays the guitar as if it's a different instrument than the instrument that everyone else who plays guitar plays he plays it in a completely original way he found a new language of guitar playing that's only his and that only he can do that I know of that only he could do and it's astounding and
breathtaking to watch I absolutely love his playing now I might not like all of his music but I love his playing how should I think about the production of the Jimmy Hendricks Trio so you have just three guys not very Hightech and ultimately it sounds like planets are colliding what is it they did that made that work he used so many new original techniques for the time with effects with
panning he he really used the studio he was one of the first to make the studio part of the group I have an interesting story to tell you that came from a an interview I did with Jimmy Eckles who is the guitar player in love the band love are you familiar with the band of course yeah forever changes among other okay yeah yes I love that album that's why I
was interviewing him I talked to a few different people everyone who was involved in Forever changes who's still alive I spoke to and he told me the story about a guitar player named Jimmy James who wasn't really a guitar player he was more of a roie and he was a roie and driver for Little Richard but Little Richard needed a guitar player live so Jimmy James would fill in on guitar but
he wasn't really a guitar player he was more of a roadie and a and a driver and the guys from love hung out with the guys from Little Richard's band and they were all friends and one day they were they get a call oh then there's I I left out of P okay then there's an invention called the Vox waah wa pedal which was given to all of the guitar players in
all of the popular bands as a promotional tool so Jimmy Eckles got this Vox Wawa pedal and Jimmy James got one even though he wasn't really a guitar player but he play played for Little Richard so it was high-profile all of the guitar players got him and the pitch from Vox was this pedal will make your guitar sound like a trombone and Jimmy Eckles got this thing and he said
well if I want to have a trombone on my record I'm I'll learn to play Trombone and he threw the Vox Wawa pedal in the garbage then a year later 18 months later they're in uh Los Angeles and they get a call there's this incredible guitar player from England named Jimmy Hendrick you have to see him he's playing in San Francisco so they drive up to San Francisco all excited See's
like greatest guitar player we've ever seen and Jimmy Hendricks comes out on stage and starts playing and it's Jimmy James and it's Jimmy James who used who who was the not so great guitar player who used to play who 18 months ago was the Roadie for Little Richard and he was playing through the Vox Wawa pedal and the Wawa pedal made Jimmy James into jimmi
Hendrick and the point that of the story that Jimmy Eckles was telling was the reason that jimmi Hendricks was jimmi Hendricks was because of the way he Embrace technology that's what made him the guitar playing God that he is was because he was the first guitar player to embrace the technology what made Brian Wilson an important producer he heard things that other people couldn't
hear and would do make the effort to get them onto tape so that we could all hear them and they were often unusual things very beautiful things very beautiful harmonies and Arrangements that might not make sense to anyone else at the time he had amazing silences I think and some of the Hawaiian songs little girl I once knew many others vegetables I love
them how do you think about the main contribution of Brian Eno to musical production obviously incredible in many ways but as a producer he seems to be the the one who really broke down the walls of anything sounding like a band like I think up until the time of Eno the idea of the band being the centerpiece of the recording was the thing that you built on or veered from but it was the central
idea was the sound of the band and I think his idea was music is music and it's not about the band it's about the sounds and it could be whatever sounds put together in an interesting way is what it is so he he used the studio in a if Jimmy Hendrick embraced the recording studio to take it as far as it could for a rock band Eno took the recording studio took
the rock band out of the studio and just left with the studio the Van Morrison album astral weeks why does that sound so special obviously great songs but there's something about the feel of the album on the lp what what is it I think it's a it's a combination of the songs it's obviously Van's voice is unbelievable and the sensitivity of the Jazz musicians playing
hearing great jazz musicians playing technically non-jazz music is a really thrilling thing I tend to like when jazz players play pop music do you know Keith Jarrett playing shastovich beautiful that's fantastic beautiful very different sound yeah I think in general having someone who's good at one thing playing something else is a good idea I just learned this story recently
I produced Neil Young's last album and the band on the the album's called world record and the band on the album were the same band who he recorded after the Gold Rush with 50 years ago and Neils lerin was a guitar player who it's funny because I think of Nils as a guy in Bruce's band but before he played with Bruce he played with Neil and while he is an unb believable guitar player was
then and remains today Neil wanted him on after the Gold Rush to play piano specifically because he doesn't really play piano when Neil wanted someone to play piano who really understood music and felt music but didn't really play the instrument that they were playing and some of the most memorable pieces of that after the Gold Rush album are rooted in nil's not
knowing how to play piano and Neil's understanding that that that's what it was and an interesting thing in dance music is that the most interesting dance music that I've heard seems to be made by people who didn't only listen to dance music like people who came from punk rock and then started making dance music like LCD sound system is a good
example James Murphy was a punk rocker he was the soundman at cbgbs and then when he brought his sensibility to the World of Dance music not being of dance music it creates this new energy and light in it that people who have only made dance music it it always seems more ordinary to me when the people who are good at it just make it when someone who doesn't make it makes it we learn
something new and when we learn something new it's always the most exciting do you have a favorite Neil Young story that you can share well I I'll tell you a story about this new album that we just made was an experience unlike any I've had before we recorded for the first week Neil comes in with songs written normally the way it works is he comes in with songs
written that he can play and he plays the song for the band one time and then the band plays along with him and it happens very quickly that's the way it happens with Crazy Horse I think with everybody but with Crazy Horse in particular and with this album Neil wrote the songs in a different way so he didn't know them he in the past he would write songs on guitar and he would play
around on the guitar find chords write a melody write words have the song know the song and then come to the studio being able to deliver a solo performance in this case he was hiking and whistling and he noticed that the whistling was interesting so he started recording the whistling and then after recording the whistling he realized I think there's
enough whistles here of Melodies that are interesting that this could be an album of songs so he'd never done that before just channeling these Melodies and the writing is unlike any Neil Young music you've heard before because he's never written this way before and it's just a different process and came out different uh and beautiful it almost seems like it's from another time it
seems like it's from a time before Neil Young so he has these whistles he sat down to write words to the whistling which he did for all the songs in a two-day window he wrote all of the words with no revisions and no changes which is something that he said has never happened to him before in his life and then he came to the studio with all of his instruments and he would try
to learn the song how he was going to do the song and while he was learning to do the song the band was learning the song the changes and we did this for the first week and it was really a mess it was a mess to the point of where Neil got to the point where he was able to play the songs but it didn't sound like the band would ever be able to play the songs I
can't I can't tell you why it felt like that but it just sounded like completely lost no that was our first week of recording and I was I I will tell you I was concerned but we thinking okay maybe next week maybe this will be like the first step in learning the songs and next week they'll learn you know they'll learn the songs and be able to play them so we get to the second
week and we've gone through all the songs in that first week and now it's the first day Monday of the second week and Neil says to Ralph let's play this names one of the songs and Ralph the drummer says well we already played that one and Neil's like well let's let's try it again he like I think we did it good and there there was this sense of like did we miss like were we watching the
same movie you know because it was so it was so far off so on the second week we tried doing some of the songs again Ralph was not really into it and he's like I I feel like we already played him so we play him again it's certainly not better and then Ralph's like let's listen back to that first week I I think it was really good and we go back and we listen and you could hear there's
something there but it's so hidden in mistakes in I don't even know I I don't even know how to describe it because it truly was a mess but if you really listen to the mess and say okay let's take out that instrument in that spot okay what does that sound like or what about if you turn up this guy in this spot and we went through it and the I would say the
entire album was recorded in that first week with when none of us knew I certainly didn't know it Neil didn't know it for sure he at the end of the first week he's like well I hope next week's going to be better than this like it was it was wild so that's the first time I ever had that experience and I think it's a beautiful album now now it
transformed we we did a lot of work to help it transform but the fact that it was unrecognizable to being something that's so beautiful now it's different I've never had that experience before I will buy that one what was Johnny Cash like beautiful quiet Soulful really smart knew KN knew every song ever written up to a certain period of time he didn't know modern music but he knew
the history of music through probably at least 70s country music and then seemed to know everything about history and knew a tremendous amount about religion spirituality and Christianity last two questions first your new book again the title is the creative act a way of being what does that book mean to you and final question in music what is it you might be likely to do
next the book is an attempt to share the type of thinking that happens in the recording studio with the artists that I get to work with I'm hoping that it can open someone's mind to possibilities of a different of doing things I don't know that it's for everybody but if it's for you I hope that you know about it had an interesting experience I I just read I
read two reviews of the book in two big Financial newspapers and one of them absolutely hated the book and I I read that review first and it just made me laugh because it was so it's like they they didn't feel the book at all and then I read the second one and they loved the book and it was so interesting to see these two opposing points of view about the same
piece of work and it made me feel good because one of the things I talk about in the book is that the best work divides the audience and that you want to make work that some people love and some people hate if everybody thinks it's just okay or pretty good it's not so interesting and if everybody likes something you make it probably isn't you probably didn't go far
enough you want you want it to be extreme enough that the people who love it really love it and that everyone else just doesn't it's too much so I got to have that experience today and it was a great experience I hope that the reader of the second piece who really felt it I hope that people who read like him are able to have the experience of reading the book I don't want anyone to
read it who doesn't want to read it or you know isn't into uh this kind of thing and what you will do next I don't mean another book but musically is there something slated that you can talk about uh let's see what is coming up next I'm in the middle of an album with The Strokes that we recorded the basic tracks here in Costa Rica and they have
to take full forms so I don't know how long that'll take there's a new album with Kesha that I produced that's very beautiful and different for her that's coming out I think soon those the first two that come to mind great Rick rubben thank you very much again all listeners and readers the new book is called the creative act a way of being by Rick rubben thank you
sir thanks for listening to conversations with Tyler you can subscribe to the show on Apple podcasts Spotify or your favorite podcast app if you like this podcast please consider giving us a rating and leaving a review this helps other listeners find the show on Twitter I'm @ Tyler Cowan and the show is @ Cowan convos until next time please keep listening and [Music] learning