Transcript for:
Rick Rubin's Impact on Music Production

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