Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Rick Rubin in Conversation with Malcolm Gladwell

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Rick Rubin in Conversation with Malcolm Gladwell · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

0:15
Speaker 1: Pushkin. Today, the interviewer becomes the interviewee and it's nearly
0:23
Speaker 1: forty years. As a producer, Rick Rubins helped unlock creativity
0:27
Speaker 1: and inspire musical genius time and again. The artist he's
0:31
Speaker 1: worked with often say one of Rick's superpowers is his
0:34
Speaker 1: expert ability to listen deeply. This month, Rick released his
0:39
Speaker 1: first book, called The Creative Act, A Way of Being.
0:43
Speaker 1: In it, he shares practical principles on how anyone can
0:46
Speaker 1: generate creative authenticity and ultimately find their voice. The book
0:51
Speaker 1: also explores how a state of openness and belief can
0:54
Speaker 1: help inspire creative ideas and break down obstacles that limit
0:58
Speaker 1: artistic momentum. Malcolm Gladwell talks to Rick on today's episode
1:02
Speaker 1: about The Creative Act. Together, they break down principles in
1:05
Speaker 1: the book that are applicable to feelings of stagnation even
1:09
Speaker 1: beyond artistic life. Rick talks about why he believes creativity
1:13
Speaker 1: comes from external forces rather than internal ones, and he
1:16
Speaker 1: explains why he believes self expression is not about you.
1:23
Speaker 1: This is broken record line of notes for the digital Age.
1:26
Speaker 1: I'm justin Richmond. Here's Malcolm Gladwell with Rick Rubin. Rick
1:32
Speaker 1: Hey so I have a million questions, and I thought
1:35
Speaker 1: the fun thing to do would be to go through
1:39
Speaker 1: and I would just read you things I underlined, because
1:43
Speaker 1: there are things that I would love for you to
1:45
Speaker 1: talk or that we could talk about, but to you
1:47
Speaker 1: in particular. But one of the fantastic things about this
1:49
Speaker 1: book is that I've almost rarely read a book where
1:52
Speaker 1: if I felt like I was being I was being
1:55
Speaker 1: invited to contribute. Do you know what I mean? Like
1:59
Speaker 1: every time you made a point, I was like, Oh,
2:01
Speaker 1: I have something to be add about that or this.
2:04
Speaker 1: I mean, I've never read a book like that where
2:06
Speaker 1: I'm like, half the time I'm talking to myself as
2:08
Speaker 1: I'm reading it. So that's what I thought. We would
2:11
Speaker 1: get into that as well a little bit. But that's great,
2:13
Speaker 1: that's great. I'm so happy. First of all, I'm happy
2:16
Speaker 1: like it, happy you read it, happy you like it,
2:19
Speaker 1: and I'm happy that it had that effect on you.
2:22
Speaker 1: And there was I will tell you there was a
2:23
Speaker 1: version of the book, an unsuccessful version of the book
2:27
Speaker 1: maybe four years ago, that talked about a lot of
2:32
Speaker 1: the same stuff that the book talks about. The content
2:34
Speaker 1: was similar and the writing was beautiful, but it wouldn't
2:40
Speaker 1: have elicited the reaction that you had, and that's why
2:44
Speaker 1: it didn't come out then. And from the beginning, the
2:47
Speaker 1: purpose of the book was always I want people to
2:51
Speaker 1: make great things. I want people, I want as much
2:53
Speaker 1: beautiful art in the world as possible. I'm a fan
2:56
Speaker 1: of beautiful things and exciting things and new things happening
3:00
Speaker 1: all the time, and the book was like a call
3:04
Speaker 1: to arms to go out and make something beautiful, change
3:08
Speaker 1: the world, you know. So I've many questions, but I
3:13
Speaker 1: wanted to start with a very general and which is
3:16
Speaker 1: because you're in a world of music, we're reading a
3:20
Speaker 1: lot of this through the lens of music. We're assuming
3:22
Speaker 1: you're talking about musicians, and you give examples of musicians
3:25
Speaker 1: from time from time and time. You will also talk
3:27
Speaker 1: about visual artists. You add that into the mix. But
3:32
Speaker 1: I was curious about, are we really talking about all
3:36
Speaker 1: art here or is there a difference in the way
3:39
Speaker 1: that music and visual art are done that that you're
3:43
Speaker 1: specifically speaking to. I think it's how all creative choices
3:49
Speaker 1: are made. So not only does it include the visual arts,
3:53
Speaker 1: it includes starting a new business, a new recipe you're
3:58
Speaker 1: making as a chef, architectural choices you might make solving
4:04
Speaker 1: a problem in life where you're not getting along with
4:08
Speaker 1: a fan Emily member and you want to get closer
4:12
Speaker 1: to them and have better communication. Yeah. Originally I thought
4:16
Speaker 1: of it as more of a how to book about creativity,
4:20
Speaker 1: and it became a book about how to be, how
4:24
Speaker 1: to be in the world to allow creativity to happen,
4:27
Speaker 1: And as it turns out, how to be in the
4:28
Speaker 1: world that allows creativity to happen solves a lot of issues. Yeah.
4:33
Speaker 1: I did feel like about halfway through I began to
4:37
Speaker 1: forget you were in music, and I felt like he
4:40
Speaker 1: was starting to talk more broadly about everyone. It's hard
4:43
Speaker 1: to escape the assumption that this is going to be
4:46
Speaker 1: a book about music at the very beginning, but there
4:49
Speaker 1: so there's a couple I want to start reading to
4:50
Speaker 1: you some things and getting you to talk about them
4:54
Speaker 1: a little bit. One is without the spiritual components from
4:58
Speaker 1: page from the chapter called the Unseen. Without the spiritual component,
5:02
Speaker 1: the artist works with a crucial disadvantage. It's a really
5:06
Speaker 1: really interesting idea, and one really that I had heard
5:11
Speaker 1: that phrase that way before. What is a disadvantage here?
5:16
Speaker 1: And what do you meaning by the term spiritual component.
5:22
Speaker 1: The spiritual component is belief in something bigger, something different,
5:27
Speaker 1: whatever it is. It could be believing in some universal power,
5:33
Speaker 1: believing that if you walk under a ladder you'll have
5:36
Speaker 1: bad luck, you know, could It could be anything that
5:39
Speaker 1: takes you out of the ordinary to allow you to
5:45
Speaker 1: see a wilder potential is good when you're making art. Yeah,
5:52
Speaker 1: the goal of making art is not to show you
5:55
Speaker 1: just what everybody else sees. It's to see what's possible.
6:01
Speaker 1: And what's possible is radical. It really is radical. It's
6:06
Speaker 1: like we've built very a very small world for ourselves
6:10
Speaker 1: with our reason. Yeah. Have you ever had a mystical
6:13
Speaker 1: experience in your life? Yeah? Okay, do you want to
6:18
Speaker 1: describe it at all? Oh, well, I mean maybe my
6:21
Speaker 1: definition of mystical I have had. I'm open, I'm wide
6:25
Speaker 1: open however you describe it. I mean, I've had moments
6:29
Speaker 1: probably around the death of my father would be an
6:33
Speaker 1: example of the death of my father was a lot
6:36
Speaker 1: more than just about the death of my father. I
6:38
Speaker 1: guess that's the best way. You become aware in that
6:40
Speaker 1: moment that oh he's part of joining going somewhere whatever,
6:46
Speaker 1: much much, much, much much larger and older than we
6:49
Speaker 1: would have imagined. That's that was probably the closest I
6:52
Speaker 1: came to that that I saw that in the gift
6:55
Speaker 1: of my grief was that, Yes, was being becoming aware
6:59
Speaker 1: of that. Would you say that based on that you
7:03
Speaker 1: have been able to live at times in a deeper way,
7:07
Speaker 1: based on that experience open something in you to allow
7:10
Speaker 1: you to see more than you saw before. Yes, I
7:14
Speaker 1: absolutely I would. I would count that experience is one
7:18
Speaker 1: of the most crucial of my life. And in a
7:21
Speaker 1: million years, I would never have thought that the death
7:24
Speaker 1: of someone I love more than anyone else would open
7:27
Speaker 1: me up in that way. That would be an example
7:30
Speaker 1: of touching something I would say spiritual, something, something unseen,
7:36
Speaker 1: something from beyond, something that wouldn't have made sense to
7:40
Speaker 1: you before it happened. Yeah, if someone would have described
7:44
Speaker 1: it to you, you might have thought, that doesn't really
7:45
Speaker 1: make sense to me, But then you got to feel it,
7:48
Speaker 1: and then you understood. And belief is that way. There's
7:52
Speaker 1: a part in the book that talks about what you
7:55
Speaker 1: believe in doesn't have to be true, that doesn't really matter,
8:00
Speaker 1: but belief has a power, and belief allows you to
8:04
Speaker 1: go further than you thought you can go. Yeah, and
8:09
Speaker 1: there are a lot of tools in the book that
8:14
Speaker 1: talk about overcoming voices that tell us we can't do
8:18
Speaker 1: things because we've learned we can't do things. You know,
8:22
Speaker 1: we've learned what's possible and what's impossible, and if we
8:26
Speaker 1: accept what's possible and what's impossible, we can't go beyond.
8:30
Speaker 1: If the right brothers accepted it was impossible for man
8:33
Speaker 1: to fly, we still wouldn't be flying. All of the
8:38
Speaker 1: great revolutions that have happened have happened because someone believed
8:45
Speaker 1: in something that everyone thought wasn't possible. Yeah. This taps
8:49
Speaker 1: into a larger theme in your book, which I thought
8:52
Speaker 1: was really powerful, which is time and again you come
8:56
Speaker 1: back to the idea that the artists, one of the
8:58
Speaker 1: artists jobs is our obligations is to look outside of
9:04
Speaker 1: him or herself. I mean, you do talk about how
9:06
Speaker 1: you need there's a chapter where you talk about the
9:09
Speaker 1: paying very close attention to what's going on inside your
9:13
Speaker 1: own head and heart, Like here's an example not long
9:17
Speaker 1: after that first quote, when looking for a solution to
9:19
Speaker 1: a creative problem, pay close attention to what's happening around you.
9:23
Speaker 1: And what I love about that is like, it's not
9:25
Speaker 1: that you think back over your history, remember some important
9:31
Speaker 1: thing you read five years ago written by some genius. No, No,
9:33
Speaker 1: you're talking about in the moment here and that. Look
9:37
Speaker 1: around and you can find kind of solutions, clues, what
9:42
Speaker 1: have you just in the kind of most prosaic details
9:46
Speaker 1: of your existence at that moment, like in the room
9:49
Speaker 1: where you are. Yes, now, I can't say it works
9:53
Speaker 1: one hundred percent of the time. It's not saying that.
9:56
Speaker 1: It's saying that if you live in a way where
9:59
Speaker 1: you're really open and paying attention to everything around you,
10:03
Speaker 1: the answers you're looking for are knocking on the door
10:07
Speaker 1: all the time. They don't come when you're searching for them.
10:13
Speaker 1: They come when you're open and allow them to come.
10:16
Speaker 1: One of the things that I talk about in the
10:17
Speaker 1: book is um if you have a problem to solve,
10:22
Speaker 1: instead of thinking about it, hold the question in your
10:25
Speaker 1: awareness and go for a walk or swim or do
10:29
Speaker 1: something that takes your mind off of what you're trying
10:33
Speaker 1: to solve and engages you in something else. Yea. And
10:37
Speaker 1: most often when you're engaged in something else, the part
10:41
Speaker 1: of you that's in the way of solving the problem
10:45
Speaker 1: loses its control over you, and you through whatever it is.
10:50
Speaker 1: You can find a way to go for a drive
10:53
Speaker 1: something where you have to you have to pay attention enough.
10:56
Speaker 1: If you're driving, you can sort of drive on autopilot
11:00
Speaker 1: in you know, without really paying attention. But if you're
11:03
Speaker 1: really not paying attention, you'll crash. You can you can
11:06
Speaker 1: tune out that much. So there is some part of
11:10
Speaker 1: you that's occupied when you're driving with the work at hand.
11:15
Speaker 1: The reason I thought that was interesting was I wondered
11:19
Speaker 1: one thing that struck me. And I could be totally wrong,
11:21
Speaker 1: but my sense is that increasingly, and a lot of
11:25
Speaker 1: creative fields, creativity is to find as something that is
11:28
Speaker 1: internal and deliberate. You look within yourself and your own
11:33
Speaker 1: experience and you mind them for and you're talking about
11:35
Speaker 1: something that is in part external and unconscious. And I
11:41
Speaker 1: have a good friend who's a screenwriter, and I think
11:43
Speaker 1: by virtue of being my friend and watching, I'm a reporter,
11:48
Speaker 1: a journalist, you know. I call people up and interview
11:50
Speaker 1: them and record what they say. He's changed the way
11:54
Speaker 1: he writes screenplays. Now he does as much reporting as
11:58
Speaker 1: he does as much as someone who's writing a nonfiction book.
12:01
Speaker 1: And he's doing it not because he's just cutting and
12:03
Speaker 1: pasting what he hears in the world and do is
12:05
Speaker 1: but he's doing a version of what you're talking about,
12:07
Speaker 1: which is he's old himself up to the if he
12:11
Speaker 1: wants to talk about, you know, scientists, he goes and
12:14
Speaker 1: talks to lots and lots of scientists and it opens
12:16
Speaker 1: him up to the way they think and feel. And
12:19
Speaker 1: that kind of approach to creativity strikes me as being
12:23
Speaker 1: one that seems out of vogue in a certain way.
12:25
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not what they're teaching in running schools. No,
12:28
Speaker 1: it's not what they're teaching. And there was a line,
12:30
Speaker 1: there's a line in the book and I only know
12:31
Speaker 1: it because I was working on the audiobook yesterday and
12:34
Speaker 1: I read it yesterday, and it's against funny countintuitive line
12:39
Speaker 1: that self expression is not about you, and it's just
12:46
Speaker 1: such a and when I read it, you know, it's
12:48
Speaker 1: it's stopped me in my tracks, even though it's an
12:51
Speaker 1: idea from several years ago, but it hit me hard again,
12:55
Speaker 1: you know, recognizing it. So everything we are comes from
13:00
Speaker 1: outside of us, the data that we take in from
13:03
Speaker 1: which we make whatever it is that we make comes
13:05
Speaker 1: from outside of us, all of it. None of it
13:08
Speaker 1: starts with us. Everything starts outside of us. So we
13:12
Speaker 1: have a storehouse of all of the stuff that we've
13:14
Speaker 1: experienced over the course of our lives, and then we
13:18
Speaker 1: can find connections between those things, and we can find
13:23
Speaker 1: connections between those things from the past and these things
13:27
Speaker 1: happening now, whatever it may be. And when you're looking
13:31
Speaker 1: for it, it's surprising how often the answers are right there. Yeah,
13:36
Speaker 1: this is reading another with my favorite lines. Distraction is
13:40
Speaker 1: not procrastination. Procrastination consistently undermines our ability to make things.
13:45
Speaker 1: Distraction is a strategy in service of the work, which
13:49
Speaker 1: is to your point. So a lot of what this
13:51
Speaker 1: exposure to the world outside of us is about is
13:55
Speaker 1: a kind of productive distraction, right, That's what you're saying
13:59
Speaker 1: with that, it's a combination. There's a productive distraction and
14:02
Speaker 1: an inspiration. The connection with the outside world also can
14:06
Speaker 1: be really inspiring. It can be inspiring if you pick
14:08
Speaker 1: play that are inspiring. I try to pick places to
14:11
Speaker 1: be where I find inspiration on a daily basis. You
14:14
Speaker 1: have a little moment where you're talking about how different
14:17
Speaker 1: all of us have different strategies for that kind of
14:22
Speaker 1: inspirational place. And you said Andy Warhol was said to
14:25
Speaker 1: create with a television, radio, and record player all on simultaneously.
14:29
Speaker 1: For eminem the noise of a single TV set is
14:31
Speaker 1: his preferred backdrop myself. Proust lined, as well as with
14:34
Speaker 1: sound of absorbing cork, close the drapes and warrior plugs.
14:38
Speaker 1: And I was curious, what's yours? Do you have a
14:41
Speaker 1: kind of mode like that? I would say I like
14:44
Speaker 1: to be in a quiet place, big beautiful nature, less people. Yeah,
14:51
Speaker 1: i'd say natural beauty and less people. It's funny. I'm
14:54
Speaker 1: exactly the opposite. I was right at a very productive
14:57
Speaker 1: warning in a coffee shop. It was crowded, and I
15:00
Speaker 1: was seating it like literally right up against the six
15:05
Speaker 1: foot four kid. I think it's like twenty two years old,
15:09
Speaker 1: sitting next to his parents. And the kid was super interesting,
15:12
Speaker 1: and he was talking about the PLO in the nineteen
15:16
Speaker 1: seventies and yes, or Arafat, and there was something about
15:20
Speaker 1: like I don't know, I can't put my finger on what.
15:23
Speaker 1: That kind of triggered After a while, I kind of
15:26
Speaker 1: he became my background noise. But it was such a
15:28
Speaker 1: different voice that I was fixing a chapter of something
15:32
Speaker 1: I was working on, and I just thought suddenly saw
15:35
Speaker 1: a solution, and I think it was what we were
15:37
Speaker 1: talking about. It was some combination of there's something about
15:40
Speaker 1: that being surrounded by unusual voices that really wakes me
15:45
Speaker 1: up to the range of solutions. Right, I'm reminded, Oh,
15:49
Speaker 1: there's like, there's this kid who's thinking about something I
15:51
Speaker 1: don't think about in a context I'm not in. Who's
15:55
Speaker 1: super interesting, Like, wow, so you know there's a solution
15:58
Speaker 1: out there. It was that. It was funny because I
16:00
Speaker 1: had just read your chapter which talks about that, and
16:02
Speaker 1: I was in that situation. Is that a place that
16:05
Speaker 1: you go to every day many days? I like, I
16:09
Speaker 1: need I need so, I need voices. I need noise
16:14
Speaker 1: and voices and activity in order to be able to create.
16:18
Speaker 1: During the pandemic, I had one Sturgele Simpson album that
16:22
Speaker 1: I played over and over and over again. He was
16:25
Speaker 1: my voice? Was it meta? Modern? Met? What is that? Albums?
16:28
Speaker 1: Fantastic album? Whatever? Was so good? It's great. He was great.
16:32
Speaker 1: I don't know if he's out there. He helped me
16:35
Speaker 1: through many, many lean times during the pandemic. But that
16:40
Speaker 1: idea I almost feel like you're describing the things you
16:45
Speaker 1: have learned by working with elite practitioners of the art
16:48
Speaker 1: of creativity. But I was struck by the gap between
16:52
Speaker 1: what you've learned from the top performers and what we're
16:56
Speaker 1: teaching to people at the outset, and that it concerned me.
17:00
Speaker 1: I almost feel like there's a gap between what we're
17:03
Speaker 1: telling people and what the truly creative are doing. Yes, yes,
17:08
Speaker 1: that's on the same point on this gap. There's a
17:12
Speaker 1: moment when you're talking about secually my favorite part of
17:15
Speaker 1: the book, when you're talking about strategies for unblocking yourself
17:19
Speaker 1: in all the different ways that you think about that
17:22
Speaker 1: or approach that when you're working with people and one
17:26
Speaker 1: of them was right right in the voice of someone else,
17:30
Speaker 1: that's what we said, and Rick, once again, in the
17:33
Speaker 1: world we live in, that is an incendiary thought. That's
17:39
Speaker 1: called appropriation. And you have this beautiful I want to
17:42
Speaker 1: quote in a similar vein you say there are countless
17:47
Speaker 1: examples of imitation turning into legitimate innovation. Having a romanticized
17:51
Speaker 1: vision of an artist, genre, or tradition may allow you
17:54
Speaker 1: to create something new because you see it from a
17:57
Speaker 1: different perspective than those closer to it. So not only
18:00
Speaker 1: you saying that it can be really useful to inhabit
18:03
Speaker 1: someone else's voice or tradition, you're also saying that that
18:07
Speaker 1: can spark whole new, more beautiful, greater kind of innovation
18:13
Speaker 1: because you're approaching it from your own perspective. You talking
18:16
Speaker 1: about Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Westerns being a good example of that,
18:19
Speaker 1: that they transform understanding of what a western is. I
18:22
Speaker 1: thought a lot about the audiobook we did with Paul
18:25
Speaker 1: Simon when he's talking about Graceland, which is that right, yes?
18:31
Speaker 1: Or talking heads you know, remain in light or fear
18:35
Speaker 1: of music. Those were inspired by African rhythms. Yeah, there's
18:40
Speaker 1: a great tradition in doing this. I mean if pretty
18:44
Speaker 1: much the best of everything was based on something else, always,
18:49
Speaker 1: and then it's the it's through the new interpretations. Like
18:52
Speaker 1: the Beatles were doing American motown music, but because they
18:56
Speaker 1: were English and because of the distance, they weren't trying
19:00
Speaker 1: to do it different. They did it different because they
19:03
Speaker 1: were different. Yeah, and that was the beauty of it.
19:05
Speaker 1: And that's how the Beatles became the Beatles, you know. Yeah,
19:09
Speaker 1: they became the Beatles because they are the Beatles, but
19:11
Speaker 1: the music they were doing was they were trying to
19:14
Speaker 1: do motown or as you point out, the Ramones were
19:17
Speaker 1: trying to be the Base City Rollers. Yes, which is
19:20
Speaker 1: a true. Yeah, Johnny Ramone told me that himself, so
19:23
Speaker 1: I know that to be true. That is so hilary
19:26
Speaker 1: for those of you who don't know the Basity Rollers.
19:28
Speaker 1: They were just about the dumbest bubble bubble gum band
19:32
Speaker 1: of the They were like the boy band of the
19:35
Speaker 1: early seventies. And the Ramones think that they had that
19:39
Speaker 1: song s A t U R d a y n
19:42
Speaker 1: s A t u R. And then if you listen
19:44
Speaker 1: to the Ramones, they have those type of gabba gabby
19:49
Speaker 1: you we accept you know, similar types of chance. Yes,
19:53
Speaker 1: that's right. Yeah, they take it and they twist it
19:55
Speaker 1: in this brilliant, beautiful revolutionary way. But so we look
20:00
Speaker 1: about I sort of harp on this, but how do
20:02
Speaker 1: we get away from that notion? So it is legitimately
20:05
Speaker 1: the case, and I know this because I are examples
20:08
Speaker 1: of people who I know who are legitimately terrified of
20:12
Speaker 1: even so much as dipping their toe in another traditionary voice,
20:17
Speaker 1: for fear of being criticized it's almost like we're terrified
20:21
Speaker 1: of the sources of creativity. We're terrified to admit to
20:25
Speaker 1: ourselves what we're doing in the name of creativity. The
20:29
Speaker 1: reason someone imitates someone else is because they love someone else.
20:35
Speaker 1: That's why it's only flattery when someone is inspired by
20:39
Speaker 1: someone else. If you if you decided to write because
20:42
Speaker 1: someone else wrote and you like their writing, and you
20:44
Speaker 1: decide to become a writer, that's not against them, That
20:48
Speaker 1: doesn't take anything away from them. That's a tribute to them. Yeah,
20:53
Speaker 1: And all of the music that gets made based on
20:57
Speaker 1: loving someone else's music is attribute to them. Whether it
21:00
Speaker 1: be people of the same color or different color, doesn't
21:03
Speaker 1: matter that it has nothing to do with that. That's
21:05
Speaker 1: not what it's about. Yeah, it's a current misread of
21:09
Speaker 1: the situation. Yes, you know what it is, and it
21:12
Speaker 1: goes to something else. You talk a little bit, You
21:14
Speaker 1: talk about the abundance mindset in getting to that part
21:17
Speaker 1: of the book. You talk about the importance of understanding
21:20
Speaker 1: that number of ideas, essentially, the number of ideas out
21:23
Speaker 1: there is infinite, not finite. Yes, when you understand it's
21:27
Speaker 1: infinite there, then you're not scared of imitating someone because
21:31
Speaker 1: You're like, there's a million things out there we don't
21:33
Speaker 1: we don't have to hold tightly to what we've done
21:36
Speaker 1: and be react in a hostile manner if someone tries
21:40
Speaker 1: to imitate us, because there's a million fishing to see.
21:44
Speaker 1: You know, it's fine. I think the idea that the
21:47
Speaker 1: number of new ideas is infinite has kind of fallen
21:50
Speaker 1: out of favor somehow. Yeah, it's it's just odd. It's
21:54
Speaker 1: I mean, people can be wrong and it's okay, you know,
21:57
Speaker 1: like that's fine. In some ways, the fact that's fallen
22:00
Speaker 1: out of favor means the people who embrace the tried
22:05
Speaker 1: and true methods that have worked will find greater success
22:09
Speaker 1: and they'll be less stuff in between. Yeah, is your
22:13
Speaker 1: understanding of this notion of abundance? Is it a product
22:18
Speaker 1: of having worked for I don't know how many years
22:21
Speaker 1: you've been in the industry, many decades. Did you feel
22:24
Speaker 1: the same way when you were twenty one and there
22:25
Speaker 1: was Is it natural for the very for the very
22:28
Speaker 1: young to be much more jealous, to touch more jealously
22:31
Speaker 1: guard their ideas because they haven't had years and years
22:35
Speaker 1: of experience in seeing the kind of waterfall of ideas
22:38
Speaker 1: that's out there. Is that fair? No, it's fair. I've
22:41
Speaker 1: always felt this way because I see it, you know,
22:44
Speaker 1: I see all of the ideas I see I want
22:47
Speaker 1: to learn everything. There's no time. There's no time to
22:49
Speaker 1: learn all the things I want to learn. I'm endlessly curious,
22:53
Speaker 1: and I'm always looking. I'm thinking back to It's really
22:58
Speaker 1: more about what we were just talking about. But the
23:00
Speaker 1: reason I learned about reggae music was because of the Clash.
23:04
Speaker 1: If it weren't for the Clash, I don't know if
23:06
Speaker 1: I would have ever come in contact with reggae music.
23:09
Speaker 1: So is it bad that the Clash did reggae music
23:12
Speaker 1: because they turned on a whole generation of people who
23:16
Speaker 1: otherwise may not have ever heard about it. Do you know?
23:21
Speaker 1: It's like, it's it's a crazy idea to think that,
23:26
Speaker 1: not to be inspired by the things that are inspiring
23:28
Speaker 1: us and to show it and to own it and
23:32
Speaker 1: to fly the flag of these great trends or genres
23:37
Speaker 1: is nothing more beautiful. Yeah, we're gonna pause for a
23:41
Speaker 1: quick break and then we'll be back with more from
23:43
Speaker 1: Rick Rubin and Malcolm Gladwell. We're back with more from
23:47
Speaker 1: Rick Rubin and Malcolm Gladwell. I remember pretty early in
23:52
Speaker 1: my writing career when I was unhappy. I thought I
23:55
Speaker 1: was I was limited as a writer. And I remember
23:57
Speaker 1: sitting down with I've forgotten which book it was, one
24:00
Speaker 1: of Michael Lewis's books and one of Janet Malcolm's books,
24:04
Speaker 1: two narrative nonfiction writers who are extra really good at
24:10
Speaker 1: the one thing I thought I was weak at, which
24:12
Speaker 1: is character, literally sitting down and studying them like they
24:16
Speaker 1: were a talmud, Like, what's he doing here? How much
24:19
Speaker 1: time does he spend literally measuring how much time does
24:22
Speaker 1: he spend describing someone? I was getting itchy feet. I
24:27
Speaker 1: would I didn't induce a character, and I think, oh,
24:29
Speaker 1: you must be bored of the character list, And then
24:30
Speaker 1: I would Michael Lewison was like, he is the same
24:33
Speaker 1: character of the whole book and we're not bored of him.
24:35
Speaker 1: How does he do that right? Or Jeta Malcolm would
24:37
Speaker 1: like peel one layer after another off the onion. You'd
24:40
Speaker 1: be like, there can't be any onion left. There was
24:42
Speaker 1: always onion left. I was like, how does she do that?
24:46
Speaker 1: To your point? About you got that lovely thing about
24:49
Speaker 1: the back and forth between the Beatles and the Beach Boys,
24:52
Speaker 1: Brian Wilson sees White album and says it white album
24:56
Speaker 1: that inspired it starts with it starts with rubber Soul.
25:00
Speaker 1: It starts with rubber Soul. Yeah, and then based on
25:03
Speaker 1: Brian Wilson hearing Rubber Soul, he makes pet Sounds based
25:08
Speaker 1: on the song Only Knows, Paul has the idea for
25:13
Speaker 1: Sergeant Pepper. Yeah. And the point that I make there
25:17
Speaker 1: is not they weren't doing that at a competition. It
25:20
Speaker 1: was out of love and inspiration, and it was an
25:26
Speaker 1: upward spiral between them of inspire reaction, inspirer reaction, lifting
25:32
Speaker 1: the level, lifting the level. It was they made each
25:35
Speaker 1: other better. They weren't trying to beat each other. It
25:39
Speaker 1: was different than that they loved each other. Yeah, explain
25:42
Speaker 1: to me. It's suit of obvious, but I'd love for
25:44
Speaker 1: you to talk about it. Why is it important that
25:46
Speaker 1: it comes out of love and not competition. What is
25:49
Speaker 1: it about a competitive drive that is more limiting than
25:54
Speaker 1: a drive of love. Well, first of all, we're talking
25:56
Speaker 1: about majority of what we're talking about is art, and
26:00
Speaker 1: the way that I see art is it really is
26:03
Speaker 1: about our own self expression. So I'll give you an example.
26:07
Speaker 1: I just wrote a book you write a lot of books.
26:10
Speaker 1: The idea of Rick's book competing with Malcolm's book is
26:14
Speaker 1: an insane idea. You write a Malcolm book, I write
26:19
Speaker 1: a Rick book. No one but Malcolm can write a
26:22
Speaker 1: Malcolm book. No one but Rick can write a Ric book.
26:26
Speaker 1: They're mutually exclusive things. Everything is like that. So if
26:32
Speaker 1: you're focused on beating someone else, it makes me think
26:36
Speaker 1: you're not actually playing the same game that I'm playing.
26:39
Speaker 1: The game that I'm playing is I want to make
26:41
Speaker 1: the best thing that I can make for me, that's all,
26:45
Speaker 1: and if someone else likes it, it's great. There's a
26:48
Speaker 1: chapter in the book about success, which is success is
26:51
Speaker 1: when you feel good enough about it, a piece of
26:54
Speaker 1: work you've made to share it in the world. That's
26:57
Speaker 1: the moment of success. Whatever happens after that's completely out
26:59
Speaker 1: of our control. But the moment that you sign off,
27:02
Speaker 1: it's like here, okay, here we go, and then move
27:05
Speaker 1: on to your next project. That's where success lies. So
27:09
Speaker 1: to work on a vibration of competition. It's one thing.
27:14
Speaker 1: If it's about running a race, this is not running
27:17
Speaker 1: a race. This really is always apples and oranges. Yeah,
27:22
Speaker 1: although you know it's funny, I think you're selling your
27:25
Speaker 1: idea a little short. I was thinking about this when
27:28
Speaker 1: I read that part. I'm a big fan of cars,
27:31
Speaker 1: and there's a very particular moment in the early aughts
27:37
Speaker 1: when car design goes through a stage that I think
27:42
Speaker 1: everyone in the who loves cars thinks was one of
27:45
Speaker 1: a kind of extraordinary moment of It was a kind
27:49
Speaker 1: of when cars started to look very kind of bowhousing.
27:51
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know cars, but there was a
27:53
Speaker 1: very beautiful E class that Mercedes put out in the
27:56
Speaker 1: early arts, which is very clean lines, round headlights. At
28:00
Speaker 1: the same time, Audie put out the first iteration of
28:04
Speaker 1: the style they're still in, but it was very clean
28:05
Speaker 1: and very They all were doing this a very similar esthetic,
28:09
Speaker 1: which was a rejection of a lot of the kind
28:11
Speaker 1: of clutter and complication that had gone on in the
28:14
Speaker 1: in the previous generation of car design. And you could
28:16
Speaker 1: see it across all the kind of elite carmakers. And
28:21
Speaker 1: you know, normally you would say, these are guys who
28:23
Speaker 1: really are in competition with each other. They're battling over
28:25
Speaker 1: a finite marketplace. They're making the same thing cars of
28:29
Speaker 1: people drive. But they weren't all pursuing this Ballhouse design strategy.
28:35
Speaker 1: It was out of love. Absolutely. The guy at Audie
28:39
Speaker 1: saw that E class and it's like, oh my god,
28:42
Speaker 1: that's a gorgeous car. I want to do my version
28:44
Speaker 1: of it. I mean it was no, it wasn't like
28:46
Speaker 1: let's take market share from you know, at that level.
28:50
Speaker 1: I mean maybe it was in the marketing group, but
28:52
Speaker 1: at the level of the designer, it was clearly they
28:56
Speaker 1: all fell in love with this particular So I think
29:00
Speaker 1: it goes beyond what we think of as the as
29:05
Speaker 1: the art narrowly as the arts. I think you see
29:07
Speaker 1: it everywhere that fun mentally in a million different ways.
29:11
Speaker 1: Even people who are locked in competition with each other
29:15
Speaker 1: sometimes push that aside and do things out of a
29:18
Speaker 1: genuine affection for what they were just they're just blown
29:20
Speaker 1: away by something they see, you know, they're like, oh
29:22
Speaker 1: my god, here's an even more metaphysical version of that,
29:27
Speaker 1: where the same thing happens, but it's not a reaction.
29:33
Speaker 1: So in the example you gave, Mercedes came out with
29:37
Speaker 1: a beautiful new design, an Autie inspired by that design
29:42
Speaker 1: made something new. They're also throughout history examples of two
29:49
Speaker 1: or three similar novel approaches entering at the same time. Yeah,
29:58
Speaker 1: not based on seeing each other. Yeah, just based on
30:02
Speaker 1: it's time for this. Yeah. And maybe it's possible that
30:07
Speaker 1: the thing that inspired Mercedes to want to do it
30:10
Speaker 1: is the thing that inspired Audie to want to do it.
30:13
Speaker 1: But that's different than Audie wanting to copy what Mercedes did. Yeah.
30:18
Speaker 1: And that's a fascinating thing when there are these movements
30:21
Speaker 1: of art where it just springs up all over the
30:24
Speaker 1: planet at the same time, not because they saw it
30:27
Speaker 1: and want to do it, but because now is the
30:29
Speaker 1: time for this new thing, whatever it is. Yeah, But
30:32
Speaker 1: at its root, it's the same thing because they're falling
30:36
Speaker 1: in love with the same idea in the world simultaneously.
30:40
Speaker 1: You can o have fall in love with what Joe
30:42
Speaker 1: across the pond is doing, or me and Joe can
30:45
Speaker 1: fall in love with something you know in the world
30:47
Speaker 1: of ideas that's really beautiful and novel. But I think
30:51
Speaker 1: that the engine is the same, which is it's love. Yes,
30:55
Speaker 1: it seems more magical when there isn't when you don't
30:59
Speaker 1: see one like it first. Yeah, there's something about it.
31:02
Speaker 1: When I don't know if it's ever happened to you,
31:04
Speaker 1: it has happened to me. Where I'll have an idea
31:06
Speaker 1: for something and I don't act on that right away,
31:10
Speaker 1: and then within six months or a year someone else
31:13
Speaker 1: does it. They didn't steal my idea. Yeah, it was
31:16
Speaker 1: time for that to happen. Let's keep going to so
31:19
Speaker 1: much wonderful stuff here I want to give I want
31:21
Speaker 1: to give listeners more of a taste of several moments
31:24
Speaker 1: when I was either surprised and in one case really
31:27
Speaker 1: genuinely wanted more of a explanation. And that was when
31:33
Speaker 1: the work has five mistakes, it's not yet completed. When
31:36
Speaker 1: it has eight mistakes, it might be Yes, Rick, what
31:39
Speaker 1: does that mean? We get hung up on the idea
31:42
Speaker 1: of perfection and we think perfection is what we're looking for,
31:47
Speaker 1: when really what we're looking for is something with emotion
31:52
Speaker 1: in it, something with humanity in it, and humanity has flaws.
31:57
Speaker 1: So we can use the example of the leaning power
32:02
Speaker 1: of pizza. At the time that it was made, it
32:04
Speaker 1: was a mistake, and now it's one of the most
32:06
Speaker 1: visited buildings in the world, and it's visited purely because
32:10
Speaker 1: of the mistake. You know. We collect old Persian rugs
32:15
Speaker 1: that were handmade and that have been lived in whereas
32:18
Speaker 1: you can buy a new machine made rug now that's
32:22
Speaker 1: more perfect than that, but it doesn't have the same
32:26
Speaker 1: humanity in it. And the reason I use the example
32:30
Speaker 1: of five and eight art their random choices, those are
32:33
Speaker 1: not specific, does not if you have five, you got
32:38
Speaker 1: to get to eight for it to work. But it's
32:40
Speaker 1: a way of thinking where we're not looking to make
32:43
Speaker 1: it perfect. We're looking for the soulful version that could
32:49
Speaker 1: either be going further towards perfection or backwards away from it.
32:54
Speaker 1: And it might just as well be backwards away from
32:56
Speaker 1: it for it to feel good when we're making art.
32:59
Speaker 1: Can you think about a project you've worked on that
33:02
Speaker 1: you think is beautiful and authentic in precisely this imperfect
33:07
Speaker 1: way that has mistakes? Do you think it benefited from
33:11
Speaker 1: I can give you an example close to both of
33:14
Speaker 1: our hearts, which is interesting. When we had the Broken
33:18
Speaker 1: Record logo design, it was originally done, it was designed
33:24
Speaker 1: on a computer, and it was of a very formal design,
33:28
Speaker 1: graphic design, and a friend of mine suggested you would
33:32
Speaker 1: have tried to doing that by hand? Yeah, And then
33:35
Speaker 1: we suggested to the design and try it by hand,
33:37
Speaker 1: and the one that we ended up picking was the
33:39
Speaker 1: one done by hand. It was less perfect than the
33:43
Speaker 1: original version, but it had more personality. Yeah, it's very
33:48
Speaker 1: clarifying because I think it's very easy to lose sight
33:51
Speaker 1: of what the audience for a work of art wants.
33:56
Speaker 1: They want the creator, they want to it's a way
33:58
Speaker 1: of looking into the mind or heart of the creator.
34:02
Speaker 1: They want. Don't want some abstract thing that fits every
34:05
Speaker 1: criteria of perfection, right, we're looking for, you know. To
34:09
Speaker 1: give the example back of when I went through my
34:13
Speaker 1: period where I was obsessively reading Michael Lewis and Janet Malcolm,
34:17
Speaker 1: Jenna Malcolm's a good example of this or both. When
34:19
Speaker 1: you read them, you feel like you you know the
34:23
Speaker 1: two of those writers. When you read their writing. At
34:25
Speaker 1: the end of a Michael Lewis book, you feel like
34:28
Speaker 1: you've been hanging out with him and have a window
34:30
Speaker 1: into his world. Jenna Malcolm's books are weird and quirky
34:34
Speaker 1: and sometimes disturbing, but you love that because you're like, oh,
34:38
Speaker 1: she's such a kind of fascinating character. And my worry
34:41
Speaker 1: when I was reading them was that people weren't having that.
34:46
Speaker 1: That was not the experience my readers were having. That
34:48
Speaker 1: they were getting they were getting something that was too abstract.
34:52
Speaker 1: They were getting information, but not that kind of They
34:56
Speaker 1: weren't really getting me. You know, it took a long time.
35:00
Speaker 1: We're talking about. That thing I'm describing was twenty years
35:03
Speaker 1: into my writing career, and what you're talking about is
35:07
Speaker 1: really mo moving away from classical journalism, because my understanding
35:13
Speaker 1: of journalism is the writer is invisible. It's only the
35:17
Speaker 1: story and it's just, you know, just the facts. That's
35:20
Speaker 1: all it is. So in a way, this would be
35:24
Speaker 1: a bastardization of journalism. But that's why it's engaging, and
35:30
Speaker 1: that's why it's interesting, and that's why it's popular. It's
35:33
Speaker 1: not regular journalism. It's it's journalism through your filter, the
35:38
Speaker 1: personal filter. There's a there's a documentarian named Nick Broomfield
35:42
Speaker 1: who I love, who makes these crazy movies. He tends
35:46
Speaker 1: to pick outrageous characters to focus on, but he always
35:51
Speaker 1: ends up part of the movie. And usually when documentarians
35:56
Speaker 1: make a movie, you just see the subject, but he
35:58
Speaker 1: ensconces himself into the finds a way to insinuate himself
36:02
Speaker 1: into the story, and it's wild and bizarre, and it's
36:07
Speaker 1: unusual for the director of a documentary to become a
36:09
Speaker 1: main character in every one of the documentaries he makes
36:13
Speaker 1: about different people. Fascinating. Yeah, so I love it. Yeah, Wait,
36:17
Speaker 1: a couple of other things. I want to I want
36:19
Speaker 1: to make sure we um. You had this little section
36:22
Speaker 1: that I loved when you're talking about AlphaGo, the AI
36:27
Speaker 1: software system that was designed to master the game of
36:31
Speaker 1: the Japanese game of Go, and how there's this famous
36:36
Speaker 1: showdown between the computer and a Go grand master, and
36:39
Speaker 1: the computer wins by making a move that had never
36:43
Speaker 1: occurred to any Go player. You know, they had you say,
36:46
Speaker 1: you say there was most Go players would have considered
36:48
Speaker 1: A or B choice, and the computer went to see
36:51
Speaker 1: and it blew ever Yuin's mind. And you said when
36:54
Speaker 1: you read about that that you cried. I did, and
36:58
Speaker 1: it was it wasn't I didn't read about it. I
37:00
Speaker 1: watched the documentary. You watched the documentary. Yeah, I was
37:03
Speaker 1: watching a documentary about it and it made me cry.
37:06
Speaker 1: And when I cried, I didn't unders stand it at first.
37:11
Speaker 1: It took a while I thought about it more. My
37:15
Speaker 1: reaction forced me to think about it more. It's like,
37:18
Speaker 1: why am I crying? I'm not invested. I don't play go,
37:21
Speaker 1: I'm not invested in this story at all. Yet I'm crying.
37:27
Speaker 1: And originally my first thought was, am I crying because
37:32
Speaker 1: machines are beating humans? No, that's not what it is.
37:37
Speaker 1: I'm crying because the way that the computer one wasn't
37:43
Speaker 1: by knowing more than the grand Master. The computer one
37:48
Speaker 1: because it knew less than the grand Master. And that's
37:52
Speaker 1: what made me cry. It's that the computer didn't have
37:56
Speaker 1: all of the baggage and cultural dogma of how you're
38:02
Speaker 1: supposed to play Go. It only knew these are the
38:06
Speaker 1: rules of the game. I'm playing the rules of the game.
38:09
Speaker 1: And it was fascinating to me because it made me
38:11
Speaker 1: realize if we can let go of the beliefs of
38:17
Speaker 1: what how we're supposed to do things, anything maybe possible.
38:23
Speaker 1: It's the tip of the iceberg for the game Go,
38:25
Speaker 1: for sure, but maybe it's the tip of the iceberg
38:29
Speaker 1: for everything. And if we can get back to that
38:32
Speaker 1: beginner's mind of not knowing, of accepting that we don't know,
38:38
Speaker 1: we can break through in ways never understood before. Yeah,
38:42
Speaker 1: never thought possible before. It's funny because I didn't see
38:46
Speaker 1: this documentary and when I read about your description of
38:50
Speaker 1: how much you were moved by that moment. I was
38:53
Speaker 1: also moved, but not for the reasons you were. I
38:57
Speaker 1: was moved because what that told me was that when
39:02
Speaker 1: human beings play Go, they're not playing Go. In other words,
39:07
Speaker 1: the computer saw Go in it's entirety in a technical sense,
39:12
Speaker 1: so every conceivable movie you could make made one that
39:15
Speaker 1: would never have occurred to us. When human beings play Go,
39:18
Speaker 1: we're playing this very small, parochial version, governed not just
39:24
Speaker 1: by the rules and potentials of the board, but by
39:29
Speaker 1: our own assumptions, habits, practices, culturals. And I actually kind
39:36
Speaker 1: of love that about us, In other words, that we've
39:39
Speaker 1: colonized and humanized and brought all of our kind of
39:44
Speaker 1: heartrending limitations even to something like a board game. That's
39:51
Speaker 1: very moving to me. Like the computer has the chili
39:55
Speaker 1: impersonal version of Go, and this reminds us we're not
39:59
Speaker 1: playing the chili impersonal version. Our Go bears the imprint
40:03
Speaker 1: of our own limitations and cultural specificities. And I find
40:08
Speaker 1: that really endearing, you know, like great, but it's funny
40:13
Speaker 1: we both see the same thing and are moved by it.
40:16
Speaker 1: I don't think what I'm saying what you're saying are incompatible.
40:18
Speaker 1: I think they're actually compatible. No, I think they're almost opposites.
40:22
Speaker 1: And the fact that they are both something to fall
40:25
Speaker 1: in love with about the story is amazing. I love that. Yeah,
40:29
Speaker 1: but this is actually something that you, Well, what I've
40:32
Speaker 1: just described is something you do a lot in this book,
40:35
Speaker 1: which is there are a lot of moments where it
40:39
Speaker 1: appears that you're making points that contradict each other, but
40:43
Speaker 1: you're not. This is the furthest from Black and White.
40:46
Speaker 1: This book. There is a lot of this kind of
40:48
Speaker 1: yinging and yanging in it. I thought was really very
40:51
Speaker 1: very you. It's very like it's not like you do
40:56
Speaker 1: it this way, not this way. Like the necessity of
40:59
Speaker 1: being both inwardly sensitive and outwardly sensitive. It's not one
41:04
Speaker 1: or the other. It's like just it's there's a balance
41:06
Speaker 1: that you have to kind of observe. We'll be right
41:09
Speaker 1: back with the rest of Malcolm Gladwell and Rick Rubin's conversation.
41:13
Speaker 1: After a quick break, we're back with more from Rick
41:17
Speaker 1: Ruben and Malcolm Gladwell. There's a passage there that I
41:21
Speaker 1: really love what you're talking about. Sometimes there is a
41:24
Speaker 1: musician who you'll listen to when they're trying something radically new,
41:29
Speaker 1: remember this, and you're baffled by it the first time
41:32
Speaker 1: you listen, and baffled the second time, and you keep
41:34
Speaker 1: listening and keep listening, and then finally become something you
41:37
Speaker 1: can't live without. And I was wondering, was there someone
41:40
Speaker 1: in mind when you several the first My first experience
41:45
Speaker 1: of that was a group called Trouble Funk. In the
41:48
Speaker 1: early days of hip hop, when I was in high school,
41:52
Speaker 1: the only place you could hear hip hop was once
41:54
Speaker 1: a week, one hour show on WHBI called Mister Magic's
42:00
Speaker 1: Rap Attack, and that was the only and I recorded it.
42:03
Speaker 1: I cassette recorded it every week, as did all the
42:06
Speaker 1: other hip hop heads in my high school, and you know,
42:09
Speaker 1: maybe the six of us, and we would record that
42:12
Speaker 1: every week and then that would be all we would
42:14
Speaker 1: listen to all week because there were at this point
42:16
Speaker 1: in time, there really were no hip hop records available
42:20
Speaker 1: to buy. There may have been the sugar Hill Gangs
42:23
Speaker 1: Rappers Delight, but that was the only one. Yet on
42:27
Speaker 1: this radio show he played all these songs. It's like,
42:29
Speaker 1: I don't even know where they came from, and they
42:30
Speaker 1: were all like twelve inch you know, DJ Living where
42:34
Speaker 1: I lived, it didn't exist. So I'd listen to that
42:37
Speaker 1: every week and hear whatever was going on in rap music.
42:40
Speaker 1: And again it was a very tight time because all
42:44
Speaker 1: there was was an hour and with you know, plus
42:46
Speaker 1: it had commercials in it for places like Brad's Record
42:50
Speaker 1: den in the Bronx, which is I guess where you
42:52
Speaker 1: could have bought some of those other songs that I
42:55
Speaker 1: had never gone at that time I've gone since. And
43:00
Speaker 1: one week, in the middle of these all rap songs,
43:04
Speaker 1: he played a trouble funk song, which is not rap music.
43:06
Speaker 1: It's go go music, and it's long, and the song
43:10
Speaker 1: was maybe seven or nine minutes long, So a seven
43:14
Speaker 1: or nine non rap song took up seven to nine
43:18
Speaker 1: minutes of my sixty minutes. Plus commercials removed my little
43:24
Speaker 1: bit of rap music for the week, and I was
43:26
Speaker 1: so angry, and I would every time I would listen
43:30
Speaker 1: to the cassette, I would forward through the trouble Funk
43:32
Speaker 1: song to get to the rap music. And I did this,
43:35
Speaker 1: and then one time I listened to the trouble Funk song.
43:38
Speaker 1: And then it took time, but eventually, within a couple
43:43
Speaker 1: of weeks, the only thing I was listening to on
43:45
Speaker 1: that tape was the Trouble Funk song. Yeah. So that's
43:49
Speaker 1: one example, but I'm sure there are many more. When
43:52
Speaker 1: the first first I remember the first time I heard
43:53
Speaker 1: Nine Inch Nails. I didn't like any of the industrial
43:58
Speaker 1: music I had heard up until the point of nine
44:00
Speaker 1: Inch Nails, And when I heard Nine inch Nails, my
44:03
Speaker 1: initial reaction to it was, this is that kind of
44:07
Speaker 1: music I don't like. I don't like production, I don't
44:10
Speaker 1: like those sounds. And then eventually took probably a year,
44:16
Speaker 1: nine inch Nails became my favorite group. But the things
44:19
Speaker 1: that I didn't like about it weren't the things that
44:23
Speaker 1: were good about it in the case of nine Inch Nails.
44:25
Speaker 1: In nine Nail's case, Trent's songwriting was so far superior
44:31
Speaker 1: to anyone else making that kind of music that once
44:35
Speaker 1: I could hear his songs, it didn't matter whether or
44:39
Speaker 1: not I like the style. Yeah, And then when I
44:41
Speaker 1: liked the songs, eventually I grew to even like the
44:45
Speaker 1: style because his songs made me like the style. Oh.
44:49
Speaker 1: I see. It's this interesting thing about for different kinds
44:53
Speaker 1: of experience and creative experiences, there are different thresholds. The
44:57
Speaker 1: familiar has a very low threshold. The unfamiliar has a
45:00
Speaker 1: much longer threshold. But what's interesting with that story, and
45:03
Speaker 1: it's very particular to you, is that you had the
45:06
Speaker 1: patience to wait long enough so you could reach the
45:10
Speaker 1: threshold of understanding what was what trouble Funk was doing
45:13
Speaker 1: or what Trent Resident was doing. That's unusual. So a
45:17
Speaker 1: lot of what you're talking about in this book really
45:20
Speaker 1: does seem to be things that can be taught and
45:23
Speaker 1: understood and shift your This what you're describing now is
45:27
Speaker 1: something very not impossible to teach, but very hard to teach.
45:31
Speaker 1: To persist with something you didn't like, the trouble Funk,
45:36
Speaker 1: and yet somehow you kept coming back. In one way,
45:39
Speaker 1: you didn't dismiss it. You disliked it without dismissing it.
45:42
Speaker 1: That's I guess what I'm trying to say that people
45:46
Speaker 1: when they disliked they dismiss but you didn't. I want
45:50
Speaker 1: to understand why didn't you. I may have back then,
45:55
Speaker 1: I may have dismissed it, but for whatever reason, because
45:58
Speaker 1: it was on a cassette, and because I had to
46:00
Speaker 1: keep coming back and forward when it would come on
46:02
Speaker 1: and I might be doing something else in my room,
46:05
Speaker 1: it was able to get through to me. And this
46:07
Speaker 1: again we get to the metaphysical aspect of it. The
46:10
Speaker 1: universe wanted me to hear trouble funk. That's why I
46:13
Speaker 1: was able to hear it. If it wouldn't have presented
46:16
Speaker 1: itself over and over to me, I wouldn't have So yes,
46:22
Speaker 1: I allowed it in, but it wasn't all me. I'll
46:27
Speaker 1: give you another example. It's not uncommon when I'm out
46:31
Speaker 1: and about to have someone recommend something that they think
46:33
Speaker 1: I'll like, and when they recommend it to me, I
46:36
Speaker 1: listen and it sounds like a terrible something that I
46:38
Speaker 1: don't like, the kind of thing I don't like. Whatever
46:40
Speaker 1: it is. An example would be it's not a real example,
46:43
Speaker 1: I'm hypothetical. Example is, Oh, you love this new horror movie.
46:47
Speaker 1: I don't like horror movies. There's no chance I'm going
46:49
Speaker 1: to watch a horror movie. That wouldn't work. If three
46:53
Speaker 1: different people who don't know each other all suggest to
46:57
Speaker 1: me to watch that horror movie, I will watch that
47:01
Speaker 1: horror movie, even though I know it's something I don't like.
47:04
Speaker 1: And the reason is the universe really wants me to
47:08
Speaker 1: be aware of this. People are telling me. Why are
47:10
Speaker 1: people telling me this is not for me. So that's
47:14
Speaker 1: an example of again paying attention to the signs around you.
47:18
Speaker 1: If several of your friends tell you the same thing
47:22
Speaker 1: that you initially discounted, it might be worth a look.
47:26
Speaker 1: This is funny because this goes into one of my
47:30
Speaker 1: similar to one of my little I have a rule.
47:32
Speaker 1: I have these implicit rules I carry around in my head,
47:35
Speaker 1: and one of my rules is never say somethings that
47:40
Speaker 1: you consume or see or whatever is bad. Only say
47:45
Speaker 1: I think it's bad right now. Yes? Great? And if,
47:50
Speaker 1: by the way, the whole world, social media particularly would
47:55
Speaker 1: be so greatly improved by that rule, right I don't
47:59
Speaker 1: like what you I don't like what you said right now. Yes,
48:04
Speaker 1: it's very different from saying what you said is wrong
48:08
Speaker 1: right about polar opposite, And but adopting that with art.
48:13
Speaker 1: I wonder about how many I'm talking about some of
48:16
Speaker 1: the critical community, how much criticism, how much it would
48:21
Speaker 1: change our understanding of art if critics universally followed that rule,
48:25
Speaker 1: and it was if they always acknowledged that they may
48:28
Speaker 1: be in a situation that you were in with trouble funk,
48:31
Speaker 1: that the universe wasn't there yet you weren't there yet.
48:35
Speaker 1: And also that story about trouble Funk is that you
48:38
Speaker 1: weren't looking for trouble Funk, you were looking for hip hop.
48:42
Speaker 1: So like it was an intrusion in the beginning. It
48:45
Speaker 1: wasn't a treasure. It was something that didn't belong, and
48:49
Speaker 1: it was something that didn't belong and was taking up
48:51
Speaker 1: valuable time, valuable cassette techste space. Yes, because it was
48:56
Speaker 1: only sixty minutes. Did you have the nineties back then
48:59
Speaker 1: or just the sixties? We had sixties and nineties and
49:01
Speaker 1: eventually one twenties. I remember that when twenties were huge.
49:06
Speaker 1: But that idea of building into critical assessments, some notion
49:11
Speaker 1: about probability, that my judgment is conditioned on two things.
49:17
Speaker 1: It do seem credit to me, and it is at
49:19
Speaker 1: this moment, and both of those things may not be
49:22
Speaker 1: true in some future date. I just that is so
49:25
Speaker 1: insanely liberating to me, Like, and I don't understand. Can
49:30
Speaker 1: we pass this law It says you're only allowed you
49:33
Speaker 1: must always use I think and right now in any
49:36
Speaker 1: creative judgment. Yeah. It's also related to another thing mentioned
49:41
Speaker 1: in the book, the idea of I can't do that. Yes,
49:44
Speaker 1: We never say I can't do that. You can say
49:47
Speaker 1: I haven't done that yet. Yes, yes, that is the
49:50
Speaker 1: same that functions the same way. The reason I think
49:53
Speaker 1: a book like this is so important is this is
49:56
Speaker 1: a little bit of a tangent. But I went to
49:58
Speaker 1: give a talk at a university two weeks ago, and
50:00
Speaker 1: I was to the psychology department, and I was talking
50:02
Speaker 1: to these psychologists and they were talking about mental health,
50:06
Speaker 1: and they were talking about a lot of really lovely
50:09
Speaker 1: research right now about how the language that you use
50:12
Speaker 1: to describe your feelings and emotions and traumas and things
50:17
Speaker 1: is enormously important. You know, to describe something this way
50:21
Speaker 1: or that way is not a difference in style. It
50:24
Speaker 1: is actually a difference in the way that you are processing, understanding,
50:27
Speaker 1: recovering all those kinds of things. And one of the
50:30
Speaker 1: things this book did to me was, I think this
50:34
Speaker 1: one way of understanding your book is it is in
50:37
Speaker 1: that spirit the categories that we use and the language
50:41
Speaker 1: that we bring to our understanding of creativity really really matters.
50:46
Speaker 1: Like in that section I love this that I love
50:48
Speaker 1: so much about when you're talking about all the ways
50:50
Speaker 1: you can jog someone out of being stuck when you're stuck.
50:54
Speaker 1: You don't think you don't think you can be jogged
50:57
Speaker 1: out by some change in your setting or but in
51:00
Speaker 1: truth you can. You remain acutely sensitive to the influences
51:04
Speaker 1: of your environment. And it's so hard for us to
51:08
Speaker 1: understand that the influence and impact of those kinds of
51:12
Speaker 1: framing devices and settings in language are framing devices, right,
51:18
Speaker 1: that is often what causes us to suffer unnecessarily. Absolutely.
51:24
Speaker 1: There's a teacher named Marshall Rosenberg who wrote a book
51:29
Speaker 1: which is not a great book, called Non Violent Communication,
51:33
Speaker 1: and he's a great teacher, but he's not a great writer,
51:35
Speaker 1: and he passed recently unfortunately. But I would suggest people
51:40
Speaker 1: if they're interested in Marshall Rosenberg, there is an audio
51:43
Speaker 1: called speaking Piece that is better than the book, and
51:48
Speaker 1: then watch videos of him on YouTube, just because the book.
51:54
Speaker 1: I found the book hard to understand, but it's basically
51:57
Speaker 1: all about this. The language of our culture is violent,
52:01
Speaker 1: and it's not just violent towards each other, it's violent
52:04
Speaker 1: towards ourselves. Every time we say I should have done that,
52:09
Speaker 1: When you say I should, it's called a make wrong.
52:13
Speaker 1: So by saying I should have done it means I
52:16
Speaker 1: was wrong. This is the right way to do it
52:18
Speaker 1: when at the time you were doing the best you could.
52:21
Speaker 1: So so when when at the time you're doing the
52:24
Speaker 1: best you can, to make yourself wrong isn't helpful. Yeah,
52:28
Speaker 1: And there's a whole list of trigger words and ways
52:33
Speaker 1: of sharing a vocabulary of feeling that helps us better communicate.
52:39
Speaker 1: And when we communicate better, we tend to get along better.
52:43
Speaker 1: It's beautiful, beautiful teaching. Yeah. A couple other smaller things.
52:48
Speaker 1: There's a couple of moments in this book where I
52:50
Speaker 1: scribbled in the in the margins who is Rick talking about?
52:54
Speaker 1: But there was one that I wanted you to if you,
52:57
Speaker 1: if you, if you don't mind. You talked about how
53:00
Speaker 1: you were working with an artist on a song which
53:03
Speaker 1: was a love song, and you were trying to solve
53:06
Speaker 1: the problem, and you finally solve the problem by telling
53:09
Speaker 1: the artist, don't think of a romantic partner, think of
53:12
Speaker 1: it as a devotional to God. Who is the song
53:15
Speaker 1: and who was the artist? Can you tell me? That
53:17
Speaker 1: was Johnny Cash And the song was the first time
53:20
Speaker 1: ever I saw your face. Oh my goodness, Oh that's
53:24
Speaker 1: so interesting. I know that version so well. That's totally
53:29
Speaker 1: blowing my mind because that's what it listens, like, Yeah,
53:33
Speaker 1: oh my god, it's genius. Rick, that is genius. And
53:36
Speaker 1: it was also Oh and I interviewed Roger mcgwimney other
53:39
Speaker 1: day and he talked about the first Bird single was
53:44
Speaker 1: mister Camberine Man and out of the Blue. He said, Yeah,
53:49
Speaker 1: when I sang it in the studio, no one knows this,
53:51
Speaker 1: but I sang it as a devotional to God. I said,
53:55
Speaker 1: but the lyrics aren't about that. I was like, yeah,
53:57
Speaker 1: I know, but that's how I was able to sing
54:00
Speaker 1: it and feel it, and it blew my mind. Oh,
54:04
Speaker 1: that's really interesting. This is why I miss liner notes
54:07
Speaker 1: so much. I feel like this is the function of
54:10
Speaker 1: but rat those two facts about first time I saw
54:13
Speaker 1: your face and mister Tamory Man, those both changed the
54:18
Speaker 1: radically change the way you hear those songs. Yes, the
54:22
Speaker 1: Cash song makes way more sense. I've always not understood
54:26
Speaker 1: why I found that song so powerful. Yes, it really
54:30
Speaker 1: in the context of all those ones, it's one of
54:32
Speaker 1: the ones that it pops in this kind of strange
54:36
Speaker 1: way and it's haunting in the way you don't And
54:39
Speaker 1: now I understand why he's singing it. With a completely
54:41
Speaker 1: different intention than I imagined. Yeah, it's and if you
54:45
Speaker 1: listen to the original song, it's unbelievable. Or when I
54:48
Speaker 1: say the original, the popular version, because the popular version
54:51
Speaker 1: is not the original either. You know, it was written
54:54
Speaker 1: by Ewan McCall and it's an Irish folk song. And
54:58
Speaker 1: if you've ever heard the Irish folk song version of it,
55:01
Speaker 1: it's almost like a yodel, you know, it's very unlike. Yeah,
55:05
Speaker 1: all the all the versions that we're familiar with. I
55:08
Speaker 1: realized when I read that as well, that I have
55:10
Speaker 1: a version of that, which is years and years ago.
55:13
Speaker 1: I sat down on an airplane next to a guy
55:15
Speaker 1: who happened to be reading one of my books, and
55:17
Speaker 1: I had this very very long conversation with him, and
55:21
Speaker 1: he was I still remember what he did. He opened.
55:25
Speaker 1: His job was to go around the country opening Trader Joe's.
55:28
Speaker 1: He was coming from New York. They were opening a
55:30
Speaker 1: store like in Brooklyn or something, and he'd just been
55:32
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn for a month, lived in Atlanta, had two kids.
55:37
Speaker 1: It was by thirty eight years old, business school degree,
55:41
Speaker 1: I think maybe not. Anyway, I had a lovely chat
55:44
Speaker 1: with him and I realized, oh, that's my reader, and
55:47
Speaker 1: every time I'm stuck, I think about him. Beautiful. It's
55:50
Speaker 1: for him. He was beautiful, and he said because he
55:53
Speaker 1: only read. He told me, he said, I'm very very busy.
55:55
Speaker 1: I teach Sunday school, I'm a coach in my kids
55:58
Speaker 1: little league. Going to have this job which is very demanding.
56:00
Speaker 1: I have time to read three books a year. And
56:03
Speaker 1: I realized, oh, and he's chosen one of mine. I'm
56:07
Speaker 1: one of his three, which is like phenomenally flattering thing.
56:11
Speaker 1: And I realize, Oh, if I can keep being one
56:14
Speaker 1: of his three books every year, then I I will succeed.
56:18
Speaker 1: Beautiful and the beautiful about him all the time, He
56:21
Speaker 1: was like, A yeah, really really, but it is it's
56:24
Speaker 1: insanely liberating to know that's what it's for, right, Yes,
56:30
Speaker 1: the fact that you randomly got a sign that seat
56:36
Speaker 1: he happened to be reading your book on that particular flight. Yeah,
56:41
Speaker 1: it could be it's all a coincidence. Yet it's what
56:44
Speaker 1: you needed to hear to be able to keep doing
56:46
Speaker 1: what you've been doing for all these years. Since then
56:50
Speaker 1: maybe it's accidental, who knows. That's that's that's the points,
56:54
Speaker 1: Like these things happen all the time. Yeah, maybe they're
56:59
Speaker 1: all accidents. It's fine, It doesn't matter if they are
57:02
Speaker 1: or not. But if they happen, and if you can
57:06
Speaker 1: use that information like you do, we all win. Yeah,
57:11
Speaker 1: all to the better or one last thing, the last
57:15
Speaker 1: thing I underlined in your book, page three sixty five,
57:20
Speaker 1: and I was like, wait, I didn't expect this. Rich
57:23
Speaker 1: was hold on, let's let me just go there. And also,
57:26
Speaker 1: I don't know why in retrospect I found it so surprising,
57:30
Speaker 1: but you say, when I work with artists, we make
57:33
Speaker 1: an agreement, we continue the process until reaching the point
57:36
Speaker 1: where we are all happy with the work. All in
57:42
Speaker 1: is talisized in that. And I was like, I realized,
57:46
Speaker 1: and maybe this is because how badly I needed your book.
57:49
Speaker 1: It never occurred to me that there would be art
57:52
Speaker 1: on the level that you have been a part of
57:54
Speaker 1: creating without dissent. I just I was just shocked. I
57:59
Speaker 1: was like, wait, You've done all this for so many years,
58:03
Speaker 1: with so many different people under an explicit promise of unanimity.
58:09
Speaker 1: Blew my mind. They'll be descent along the way, But
58:14
Speaker 1: that just means we haven't gone far enough. It just
58:16
Speaker 1: means if you like it, and I don't it's not
58:20
Speaker 1: good enough. And if I like it and you don't,
58:22
Speaker 1: it's not good enough. And if we can get to
58:25
Speaker 1: the point where we both love it, it's probably better
58:28
Speaker 1: than the one that one of us loved and the
58:30
Speaker 1: other didn't. And if there are five people in a band,
58:34
Speaker 1: and if three of them like it and two of
58:37
Speaker 1: them don't, and you get to the point where all
58:39
Speaker 1: five of them like it, chances are it's better. And
58:43
Speaker 1: that's just that you're done. Yes, yeah, no, it was
58:47
Speaker 1: just like such a kind of I just thought of that.
58:50
Speaker 1: That idea that what you're building in the end is
58:53
Speaker 1: a kind of harmony among all the all of the voices,
58:56
Speaker 1: is a beautiful way to end a very very beautiful book.
59:01
Speaker 1: There's a part in the book where we talk about cooperation,
59:03
Speaker 1: which is exactly this working with other people. Historically, I'll
59:08
Speaker 1: say most times that people work together, there's a rivalry
59:12
Speaker 1: of ideas. Each person is arguing to win the debate
59:18
Speaker 1: to have their idea be the one that's chosen. And
59:22
Speaker 1: I'm saying that's not productive, and the best way to
59:26
Speaker 1: do it is for everyone to demonstrate their ideas. It's
59:29
Speaker 1: even better if they're demonstrated in a blind way where
59:32
Speaker 1: we don't even know whose ideas what. We just hear
59:36
Speaker 1: the ideas and then everybody picks and usually it's pretty obvious,
59:42
Speaker 1: and it really does happen naturally. And it's only through
59:46
Speaker 1: the ego of wanting it to be my way that
59:50
Speaker 1: they're these conflicts. But if everyone is working together for
59:55
Speaker 1: it to be the best that it can be, and
59:58
Speaker 1: if we respect each other enough to know if I
1:00:00
Speaker 1: think it's the best it can be and you think
1:00:01
Speaker 1: it can be better, I'll go on that ride and
1:00:05
Speaker 1: same the other way. Ultimately we get to beautiful place. Rick.
1:00:10
Speaker 1: That is lovely, And thank you for writing such a
1:00:14
Speaker 1: beautiful book. May many, many many people enjoy it as
1:00:17
Speaker 1: much as I have. Thank you so much. I really
1:00:19
Speaker 1: appreciate your eating it. It's fantastic. It makes me happy.
1:00:25
Speaker 1: I want to thank Rick on the Record for taking
1:00:27
Speaker 1: the time to put his philosophies around creativity in a book.
1:00:32
Speaker 1: The Creative Act, A Way of Being is out now.
1:00:35
Speaker 1: Be sure to check it out. You can subscribe to
1:00:37
Speaker 1: our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast.
1:00:40
Speaker 1: We can find all of our new episodes. You can
1:00:43
Speaker 1: follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is
1:00:46
Speaker 1: produced with Helpful, Leah Rose, Jason Gambrel, Ben Holiday, Eric Sandler,
1:00:51
Speaker 1: Jennifer Sanchez. Our editor Sophie Crane. Our executive producer is
1:00:56
Speaker 1: Mio LaBelle Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries.
1:01:01
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1:01:21
Speaker 1: at our theme musics by Kenny beats On Justin Richmond