Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Michael Stipe

Transcript

Michael Stipe · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey y'all, Today we have a conversation between old
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: friends Rick Rubin and Michael Stipe. Along with this former
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Georgia based band RM, Stipe helped to popularize what was
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: once called alternative music. With his open, arted lyrics. Stipe
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: gave voice to the sensitive and misunderstood among us with
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: hits like the One I Love, Everybody Hurts, and Losing
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: My Religion. On today's episode, Michael plays Rick a new
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: song of his called Future If Future, produced by Andy LeMaster.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: The song, as he explains, was released in partnership with
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Earth Percent, which gives artists a simple way to support
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: groups fighting climate change, something Stipe cares deeply about. Michael
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Stipe also talks about the upcoming solo album he's recording
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: and how he always intended to be super famous and
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: then what it was like when it actually happened. This
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: is broken record, line of notes, but a digital age.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: I'm justin mission. Here's Rick Rubin and Michael Stipe. Hello. Rick,
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: it has been a very long time since I've seen you,
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: and you look great. You too. How long have you
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: lived in New York? It depends on which government agency
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: you talked to, but I've been here since nineteen eighty seven,
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: I see, do you ever go back to Georgia. I
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: spent most of lockdown in Georgia with my mother, my sisters,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: and a few very close my family. I had some
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: vulnerable people in my family, so I spent most of
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: lockdown there, and then starting last summer summer of twenty one,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: was able to travel to our home in Berlin because
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: I now lived between New York and Berlin, and then
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: and then came back when things got bad again with
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: a delta. When you're in Georgia, is that at home,
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: in the house that you grew up in? No, that's
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: a misnomber that I grew up in Georgia. My father
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: was in the army, so I traveled my whole life
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: with him. He was in Vietnam twice, he was in
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Korea once during my lifetime, and we would pick up
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: and move every couple of years. So I was born
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: in Georgia. I returned to Georgia when I was eighteen
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: because my father retired. He and my mom moved to
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Athens because there's a college there that my uncle went to.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: He was this great he is this incredible activist and
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: spent the sixties and seventies in Athens as an activist
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: at the University of Georgia. My mom and dad liked
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: the sound of it, and so they moved there in
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy eight when I was eighteen, and I followed them.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: I was living with a punk rock band in Granite City, Illinois,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: and I ran out of money and I moved with
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: my tail between my legs. I moved to Athens, Georgia,
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: thinking that it was a hippie cowtown and that I
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: didn't fit in because I was just, you know, urban
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: punk rocker. And it turns out that one of the
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: most incredible punk rock scenes in America was happening right
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: under my nose in Athens, Georgia, and I became a
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: part of it. Unbelievable. What are the odds of that
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: being the case. It's just a remarkable You would never
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: guess it. Also that it would be, you know, the
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: band that kicked it off, of course, of the B
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: fifty twos. And that's a band, in my opinion, that
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: had yet gotten their due recognition for the degree to
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: which they altered the trajectory of contemporary music. Who with
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: other bands in the Athens scene at that time, like
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: post B fifty two's pre Rim, what was that window
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Brim would include the Method Actors and Pylon and that's
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: about it. With Rim came a band called the Side Effects,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: and then a couple of other bands. There was a
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: whole scene going on in Atlanta, but there's always been
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: this weird thing like San Bernardino, La County kind of
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: thing between Atlanta and Athens. There was a band called Vietnam.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: There there was a Ruphole's early band Ruphol and Weipole,
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: a band called the Now Explosion, and that was They
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: were all really fun people and we would hang out
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: with them from time to time, but it was really
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: Athens had its own thing going on. A lot of
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: that had to do with Jeremy Arrows, my mentor the
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: first really the first love of my life in a way,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: and he had moved from Athens where he grew up,
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: to New York became involved in Andy Warhol's factory as
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: a drag queen named silver Then, who Andy loved, but
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: Paul Morrissey, who made all the movies, didn't like very much. Anyway.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: Andy really hung onto Silva until Jeremy decided to move
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: back to Athens, and then he was really profoundly involved
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: in the beginnings of the B fifty twos and helped
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: kind of set the stage for what Athens would become
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: as this like hotbed of new music. What was your
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: first memory of the punk rock world in the United States?
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: So we're not including sex pistols, We're not including like
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: your first US experience of punk rock? What was it? Well,
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: it predates the sex pistols. I was sent attention in
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: high school in nineteen seventy five, and under my desk
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: where I sat, someone had left a torn up copy
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: of Cream magazine and there was an article written by
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: Lisa Robinson about CBGB, and she was comparing the CBGB
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: scene to as a black and white, scratchy TV to
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: the technicolor, bloviating, bloated rich were better than everyone else
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: kind of rock scene that was happening in modern America
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: and saying, this is so much more real and so
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: much more raw, and so much cooler, and these are
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: the people involved in it. And there was a photograph
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: of Patti Smith and she looked for all the world like,
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: you know, like a vampire black and white picture. She's
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: got her eyes wide open and I saw the picture
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: and I was like, these are my people. And I
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: read the article and I was like, this is it?
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: So I wound up accidentally subscribing to the Village Voice.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: My sister had one of those Columbia House subscriptions where
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: you paid a dime and you could get ten magazines
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: for free, and the Village Voice just sounded like fun.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: So she asked me to pick a few magazines and
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: I picked that one, and suddenly I was immersed into
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: the whole CBGB scene and I started following it. And
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: I bought Patti's first album the day that it came out,
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: when I was fifteen years old, and I decided then
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: and there that I was going to become a singer
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: in a band and that was going to be my life.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: And I naively moved forward with that, and I outrageously
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: and very luckily I was succeeded at it. It's unbelievable.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: It's a beautiful story. And was what was your experience
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: of music prior to the punk rock experience? Did you
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: love music from young childhood or no. I loved music,
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: but I was only exposed really to pop radio, and
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: the five years that are kind of probably most significant
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: to me or the years that we spent in Texas.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: We had moved from Frankfort. Outside of Frankfort, Germany, where
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: there was pop radio, but it was all German, so
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: it was like the Beatles singing Michel Mabel in German.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: I distinctly remember that as a child standing in a
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: cabbage garden, if you can believe it, it was very
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: German in nineteen sixty seven and moving as a seven
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: or eight year old to Texas and then hearing pop
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: radio which included Tammy Wynette and a lot of country music,
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: but then also the Archies and the Banana Splits and whatever.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: You know. The Flintstones were primetime TV at that point
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: during the Vietnam War. Yeah, my exposure to pop radio
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: during those those years between sixty seven and seventy three,
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: that was really primo amazing radio in terms of music
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: that I really clocked as as a young team. I
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: always cite rock On by David Essex, which I then
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: kind of extrapolated into the song drive by RIM's. It's
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: a very very That whole album in fact, is really
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: referencing the nineteen seventies and the song by song you
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: can go to everybody Hurts is Nazareth the band Nazareth
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: Guy that covers Love Hurts, which was an earlier song
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: from I think the nineteen fifties or sixties. Drive was
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: my homage to David Essex and rock On. The other
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: song that I always name is my now very very
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: very dear friend and a man who I love very much.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: But Elton John put up bidding in the Jets and
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: I had never heard anything like that before. It was
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: absolutely mind blowing to me that the production it was
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: really and I'm talking to you about this, but it
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: was really the production. The song is a great song,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: and he's of course an amazing artist, but the production
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: of the song was so whacked out. In the production
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: of rock On by David Essex was so whacked out.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: But I think that was coming out of well, you know,
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: what was happening with the glam rock in England, early
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: kind of Mark Bowland, very early David Bowie, Slade, the
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: Basicity Rollers might have come a little bit later, and
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: they were very pop of course, but I think a
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: lot of that production stuff was coming from there. So
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: after you saw the picture of Patty, did you go
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: to find her? Is that? Is that? The next step.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: You went to New York. That was what drew you.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: I did not go to New York for another three years.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: I didn't actually meet Patty until twenty years later. Wow,
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety five that we actually met each Incredible, incredible.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: We can continue from nineteen seventy nine when I first
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: came to New York. But um, you and I go
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: back a long long way, and we all have our
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: past that are maybe a little bit embarrassing. But I
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: know that you used to spend a good bit of
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: time in New York at Exterminator Chile. Yes, remember that
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: place I loved. My two best friends worked there, Tom
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: Gilroy and Jim McKay, both artists, and Michael Imperioli from
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: who went on to do The Sopranos, worked there as well.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: But you used to go for lunch and occasionally for dinner. Yes,
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: And the person who managed Exterminated Chili, whose name I
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: can't think of now because I haven't thought about it
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: since then, managed band and we ended up signing that
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: band called Masters of Reality that were a super cool
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: kind of psychedelic psychedelic rock band. I remember Masters of Reality.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: That's pretty cool. And also, but why are eight there. Wow,
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: the Chili Peppers made a video there, I think, and
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: that might have been before your time. Yeah, thinking about
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: the early days of punk rock and starting your post
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: punk band, I guess would you would you qualify rim
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: as a post punk I think so. Yeah, Yeah, it
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: was alternative music. Could you possibly imagine that it would
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: become as popular and as mainstream as it ended up being?
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: I think, to be completely honest, I think that was
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: my intention all along. I wanted to be as big
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: as I could possibly be. I just wanted to be
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: really super fucking famous and not by any means necessary,
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: which is what you find in today's culture. You know,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: there are people that are famous for the sake of
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: being famous, and you know, then they become a billionaire
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: with a makeup line or whatever. That's that's a little insulting,
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: frankly for those of us who actually work at more
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: than just business. But yeah, I wanted. I knew that
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: I had something to offer. I didn't know what it
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: was when I was nineteen or when I was fifteen,
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: but you know, over the course of a few records,
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: I figured out that I had a voice and that
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: and then much later I found out that voice was
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: quite unique and uh, and I started really enjoying the
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: process of writing. And you know, Peter, Mike and I
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: and Bill when he was in the band, we're the
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: best of friends, and we supported each other, We loved
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: each other. We kept each other alive many times, and
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: we had a great grand adventure together, which you know,
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: for me lasted thirty two years. The postpartum after thirty
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: two years is let me tell you, that's something that's
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: that's a high that you don't come down from easily.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: And so it took me several years to kind of
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: I had really had to step away from music because
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: I'm all and you know, I don't do anything halfway.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: I accept the defeats and the embarrassments along with the
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: triumphs and the hit singles, but if I don't do
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: anything halfway. And so when when ari Am finally disbanded,
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: I needed to take a break and I needed to
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: not think about or look at music for a long time.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: And it turned out it was like five years before
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: I actually kind of accidentally fell back into it through
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: Fisher Spooner and then working with Andy on that project,
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: I realized that he and I had this really good
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: rapport as as co writers, and we started working together
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: and now we're involving all these other people. Galen Lea
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: do you know her. She's this astonishing singer songwriter from
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: the Minneapolis Saint Paul area. She has this astonishing, incredible,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: incredible presence and a very very unique voice, and our
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: voices meld together beautifully. So so Galen is contributing on
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: the record, some other people have stepped in to do work,
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: and I'm just really very excited about it. It's it's
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: it's a very different you know, I have no representation now,
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: I have no record company. I was. I was under
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: contract since I was twenty two years old, and now
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: I'm sixty two years old, and uh, and I'm a
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: free agent. I can do whatever I want, and I don't.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: There's nothing forcing me or making me make the choices
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: that I make other than just wanting to create things
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: that are beautiful and that inspired people in somewhere. And
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: the reason I asked about what you thought was possible
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: was I remember being in my parents house and seeing
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: looking at the New York Times Sunday calendar section, and
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: there was a full page ad for the police at
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: Madison Square Garden and I remember looking at it, I think,
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: I think this is a mistake. The Police can't play
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: at Madison Square Garden. They play at the club's you
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: know they play. I went to the Roxy and to
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: the Ritz and to you know, to the Palladium. They
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: could maybe play at the Palladium. They can't play at
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Madison Square Garden. That's not where That's not where the
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: Police play. That's not where the groups that I like play.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: That must have been after Roxane. Yeah, you know my band,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: my former band Oriam, opened for the Police, actually not
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: at Madison Scrub Garden but at Shay State when they
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: played there. And we had the same booking agent who
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: Mike and Bill, the drummer and bass player for former
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: drummer and bass player knew Ian Copeland very well. They
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: worked for him in Bacon when when he first started
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: and he put us on this bill. It was us
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: and Joan Jett in the Black Hearts and the Police,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: and we played a twenty minute set in the pouring rain.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: I was twenty three, I think, and Andy Warhol was
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: there and Joan Jett came and said hello, and I
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: was really because I loved the Runaways. I loved Joan Jett,
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: who else? Matt Dillon came, Matt telling he was a
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: big fan, and he came by and said hello. So
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: that was a That was an August afternoon for us.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: What was it like walking out onto that stage? What
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: was the feeling? I imagine what size places were you
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: playing at that time? At twenty three, we were playing
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: clubs seven people rick, nobody knew who arium was. Nobody cared,
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: and that's fine, you know, I mean, it was just
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: it was like throwing raw meat to dogs. You know,
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: they had no idea who we were. We were on
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: and off before they could get angry and like throw
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: bottles at us. And you know, we did a really
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: tight set. Everything was very very like Ramone speed at
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: that point with Orium, so it actually I kind of
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: developed a singing style because the band refused to play
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: slower than they did. Mike was really loved the Ramones
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: and really loved a really fast bass part, so everything
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: was really like rockabilly Ramons kind of fast. And I
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: got tired of singing that fast and I thought it
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: was boring, so I started slowing down my part. It's
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: the one thing I could do. They wouldn't slow down,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: so I slowed down my part, and that actually became
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: a singing style for me. By the time we recorded
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: our first album and a song like talk about the Passion,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: they were playing everything really fast and jangly, and I
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: was just singing very very slowly and holding my vowels,
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: and that became what that became, well, something like a install.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: I guess I'm so happy to see I have to say.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: I feel I miss you and I love you, and
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: it's so nice to talk to you, and I feel
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: like we I feel there are a million things for
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: us to talk about, because everything you said is the
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: beginning of another conversation. Like we could talk about the
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Village Voice alone forever. I was a pack rat when
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: I was a kid, and I subscribe to the Village Voice.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: And at one point there was an entire room of
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: my family house that I grew up in Florida ceiling
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: the entire room of just Village Voice newspapers because I
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: saved everyone, and I didn't save them in any way
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: that I could refer back to them. But when my
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: mom would say we have to throw away these newspapers,
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: I said, you can't throw them away, because I might
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: have to refer back to something in those There was
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: no way for me to do that, but I wanted
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: to know all of the information in all of these newspapers.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: It was our life's blood. We have a lot in
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: common record. I'm pack rat would be a very friendly
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: term for what we call me and my father. I'm
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: a hoarder, and I happen to have really good taste,
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: and I've had a fascinating life thus far. So the
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: things that I've parted are for the most part, pretty interesting.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Stacks and piles, and you know, Warhole had his time capsules,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: which was just cardboard boxes and he would jam everything
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: that came to him would go into a cardboard box
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: and that became time capsules. It was my friend Todd
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: Everley who used to He's a photographer, very talented artist,
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: and he worked for Vanity Fair forever. But he was
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: called to the Warhole Museum and he was handed the
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: task of photographing time capsules that Warhole had left when
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: he died that had never been open before, and he
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: found some unbelievable things. I still regard Warhole as the
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: greatest artists of the twentieth century, the close second being
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: Brenkouzi Brenkouzi managed to bring modernism and traditionalism together, not
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: capital tea but small tea, traditionalism together in art, and
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: do so in a way that was that was not
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: only elegant, but but insanely timeless. Yeah, and felt new.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: It's interesting when someone can make something traditional and modern
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: and it lives in both worlds. It still feels new.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: That's the thing. You see your brand Cuisy piece and
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: you're like, what is this? This is the most elegant,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: the most I'm using that word a lot, but it
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: does describe I think it's his work. I remember one
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: of my fondest memories of things that we got to
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: do together was we went to Manhattan's Center for an
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: event for Johnny Cash and it was a tribute to
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: Johnny Cash. But he sang at the tribute and it
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: was a beautiful I remember we were sitting up in
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: the left balcony and it was just a beautiful night,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: and I was just so glad that we got to
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: do that together. I think, I think that's because of
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: you that I've managed to make it backstage before the
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: show and I met Johnny for the first time. I
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: had met June several times before because of charity events
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: that we were both attending, but I had never met Johnny,
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: and as it turns out, of course, that was one
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: that was in the last year of his life. So
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: thank you for allowing me to meet Johnny Cash, one
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: of my great heroes. We have to take a quick break,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: but we'll be right back with more from Michael Stipe.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: We're back with more from Rick Rubin's conversation with Michael Stipe.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: When you guys first toured, what was your first tour vehicle?
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: A Dodge Van van Green? How many years were you
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: guys in a Dodge Van. We didn't have a bus
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: until nineteen eighty four, so we were four years in
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: the in a van. It's just I think it's interesting
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: for people to understand at the time that you guys
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: became who you became, what work went into it, because
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: I don't know that that really exists in the world anymore.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: It's a it's a little bit of a loss people
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: going out on the road and building up a following
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: and someday getting to play at the Rose Bowl. Let's
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: say where where. I remember when I heard that you
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: were playing at the Rose Bowl and you were already
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: r Am and I was surprised you were playing at
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: the Rose Bowl, because like, that's the Rose Bowl. It's unbelievable.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: Patti Smith did an interview with The Guardian. She was
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: quoting someone I don't know who said up but in
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: referencing work as an artist, it's a ten percent inspiration
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: and ninety percent perspiration. And in the nineteen eighties we
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: certainly put in our fair share of perspiration. And in
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: the process of building up that that audience and a
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: reputation as a band, we actually got our chops. You know,
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: we grew up in public. I mean, we had no
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: idea what we were doing. I didn't know that a
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: bass guitar made the loan notes until our second album.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: I didn't know that. I knew that it was the
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: one with four strings. That's all I knew. I mean,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: I was that ignorant of music. And and yet we
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: managed to create this these songs that were really quite stunning,
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: and we were lucky to work with people like Mitchister
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: and Don Dixon or in the early days to help
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: us kind of form what was a sound. You know,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: at the time in the early eighties, everybody wanted the
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: vocal really loud and the drums really loud because it
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: was post disco, and even if you were no matter
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: who you were, if you turn the drums up, you're
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: going to have a hit, or you're more likely to
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: have a hit. And we were like, turned the drums down,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: and turn the vocal down, and turn it. We were
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: the people that were saying turn everything down. We don't,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: we want everything quieter. Thank God for remastering because we're
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: able to go back onto those recordings now and bring
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: it up to speed to what these things sound like.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: With digital technology, with the advent of of all of
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: our devices, and the way that we hear things now
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: was very, very different from nineteen eighty two. Was the
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: road from the Dodge van up to the state eventually stadiums.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Was it a consistent road or were there like moments
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: on the way where they were breakthroughs. You remember the
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: first time something big happened, Well, the first big thing
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: was when I walked on stage for the first time ever,
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: and I was like, this is a this is where
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: I like, I loved it. And half the time again
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: I was you know, I tranced when I performed, so
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: half the time I was kind of not really there.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: I could be reminded of something and be like, oh, yeah,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: that's when I stumbled over and I hit that note
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: that I don't usually hit, or that's when someone threw
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: something and it hit me in the shoulder. But I
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: would go into really a trance state when I performed,
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: and and that's very lucky for me. You know, it
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: kept me from becoming terribly self conscious. I was as
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: pretentious as anyone, and I embrace that pretension. I love pretensions,
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: as you know. If you think of it as a
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: way to rise out of yourself and to allow yourself
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: to become something bigger than what you are, then wow,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: I'm really pretentious. And look where it placed me. I'm
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: okay with that. Yeah, I love to perform. What was
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: the question, Rick, That was a good question. We're talking
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: about the first moment where like something big happened. So
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: the first one you gave me was stepping on stage
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: and realizing this is for you. And then in the band,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: when was the first moments like oh this is things
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: are things are changing. I can answer that and it
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: echoes the rest of our conversation. Yeah, we were voted
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: band of the Year Jazz and Pop Pass and Job. Yeah,
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: Vollage Voice Murmur, our first album nineteen eighty three Record
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: of the Year by the critics choice, and that was
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: over Michael Jackson's Thriller. So the enormity of that to us,
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: you know, we were living in this rundown fleaback hotel
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: in Times Square. I would eat one knish a day.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: I knew where I could go to get it. I
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: knew where I could go and bat my eyelashes and
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: get someone to buy me a beer and not have
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: to you know, not have to get laid in the
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: prop but I you know, I would, I would. I
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: lived off of a knish. We were living on five
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: dollars a day and a bag of M and m's
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: that my uncle left when he traveled through New York.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: We had nothing, and our record was the Village Voice
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: Record of the Year over Michael Jackson's Thriller. We were
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: playing clubs to twelve and fifteen people at a time,
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: you know. But but anyway, I mean those were the days.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: You know, it was good fun and we made the
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: most of it. And I'm glad I had those experiences.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: And what was the next like breakthrough moments like oh,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: this is bigger than that. What were just looking for
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: like the stages of development. Fall On Me was the
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: video that MTV had to play. I was disgusted by
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: most music videos. I thought they were cheesy and stupid,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: so I refused to lip sync and we refused to
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: perform in them, and fall On Me became kind of
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: a minor hit and so in America. And so the
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: video I was I shot with a sixteen millimeter camera
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: and a rock quarry outside of Bloomington, Indiana, with a
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: guy that I had a giant crush on at the time,
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: and I developed the film, turned it upside down, ran
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: it backwards, ran the words to the song over this
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: really shitty black and white footage of a rock quarry,
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: and that became the weirdest music video of the year
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: on MTV. And so that was a big moment because
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: I was like, wow, I can manipulate this. I can
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: I can make them do things that they don't want
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: to do just because they have to do it because
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: the song is that good. Then of course we had
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: a hit song, top ten song with the one I
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: Love and that was the video was by Robert Longo,
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: who's a pop artist and a great friend. And then
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: the next big moment after that was was the Green
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: World Tour, and then after that was losing my religion.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: And when losing my religion hit, you know, if I
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: ever had I'm not a person who has ambitions. If
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: they're they're they're unconscious or they're subconscious. I don't know
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: which to call it. But I did always want to
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: be really famous, and I didn't realize what really that entailed.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: And looking at it from the other side, it's nice
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: to be anonymous again. I'm on the subway and nobody
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: knows who I am. They don't look at me. If
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: anyone under the age of thirty does not even look
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: at me, because they just register old. And I'm fine
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: with that. It's totally amazing. But losing my religion was
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: when I went from being someone that was recognized by
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: people in my age group who loved a certain type
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: of music to being universally wildly, insanely famous and on
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: the street like I couldn't know anywhere, and it was okay.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: It was kind of charming. In New York, people yell
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: whatever they want to yell at you. They tell you
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: if they like you, they tell you if they think
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: you suck, and I kind of love that about New York,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: and I never liked LA because I never knew where
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: I stood with people there. Everyone's your friend there. It's
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: very isolating and very kind of aggressively calm, and I
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: can't stand it. But I'm sorry, Los Angeles. There are
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: aspects to it that I love, and there are people
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: that I love but can't can't do it. But losing
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: my religion really changed it for me. And one thing
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: if I ever had an ambition, it might be to
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: have a song of the summer, and losing my religion
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: became RIM's song of the Summer and that was that
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: was thrilling. Yeah, what do you remember about writing first?
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: First of all, when you wrote it, did you know
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: that song was special? No? No, In fact, we released
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: it as a first single thinking that it was going
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: to set up the next song, which was something much
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: more pop. I don't remember what it was. And then
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: eventually I Think Everybody Hurts, which was a big ballad,
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: and that became a hit song around the world, and
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: so that was also really good for us. But and
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: that's a beautiful video as well. Yeah, no, we did.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: We didn't know it was going I mean, it's such
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: a weird song. We had no idea that it was
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: going to resonate the way that it. What do you
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: remember about writing it? I changed one lyric. I remember,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: that's me in the kitchen, that's me in the spotlight. No,
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: that's the that's me in the corner. That's me in
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: the spotlight. That's me in the corner, that's me in
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: the kitchen. So what I was pulling from was being
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: the shy wallflower who hangs back at the party or
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: at the dance and doesn't go up to the person
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: that you're maddly in love with and say, I've kind
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: of got a cross on you. How do you feel
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: about me? So there's this whole relationship that's happening only
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: in the person's mind, and he doesn't know whether he's
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: said too much or hasn't said enough. So he's like
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: in the corner of the dance floor watching everyone dance
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: and watching the love of his life on the dance
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: floor dancing with everyone because that's the most exciting person.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: Or he's in the kitchen, you know, behind the refrigerator,
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: and I changed the kitchen to spotlight, and instantly, of course,
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: the song became about me, which it never was. I
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: don't think. I mean, I'm pretty self aware, but the
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: video with Tarsaum is what really pushed it over the edge,
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: and that was probably the queerest video of all time,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: and that was kind of nice. Yeah, I'm harping on
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: it because I heard it the other day in a
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: shop that I was in and me and my partner
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: stopped and listened to it, and we both looked at
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: each other, and I don't know if we actually teared
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: up or if we just had the feeling of tearing up,
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: do you know what I'm talking about, Like the emotion came.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: I don't know if there were actual tears. It's amazing
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: that the song to this day has this power to
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: it and I don't truly understand it, you know, I don't.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: I don't know that it's the words. I don't know.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know why it has so
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: much emotional resonance. But it's one of these songs that
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: when you hear it, you know, the world stops and
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: you're you're put in the place of wherever this song
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: is happening, and you're in the void of the song.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: It's mystical. It's very that's very generous. Thank you very much.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: That means a lot to me coming from you. Thank you.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: Just tell me about the experience of writing. Where did
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: the music exist first? How did it happen? The music
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: has just existed. First, I know that Peter Peter was
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: tired of playing guitar and didn't Oriam's former guitars after
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: touring for nine ten years in the nineteen eighties, and
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: he was buying wild interesting instruments that he did not play,
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: and his experimentation as a musician was to throw roads
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: in front of himself by trying to play something that
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: he couldn't play. So this was one of his first
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: experiments on mandolin. We still have the original cassette that
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: he gave me of Losing My Religion, and it is
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: exactly the same arrangement. It sounds identical to what wound
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: up as the final version of the song. So that's
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: all Peter. You know, everybody hurts was Bill Berry and Supernatural,
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: super serious was Mike Mills. I mean, those guys quite
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: often would turn in things that were so brilliant and
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: you know, even day, I think in the arrangement they
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: might not realize that. Well, I can flesh this out
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: with a story I can throw a trajectory and a
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: narrative into this and make this arrangement work. Sometimes, no,
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: sometimes we had to make a lot of arrangement changes
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: in order to fit the vocal or the melody into
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: the song. I was always about shorter songs. I always
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: wanted to get in and get out, leave him wanting
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: more always, and so a lot of the stuff that
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: I'm doing as a solo artist is much It's very pop,
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: but it's incredibly short songs. Would you start with like
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: a scat vocal or would you start by writing? To
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: just tell me the process of you? You hear music,
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: you're inspired by it. How do you get to a song?
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: What's your process? Historically, I hear music and I'm inspired
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: by it, and there's a melody that comes along, and
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: I close my eyes and I see a landscape and
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: music translates to me as as as a visual and
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: so a good music. Bad music is just fucking horrible,
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: like bad, like what my dentist was playing this morning,
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: by the way, I hope he's listening. I was like,
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: I was like, we have to we have to talk
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: about the music. We have a very good rapport now
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: because his dental assistant, and he had very different musical tastes.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: So they'll they'll throw a song on when I'm there
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: just to see how I react, and one of them
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: will say, Michael, and I'll say, like turn it off now,
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: like next, next, next, and she'll crack up because she'll
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: have told him he's going to hate this song. This
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: is not a good song. Do you write just the
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: number of lyrics that are in the song are there's
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: sometimes more verses like how does it happen? There's often
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: there's often more verses, but it really depends on how
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: much I going back to the conversation earlier about trusting
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: your gut, you know, when I close my eyes and
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: I see that music, I always saw my job as
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: my job is now to put a narrative on top
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: of that, to create some kind of story that people
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: can follow along with. And it doesn't have to make
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: really linear sense. I'm really good at not making linear sense.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it makes a lot of sense, and sometimes you
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: need a little bit of an indication of what's happening,
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: but clues as to what the story is actually about,
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: and I hope to provide those as a lyricists. I
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: hope that by the end of the song, I will
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: have provided some clue to what's going on. I did
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: that with RM, and I'm doing it now as a solo,
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: so hopefully it's going to work. There's another song that
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: we're working on right now. The working title is I'm
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: the Charge and everything you need to know about this
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: character is in the second verse and the last three words,
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: which have nothing to do with the rest of the song,
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: But they set up another song which is an entirely
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: different piece of music the same character thirty years later.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: And I'm following the arc of this character over time,
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: and I'm imbuing this character with this extremely shifting sense
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: of self, going from someone who's extremely vulnerable and quite difficult,
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: but always in charge, always in power, to someone who's
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: extremely invulnerable and almost cynical in their work. But they
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: have developed, They've developed this very tough skin, but they're
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: now using the vulnerability of their youth to be able
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: to create work that, although is uninteresting for them, inspires others. Boy,
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: that sounded like a really bad off Broadway played. Admit,
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I'm talking to myself here and you just
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: happen to be present. Sorry, Rick. Anyway, the song is
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: called I'm the Charge, and the second song is called
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: it doesn't have The working title would be a Pull
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: of Love. Will the whole album have an arc like that?
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: I don't know yet because I'm still working on it. No,
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: I don't tend to write. I will revisit characters from
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: time to time, and then I have to question. Often
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: I have to question myself, like how did I embody
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: this person? What what gender did I make them? What
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: political leaning did I give to them? What what horrible
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: position did I put them in that they now have
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: to work their way out of or have some cathartic
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: moment that pulls them out of it, like the song
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: Sad Professor, or one of my favorite RIM songs, Country Feedback.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: That song, I think in my memory, I sang it
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: one time and that was it. I think. In the
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: rerelease the band put out the twenty fifth anniversary rerelease,
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: they found a demo. But you hear at the very
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: beginning of the song, I say these clothes and I
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: pause because I came into early, and then I say,
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: these clothes unfit us right, and I'm to blame. It's
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: all the same, It's all the same. I didn't know
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: the song I hadn't worked it out. I hadn't mapped
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: it out. Peter has this memory of me walking into
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: the studio with a piece of paper that had a
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: drawing of an Indian, a pencil drawing of an Indian
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: on it, and a few words on a piece of paper,
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: and he said he walked in with that, and that
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: was the song, and that became Country Feedback. The working
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: title was Country Feedback because it sounds like a country song.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: It was very obviously inspired by Neil Young, and it
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: has feedback on feedback aatana, so that the working title
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: became the title of the song. I remember performing it,
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: and it was at John Keene's studio in Athens, Georgia,
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: and it was in a ISO booth, and I was
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: in headphones, which I can't stand to sing into because
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: the engineers can never get the mix right for me,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: and it makes me crazy. I hear myself too much
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: or I don't hear enough, and I like singing into
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: an open mic at a desk, but that of course
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: causes all kinds of problems with digital technology. Anyway, I
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: remember singing it walking out and walking out of the
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: house and the studio and I was done that was
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: it for the night. I didn't remember it until I
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: don't think they even played it for me. The next day,
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: the band listened to it, and I think they listened
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: to it a few times, and then I came in
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: two days later and listened and I was like, this
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: is I'm not going to resing it. That's a that's
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: the take. I did the same thing with World Leader
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: Pretend Rip, another song that the heavy of obvious inspiration
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: there was Leonard Cohen. I lifted everything that I could
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: from from that beautiful, beautiful writer of a man, beautiful
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: man of a writer, and I used, you know, the language,
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: the dialect of war to describe an inner battle, a
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: deep emotional turmoil inside the protagonist of that song. And
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: I sing it once and I was so impressed by
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: myself that it was the first time that RM put
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: that I allowed the lyrics to be printed on the
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: album's sleep that we were I think nine years into
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: our career at that point, and I had yet to
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: lip sync in a video. I refused to do it.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: I thought it was too cheesy. So we were you know,
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: we we I mean, as a band, we always knew
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: what we didn't want to do. We knew that we
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: didn't want to be cheesy. If we were gonna be cheesy,
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: we're gonna be cheesy on our own terms, and god
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: knows we were, but they were on our terms, yeah,
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: and they were quite beautiful when it happens. You know,
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: there was a there was an element of cheese there
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: and sinamentality, and that's okay, that's part of pop music.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: But it was on our terms always, and I'm so
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: very proud of that. You know, what we left behind
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: is this body of work that I include the times
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: that we fell on our face publicly, and I did
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: many many times, and I humiliated and embarrassed myself over
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: and over again in public. But guess what I embraced
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: those moments along with the hit singles and the triumphs
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: and the moments of absolute joy and being able to
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: meet people like yourself and Fatilkhan and Patti Smith and
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: Tom Verlaine, my hero. You know, I don't even like guitar,
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: and here's Tom Verlaine, you know, the one guy that
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: I could actually watch play guitar and not blink for
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: forty minutes other than Peter Back, of course. Yeah, what
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: a life that provided me, and what a journey I've
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: been on. I feel like really a very, very lucky person.
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: I had this ridiculous teenage fantasy dream idea of what
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: I was going to do with my life, and I actually,
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: with a lot of work, I actually made it happen.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: And here I am kind of looking back on it,
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: but I'm also looking forward because you know the songs
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: that we've put out that I've put out each song
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: for the first year of its release. All of the
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: money that I would make on that song, whether it's
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: through a movie, through a TV show, being in a
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: commercial which hasn't happened yet, but I'm offering it up
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: right now on this podcast, all of the publishing that
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: I would make from the first year of the release
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: of that song goes to a charitable organization of my choosing.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: So far, it's been Extinction Rebellion and Pathway to Paris.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: Extinction Rebellion for the first song that I released as
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: a solo artist, which is called Your Capricious Soul, and
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: then Pathway to Paris is an organization trying to hold
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: the United States and other nations to the Paris Agreement
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: in terms of environmental a blueprint for where we need
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: to go in order to not wipe ourselves out and
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: take a lot of other species with us. And that
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: was a song called Drive to the Ocean, which I'm
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: extremely proud of. And I think I'm just gonna release
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: sum a single at a time. I don't feel like
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: I need to compete with Duelppa or name Whoever's amazing
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: right now? Who's amazing? Rosalia? What the fuck? She? Where
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: the fuck did that come from? She's incredible. We'll be
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: right back after a break with more from Michael Stipe
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: and Rick Rubin. We're back with Michael Stipe, but before
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: we jump back into this conversation with Rick, let's hear
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: his new song future a future feature. Future feature is
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: fast goodtion, co hearted cards, still seats, fly flies words
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: ha ha ha I am I am got flight up
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: the meek with the event between one stable. Please save
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: us a termpion purpose sweeing smacking with ecstatic fresh. Please
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: don't stare with doing all week. Please don't stare with
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: doing all we can dy come she is a sea.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: We uns much now it's fair. Please don't stare you
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: know can future future the futures start to high has
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: guess you've got dear us. We've got the power. Please
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: tell stay, tell me how that got written, tell me
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: the story of writing it. It's one of those songs
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: that just flew out, and I didn't think too much
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: about the lyric the music. I believe most of the
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: music came from Andy Lemster, but we worked together in
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: the studio. We you know, I don't play an instrument.
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: I played classical piano when I was a child. I
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: played accordion as a as a as a very young man.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: I think I was eight or nine years old when
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: I picked up accordion, and then I stopped both and
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: forgot everything that I knew about music and reading reading
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: music because I read classical piano, you know, off the
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: off the page. But but I don't play anything. So
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: I became the singer in ORIM and that's good and fine.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: And from time to time I would like, you know,
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: have a guitar and pretend like I could play it,
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: but I couldn't. I still can't play an ef A B.
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: But I started writing after RIM disbanded ten years ago.
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: I started writing music on synthesizer and really enjoyed the process.
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: Us and realize how really difficult composing is. I mean,
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: it's a way different story from lyrics and melodies and singing,
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: you know, it's just a way different thing. And also
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: working on music, I would almost go into a trance state,
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: which is good because I would forget who made the music,
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: and it was in fact me or me and Andy
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: working together. This one is mostly Andy, I think musically,
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: and then the lyric flew out of me. I didn't.
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: I didn't really question it or overthink it, and I
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: think that that's really my superpower now. My superpower as
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: the singer of Brim was realizing that as a man
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: presenting as a man in my era, in my time period,
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: that my vulnerability and my ability to express that vulnerability
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: was was really something that we had not seen in
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: a way that wasn't just super hyper cheesy and manipulative.
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: So that vulnerability became a superpower. Now. I think my
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: superpower is recognizing that and my gut is really really good.
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: And if I don't overthink things, you know, right, drunk
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: edit sober, you take that in extrapolated and you move
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: it into a not like Norman Mailer or Gore Vidal
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: like universe. I write without thinking, I write, I go in,
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: I go into a trance, and I write right right,
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: I write, and then I edit and I edit sober,
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: and I go, Okay, that's crap. That's bad poetry. That's
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: not bad, not great poetry. But if we repeated a
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: few times, maybe it's a good chorus. And you use
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: those tricks that you learn. But I don't ever think
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: things anymore. I just kind of let them flow out,
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: and when they're not flowing, I put them aside and
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: I go work in photography or other mediums. And I'm
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: working in all these different things now. I'm putting out
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: photo books and I have a big show in Milan.
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: I'm having a solo exhibition at the Ica in Milan
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: of all the work that the plastic work that I do,
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: the stuff that's sculptural or photo based. And there will
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: be a music musical component to that show. But yeah,
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: if the music is feeling a little stale, then I
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: just jumped to one of my other things, and one
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: of my other things, and I come back around and
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: I listened to it with fresh years, and they go, well,
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: that's one of the worst courses I've ever written, so
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: let's re examine it. I want to I want to
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: come to the show in Milan. When that happens, beautiful
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: It's opening. In early November twenty three, you said something
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: interesting that your superpower in RM was your vulnerability. When
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: did you realize that, because I imagine in the early
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: days you were just vulnerable. You weren't somebody who understood
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: that your vulnerability was a superpower. No, I didn't understand
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: that at all. I didn't understand. I mean I didn't
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: understand from the very early moment that we spoke about,
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: where I decided at the age of fifteen that I
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: was going to become a singer in a band. It
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: didn't occur to me that you have to You have
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: to have a modic amout talent. You have to be
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: able to do something. You have to be able to
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: stand on stage and perform. You have to be able
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: to write songs. You have to be able to sing
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: those songs. You have to work with other people. You
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: have to travel NonStop, you have to eat really shitty
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: food most of that time. You have adrenaline and addiction
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: issues to deal with, because adrenaline is the most hardcore
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: drug I've ever ever in my life taken and not
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: taken everything. But you know, I quit drugs when I
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: was twenty three, I drink occasionally. Now I still love
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: to drink, but I know it's not good for me,
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: so I try to limit it. I'm thinking about going
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: back to gummies. You know. I'm excited here in New York.
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: You know, it's it's now illegal, and I haven't touched
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: weeds since I was seventeen years old. So although actually
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: the truth says, I worked on a record with a
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: Fisher Spooner kind of accidentally reintroduced me to music about
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: five years ago, and I wound up producing their album,
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: and it's a it's a really good record, culled sir,
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: And it's a very very very very very queer, very
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: gay record in terms of its thematic content and it's trajectory.
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: But in writing that record, I experimented with weed a
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: little bit, and I smoked weed for the first time
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: since Wow, I was a kid, and some pretty good
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: songs came out of it. I have to say, so,
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: who knows, I'm excited. I'm really really sensitive, Like I'm
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: really sensitive. I'm allergic to all these foods and I'm
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: allergic to all this stuff, and I have to be
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: very careful, you know, like what kind of things I
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: breathe and all this blah blah blah. But so I
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: can take the tiniest amount of weed that would, you know,
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: the what other people wouldn't even feel, and it knocks
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: me over, but it makes for a really good lyric writing.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: So maybe I'll maybe I'm going to move into weed now.
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: That'll be a third act for me. What's your favorite
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: song on the Fisher Spooner record. Well, the one that
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: I wrote We Too is called I Need Love, and
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: I'm actually I'm thinking about covering it. I think it's
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: such a good song. What motivated you to feel like
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: it's time to do a solo project? It's it's interesting
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: that you haven't done one yet, and the fact that
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: now you're deciding to do one makes it interesting. With
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: this window of time, I can be really honest, and
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: I've said this before, but I love my voice. I
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: love my singing voice. I don't like my speaking voice,
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: although I'm really glad we're talking, but I love my voice,
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: and I feel like I have a limited amount of
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: time in which to use that voice. You know, I
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: kind of feel like, I mean, I'm not a Christian,
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: I'm not I'm a deeply spiritual person, but I don't
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: really follow any particular path, but I do feel in
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: a way that I don't know. I've got a beautiful voice,
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: and I really I really enjoy it, and a lot
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: of people like hearing me sing, and music has a
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: really powerful medium, and I feel like I've got a
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: lot to say, so why not use that voice and
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: stop talking, just get back to sing. And I enjoyed
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: a lot. It's My first real love was photography, and
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: I've now been putting on a book a year and
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: I intend to do that for the rest of my life,
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: and I hope that I love a really long time.
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: We have forty or fifty more books coming as much
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: as as much as I find immense joy and putting
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: together images that I've taken or things that I've collected
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: and showing them to kind of introduce the way that
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: I see and feel and interpret the world and the
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: way that I moved through it, because I do feel like,
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: you know, we're all unique in our own ways, right,
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: We're all little snowflakes. But but there is there is
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: something to the way I put things together that I
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: think is enjoyable for other people. So I really like
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: doing that but nothing beats coming up with a lyric
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: and a melody that people come back to you two days,
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: three days, four days later and say, I can't stop
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: singing your song. Thank you for that. That song was
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: there for me at a very important moment for me.
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: You know that kind of I sang last night. In fact, Rick,
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: you knew how Wellner, I'm sure. And we had a
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: memorial for him the last night at Saint Anne's warehouse,
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: and I did a song written by his best friend
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: lou Reid that I had covered for the Velvet Underground
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: record that came out with Todd Haynes's documentary, and I
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: told how I said I would participate in the project
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: if I could have the first song on. It's a
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: recreation of the first album by the Velvet Underground, which
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: in my life ranks as one of the top five
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: records of all times. You have to interpret music like
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: that in the same way that you interpreted Hurt. And
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: handed that to Johnny Cash and said do what you'd
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: do with this, and he took that and he made
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: it a better song than it ever was or ever
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: will be again. And we have you to thank for that.
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: And Mark Romanick did the video for that correct. Yes, beautiful,
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: astonishing video with June, one of the most It's really
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: one of those like moments. And you know, I know
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: you're not a boastful person, but you should be very
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: very proud of that moment that you offered us just
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: in that one single collaboration. That's such a beautiful, beautiful thing.
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: Do you like singing in front of people? Do you
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: like the feeling of how being in front of an audience?
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: I've blacked out last night on stage because there were
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: no vocals in the monitor, and I just went into
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: kind of I had rehearsed it three times, so I
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: don't really remember the performance, but everything before it and
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: after it was okay. As soon as I found out
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: that the voice was actually in the house, then I
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: was okay. I couldn't tell if my voice was actually
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: being projected into the house or not. But yeah, when
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: you do something that's not just one song at a
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: memorial or on a TV show, you know, you go
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: into a journalized state. And as I mentioned earlier, that's
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: the most powerful drug I've ever taken. And it's why
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: I think so many of our people, and I'm speaking
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: of creative people wind up in trouble because you you
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: come off of a tour, you wind up, you finish
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: a movie, or you know, if you're in the heart
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: of Globe Shatters, or if you're you're a professional athlete,
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: you stopped the tour and your adournaline is writing at
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: a rate that's superhuman, and you can't really match that
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: with with anything. The only thing that I found, and
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: I started this in the late eighties to combat that um,
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: that hyper adrenalized state, was acupuncture. A lot of body work,
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: but mainly acupuncture really helps a lot to kind of
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: retune the endocrine system in particularly the kidneys to kidney energy.
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: As a Chinese would call it beautiful. So it's almost
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: like it's just that the nervous system is on high
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: alert and you just need to calm it down, and
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: it seems like acupuncture does that fight or flight. And
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: then you know, after after you make an album, and
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: you know this from from working on from working as
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: a producer and otherwise, you know that you have this
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: kind of postpartum You know, you work, you intensely work
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: on something, so you put everything that you are into
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: it and then it's over. And whether it's a tour
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: or a record or what what, what have you? You
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: go through this kind of postpartum and the adnal, the
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: adrenaline has to go back down to not a fight
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: or flight kind of place, and for most people that's very,
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: very difficult, and to try to try to mimic the
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: high that you get from adrenaline is literally impossible. Well,
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: I want to thank you just for the songs. There's
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: so many songs that you've written that have meant so
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: much and that are so beautiful, and uh, I just
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: want to thank you because I love them. I love
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: the songs. Thank you, Rick, and I love you and
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: I love how well I love receiving compliments from you.
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: Uh yeah, thank you. I'm I'm really um, you know,
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: I can, I can pretend to have humility, but I'm
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: really proud of a lot of the work that I've
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: done in my short time on this earth, And thank you.
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: I really appreciate that. Obviously, I'm a giant fan of
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: your work, and um, and it's a it's a good
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: pleasure after all these years. We haven't seen each other
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: in some time, huh, in a while, but it's really
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: it's really great to talk to you and be able
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: to just unravel some of these some of these threads,
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: huh same and we will change that and see each
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: other soon, I know at one one place or another,
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: maybe in Milan, you never know. Please come to Milan. Okay, great?
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: Thanks bye. Thanks to Michael Stipe for given insight into
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: his early days with RM and sharing details about his
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: upcoming solo project. To hear our favorite RM and Stipe
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: solo songs, check out the playlist at Broken Record podcast
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: dot com. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: at YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast, where we
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: can find all of our new episodes. You can follow
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is producing
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: help from ly Arose, Jason Gambrell, Beentaladay, Eric Sandler, and
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: Jennifer Sanchez, with engineering help from Nick Chaffe. Our executive
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: producer is Neil Aval. Broken Record is a production of
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: Pushkin Industries. If you like this show and others from Pushkin,
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: subscription that offers bonus content an uninterrupted ad free listening
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: for four ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin Plus
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts subscriptions, and if you like the show,
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: Please remember to share, rate, and review us on your
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: podcast app. For the musics by Kenny Beats, I'm justin Richmond.
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: Four