David Senra: Five years ago, I read this biography of you. It's called "In the Studio." You and I were just talking about it before we started recording. One of my favorite ideas that I took away from that book, that I think about probably every week, is this concept that you have that less is more, but to get less, you have to do more. Can you talk a little bit about that?

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

Rick Rubin: So if you're making something and you want the least amount involved, those things have to be really critically curated, because they're doing the work of everything, and nothing is hidden. It's why it's not as easy as it sounds to do less. But when you see it, you can get the personality. I'll give you an example with guitars.

Rick Rubin: A lot of recordings are made where the guitarist plays, and then they double it and triple it, and they create this wall of guitars. And when there's a wall of guitars, you hear guitar, but you don't hear someone playing guitar. You just hear the guitar. It becomes more generic. When one person plays it, and you can hear their fingers on the strings, it's got more personality. It's more human. And I tend to look for those things where it's the singular essence shows through.

David Senra: What I'm always surprised about people that do great things, I think, especially from people on the outside, it's the amount of volume that goes into it before you're presented with their finished work.

Rick Rubin: Mm-hmm.

David Senra: You were obsessed with music when you were a teenager. You start "Def Jam" in your dorm room. You were like 18 years old. What was the first example? Was it LL Cool J? Who was the first example where you're like, "Wow, there's a lot more work that goes into making a great piece of art, great product, great album than I ever knew"?

Rick Rubin: I never thought about it because it was like a mission and a love, and I didn't think of it even as work. It was just what I wanted to do, is make these things. So, the fact that it took a lot of work wasn't even in consideration at all.

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

Rick Rubin: Yeah. As a fan, I listened to music all the time. I fell in love with it. I wanted to be involved in whatever way that I could. hip-hop was just starting in New York City. It was still a totally underground movement, so the only place you could hear it was at one club downtown where I was going to school. There was only one club that you could hear hip-hop, and that was once a week.

Rick Rubin: But other than that, it was only in the Bronx; it was in Brooklyn. But really, just in community centers and outdoor parties. It was underground and not well-thought-of kind of music. It was street music.

David Senra: Mm-hmm.

Rick Rubin: And I would go to this club every week and hear the music, and at that time, there would be a few hip-hop records coming out, 12-inch singles.

David Senra: Mm-hmm.

David Senra: Mm.

Rick Rubin: No albums, only 12-inch singles.

David Senra: Mm-hmm.

Rick Rubin: And there may be one new record every two or three weeks, and that's all there was.

David Senra: Mm-hmm.

Rick Rubin: And I would go to the club every week, hear the music there, and then I would buy the one single that would come out every few weeks. And the singles didn't represent what the energy in the club was, and I wanted to feel that energy of the club.

Rick Rubin: So, I started. The first record I made was called "It's Yours," and the purpose of that was, I was just trying to capture the energy of the club on record. And I didn't know anything about recording. I wasn't a professional. You know, I was a kid. The fact that I didn't know what I was doing allowed it to be true to what hip-hop was.

David Senra: Mm.

Rick Rubin: Whereas, all of the records that were coming out, the few and far between 12-inch singles every few weeks, they were made by professionals who made other kinds of music. They weren't made by hip-hop people. So, an outsider with experience was making what they thought hip-hop was.

David Senra: Mm.

Rick Rubin: But if you went to the club, you knew what it really was.

David Senra: Mm-hmm.

Rick Rubin: And the club was very stripped down, and it was scratching, break beats, drum machines, and rapping. And that's what the records were.

David Senra: The ones that were produced by people producing other or making other genres of music, was it too much polish? Was it fake? How would you describe the difference between what you were hearing in the club?

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: So, this is your opportunity, essentially, your way into this.

Rick Rubin: The records are like a documentary of the scene that was going on, and all of the other documents of that period weren't representative of the scene. They were representative of something else. The professional, like, the Hollywood version of it. But that's not what it was.

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

Rick Rubin: Yeah, something like that. It sold a lot. I mean, for a record in that world, it took a long time. Probably took 18 months to sell 100,000. But over 18 months, it sold about 100,000, and it was a hit, as much of a hit could be in something that would never be on the radio, and the kind of music that nobody listened to or liked. As a matter of fact, back then, most people who were not hip-hop fans didn't even acknowledge it as music. That's how far it was.

David Senra: What'd they think it was?

Rick Rubin: Don't know. It was the same thing, though, with Elvis and rock and roll. The grown-ups didn't acknowledge that as music. It was just some other thing that they didn't know what it was.

David Senra: Okay, that's...

Rick Rubin: That's how foreign it was.

David Senra: When you were 18 or 19 years old, were you already studying older versions of music? Or were you already going back?

Rick Rubin: I always listened. Anything I liked, I wanted to hear everything that the person that I liked, everything they listened to, that they liked. I always wanted to understand

David Senra: I do the same thing with biographies.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: So, I want to know more about this, but I'll find somebody that... You know, like Steve Jobs, for example, I find him very interesting. I read a biography of him, and then every single one of these books they'll talk about half a dozen, maybe a dozen people, and I'm like, "Who's that? I don't know this guy."

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: And I'll go in the bibliography, and usually find books about the people that inspired them.

Rick Rubin: Same.

David Senra: Do you remember the first time you did that? Who were you? Like, "I'm really interested in this band or this artist. Let me find out who they were inspired by?"

Rick Rubin: It's always been the case. Or the other version of it is, it's like it, where I would hear something for the first time. I can remember the first time I heard The MC5, which is a band from Detroit, in the 1960s, a kind of proto-punk rock band. They're before punk rock, but it has punk energy. And I heard that, and it was really cool.

Rick Rubin: And then I remember going to a used record store because the used record store had all the cool older stuff, and they knew the most about music. So, you spend hours in used record stores and just talking to the people who work there. Same like you've heard Quentin Tarantino working in a video shop, and just there's so much information around the people who really love this thing.

Rick Rubin: And I remember they said, "Well, if you like The MC5, you might want to check out Iggy and The Stooges." And then I listened to The Stooges, like, "Oh, I love this too." And that was another, also Detroit, same time frame, same scene, and it was great music. So, it would either be music like the music that I found that I liked, or music that inspired the music that I liked. Both of those were things I would always pursue.

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David Senra: I always think, like, the motivations. I always want to know why people are doing what they're doing. I think the motivations of what they're doing, the reason that they go into their chosen profession is really important. You thought music was going to be like a hobby. You were going to have to get a day job and then just do music.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

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

David Senra: Yeah. Can you talk about that?

Rick Rubin: Yeah. I thought I would have a regular job. I didn't know anyone who did music professionally, or I couldn't imagine it. And no one in my family was an artist, so it wasn't a realistic expectation, so I thought I'd love music the way I always have. I could participate and make music if I want. But I would have a job to support myself because I didn't think that that was possible for music to support my life.

David Senra: You were in a band, right?

Rick Rubin: Mm-hmm.

David Senra: You played, I think guitar.

Rick Rubin: Guitar.

Rick Rubin: In a punk rock band, so it was very rudimentary.

David Senra: Yeah, and then DJ. I'm still a little confused. Can you try to explain the path that led you to this very singular position that you have now?

Rick Rubin: Yeah. I just always followed what was interesting to me at the time. So, when punk rock came along... Well, first, before punk rock would be heavy metal. Heavy metal, at that time, was really more like hard rock than what we think of now as heavy metal. So, it would be Aerosmith, AC/DC, Ted Nugent.

Rick Rubin: Those were kind of the mainstays of what arena rock was like when I was 13 or 14 years old. And I loved that music, and then I got a guitar and tried to play along, and it didn't go well. But then, when punk rock came along, it was easier for me to play along because it was more basic music.

David Senra: But how do you go from that to... Is DJ the next route in?

Rick Rubin: The next thing that happened was in my interest in hip-hop in high school, there were some kids... No one in my high school liked punk rock except me, but there were some kids who liked hip-hop. And this was, again, in the very, very, very early days of hip-hop.

David Senra: I think that's an understatement. I mean, the beginning of hip-hop. Because I remember reading about the early founding of Def Jam.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: And then, always, when I'm reading books, I write out the year that I'm in, and then I look up what year that person was born. It's like, okay, how old is Rick at this point that's happening in his life? And what was remarkable was when I was reading your book, I had read... This is after I read Jay-Z's book, "Decoded."

Rick Rubin: Mm-hmm.

David Senra: And Jay-Z, 10 years after your starting Def Jam, is talking about the early days of hip-hop when he got into it, which is a decade after you got into it.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: And he says something that's really great. He's just like, "I definitely couldn't tell you that I could get rich from rap."

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: "I just knew that hip-hop was going to get a lot bigger before it goes away."

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: That's a decade later than where you're at.

Rick Rubin: And where I was, I would not have said it'll ever get big. I was in the stage where... I'm going to make this, and the few people who like this will all like it, and that's it. There was no upside. There was no thinking that anybody else is going to like this. That's how underground it was.

David Senra: Is LL Cool J the first person you produced?

Rick Rubin: The first hip-hop record I produced was T La Rock, "It's Yours"

David Senra: Okay.

Rick Rubin: It was one single.

David Senra: That's the one that sold 100,000 copies in 18 months.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

Rick Rubin: And then LL's first record was the first record after that.

David Senra: But which is the one where you put "Reduced by Rick Rubin" on the sleeve, and then your dorm room address?

Rick Rubin: Yeah. I think all of them probably had the dorm room address, because that's where I lived. And "Reduced by," I probably said it for the first time on LL's record.

David Senra: This is the thing that I am fascinated with. It's like it's less is more, but to get less, you have to do more. This stripping away of everything that's just almost like religious devotion to simplicity and timeless ideas. You were 19, 18 years old when you put that on his record.

Rick Rubin: Well, I thought about the idea of "Produced by," and I thought the word meant to build up. Like, I think of production as building. And really, what I was doing was taking apart and reducing. I thought maybe reducing would be... "Reduced by" is more accurate in this case, and that's how it happened.

David Senra: So, he brings you a song, and there's just too... Like, what are you taking away?

Rick Rubin: Well, in those days, there weren't songs. He would just have notebooks of lyrics. And they weren't in song order; it was just rhymes. And we would look at all the lyrics together and say, "Is there something here that could be the basis of a song?" Like, I need a beat, for example, that could be a repeated phrase that ends up being a hook.

Rick Rubin: And the reason, like, many of the hip-hop records before the Def Jam records were, somebody would start rapping, and then they would rap for a few minutes, and then they would finish rapping. It wasn't like a song. It was more like a monologue.

David Senra: Almost like spoken word to a beat?

Rick Rubin: Kind of, but it was still in the rap style, but it wasn't in a song structure. It was like Jamaican toasting. But the fact that I grew up on The Beatles and loved The Beatles, and my understanding of music is based on The Beatles. And The Beatles were the greatest songwriters ever. And the structure of their songs are really organized and tight.

Rick Rubin: So, based on what I knew, from listening to The Beatles, I applied that to rap music so that it would be structured, more like a Beatles song, instead of a monologue or a Jamaican toasting record.

David Senra: Okay, so there is four decades separating when you're working with LL Cool J and today. How similar or different from what... Like, if you're working with an artist today, how different is what you're doing with that artist today, compared to what you did with LL four decades ago?

Rick Rubin: Probably not so different. It's probably pretty similar. It just depends on the artist. Like, because LL was a solo rap artist, and he didn't have a band or make music, I was responsible for making the tracks. And my version of that was a very stripped-down, minimal thing.

Rick Rubin: But now, I get to work with bands sometimes that have a big sound, and there are a lot of players, and I'm looking for the essence of each of these artists, and the essence tends to be stripped down, but it's stripped down to what they are. Just finished a new album with The Strokes, and they're a band of five people. So, it sounds like a band of five people, doesn't sound less than that.

David Senra: Mm-hmm.

Rick Rubin: It sounds like what they are.

David Senra: You have this idea of ruthless edit. I've heard you talk about it a few times on podcasts.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: Can you explain what that is?

Rick Rubin: Sometimes, for the sake of the whole work, removing things about it that you really love is part of the process. And instead of... If you have 100%, and you know at the end you want to have 70% of what you have, like you have 30% too much, instead of whittling down that 30% to get to the 70%, I would say reduce it to 40%, let's say.

Rick Rubin: Force yourself to get to 40%, and then add back what's needed to get to the 70%. And it works in a different way. You have a better understanding of the work after the ruthless edit, because you find out, especially with a group, because in a group, everybody votes.

Rick Rubin: So, with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, for an album we might record 40 or 50 songs, and then all of us vote on A, B, or C. And then, if everyone picks it as an A song, that's going to be on the album. If it's really divided, it might not be. You know, it'll be a democratic process until we get down to what does everyone together think is the best thing that we can make? That's a ruthless editing process.

David Senra: And you're just looking for the essence of what you think could be great. So, in that case, you're recording, let's say, 50 songs.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

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

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: Well, there might be three that we can't live without.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: Is that the thought process?

Rick Rubin: It helps to get to that point of what are the ones you can't live without, however few it is, and build from there. Build out from there.

David Senra: What other interests do you have outside of music? Like, are you into architecture? The reason I ask you that is, like, is there anybody else in different domains that you still have a passion for, that you see that uses similar ideas that you do?

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

David Senra: But are you saying that their thought process... Do you find similarities between their thought process and your push for work?

Rick Rubin: Yeah. I think it's all the same. I think most of what I do is not really about music. I happen to work in music, but it's not about the music. Does that make sense?

David Senra: It does, but say more about this.

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

David Senra: Yeah.

Rick Rubin: It has the same aesthetic as the records I make, or the things that I work on, the things that I like, things that I buy. You know, the objects I buy would have the same aesthetic. So, it's all fitting into, I'd say, a worldview.

David Senra: Yeah, I feel this way too, because I mean, we talked right before we started recording about podcasting. I think we both have the same obsession with it, and I've had my first podcast for over a decade. And it started out, just me reading biographies of people that built businesses. But over time, I realized this same personality type, it's like the artist, the entrepreneur, the filmmaker, the musician. I've done podcasts on all of these kinds of people, and I'm like, "I don't see any distinction between them."

Rick Rubin: It's the same.

David Senra: Yeah.

Rick Rubin: It's the same.

David Senra: Yeah.

Rick Rubin: It's all the creative spirit.

David Senra: I want to, like... They have a bunch of selfish things I told you I wanted to talk to you about because there's just some people that have made massive impacts on my life. I told you, I grew up listening to hip-hop, it's all I listen to this day. I listen to more podcasts than I listen to music now. But it really put a voice, like, words to a feeling I had, even maybe in my subconscious.

Rick Rubin: Mm.

David Senra: Eminem was the first one that I was... I heard his first album, and I was just like, "This is how I feel." I didn't grow up in a trailer park in Michigan, but I know exactly what you're talking about with certain things with your family or certain things of just coming of age. I heard you say one time, "I'm obsessed with..." I want to spend time with him and hopefully get him to record a podcast. I know this would be very difficult.

Rick Rubin: Mm.

David Senra: But especially for you, who've worked with the best, the best of the best people over almost half a century, and for you to say that he might be the most obsessive artist, that you've ever worked for.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: It was like, I literally screenshotted that and saved it on my phone, and I look at it all the time. Why did you say that? Can you just tell me about what it's like working with him?

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

Rick Rubin: And at one point I asked him, because he's got notebooks and notebooks and notebooks, and I said, "Are you working on a new song?" He's like, "No, I'm just keeping active in the skill set." And I said, "Are you going to put those in a song?" He's probably said 90% of it will never be in a song. He's just writing, just writing. And that's what he does. He writes.

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

Rick Rubin: He does, and I would say the same type of obsessive. It's what makes him great. He's obsessed.

David Senra: Have you come across anybody that you consider great that's not obsessed?

Rick Rubin: I'm sure there are. I'd have to think about it, but that's not the only way to do it. For some people, it happens in a more natural way, and for some people it's more of a... Work ethic is always a part of it. But for some people, work ethic is the reason they are who they are, and there are other people who are just incredibly talented and have enough work ethic to get over the finish line.

David Senra: What do you think it's for you?

Rick Rubin: I don't like to quit. I like to see things through. When I start something, I like to see what it can be.

David Senra: From the outside, because you have this whole very relaxed Zen vibe.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: But I swear, I think underneath is a workaholic.

Rick Rubin: Oh, for sure.

David Senra: Okay.

Rick Rubin: For sure. I'm a lazy workaholic.

David Senra: A lazy workaholic. No, you got to say more about that.

Rick Rubin: That's what it is.

David Senra: Because it doesn't feel like work? Explain.

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

David Senra: Rick, I don't believe that.

Rick Rubin: It's true.

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

Rick Rubin: So, I love the beautiful thing, and it takes a lot of work to get to the beautiful thing.

David Senra: You like the end result?

Rick Rubin: Yeah, I like to get there.

David Senra: Is that what you're saying?

Rick Rubin: I like to get to the point where it's like, "Okay, press the send button and share it with the world."

David Senra: Mm-hmm.

Rick Rubin: That's a great feeling. I like it enough for you to get to hear it.

David Senra: Okay.

Rick Rubin: But all of the work up until then, it's like, "Oh my God, I have to go to the studio today."

David Senra: That's surprising to me.

Rick Rubin: Yeah. It's like, it's such a beautiful day.

David Senra: I thought...

Rick Rubin: Wouldn't it be nice to just go out and have lunch with friends? But my whole life has been, you know, most of my life, the first 25 years, was in a dark room for 16 hours a day, seven days a week, in New York City working on music.

David Senra: No, you'd rather be out here barefoot, butt naked in the sun, I think.

Rick Rubin: Now. But not then. Not then.

David Senra: Okay.

Rick Rubin: You know, I like being outside. I like having fun with friends. I like hanging out with my family.

David Senra: Do you like making podcasts more than music now?

Rick Rubin: I don't know if it's "I like it more." I like the people I get to meet, and I'm interested in learning about people. I like learning how people think, their vision to make something, how they follow through to make it, and learning the rollercoaster ride, that journey of building things, how it worked, where it didn't work, what ideas they thought may have worked that didn't, when they were surprised in the process. It's all interesting to me.

David Senra: I want to pull on this for a little bit if you don't mind.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: So, I heard Billie Eilish's brother, who I think they have a close collaboration with.

Rick Rubin: Mm-hmm.

David Senra: So, he was describing the difference between him and Billie. He said that he enjoyed the process of making music. She enjoyed having made the music.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: So, are you more like Billy in that case? Like, you like that it's done?

Rick Rubin: I think so. I'll say I like the moment of revelation. So, we're working on something, it's just okay, it's boring. I'd probably rather not be there. That's how it feels. But then something happens, and it's like magic, like something appears. It's not like "we made it." It's like something comes up in the process.

Rick Rubin: It's conjured in the process that's like a miracle. And that's the thing that's addictive. That feeling when it's like it's not good, it's not good, it's not good, it's not good. We try this, we try this. This doesn't work, this doesn't work, this doesn't work, and it could be a mistake. The machine could not work. We can hear something. "Oh, the machine broke." But what we're listening to is really cool all of a sudden.

Rick Rubin: That's the feeling, that moment of discovery where it goes from nothing to something really good, and then the whole rest of the process after that is protecting that because it's super delicate.

David Senra: Mm-hmm.

Rick Rubin: When it happens, it's like this miracle happened and this magic thing happened, and now we have to protect it through the rest of the process to not ruin it. When it comes together, let's say a band is playing and doing take after take after take. When it's really good, we all kind of look at each other, like, as they're playing, like it's scary because you don't want it to end.

Rick Rubin: Like, you don't want it to stop, because we know if it stops, we can't control it. We can't do it again. It's not like that. It's this moment in time where something magical happens, so we spend a lot of time waiting for those, and I can't say that's fun. It's not fun. It just takes a lot of patience.

David Senra: Do you have to force yourself to do it?

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: Have you ever just gave up in that moment, and just walked away for a little bit?

Rick Rubin: Mm-mm.

David Senra: Okay, so you do have this really...

Rick Rubin: Yeah, good work ethic.

David Senra: You have work ethic and discipline.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: Okay. But it would still be, if you could...

Rick Rubin: It's frustrating and boring and takes a great deal of patience. It's like waiting for paint to dry. You're just waiting, waiting, waiting, and trying different things, and nothing works, until something either works or something happens, and it just comes together, and I can't tell you why.

David Senra: Explain what people do to kill these special moments though.

David Senra: Because you kept saying "We have to protect this. We have to protect this"

Rick Rubin: Once you're aware of it, it's harder to protect. Like, in the process of it happening, if you realize this is it... It's like what is it in golf? The yips. When you're playing golf, if you start thinking about it instead of just being in it, you can't do it anymore.

Rick Rubin: So, it's almost like you have to get out of yourself to allow it to happen.

David Senra: Mm.

Rick Rubin: Maybe not me, but for the artist. The artist has to get to this place where it's like, they don't even know they're doing it. It just happens. It's not a performance. It's something else. It's a...

Rick Rubin: It's this a real moment happens, and it's thrilling.

David Senra: I think you're speaking to my soul right now, because there's something I heard Steph Curry talk about one time, when they were like, "What do you think of when you're taking a shot?" And he goes, "Absolutely nothing."

Rick Rubin: Exactly.

David Senra: And so, when I read books for a living, essentially, before I started this, and people...

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: I've had authors reach out to me after I did their book, and they're like, "How did you get to the essence of it?" Like, "What were you thinking? What were you thinking of when you're doing this?" And I was like, "Nothing." I just read, and if something jumps out to me, I don't think at all. I just underline it.

Rick Rubin: That's it.

David Senra: And then I'll go back through when I reread the highlight. If it's still interesting, it was interesting the first time.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: Now it's interesting the second time.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: It's probably interesting...

Rick Rubin: It's interesting.

David Senra: There's 10 million "Mes'" out there.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: I'm not unique.

Rick Rubin: Same.

David Senra: And there's no way I read this line twice, and if I read it on a podcast, that somebody else is not going to think of it as interesting. It's like, if I overthink it or if I think of, "Oh, this person might hear it," or this many people will hear it...

Rick Rubin: It's in the way.

David Senra: Nothing. I'm thinking of nothing.

Rick Rubin: Yes.

David Senra: That's really interesting. So let me, let me ask you this, though. So you're fu***** Rick Rubin. You can do whatever you want. Why are you choosing to spend so much time podcasting then?

Rick Rubin: I like meeting the people. And even before the podcast started, I would still... If someone was interesting to me, I would reach out to them, want to spend time with them, hang out with them, and just learn from them, really. I can remember the one where it became obvious to do the podcast was Dana White. Someone introduced me to Dana White.

David Senra: I'm recording with him next week.

Rick Rubin: Great. He's great.

David Senra: He's incredible.

Rick Rubin: He actually reached out to me. He's like, "Any time you want to meet, I'm down." I was like, "Great, let's do it." We met, we sat at my house. We sat outside, we talked for about three hours, and at some point in the conversation, I said, "Do you mind if I record this? Because I feel like I'm not going to remember what we're saying, and I'm really liking this story." And that was sort of a breakthrough of like, this is kind of what doing a podcast is like.

Rick Rubin: I already do this in my life. I don't record them, but I meet the people that make things that are interesting to me, and I spend time with them, and I listen to what they do, and I ask a lot of questions because I'm curious. So, it really is an outgrowth of my normal life, so I like doing that.

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David Senra: We were talking before we started recording. I may be the person that's most obsessed with podcasting in the world. I listen to thousands of episodes.

Rick Rubin: Mm-hmm.

David Senra: I was listening to your podcast "Broken Record" back in the day.

Rick Rubin: Mm-hmm.

David Senra: I was like, "This is incredible." And you were heavily into interviewing musicians back then.

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

David Senra: And then "Tetragrammaton," you took, in my opinion, to another level. And you're talking to all kinds of incredible people. I listen to... I just had a conversation with Tobi Lütke, founder of Shopify.

Rick Rubin: Yeah, amazing.

David Senra: I used one of your episodes to prep because he's such a unique mind.

Rick Rubin: He's great.

Rick Rubin: Great.

David Senra: One of the most interesting conversations I had. But I analyze people, like there's a handful of podcasts that are really great. There's a couple million in the directory. Only a handful are really great. Yours is really great, and I'm like, "Why the hell? It's unfair. This guy is gifted at music, and now he's gifted at podcasting. Why is this the case?" And what I came up with, and I started analyzing and thinking about what you do in your day job, what you've done for over four decades. And I was like, "He's a professional listener."

Rick Rubin: That's true.

David Senra: He's listening to the guest. He is in the moment with the guest.

Rick Rubin: Yes.

David Senra: And it's like, that is one of the reasons why, obviously, you have a lot of interesting things to say, but one of the reasons, in my opinion, that you're so great at podcasting.

Rick Rubin: Well, I think in real life people like to talk and they don't like to listen. And often in a conversation you'll be with someone, and they'll be saying something, and you'll be thinking about, "Okay, this is what I'm going to say in response to that." You're not really present. Back and forth, that's what it is. Like, two people waiting for their turn to say what they think. And this is different.

Rick Rubin: And it really, I think it came from listening to music, because I listen to music in a very deep way. I close my eyes. I really pay attention. It's not wallpaper. It's like, I go into the music. In some ways, I think my relationship with music allowed me to never drink or take drugs, because listening to music for me is totally a psychedelic experience. I can feel the music, and I can be transported by the music.

Rick Rubin: Not all music, but good music. So I close my eyes, I feel it, and then at the end of it, I open my eyes, and I'm surprised where I am, because I've been gone when I'm listening. So I listen deeply, and I want to know. I really want to understand things. So, I'm comfortable asking questions, and I really listen to what someone's saying, and if someone says something I don't understand, I'll ask a question to clarify so that I can understand it.

Rick Rubin: I also don't have any judgment. I don't think that I have a way that my way is the right way, and I'm not comparing what's being said to me about what I think. What I think is not part of it. I just want to truly understand what's being shared with me. And if someone says something that's very different than what I believe, I want to know more. It's like, "How did you get to that? Why do you think that?" Because maybe I'll learn something.

Rick Rubin: Maybe I have it wrong. I don't know anything. I want to know more. So through talking to people and really listening, you really get to meet people. And as a professional listener, I've found, some people, it's disarming to talk to someone who really listens, because it's so rare. Most people don't listen.

David Senra: When I listen to your podcast, I feel you have this combination of sincere interest in the other human being.

Rick Rubin: Yes, true.

Rick Rubin: Yes.

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

Rick Rubin: That's it. That's it. I just want to understand. I want to understand to broaden my scope, to see the world. I want to see the world through your eyes. I want to see the world through... Someone made something that's beautiful to me. I want to understand how they see the world. Someone makes a great discovery, I want to know what was the process that allowed that to happen. I'm curious.

David Senra: Yeah, there doesn't seem to be an end to your curiosity either.

Rick Rubin: I'm interested. I've always been interested. I think of myself as a researcher. When the internet came along, anything that I'm interested in, I'll go forever going deeper and deeper and deeper into a topic just to get any glimpse, and to read opposing opinions, and go deeper and deeper and deeper, and just trying to understand. I'm curious.

David Senra: You think of yourself as a researcher?

Rick Rubin: Yeah. That's what I do most of the time, is research.

David Senra: Okay, I don't know about this. Tell me about this.

Rick Rubin: Well, not a researcher in a professional way, but anything I'm interested in, I want to know everything about it, whatever it is.

David Senra: Mm-hmm.

Rick Rubin: And even mundane things. If I drink coffee, I want to find the best coffee. I want to read what every person who knows about the best machine says about every machine, and then test every machine. And it's just a fanatical devotion to finding the best version of whatever it is.

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

Rick Rubin: I'd say so. There's no end. I don't get to an end to that process.

David Senra: I admire people that do things for a very long period of time, and you can tell a lot about people by what they admire. And it's just like, I want to do these kind of podcasts till I die. Because like, what's success look like for you in five years, in 10 years? One, that I'm still doing it, and two, that I'm just making things that I'm proud of.

Rick Rubin: That's it.

David Senra: There's no f***ing download number. There's no how many ads I sell.

Rick Rubin: Exactly.

David Senra: It's just like that's it.

Rick Rubin: Exactly.

David Senra: And I'm terrified that one day, I'm going to wake up and be like, "I don't want to do this anymore."

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

David Senra: I'm still terrified of it.

Rick Rubin: When I was nine years old, I spent a lot of time practicing magic, like card magic, in front of a mirror.

David Senra: Mm-hmm.

Rick Rubin: And that was really fun, and there's a whole community of magicians, and I was just a little kid, but like grown-up magicians. And if you're truly interested in magic, there are all these meetings, and they get together and talk about stuff. And if you're an outsider, everything's a secret, but if you're a magician, they love sharing. So it's a really cool community to be part of, and that was my community from nine until probably 16.

Rick Rubin: Those were the people I hung out with, and that were the people that we shared this interest, and I just wanted to learn. And then music became more and more popular in my life. And then at some point it's like, I can't do both. These are both full-time occupations. And when I say occupations, I don't mean jobs, I mean something to occupy my time.

Rick Rubin: I can either devote myself to doing magic or devote myself to doing music, and at some point, music won. But that wasn't a loss. I didn't lose anything.

David Senra: That's a beautiful way to think about it.

Rick Rubin: Yeah. It's like, I let go of the thing that I loved for this other thing that I loved that just took on this new life. And I've done music for a long time, and I like making other things too. And if my life became about making other things more than making music, that'd be okay. It's more about the making that excites me.

David Senra: This is why I kept asking do you think you would... Making a podcast, we can have a conversation. We could be doing your show right now instead of mine.

Rick Rubin: Mm-hmm.

David Senra: And at the end of this hour or two hours, it's done. We have something, and we could do it again tomorrow. The amount of time from creation to output is so much shorter than an album or even a great song.

Rick Rubin: True.

David Senra: What you were saying, I think you called yourself a lazy workaholic.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: I was saying lazy alcoholic. Lazy workaholic.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: It's almost like, this isn't work. This doesn't feel like work to me.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: I was a little surprised with the way you described working in music, that does feel like work to you.

Rick Rubin: Yeah, for sure. It's also work because I have to show up. If you commit to be somewhere at a certain time, that's work, because that morning, I might wake up and think, "I don't really want to do that today," but it's agreed to with other people. I'm going to be at this place, and we're going to do this thing, so I have to show up. But most days I don't want to do the things that I'm scheduled to do.

David Senra: That's shocking to me, though.

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

David Senra: So I think I might be well-positioned. I'm just now getting advice from you because I'm a huge fan of you, and I respect the way you think. Anyway, I just did another podcast on the book you wrote, "The Creative Act," by the way, and just there are so many ideas that you put into words that are in my head that I didn't have words for in there.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: So right now, I feel like I don't work a day in my life.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: I feel like I wake up and I'm compelled, or like...I don't even know the word to use it. Then there's no doubt that I'm just on the right path.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: If I was sitting here and we weren't recording, and I was just seeking your advice, like I don't feel it's like work at all.

Rick Rubin: Yeah, same thing.

David Senra: The only time it feels like work is when I have to edit, which I f***ing hate, but I do it anyways because I think it makes it better.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: But that's the only time.

Rick Rubin: That's a good example. That's a good example. There are parts of it that are not always fun, and when you're committing time, like time is our most valuable resource, and when we're committing our time to doing something in advance, which we do, we pre-schedule, the day of, you don't always want to do that thing.

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

Rick Rubin: Yes.

David Senra: How are you still-

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

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

Rick Rubin: Yeah. It's like, I'd be happy not doing anything. Well, I don't know. I don't know if that's true, because it's never been the case.

David Senra: There's no way. Yeah, there's no way.

Rick Rubin: I've always-

David Senra: Because you could've stopped working decades ago.

Rick Rubin: Yes.

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

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

David Senra: You're disappointing me.

Rick Rubin: It's the truth. It's the truth.

David Senra: I'm sad.

David Senra: It feels like out of almost anybody in the world that gets paid for being them is you.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

Rick Rubin: Yeah

Rick Rubin: Yes.

David Senra: And you're saying that's not the case.

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

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

Rick Rubin: Never have.

David Senra: Were you ever a fan of any of his-

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: Okay. So I read all his books, watched all his shows. And in his book, I was shocked, because that guy, first of all, in his book, he describes what it's like to be a heroin addict, which is insane, and the amount... What you realize when you read "Kitchen Confidential" is the same work ethic he used to score drugs as a broke junkie, once he broke that habit, he just applied it to writing and building TV shows.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: His work ethic was the same. It was just directed at the worst thing possible, being a f***ing heroin addict.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: And then he directed it in a positive, generative direction, and he took off. But he said something very similar to you. He's like, "Somewhere deep inside me is this guy that just wants to smoke weed and lay in bed all day."

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: And he goes, "I have to fight..." His writing's beautiful. He's like, "I have to fight that guy every single day."

Rick Rubin: Yeah. Now, what's also true, I do have to fight that guy to show up, and there are parts of the job that are just like watching paint dry, waiting for something good to happen, but that moment of magic when something good does happen is the thing I'm addicted to, that feeling of, "It wasn't good. It's not good. Oh my God, it's good."

Rick Rubin: And it's like a miracle because nobody knows how or why that happened. It's not in our control. That's the other thing about it, it really is magic. So I'm addicted to the magic part of it, but I'm not addicted to everything leading up to those magical moments. I'm patient. I'm patient enough to wait forever for that thing to happen, but it's not fun.

Rick Rubin: Like, some people really look forward to fishing. It's like fishing. It's like, you can go out and spend a whole day fishing and not catch any fish. It's like that. You can work in the studio for a day or for a week, and nothing good can happen. That happens. It's out of our control. But when the good thing happens, it's like, ah, there it is. That's why we're here.

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

Rick Rubin: It's true. It's the best example.

David Senra: I heard Akon one time describe working with Eminem, and he shows up into Detroit, and he gives him a call. He's like, "All right, I figure we're going to do a night session." These guys are usually nocturnal.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: Calls him at 7:00 p.m., and Em's like, "Yeah, I'll see you tomorrow." And Akon's like, "Tomorrow? What are you talking about?" Shows up and doesn't realize that he treats it like a job.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: Shows up at 9:00 a.m.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: Right? He's in the studio writing, like you're saying, recording verses.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: I think it's, let's say, noon. He literally will be in the middle of a verse, and you're like, "Oh, I'll be right back. I'm going to take lunch."

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: And he's like, "What?" He goes, comes back at 1:00, goes back to work. 5:00, he says, "All right, I'll see you the next day."

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: And people misunderstood what Akon was saying, is like, he doesn't wait around for inspiration.

Rick Rubin: No.

David Senra: He shows up every day knowing that if he does the work, then it will come.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

Rick Rubin: Yes.

David Senra: It's exactly what you're saying about fishing.

Rick Rubin: Yeah, and inspiration is a real thing too, but it's both. If you only wait for inspiration, it won't ever come. You have to work and be there and show up. If you're not in the practice of allowing the thing to happen, it won't happen. Doesn't mean it will. Just because you do show up doesn't mean it will happen, but if you don't show up, it won't happen.

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David Senra: You got me into Johnny Cash, who is a couple of generations before me, and not only was the music great, but I loved you describing what went into making it. Will you talk about that? But there was something with the way I would distill down what you were saying, is constraints are actually your friend.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: You can't do everything. So if you artificially constrain yourself, it forces you to be more creative. Can you talk about this? I feel like you've used this a bunch in your career.

Rick Rubin: Yeah. It's like the idea of creating a palette, and the albums that speak to me most are ones when you hear them, you know... If an artist has twenty albums, but you hear a song you know, "Oh, that has to be on that album, that seventh album, because that's the only album that sounds like that."

Rick Rubin: Even though the band always sounds like the band, this group of songs sounds different than all the rest, and it may be that it was either recorded in a different way, or all the songs were about a particular thing, or they're using different instrumentation than they used to use. I like it when an album stands alone outside of an artist's career as a defining moment in time. It's not just more of the same.

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

Rick Rubin: That happens by coming up with a series of rules that only apply to this project. Those are the constraints. So that could be-

David Senra: In the Johnny Cash example.

Rick Rubin: In Johnny Cash's case, the first one was, I didn't know that it was going to be an acoustic album, which it turned out to be.

David Senra: Mm-hmm.

Rick Rubin: But that was something that, through the process of recording, I learned the most interesting version of this to me is when he's singing alone, which was really the demos in my living room, him singing me songs. That sounded better than when we went into the recording studio with musicians and played them with a band. It wasn't as interesting. I didn't know that in advance. That wasn't a premeditated idea.

Rick Rubin: And then, in terms of the material that he would sing, I grew up with this image. What spoke to me about Johnny Cash was this image of the Man in Black, and the Man in Black is a mythical character. Yes, it's Johnny Cash, but it's not just Johnny Cash. It's like the mythical Johnny Cash, the Johnny Cash who's the Man in Black. And the man, Johnny Cash, could sing a funny song.

Rick Rubin: The Man in Black probably wouldn't sing a funny song. So the material that we picked was always through the eyes of what's something that the Man in Black, the legendary, mythological character, what would he sing? And those are the songs that we chose.

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

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: It was like his fingers.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

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

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: And you guys in a house.

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

David Senra: And it's looked at through the viewpoint of, not a funny song, but a Man in Black would do this.

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

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

Rick Rubin: Correct. It would be unusual for that to be the case.

David Senra: In many cases, it's just... There could be a band.

Rick Rubin: It tends to water it down. It tends to water it down.

David Senra: So this is the case in companies, since obviously, my main focus is on entrepreneurship.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: It's like, even if there is a group, there's usually a main person. Is that the same thing in bands? There might be four guys in the band or five guys in the band. Is it usually the stronger personality that has more influence?

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

Rick Rubin: It's a different model. But then, like in Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Tom Petty is really the flag bearer of the band, and everyone lines up behind Tom. They're all great, and they all can play great things, and they all add incredible things, but Tom is sort of the final word in what happens in that band. In a band like U2, it's democratic. Everybody in the band has to like it. If three of the guys like it and one of the guys doesn't, it doesn't happen, and that's another model that works for them.

David Senra: So if we go back to this designing in constraints, your work with Johnny Cash was very simple. Go back all the way 40 years before that. I'm reducing, I'm not producing. I think in 2023 I listened to, I don't know, 600 to 700 individual... Probably listened to two to three podcast episodes a day, so I don't know, 700, 900 episodes. I think the single best podcast episode that I listened to all that year was your episode on "Tetragrammaton" with Jimmy Iovine.

Rick Rubin: Mm-hmm.

David Senra: There was a story that you told in there that was very fascinating, because Jimmy's, I think, 10 years older than you. Kind of like 10 years-

Rick Rubin: Almost exactly ten years older.

David Senra: Yeah.

Rick Rubin: Our birthdays are a day apart.

David Senra: Yeah, and you tell this phenomenal story on the podcast of one of the first... It might have been the first time you met Jimmy Iovine. He said something that was so strange. You go to play something you're working on.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: And he goes, "I wish I could still make something that simple."

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: And your response was, "I'm sure you can."

Rick Rubin: Yeah. What do you mean?

David Senra: Explain why he said that and what's happening. What happens over time.

Rick Rubin: Yeah, because he was a producer. And as you learn more of what you can do, you tend to do that. They tend to get bigger. At that point in time, I hadn't done it enough. It was my first record. So The Cult "Electric" was my first rock record.

David Senra: This is after almost a decade in hip-hop or half a decade in hip-hop?

Rick Rubin: No.

David Senra: No?

Rick Rubin: No.

David Senra: When was this?

Rick Rubin: Same. Like same time.

David Senra: Oh, okay.

Rick Rubin: Yeah. This is like 19...

David Senra: Is this when you moved to California?

Rick Rubin: No. This is still in New York.

David Senra: Oh, shit. Okay. So give me the-

Rick Rubin: I'm still living in the dorm. I'm still living in the dorm at NYU.

David Senra: Oh my God.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: I thought this was... Okay, so this is the very beginning. So it's as simple as it gets because that's all you can do.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

Rick Rubin: Yeah. I was doing what I was... Very simple, but I stayed true to that as much as I can. There have probably been a couple of examples along the way where I may have not stayed true. Very few. If you look at my whole recorded discography, there may be two or three examples where it got out of control, or where the artist that I'm working with just had a very different vision, which does happen sometimes, and usually we end up not working together again.

Rick Rubin: And there have been one or two occasions where we end up not even finishing a work because it's just too... We just see it in a different way. I had that experience with Joe Cocker. We went into the studio to record, and I had a specific vision of how I saw Joe Cocker and what I thought was great about Joe Cocker, and he really had a vision of it being something different than that. And we weren't on the same page, and it didn't jive, so it never happened.

David Senra: I'm curious your perspective, since you've known Jimmy Iovine for so long, because he has another singular career kind of in music the whole time, but he jumped around.

Rick Rubin: Yeah. Different jobs.

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

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: What do you think is special about him? What's unique about him? Why was he able to do what he was able to do?

Rick Rubin: He's got good taste, and he's got a great work ethic. Those are the two.

David Senra: To me, in my mind, you two are very, almost, before this conversation I'm having with you, almost at opposite ends of the spectrum, where I felt like you were just drawn like a moth to a flame about what you want to do.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: Where he's like, "It was always work. I never liked it."

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: It was always a job.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: Like, "I like certain parts of it, but I just..." He's essentially just forced himself to do it.

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

David Senra: Explain that. I love this.

Rick Rubin: It's that I'm doing a passion and belief, and he's doing a bottom line. What's going to work? What's going to be good for business? And it's just two different things, two different mentalities.

David Senra: There's a great line in "The Defiant Ones" where he hears... He's producing Tom Petty, and he hears a song, and he goes, "This is house music." And Tom goes, "What do you mean?" He goes, "Find me," whatever, "eight more albums." He goes, "That song's going to buy you a house."

Rick Rubin: Yeah. So that's...

David Senra: And Tom...

Rick Rubin: We're different in that way.

David Senra: And Tom goes, "I've never heard somebody describe music that way."

David Senra: Like, "This is going to buy me a house."

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: There's a bunch of stories that Jimmy tells in that podcast with you about the crazy things that you see in the music business, where... I think he tells a story of Phil Spector coming to the studio in a butcher's outfit, and he's got guns strapped to him everywhere, and David Geffen's in the studio, and John Lennon's getting drunk. Do you have any things that stand out from you? I've never heard you here tell any of these stories of stuff you've seen inside the studio.

Rick Rubin: "I can remember doing a session with ODB, Ol' Dirty Bastard from Wu-Tang.

David Senra: Wu-Tang Clan.

Rick Rubin: And I remember being nervous, because I'd never met him before, and his reputation preceded him, so I didn't really know what I was going into. And I thought, "I'm going to bring my dog." I had a Puli, which is a dog that has dreadlocks.

Rick Rubin: And whatever's going on, if you see a dog with dreadlocks, it's interesting. Like, it's fascinating in its own way. And I had a friend of mine also filming everything, because I thought, "Well, if there's a camera, and if there's a dog, it's going to be okay."

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

Rick Rubin: All kinds of crazy things, like...

David Senra: Violence?

Rick Rubin: Could be violence, could be a lot of things that would not be good.

David Senra: Yeah.

Rick Rubin: And just things I wasn't really prepared for. But I loved him. You know, I was a fan. And I remember we walked in, and he looked, and he pointed at the dog, and he said, "He's okay." And then he pointed at the camera, "He's got to go." I was like, "Okay." And then he went, and then the session ended up going pretty well.

David Senra: We mentioned Tobi Lütke earlier, and in the conversation I had with him that was very fascinating, he said something where he's just like, "There's not one right way to do things. There's probably 100."

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

Rick Rubin: Yes.

David Senra: Which I think you would agree with.

Rick Rubin: Yes.

David Senra: And he's like, "You just have to find the one that fits best for you."

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: And just do that.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: And you would think this German computer programmer engineer would be very rigid, but when you talk to him, he essentially just runs his life by all intuition.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: You are all intuition.

Rick Rubin: All intuition.

David Senra: Explain why, essentially, your entire life is, in my opinion, managed or run by your intuitive feelings?

Rick Rubin: Yeah. I've always been true to what I feel, and it's worked out. I suppose if it didn't work out, then maybe I would have to try something else. But the fact that I've stayed true to what feels right to me, and luckily, by the grace of God, it has resonated with other people, it allows me to continue doing it. But I suppose if that didn't happen, I would just make things for myself on a small level and keep doing it, and have a real job.

David Senra: Is this, your guided by intuition, tied to... I feel you have a skepticism of human knowledge. I think you've said, "I think we know very little about everything."

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: Thomas Edison has this famous quote where he's like, "We don't know 1/1000th percent of anything."

Rick Rubin: Yeah. I believe that. I believe we don't know anything.

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

Rick Rubin: Yeah. And to try things and see what works. And just because one thing works doesn't mean that's the way it happens. That's a way that happened to work in that case.

David Senra: I found one of my all-time favorite quotes when I was reading the book "Zero to One." The quote says, "The single most powerful pattern I have noticed is that successful people find value in unexpected places, and they do this by thinking about business from first principles instead of formulas." That is exactly what AppLovin has done with their advertising platform, Axon.

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David Senra: I heard you one time compare and contrast the approach of Jay-Z to Eminem.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: You worked with both of them. Can you talk about just how different they are?

Rick Rubin: Yeah. Em is much more... Well, he writes down the lyrics, and he's really studious in the way that he works, and he'll also record take after take after take after it's written, and try different things. Jay is much more spontaneous. It all happens in his head, and then he'll get up and say it once or twice, and that's it.

David Senra: What's the energy when you're in the room with both of them, though?

Rick Rubin: Em is totally involved in every aspect of everything, and Jay is like, "Play me a bunch of stuff. If I hear something I like, I'll think about it, and if not, I'll see you tomorrow." It's like, "Jay will only be there when he needs to be there," and if he hears something that sparks an idea, he'll sit and just say, "Just play it over and over again. Play the music over and over again," and he sits in the back, and you almost...

Rick Rubin: It goes on long enough where you forget he's even there because he's just silent in the corner listening, sitting on a couch, listening over and over again. 30 minutes, 25 minutes later, he's like, "I got it," jumps up. He runs into the room, hits record, and he does the whole thing, just from his head. It's amazing. He's the only person I've ever seen do that.

David Senra: I think a lot of people know that he did Magna Carta Holy Grail, essentially in two weeks.

Rick Rubin: Mm.

David Senra: Like, he did the whole album in two weeks.

Rick Rubin: Most of his albums were made very quickly.

David Senra: Yeah. What's always interesting to me it's like, yeah, he recorded them in two weeks, but these ideas, he's been refining. It's not like when he's not in the studio, he's not thinking about these. He's refining these ideas over a long period of time.

Rick Rubin: Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Some of them, it all happens in a weekend, the whole thing.

David Senra: That's crazy.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: As opposed to Em, who will work on a song forever.

Rick Rubin: Yes. Very different. Just two different styles. Both amazing, but they just come at it from different... I think it's just different personality types.

David Senra: What do you think Em's personality type is then?

Rick Rubin: I would describe him as obsessive. He's really a perfectionist, willing to do whatever it takes for it to be great, and diligent, hardworking. And Jay's much more relaxed. It just kind of happens for him. He's doing it, but it's just a different style.

David Senra: Of the two, which one do you think that your working style is closer to?

Rick Rubin: I do different things, so it's hard to say. What I do changes according to who I'm working with. Whatever the artist needs is what my job is. So, in some cases it's totally hands-off, and in some cases it's, "Well, we got to start from the beginning and try to figure this out together."

David Senra: Oh, so you know what? I'm thinking like, it's kind of tied to what you were saying about being a professional listener, that you take a sincere interest in the person, whether you're recording a podcast with them or you're working with them in the studio. And so, your goal, if I'm reading this correctly, is just like, has really nothing to do with you. You feel you're an act of service to try to get them to be the best version of themselves.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: Is that the way you think about it?

Rick Rubin: Yes. I'd say that's accurate.

David Senra: Do you have anybody that plays that role in your life for you?

Rick Rubin: I don't know if I do.

Rick Rubin: Didn't know if anyone produces me.

David Senra: Could they reduce you? I don't know if there's anything to reduce here.

Rick Rubin: Yeah. I don't know. Luckily, I have friends and family who are not particularly interested in what I do. So, I have reality around me, a lot of just like, "That's crazy." Like, a lot of, "That's a bad idea."

David Senra: Mm-hmm.

Rick Rubin: And it's interesting for me because some ideas I hear, "That's a bad idea," and it's like, Okay, maybe you're right." And many ideas, it's like, "I'll show you, it's a good idea. I feel I have to do this."

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

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

David Senra: Do you think you have a big ego?

Rick Rubin: I don't think so.

David Senra: You have a lot of self-confidence, though.

Rick Rubin: I have a lot of self-confidence.

David Senra: But they even said... Somebody met you when you were 19, and they were like, "That's the most self-confident 19-year-old I ever met."

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

Rick Rubin: I think that's the mix. I think, luckily, I learned to meditate when I was young, and meditation's been a big part of my life. So, it's never been about ego. It's never been about me. I'm confident in being able to share what I'm experiencing.

Rick Rubin: I hear something like, "That's amazing," and I hear something else that's like, "You know, it's not good enough," and nothing anyone can say will tell me otherwise. It's like I know. I can feel it.

David Senra: So, this confidence in your own judgment, because you were just saying you could have somebody that has a lot of experienced wisdom.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

Rick Rubin: When I say confidence in my own judgment in, this is how I see it. I'm not saying I'm right. I never say, "I'm right" or "I know what's best," none of those things. This is how I see it. I see it clearly. This is how I would vote for it. If I get to vote, I vote for this.

Rick Rubin: But it's not my way or the highway at all.

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

Rick Rubin: Depends. I would say it's rarely critical. What I usually use is that it starts apprehensive when we start, because it could be anything. So, at first, it's scary because I don't know what's going to happen.

David Senra: Even today?

Rick Rubin: Even today. And there's usually an expectation because I've had success in the past that if I'm there, it's going to be great. So I feel this pressure of expectation, and I know I can't control anything. It's going to be the way it's going to be. I know I'm patient, and I know I'll wait until it's great. And we start by experimenting and see what it could be, and as soon as there's a glimmer, as soon as I hear something that's good, then I relax.

Rick Rubin: But until then, it's too open, you know? It could be too many things. But once something lands, whatever it is, I relax. It's like, "Okay, we have at least a direction to move in." It doesn't mean we stay in that direction forever, but having a direction is better than not having a direction. And when we start, we don't have a direction.

David Senra: So, you would say you don't have a self-critical inner monologue constantly playing in your mind?

Rick Rubin: Never.

David Senra: It's interesting. The reason I ask you this question is because I was with an entrepreneur yesterday. The guy's worth 10 billion dollars, and he wakes up every morning at 5:30, just assuming he's going out of business, and is essentially paranoid.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: He lives like a paranoid life, and that's why he thinks he's good. This is very common with a lot of people.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: And I used to have a self-critical, kind of mean... I was fu***** pretty mean to myself. This guy named Brad Jacobs, we actually had him on the show, and I've talked to him a bunch. And he used to have that too, and now he's in his 60s. He's like, "It's counterproductive. It's not helping anything." I talk about this on the podcast. You can hear me mentioning it over and over again for a few years, and just something one day I just fu***** snapped, and I just don't do that anymore.

Rick Rubin: That's great.

David Senra: And I went back, and I was reading my notes on you, and I was just telling my partner Rob about this, just the way I look at the work we're doing now. It's like I like Rick's framework, that, like, if you look at your work, it's just like an entry to a diary.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: It's like, there's nothing to be critical about, because you did the best you possibly could have done.

Rick Rubin: In that moment.

David Senra: In that moment.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: And then, that was 10 years ago, and that was five years ago.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: And then what we're making today is...

Rick Rubin: Yeah, and I might not do the same thing I would have done 10 years ago, and that's fine.

Rick Rubin: But I don't have any regrets about "10 years ago, that's what I thought." That's real. Each of those installments is real. So, it's always true. It doesn't mean that that's who you are forever. That's who you are in that moment.

Rick Rubin: It's really freeing. It's helpful for an artist to think that way because usually, especially when we're younger, we think the thing that we make is "This is my magnum opus, and this is going to define me for the rest of my life." And it's a daunting hill to climb.

Rick Rubin: But when you realize it's like, "This is just the one today, and we're going to make another one tomorrow. And hopefully, the one tomorrow's going to be as good or better than the one today."

Rick Rubin: What's true today? What's the one... I usually say that if you are excited to share it with your friend... Like, if I'm working in the studio and, long before a record comes out, if we're making something, and if someone comes... And I'm excited to play it for my friend, who has good taste, who I know likes good music...

David Senra: Mm.

Rick Rubin: It could come out then. If I want to play it for them, that's good enough for everybody. Do you know what I'm saying?

David Senra: Yeah.

Rick Rubin: But usually, artists will feel like, "Well, I'll play this for my boys. But it has to be a lot better before regular people can hear it," and that's ridiculous.

Rick Rubin: It's like, as soon as I liked it enough to share it with one person, chances are it's ready for everybody.

David Senra: I've seen you talk to a ton of musicians and artists on camera. I just finished rereading a profile that was in Colossus Magazine on Josh Kushner, and it starts with him coming to seek your counsel. There's a ton of people who come to seek your counsel. And I feel like your modus operandi is holding up a mirror to them, and just telling them to do what they know they want to do. But it's somehow more valuable if they hear it from somebody else. Does that make sense to you? Do you resonate with that at all?

Rick Rubin: Yeah, that sounds right. I mean, there are occasions where someone will come to me and say, "I'm thinking about doing this crazy thing," and I'll say, "Mm, I wonder about that." But more often than not, when people share their hopes and dreams, that's all you need to know.

Rick Rubin: It's like, "These are my hopes and dreams, but I'm afraid of this, this and this." Most often it's, "Go with the hopes and dreams. Don't worry about any of that stuff, because that stuff doesn't matter."

David Senra: What is the stuff that they're afraid of, overhear?

Rick Rubin: "What someone is going to say? Will I be able to keep doing it? My last one was successful. What do I do now?"

Rick Rubin: Success is a funny thing. You know, when you're young and you get successful quickly, no one is prepared for that. And it's awkward and uncomfortable, and you think that's the thing you want, but when you get it, it's not what you think it is. It's very different.

Rick Rubin: And there are all these pressures that come with it that no one is ready for, and no one learns how to do. And it's not like whoever you learn good habits from over the course of your life, they don't know how to deal with it, because they never got overnight famous or successful. It's a weird thing.

David Senra: Mm-hmm.

Rick Rubin: So, a lot of artists kind of implode in success.

David Senra: Okay, so I want to ask you, why you have not imploded over this many decades? One of the most interesting things that Jimmy Iovine told me. We talked a lot about this, because I'm obsessed with people that are just further down the line than I am.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: It's like there's just the wisdom they gain from experience. I got the book knowledge. I need the stuff that is not in there, that they can tell you. And he was just like, "Most people cannot handle." You know, you guys have been around some of the most talented people, genius-level talents that have completely imploded, maybe destroyed their lives, maybe died prematurely.

David Senra: And so, he broke it down into four things for me. There's just like, "People can't handle stress, and these are the pitfalls, David, that you should watch out for." One was drugs, the second was alcohol, the third was women, and the fourth was megalomania.

David Senra: It's really hard to get on stage, and there's 80,000 people screaming your name, and over time they just think there's some kind of... They're not even human anymore, which you seem to be like, "I'm not special. I have no..." I know you say you have no talent and all this other shit.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: Like, "I'm not special."

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: I think there's a lot of wisdom to that. It's just like, man, there's 10 million "Mes" and 10 million "Yous".

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: All over the world or whatever that is...

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: Do you think Jimmy's perspective on that is like, the people that you've seen that had talent and had success and then destroyed it, is there anything else that he's missing from there?

Rick Rubin: I think those are all of them. Because the last one takes into account a lot of... There's both the mask of overconfidence and ego, which is hiding insecurity, or there's the insecurity. But they're really the same. You know, they're just presenting in two different ways. Two different people have the same overnight success.

Rick Rubin: One of them gets really boastful, "I'm the greatest that ever lived," and the other one is like, "Oh, my God, they're going to find out that I'm really a fake." But those are both the same people... They're two sides of the same coin. The megalomania is a way of hiding the insecurity. It's a brave face. They might not know this. They rarely know it. You know? It's different sides of the same imbalance.

David Senra: So, that leads me to the question I hinted at, or maybe even said: How have you sustained success over such a long period of time then?

Rick Rubin: I think the fact that I learned to meditate when I was young, and always had a grounded... And the fact that I know it's not me. It's like those two things. Like, I'm grounded, and I know I'm lucky to participate in this magic that's happening. I get to be in the room when it happens. But it's not from me.

David Senra: Mm-hmm.

David Senra: What do you mean it's not from you?

Rick Rubin: I'm in the service of it.

David Senra: You're a conduit? Is that what you mean?

Rick Rubin: Yeah, I would say that. I'm in the service of it. I'm devoted to setting the stage to allow it to happen, and I'm patient and waiting for it to come.

Rick Rubin: It's not like when it's great, it's like, "I did a great job."

David Senra: Mm-hmm.

Rick Rubin: It's not that.

David Senra: No, I think the people that sustain greatness over time, even if they do something great, they don't rest on their laurels. They don't go to sleep on wins. They just make something great. They're like, "All right. Try to do it again the next day."

Rick Rubin: Next...

David Senra: And they don't really think too much. Jimmy Iovine, I keep bringing him up, but he has that great line, which is like, "I don't have a rearview mirror, and I don't have a trophy room."

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: He's just like, "I don't give a..." Even when he did the show, he's like, "I don't want to talk about the past. I want to talk about what I'm working on in the future."

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: They're all like that. I just had lunch with Jeffrey Katzenberg, same thing. He was like, "Yeah, we can do the show, but I want to talk about what I'm working on now, not just what happened at Disney and everything else." It's just very, very common.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

Rick Rubin: Yeah, yeah.

David Senra: Like, staying in the moment, being present. Tell me if you disagree with me, because again, I have this interpretation of you in my mind, because I've been a fan of yours for a very long time, and going back to this sustained success over a long period of time. I talked to James Dyson, the guy who invented... You know, the vacuum cleaner guy.

Rick Rubin: Mm-hmm.

David Senra: And he's a fascinating person to me. Number one person I wanted to meet, because his first autobiography, I think, is so great, because it's all about him just enduring through struggle and refusing to quit.

David Senra: And something I didn't understand, even though I read his first autobiography five times and his second autobiography two or three times. I love obsessed people. He's an inventor. He wrote an encyclopedia while he was building his company on a history of gray dimensions, and he's...

Rick Rubin: Got it.

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

Rick Rubin: Obsessed.

David Senra: But what I didn't understand what was driving him was, he told me this great story on the podcast where he goes, "This is his simple organizing principle." He's like, "I pick up a product, right? Cup. Pick up a product. It exists. I go, 'How can I make this product better?'" Makes it better, puts it back down. Waits a little bit, picks it up, goes, "How can I make it better?" Makes it better, puts it down. He goes, "I just do that over and over again.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: I've been doing it for 50 years.

Rick Rubin: Yes.

David Senra: So, if I had to guess, what your organizing principle was, that I think also influences the sustained success that you've had, is you just making things that you yourself like.

Rick Rubin: That's it.

Rick Rubin: And sometimes I'll go into a friend's house, and I'll think, "Hmm, the furniture in here isn't arranged in the best way. Maybe I'll rearrange the furniture."

David Senra: No, you don't.

Rick Rubin: I've done that.

Rick Rubin: I've done that.

David Senra: What does your friend say?

Rick Rubin: Depends. Some are cool with it. Some are like, "He's crazy," you know?

David Senra: Okay. Well, say more about this, like...

Rick Rubin: Well, it's just seeing the possibility. I've worked on a lot of living spaces, and the idea of designing a house from scratch is a daunting one to me. I can't imagine doing that because there's too many options.

Rick Rubin: But if there's a house that exists. I might be able to see, well, what's the best version of this thing that already exists? Same with music. It's like, I hear what's there, and now, what's the best version of this? What can we do to make it better? What can we do to make it better? Same thing as James Dyson. Exactly the same.

David Senra: Yeah, and I feel like you did this from the jump, when you were like, "Well, I'm in the club. I'm obsessed going to the club. The hip-hop club is incredible," right?

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: But I like this stuff that's here. I go to the record store. I'm buying this stuff that I don't like.

Rick Rubin: It's not real.

David Senra: Yeah, so I was like, "Why don't I just make what I actually like?"

Rick Rubin: I want the real one.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: And it wound up working out fabulously.

Rick Rubin: Yeah. But again, I didn't know in advance it would work out fabulously. It's just like, "This is what I want to hear. I'm making it for me."

David Senra: These are my favorite kind of people because, again, it goes back to why are you doing what you're doing? And you're doing it because you wanted to make it to the point where you were willing to just make music at night and have a normal job, just because you liked doing it.

Rick Rubin: I want it in the world.

Rick Rubin: Absolutely. I never thought of any of this as a job. It's never been about that. It's only a job because I'm committed to show up. That's what makes it a job. The actual craft of making things is what I like to do.

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

Rick Rubin: I think I would just keep making things for myself. I give the example in the book of, if you were to move into a house on the top of a mountain that no one could ever come and visit, and you made that the place that you most wanted to spend your time, and you really curated it to your taste.

David Senra: Mm.

Rick Rubin: That's the job. It's not about, "I'm making this to show off to someone else." I'm making this because I want to inhabit this. I make the music that I'm excited to listen to. Now, it's ridiculous, it doesn't work out that way because, in making the music, we work on it, we listen to it 1,000 times, and then when it's done, it's fine if I never hear it again.

Rick Rubin: I never put on music I worked on, which is funny because I'm making it to be the perfect version of what I want to hear. But in the process of doing that, there's so much listening involved that it's not fun to go back and listen to it for me. I want to hear something new.

David Senra: This idea of the example that you use in the book of the house on the mountain...

Rick Rubin: That no one will ever see.

David Senra: Say more about the thinking behind that, though.

Rick Rubin: Well, I just know for me, I don't decorate my home to impress someone else. I decorate my home to be the best version of the house that I want to live in. And it's not typical. I'm willing to go to extremes to make the thing that I want to inhabit.

Rick Rubin: And it's not for anyone else, it's just for me. Now, often other people, if they do happen to come over, like, "Wow, I'd love to live in a place like this. I've never been in a place like this."

David Senra: I think the metaphor that you're using there is almost like a map for people to find their life's work if they haven't found it yet.

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

David Senra: It's like, "What are you already doing for you?"

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

Rick Rubin: And what will you do no matter what? What won't you stop doing regardless?

David Senra: I always say, it's like people say, "Oh, if you love what you do, you would do it for free." And I say, "No, there's another level to loving what you're doing. If you truly love what you do, they couldn't pay you to stop."

Rick Rubin: Yeah.

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

Rick Rubin: Great. Pleasure.

David Senra: Thanks for doing this.

Rick Rubin: Thank you.

David Senra: I hope you enjoyed this episode. Please remember to subscribe wherever you're listening and leave a review. And make sure you listen to my other podcast, Founders. For almost a decade, I've obsessively read over 400 biographies of history's greatest entrepreneurs, searching for ideas that you can use in your work. Most of the guests you hear on this show first found me through Founders.