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Good and talk my sexy lady munchkins. This is Tim Ferris in a very echo laden wooden room on an island and we'll be hearing more about that in a future episode of Chris Saka. But in the meantime, I am so excited to present an episode that was very very physically demanding.
And this conversation you are about to listen to is with none other than Rick Rubin and if you don't recognize that name. Well, the bio could seem almost fabricated. It is so impressive. So he has been called the most important producer. That's music producer of the last 20 years by MTV.
And in 2007, he appeared on times 100 most influential people in the world list. Why would he appear on such a list? Well, if you could imagine, say in the book world that you named every author, you could think of off the top of your hand, all the name brand folks and then found out that one agent and one editor were responsible for all of them.
You'd be dumbfounded and that's pretty much the case when you look at the discography of Rick Rubin. So he was the former co president of Columbia Records. He was co founder along with Russell Simmons of Deaf Jam Records and helped popularize hip hop music by working with the Beastie Boys, L.O. Quole J. Public Enemy Run DMC, for instance.
And I'm not going to give the whole list because it's too long, but here are just some of the artists that he has worked with Red Hutch, Shelley Peppers, Beastie Boys, which I already mentioned, Johnny Cash, Slayer, Jay Z, and he appeared in the 99 problems video.
Danzig, Dixie Chicks, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Black Sabbath, Slipknot, Metallica, ACDC, Erasmith, Lincoln Park, Weezer, the cult, Neil Diamond, Mick Jagger, System of a Down. It goes on and on and the genres span from, say, Lady Gaga to Zizi Top to Shakira and everything in between Kanye West, M&M, you name it. So he's a fascinating guy, very much a Zen monk in his temperament, and I've gotten to know Rick over the last few years.
And he insisted that we do the podcast in his sauna, which is a barrel sauna that makes your head melt. It is so intense. So this is a very challenging episode. I hope you get some laughs out of it. And you will realize very quickly as you have to listen intently to Rick's answers.
So Rick has sort of layers behind layers behind layers. So he'll tell you something and you're like, wow, I'm not sure I actually get what that means. And then months later it'll dawn on you. Oh my God, there are so many different depths to that answer. I didn't pick up on it the first time around. So you will have to interpret and ponder a lot of what Rick brings up. And I hope you enjoy this. I enjoyed it, although I nearly had heatstroke. And without further ado, here is Rick Rubin.
Well, almost without further ado, folks, one more ado. I forgot to mention if you are interested in music, be sure to check out the drumming episode of the Tim Veris experiment, which is my TV show. It's been the number one TV season on iTunes now for some time.
Amazingly, but if you go to iTunes.com forward slash Tim Ferris to ours two S's you can see a bunch of bonus footage all the episodes, including the drumming episode where I am trained by Stuart Copeland, the founding drummer of the police widely considered one of the top 10 drummers of all time is teaching method resembles doc from back to the future.
It is an amazing experience. I only had a few days with the gun against my head to train to then play to a sold out auditorium as the drummer for forerunner, which was a nurse breakdown inducing to say the least so you can check it out iTunes.com forward slash Tim Ferris two ours and two S's and now here is Rick Rubin.
Rick, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. And this setting is somewhat unique and I've been looking forward to it slash fearing it ever since you first mentioned to me, where are we right now? We are sitting in a sauna. We are sitting in a very hot barrel sauna and I was told that was one of the conditions for having this conversation.
And it's such an impressive barrel sauna. It's indoors that I wanted to get the specs for it when I first saw it and you have a heater that has to be what four times the size of the off the shelf heater that would go into such a heater. It's a much bigger heated and for the size of the room. And I'm sitting on the floor because I have such little confidence in my ability to withstand heat compared to you, but we do have the the alternate, which is the bath just outside of this door.
And you and I have gone back and forth, of course, quite a few times with this type of cycling, but what is right outside of this door? Metal tub filled with ice. It is a metal tub about four feet, three and a half feet off the ground, a full of ice. It looks like if you were to say what a horse trough times two, something like that. Something like that. It's got to be maximum low fifties, something like that. I think it's about today. It's probably about 38 degrees.
Oh my god. All right. So we have a, we have two mics on the floor. I'm hoping won't explode or meltdown. We have the age for in the age six. And we have water ice heat. Nothing could go wrong. I'm looking forward to it. So Rick, I was, I was hoping perhaps we could start with a discussion of your physical transformation. And I'd love for you to perhaps just describe to people. I mean, you're in my mind, the sort of the picture of fitness in a lot of ways now.
And we've been paddle boarding before and you, similarly, what my ass every time we go out, I'm always impressed. There are a lot of things contributing to my lack of competency and fear there. But where were you and how did you end up undergoing this physical transformation? Because you've lost how much weight at this point? How much fat fat I was in. I lost at the peak moment. I lost the between 135 and 140 pounds.
And I always thought I was eating a healthy diet. I was vegan for 20-something years. And all organic vegan really, you know, very strict with what I ate. And doing that, I got up to 318 pounds. And I read a book by a guy named Stu Middlman who ran a thousand miles in 11 days. And I remember reading that and just thinking, wow, it's like I can barely walk down the block. And this guy ran a thousand miles in 11 days and it just seems so inspiring.
So I read his book and in the book he talked about a guy named Phil Maffatone who I'd never heard of before. And he said in Stu's book he gets to the part where he said, well, I met this doctor Phil Maffatone and he changed the way I trained and he changed the way I ate. And he changed all these things. And then all of a sudden I was able to do all these things. And he's like, okay, I want to find Phil Maffatone. So I found him online. I sent him an email and he was living in Florida.
And I asked if, you know, I could become his patient. And he said that he had just stopped treating patients and retired from being a doctor. He's like, that's terrible news. But the reason he decided to stop being a doctor was he decided to become a songwriter. And I said, oh, it's interesting. I mean, fun you should mention that. Yeah, like I'm involved in songwriting and the music world. Maybe we can trade.
Maybe I can help you with your songwriting and you can help me with my health and fitness. And he liked the idea and we ended up meeting a few months later and then met several times. And became friends. And then he eventually ended up moving into my house and lived in my house for about two years. And I did everything he said. And I got much healthier. My metabolism got turned on. The hours that I was sleeping shifted. I for most of my life I stayed up all night and slept most of the day.
And when I was in college I never took a class before 3 p.m. because I knew I wouldn't go. And this was at NYU. At NYU. So I'm used to living a night lifestyle. Even I remember even in high school I missed. I missed the first three classes of school so many times that you know it was really an issue. But it was just I learned to be up on. I've learned to be a late night person. And I'm and it kind of suited the music life like it worked well with my life.
And one of the first things that feels suggested when we got together was I slept with blackout lines. And I usually didn't leave the house until the sun was setting. And he said, from now on when you wake up I want you to go outside. As soon as you wake up open the blinds and go outside, negative possible and be in the sun for 20 minutes. And when he said it, I remember thinking he it'd be the same as him saying I want you to jump off this this ledge.
You know like it sounded like the most terrifying based on the way I lived my life that just sounded terrible. Right. What time was he recommending that you wake up? Well, he by the time we started it kept moving down and it went from three o'clock to probably noon to 11 to 9. And it just sort of happened naturally. And he knew that if I immediately went in the sun that naturally my body would want to start waking up earlier and going to sleep earlier.
It was the first time ever that my skating rhythm was kicking in. It never was I never knew that there was such a thing or knew what that was. So he got me to connect to that. And I did everything he said, changed my diet, started eating some animal protein. I was, as I said, a devout vegan. I ate pigs and fish with the first things that I would eat. And even then I never liked eggs and I never liked fish. So I ate them more like medicine.
And slowly I got healthier and healthier and healthier and more and more fit. But I was still very heavy and I was heavy for a long time. What age were you when you brought him into your house or how long ago was this? Yeah, I'm gonna guess. I'm gonna guess. I was probably late 30s. And how, if you don't mind me asking, yeah, like 10 years ago, 10, 12 years ago, something like that.
So you were changing your diet. What were some of the other things that he had you change that he had me do 20 minutes of low heart rate exercise, aerobic activity every day. And he had me start wearing a heart rate monitor. And my heart rate, I would get into, you know, for me, walk amp of flight of stairs would be an aerobic activity. So I had to really watch what I was doing to stay. I'm an anaerobic activity. So I had to work hard to stay in the anaerobic space.
Or the aerobic space, you know, in the aerobic space. Below that, you got an auto. You got it. You got it. You got it. I'm gonna take off all your clothes. My hands burn and holding the mic. I tried to wrap them in napkins. I remember he did mention those mic at hot. Sorry, I digress. So to stay within the aerobic threshold, you had to work very hard.
I guess. And again, my health changed, but I still stayed very heavy. And after two years of time, I probably lost a little bit of weight, but not much. But I was much healthier and much more alive and much better than I was before. And after that period of time, Phil said to me, you know, anyone else who made the changes you made out of everyone he's ever dealt with,
99% out of 100 people. You know, 99 out of 100 people would have dropped all their weight. For some reason, there's something else going on with you that's holding on to the weight. So, and so I just accepted that that's how it was, but at least I felt a lot better. My life was a lot better. I was a lot happier. And then I'm a mentor of mine, whose name is Mo Austin. He's a guy who ran one of brother's records for 35 years. He worked for Frank Sinatra, real inspiring guy in music business.
He suggested, I went up to entry them one day and he said, you know, Rick, I'm really worried about you. I know you watch what you eat and I know that you, you know, walk on the beach every day and exercise, but you're really getting big and I'm worried. So, he said, I'm going to get the name of a nutritionist and I want you to go to my guy and I want you to do whatever he says.
And I said, okay, fine. And I knew it wouldn't work because I knew that my whole life, I had a weight problem. My whole life, I've tried every diet and nothing ever worked. But I, you know, I would do anything for most. So I went again, open-minded, but not believing it would work.
And the nutritionist put me on a high protein low calorie diet and I'd never done a low calorie diet before. And over 14 months, I lost 130 pounds, 135 pounds. Yeah, and it changed that changed everything. And I, I will say if I did that, I would have been a little bit more than I did. If I didn't do the work with Phil first, I don't believe that the diet would work. It was sort of a combination of things in order. It was like the metabolism got turned on.
I started being into an incircating rhythm. I was stimulating my aerobic system every day and was, I built a base and then with the right diet was able to drop the weight quickly.
Well, it's so interesting about that. And I have a couple of more questions about what the nutritionist prescribed, but is that in my experience with say tens of thousands of readers following various diets, including a slow carb diet, it makes perfect sense because you were, you were adding things in in the beginning as opposed to having everything prohibited.
You're adding elements in and then once you've added those lifestyle components, at that point, you were able to to change the diet and then experience the wow, that is hot. It is hot. I was going to say even with even with Phil though, I changed my diet. It just was, you know, like almond butter was something that I was allowed to eat because in Phil's world, almond butter is healthy. So I probably ate a third of a jar of almond butter every day. That's my issue with things like almond butter.
Yeah, it was just almond foods you had. Exactly. So the idea of Phil has a belief and so many people have a belief that calories don't count. And I understand that. But if you eat 10,000 calories a day, you're probably going to gain weight. You're not going to lose weight. So it's like there is a point where calories do make a difference.
Oh, for sure. Yeah, I mean, there are cases where it's, if it's a question of between 4,500 and 5,000 calories, it's like, okay, yes, bourbon calories, sugar calories and fat calories are very different. But if you eat 10,000 calories of almond butter, you're going to be a bit, which I will do if I have almond butter in my house. And best not to have it in my house.
So when you lost the 130, 140 pounds over that period of time, how many of your meals, how many meals were you eating per day and how many of them were whole food versus liquid? To lose the weight, I was having seven protein shakes a day that were high protein. They were like egg protein, J-Rob egg protein was one of them. Terrors way, way protein was another. And did you alternate those or combine them? No, at first I did only egg and then the way came later.
And at first I couldn't tolerate the way for some reason that the way made me uncomfortable once I lost a bunch of weight, I could eat the way. So egg was first. That makes that also makes sense. I mean, having any amount of lactose or dairy reintroduced after being vegan for such a long period of time.
A lot of people have noticed to say try to reintroduce animal proteins, feel sick, but it's because they lack the enzymes at that point after, say, 10 years I'm not consuming meat to digest it properly. Do you want to do an ice round or do you want me to do an ice round? Because I feel like I'm getting close. Yeah, I'd say why don't you do an ice round and then I'll do an ice round because you're at higher elevation. I'm sitting on the floor for those people who can't see.
Yes, no joke. I got even 200. It's not even 200. It's about 190. Holy crap, 195 degrees in here. All right. So. Hopefully we have 220. Oh, good Lord 220. That's, yeah, that's a well done steak right there. It's very well done. All right. I will hang out in here and I'll see out there in a minute. I'm holding both mics now sitting on the floor to contain this water and I have a Russian spa hat on. They make you look somewhat like the Kebler elves and mine has a lion on it.
And I have to only guess the Cyrillic says spa line, which is appropriate because I think of myself as a spa line. Unrelated note folks, if I do dive heat stroke in here, it's been lovely knowing you and I'm going to press stop now to save my breath for the ice round. We'll be back. And we're back refreshed after some. I think we're getting colder adding ice, but it was at about 44 degrees Fahrenheit. So Rick, you had mentioned this, this gent or doctor or lady from UCLA. Who was that?
The doctor at UCLA who helped me lose the weights name was Dr. Heber, H E B E R. And he really, he's of everything I tried. Nothing ever worked until Dr. Heber. And do you still follow the general diet or have you been able to after losing that weight? Modify that? I've modified it in that I still eat a lot of protein and don't have any grain. Yeah, really not no carbs and keep.
Well, I probably don't restrict calories as much as I did in the weight loss phase. I'm aware of it. I'm aware of them and don't let them get out of control. You've developed a sensitivity awareness. And for a period of time, I used an app. I think it was called fitness pal, if I can remember correctly.
Where you put in all the food that you eat and it tells you the calories and just kind of keep a log. And what was just helpful about it is if you pay attention to calories for let's say a year, you then really have a sense of where the calories are hidden and just have better habits. Oh, absolutely. Just like if you're trying to get into cicatosis and we're following something like that, can's diet, for instance, you develop a sensitivity to hidden sugars.
Absolutely. And sort of net carbohydrate. So I'd love to shift gears a little bit and ask you about music producing. Well, let's, let's perhaps take you in a step back and ask when, when people ask you what you do, how do you answer that question? I don't know how to answer that question. You don't have a answer. So what does a, let's perhaps start with definitions and what does a music producer do for those people not familiar with?
I don't know what I don't know what music producers do. I can tell you what I do. Okay, let's do that. Which is I help get the best performance from an artist, help, help them pick their material or develop their material and help set the course for the direction of what they're doing creatively. And how did you end up initially becoming involved with that type of work?
I don't know how you usually do and I guess you can do it in many different ways. Some people might start as a recording engineer and then graduate to record producer. Some people might be successful artists and then transition into being record producers. In my case, I was just really a fan of music and I come out from the point of view of being a fan. What did you study at NYU?
I started as a philosophy major and then after two years I switched to film and television because one of my friends was film and television and it just seemed like more fun. Was it more fun? It was. I think it's Natalie Mayner, the Dixie Chicks. It's said and this is paraphrasing but that you let music be discovered, not manufactured. What does she mean by that or what do you think she means by that?
Well, we have a whole process to pick up. You know, it's different for a re-artist but we try to go on a journey and let the artist discover who they are and in the process. The best art comes from them. It's like getting to be their true selves and trying to take away all of the... There's so many things that get in the way of the artistic process. For example, any commercial considerations usually get in the way.
If you're thinking about making music that's going to get on the radio, chances are you won't be using your own voice to its most potent, most singular, you know, finding what your personal gift is. So that's one of it. That's one of many things. It's getting closer to the source and not being distracted by any nonsense that would get in the way of the art being as good as it could be. What are other things that get in the way of artists producing their best work?
What are the people concerned about? What are the people think? Competition? Wanting to do better than someone else? Let's see what are the things. Self-doubt. Ego? What manifestation of Ego? If someone thinks that everything they do is great, they might not be willing to edit themselves enough or work hard enough at...
If I can write 10 great songs in five minutes each, those are the best songs and I'm just going to record them and put them out. And those might not be as good as the ones that you develop over a long period of time. That might be an egotistical artist who thinks everything I do is just great. When you have the opposite, when you have an artist who is doubting themselves, how do you help them through that? Or what do you recommend?
I have a lot. I mean, I just speak personally. I have continuous self-doubt as a record. Most artists do. That's more the more typically self-doubt is the case. I think if your goal is to be better than you were, you know, if you're competing only with yourself, it's more realistic. It's a more realistic place to be. You know, if you say, I don't want to write songs unless I could write songs better than the Beatles, it's a hard road.
But if you say, I want to write a better song tomorrow than the song I wrote yesterday, that's a realistic... that's something that can be done. And if you write a better song than you wrote yesterday, every day, then you continue to get better and better and better. And it really is small steps. And also trying not to think too much because so much of it is more of a... The job is... it's more emotion and heart work than it is head work.
Like the head comes in after to look at what the heart has presented and to organize it. But the initial inspiration comes from a different place and it's not the head and it's not an intellectual activity. It's more of a... it's more inspiration. So the key first is to really do whatever activities you can to tune into inspiration and things like meditating help. And diving into art in general doesn't have to be even your modality.
I mean, going to museums and looking at beautiful art can help you write better songs. Reading great novels, reading great works of art. Seeing a great movie could inspire a great song. Reading poetry.
So it's a being in submerging yourself in great art. And the more you can do to get out of the mode of competition where you're looking at what other people are doing and wanting to be better than them or being inspired by them, the only way to use the inspiration of other artists is if you submerge yourself in the greatest works of all time, which is a great thing to do.
If you listen to the greatest music ever made, that would be a better way to work through to find your own voice to matter today, then listening to what's on the radio now and thinking I want to compete with this. Right. So it's more like stepping back and looking at a bigger picture than what's going on at the moment. Speaking of someone who is not very well versed with music, I don't feel highly literate when it comes to music. I enjoy music.
But hanging out with you and Neil Strauss, certainly I feel like I'm lacking perhaps vocabulary to and a lot of references. Are there any for people who feel like they're in my shoes? Are there any particular albums that you would you could offer as a starting point, not the end all be all, but just as a starting point for appreciating a good world class contemporary music,
meaning not necessarily could be classical music, but are there any recommendations? I would just start by listening to the the greats, which you can look at like if you look at search online for Mojo's top 100 albums of all time or Rolling Stones, top 100 albums or any trusted sources, top 100 albums and start listening to what, you know, what are considered the greats.
It's a good place to start. And are there any particular stories that you have that come to mind of experiences outside of the medium of music, saying a specific film or a specific trip or a specific book that catalyzed a breakthrough in the work that you did?
Let me think about that for a sec. Yeah, I wouldn't say breakthrough, because it's a more it's a more personal thing than that. So it doesn't come as much from the outside, but I get inspiration every day, you know, every day from either what I'm reading or watching a sunset or the, you know, you know, noticing the amount of birds that fly overhead, what they look like in their different shapes and paying attention or hearing the sound of the waves.
All of those things speak to me, looking at the horizon. They all speak to me and so much of the work we try to do is to create something with the natural balance. That we see in nature that that's sort of the perfect version of, you know, if you can make a piece of music that can take your breath away as much as a beautiful sunset, you've done well.
So, you know, any opportunity to see dolphins swim or see, you know, see something beautiful that's not your run of the mill experience or even could be a beautiful cloud filled sky. Or, you know, on a particularly clear night when you can really see lots of stars, those are, they're all inspiring things and help turn on the muse of recognizing kind of a greater vision of either what's possible or what's beautiful.
Then, you know, something that you see in a magazine that's, you know, advertisement that there to entice you to buy it. And was, can you talk a little bit about the when you realized that you were good at working with musicians or music? When did that happen? Yeah, when did that happen? And, I know there are any particular, whether its instances or artists or you're like, wow, I think I might actually have a knack for this.
Well, I started right from the beginning, I started having a lot of success and it, I did it. I really made music as a hobby while I was in college. And thought I would have a real job and then I would make music as my hobby. And, and I thought I would have a job to support my music habit. And then, the first album I produced was by Ella Cool J. He was 16 at the time. And I think it cost us about $8,000 to record and sold 900,000 copies.
And that was a good start. And the second one was BST Boys, which I think sold, I don't know, 9 or 10 million. And from then on, like just a lot of records sold a lot right from the beginning.
So, it took a long time for me to understand that that doesn't always happen, you know, it's an unusual series of events. But after a long time of having a lot working with a lot of artists and seeing a lot of success, it, it became clear that I could support artists and doing good work and people seem to appreciate it. What are, what are some of the ways that, what are some of the things or characteristics that make you perhaps different from other people who work with musicians?
It's hard to know, because I don't know so well what other people do, but I don't think we do the same thing. And I think there are some producers who make beats for artists. And there was a time that I did that early in my career, I did that. Still on occasion, we'll do it if, you know, if it makes sense with the project that I'm doing.
I think it's unusual that I get to work in lots of different genres and get to make heavy metal records and rap records and country records and spiritual records, all different kinds. I think that's unusual and just lucky. And I think that might come from the fact that I come from it from that fan perspective. And I like all kinds of music and I get to examine them and the fact that I've been able to work on so many different kinds of music over such a long period of time.
It gives me a good perspective because when I come into a new project, it's rare that I'm going to the studio to work on another of what I was just working on. So let's say, for example, I was a heavy metal producer and all I did for the last 30 years was to do heavy metal. I don't know how fresh those records would be today.
But now if I get to produce a heavy metal record, like the last one I did, I guess would be the last black Sabbath album. It was really fun because I hadn't made a record like that in a long time and it was a brand new experience. That's 13. 13 was the last one yet. And that was a great experience. Really fun. Never worked with those guys before and we had a great time.
So I'm not sure I ever told you the first time I ever saw the name Rick Rubin was actually on the inside of an audio cassette. It was the first heavy metal album I ever bought, which was Rain and Blood. Oh, it's a good one. And I just remember that's a really good not having is is be pre internet, of course. And I was just told by my friends, you have to you will love heavy metal. You should listen to heavy metal.
And I asked what the hardest heavy metal was that could possibly be found and Rain and Blood came to the lips of those I asked. And I just remember listening to you, I think it's Angel of Death, the first track on that and going, oh my god, what have I gotten myself into? And just fell in love with the band, but how did you go from hip hop to say slayer? It's stylistically so different. It seemed, but how did slayer come about?
Yeah, as I said, it because I was coming about it with no technical skill. It's not like I knew about hip hop or I knew about heavy metal. I was a fan of music and I loved heavy metal. I loved hip hop. So it was more that coming at it from this appreciation. And as a fan knowing what I wanted to hear and knowing that, you know, especially in the case of slayer, slayer were an underground metal band who had two albums out on an independent label.
And we're kind of considered, you know, the heaviest band in the world. And when we signed them, there was this terrible fear that slayer now doing their first album for a major label. It was going to, you know, they were going to sell out. Get water down. Yeah. And which happens all the time. And then the album that we made, right? And blood was much harder and worse than anything that we've ever heard before.
And it really did come from that, you know, I liked, I always liked extreme things and they were extreme. And I wanted to maximize it. I didn't want to water down. You know, the idea of watering things down for a mainstream audience, I don't think it applies. I think people want things that are really passionate and the best version of that they could be. And often the best version they could be is not for everybody.
The best art divides the audience where you, you know, if you put out a record and half the people who hear it absolutely love it and half the people who hear it absolutely hate it, you've done well because it's pushing that boundary. If everyone thinks, oh, that's pretty good. Why bother making it, you know, it's sort of doesn't, it doesn't mean much.
It's lost in the slipstream of time almost as soon as it comes out. I'm going to do a round of ice if that's all right. Absolutely. All right. Let's do some more ice and we'll be back. Okay, we are, we are back. And I'd love to talk a little bit about, say, for instance, L.O. Cool J versus Slayer is the way in which you work with those two groups of creatives or in the case of L.O. Cool J, I don't know how many people were involved on his side.
But is there a different approach when giving feedback when trying to cultivate their ability? It's really different with every single artist and it's, you spend time with the artist, you get to know them. And if you listen to people, if you really listen to what people say, usually they tell you everything. If you really listen and pay attention to what people are saying, they'll let you know a lot of stuff.
And I just really pay attention to what people say. And through that, I can then reflect back thoughts that they've told me about themselves that they don't know about themselves. And allow them to unlock those doors to, to get to the places they want to go artistically. Are there any particular examples of that or a story that you could share?
The first story that comes to mind isn't related to my music work, but it's related to our friend Neil. And just the journey that led to his new book that's about to come out started through him complaining about something going on. And his life that he thought was something that he wanted in his life. And I don't think that he knew that the thing that he wanted was making him unhappy.
And through that conversation, he decided to examine that. So that being an example, the same thing is that that's the first way to get in mind, maybe because we both know Neil. And you seem very, obviously, philosophical goal, philosophically minded, very calm. And I should thank you also you and a friend named Chase Jarvis actually is a world class photographer of the people who got me into meditation consistently with TM.
So thank you for that. But have you always been very calm and I mean, doesn't you seem very unperturbed, very unfazed by by anything that I've observed is that is, is that an illusion is or have you always been that way? I'm very lucky and then I learned to meditate when I was young. So I started meditating when I was 14 and I meditated a lot for a long time.
And through that, I think it has really even, even though I'm not always calm on the inside, it has least given me an air of calm and maybe comparative to other people I'm probably calm. I know sometimes internally I can get disrupted. What do you do when you get disrupted? I try to do something like often exercise will make me feel better meditating, make me feel better.
Ice bath is the greatest of all King of food elevators. It's just the magic. Someone ice back and forth at the end of at the end of the fourth or fifth or sixth round of being in an ice tub. There is nothing in the world that bothers you. That's true. It's very true. It's like the world's a great place. So what are the types of things that disrupt you? Are there any particular patterns?
I would say usually work things or political related, political type things related to work could really bother me. They don't fit into my realm of the way I look at life. So I get surprised by those things. Just having to manage the various relationships within a label or something like that. Yeah, I would say more like dealing with business people can often like, well, you really think that you really want to do things that way. It's surprising.
How have you designed what are some of the ways in which you've designed your life to say not have to contend with as much of that as possible? Well, I always really try to focus my life around art. So I consider my job, even though there are other parts of my job, I consider my real job. The reason I'm here is to sit with artists, talk to artists, help artists be better at what they do.
And if I'm not doing it with an artist, I'm doing it with something else. My goal is to make things as good as they could be, either make whatever it is. I mean, to the point of where I've gone into friend visit friends in their office and I rearranged the furniture in their office because I've been saying.
It would really look better if you move these things this way and you could see the sun coming in through the window here and if you open these blinds and turn this around, this place would feel much more comfortable. When you think of the word successful, who is the first person who comes to mind? It's not such an easy question to answer because I mean so many things going to what makes someone successful. What are some of those things?
I would start with somebody who's happy. I know a great many people who are financially successful and not happy. So I would rule all of them out and start with. Let's see. It's not coming to you. I have to think about that and we'll come back to it. How do you this is a big question, but I'll ask a very self interested question. So I'm 37. Of course we've both spent a lot of time running Neil.
I'm not going to spoil the secret because Neil would have gone to apoplectic shock, but the next book I'm looking forward to. I just thought of a couple of examples of people who are successful. Let's do it. A good example of someone who's successful is Don Wildman, our friend from the beach. Who might still have not met.
He's 80 years old. He's 23 pull ups on the beach the other day. He's in the senior Olympics. He retired in his 50s because he wanted to spend his days enjoying life and exercising. He's one of the most inspiring, uplifting, great, successful people on so many levels. He'd be probably the first one I think of. Laird's another great example of someone who I would think of as successful. He's a successful human being. And this Laird Hamilton. Laird Hamilton.
For those people who are not familiar with Laird pretty much I'd say uncontroversially thought of as the king of big wave surfing among other things. Yeah, I mean, it's not uncommon to hear him refer to as the greatest athlete on earth. He's real, you know, so many athletes of so many disciplines think of him as the best athlete. Also a king of steamer and ice bats. I first started doing the sauna and the ice with Laird. Anyway, successful someone who enjoys their life is great at what they do.
He's curious and continually pushing forward and wanting to be better than they were yesterday without a without beating themselves up about it. And what are that? Don is his name has come up so many times. What are some of the things that you've learned or picked up from him and adopt for yourself? He's just seems so positive and so nothing it seems like nothing gets to him.
He's he can he can push through anything that's in his way and all the time with a smile on his face and a positive outlook and a curious nature. You know how I don't know how many people that are 80 that every time you meet them, talk tell you teach you something about something new they've learned because they're so curious about a great article or this great book and you have to read this book and you have to go to see this movie and you have to do this.
And you know, we just came back from snowboarding in Alaska and you got to go see who's like unbelievable and just it's he's got a wildlife that's inspiring.
I've I've in the last I'd say three or four years, particularly after my health scare last year with Lyme disease and everything that came of that tried to surround myself not just with the extremely young athletes and performers, but for instance this Polish gentleman and his wife, both of whom are world record holders and Olympic weightlifting.
But what's what's so fascinating is how relatively injury free and mobile they still are in there and there I'd say early 60s at this point and I've tried to really tried to spend more time in the last few years modeling with those people do. Do you have a book or books that you've gifted often to other people.
There are many. The first one that comes to mind is the Dowdy Jing. It's this Stephen Mitchell translation of the Dowdy Jing that's what's great about it is it's 81 short pieces that could be could look at them as poems. That if you were to read the book today you would get one thing from it and if you pick it up in two years and read it again, it would mean something entirely different and and always on the money, you know, always what you need to read at that period of time.
So it's a it's a magic book in that way that it it always fits. I actually took this guy this is bringing back a memory I took a kind of entire class on the Dowdy Jing at Princeton when I was an undergrad in East Asian studies and it seems on some level that that book does what you do for musicians meaning it sort of reflects back truths that they were not aware of themselves or they could not verbalize themselves.
Any other books come to mind? Another one is really nice is book about meditation called wherever you though there you are, which is by John Kabat's in. It's a great it's a great book if you've never meditated and if you've been meditating for 50 years if you read if you read this book either way you will you will care more about meditation become a better meditator and just give insight into why we do it. And what the benefits are. Do you have any favorite any favorite movies or documentaries?
I watch lots of documentaries let me think what's what's favorite just watch one the other night that was spectacular new Nick cave the English well I guess he's Australian lives in England. Musician has a there's a new documentary that's an unusual documentary because it's part documentary in part I guess not we have to see it. It's called 20,000 days on earth 20,000 days on earth. Yes, so that was the last one they just really like wow how great is that.
Are there any points have you had any points of of overwhelm in your length in your in your length in your question I think the heat's getting to my head in your in your career. He's getting to me. I just want to switch hands because my hand is burning. Do you experience overwhelm or have you. Yes, I definitely experience overwhelm.
Yeah, too much going on at one time or often it's it's a self-imposed. I make it a point to always be there as best as I can be for the artists that I work with and sometimes. I can overtake my own needs and then I feel overwhelmed because I want to be there for them and then I feel like well I'm not taking care of myself so finding that balance.
What do you do in situations when you when you come to that realization when I realize it I'll usually talk to the artist about it and and explain the situation. I would say any situation that feels sticky usually through talking about it with the person that it feels sticky with almost always it eases very quickly and usually brings you closer together.
Do you explain the situation the way that you just described it to me or it's what is the actual it just depends on the case but I might say you know I feel really overwhelmed now this is what's going on with me. Can we talk about this later or can we address this is that okay or usually talk about it. Hey feeling. You tell me I'll let you call the call the rotation of the guards when we go to ice but I am I'm very curious I remember seeing your.
I think this is a fine idea I will say I will absolve myself responsibility for hot objects but the your cameo in 99 problems yes how did that come about. I produce a song for Jay and then it was time to make the video. A friend of mine Mark Romantic was a great video maker made the video and I think it was Mark's idea you said why don't we get Rick in the video and Jay agreed and then they call nest I would come and I love Jay's really great guy and I thought it would be fun.
What what are you proudest of as it relates to that track. If it comes to mind I know you've got a lot of tracks yeah I think that. Just the fact that Jay's one of the most you know important artists in the world and that that's one of his most popular songs and that we got to do together is really great. How did you become involved with that song or were you involved with the entire album.
I was involved with that song we went into the studio together he it was his last it was going to be his last album the black album has returned to the album and he asked his ten favorite producers to each do one song. And we went to the studio those the first time we work together and we we spent a week in the studio trying different things and then eventually came upon this track and in the experimentation and he loved it.
Then the words came to him sort of magically sat in the back of the room listening to the track over and over again and after about half hour jumped up and said I've got it and to the other room and did the balls. I'm without writing anything down so I've heard this about him before where at some point I heard a story that he wrote basically gibberish down on a piece of paper because someone trying to supervise him earlier in his career was so worried.
That he wasn't taking the recording session seriously but in fact he didn't write anything down at all was just to put them at ease and then freestyle the entire thing is that generally how he operates that's how he does it. That's exactly mind boggling. He's super talented and just a great great person really one of my favorite people. What do you like about him?
Everything he's humble he's honest he's a deep soul you know he looks at things deeply understands them deeply is caring and he's just a you know first great person. I think I'm gonna get in the ice. All right. Time to move to the ice. Oh he paused. That was right. Crazy is right. It does that up. That was a particularly chilly ice bath. It's now lower than the minimum measurement which is 40 degrees so I feel like all my skin below my neck is just contracted by 30%. It's good feeling.
And you'd mentioned this briefly when we were coming in but who is the person who introduced you to using a sauna? The first sauna that I was ever in was a local friend of ours Chris Cholio's who's a hockey player and he was the. He had the longest hockey career professional hockey career of of anyone ever he continued playing professionally. Until he was 48 years old and all the people on the other teams that he was facing at the time were in their 20s so he's really an unbelievable athlete.
And he has done sauna every day of his life for the last you know since he's been playing and he could he believes the reason he had longevity in the sport and the reason he never got sick and was able to never miss a game. And to play for you know such a long career was all due to the sauna every day. And he used hot sauna he was not alternating between hot and cold.
He did hot and cold but he wouldn't necessarily always use an ice bath he would do cold showers if not but he would do 15 or 20 minutes of the sauna cold shower or 15 or 20 minutes of the sauna round and round. And how were you introduced to the ice baths? The ice baths came from Jo Kim Noah who's my girlfriend's nephew and he he bought a nice tub for layered because he's layered started doing the sauna after after Chris started the sauna.
We are a group who would do it on the beach Chris has a sauna on the beach who would do the sauna and even in the winter time then jump into the ocean and that was how he did the hot and the cold. And then Jo Kim suggested we started using the ice tub and then we started doing that and that was took it to a whole new level. And you've done some very unusual training that sounds terrifying to me underwater right and you continue to do the underwater training with weights.
Yeah that's something that we do with layered we'll do like 50 pound dumbbells 14 feet underwater and it's an interesting experience a lot like getting into the ice bath. Like if you're not used to getting into a nice bath most people if you say get into a tub of ice they react negatively. Panic not the panic and when you're underwater holding weights your brain goes crazy and it you know relates to it's like weight underwater you die. It's like cement shoes.
So we do all these different exercise weights underwater it's really interesting and do you what do you so does and to keep in mind folks do this we don't do this without supervision talk to your doctor but the what what is the technique look like or an example started it started.
There it has a pool that you can start in the shallow end and walk down the deep end and then up the center the pool there's a staircase in underwater so it started with holding heavy weights walking from the shallow end into the deep end and obviously there's a point we have to take a big breath and hold it.
And then you walk down into the deep end and then you turn around and you walk up the stairs and make it free run out of breath and each time you do it you make wider wider circles and get used to being under longer and longer and then we started adding once we were completely submerged start adding maybe curls or shoulder presses and doing those underwater and then one day after we've been doing this for about a year.
Laird came into the gym the next day and he said I had a dream last night that if we use lighter weights they'll be heavy enough to keep us down but light enough where we could get up where we could jump up to the top in the in the deep end in the deep end so you'd be down in the deep end so now instead of doing one rep and recovering which was all we could do before you know you can do it. One round basically and then be in the shallow end and recover.
We started doing these exercises jumping so we'd start with maybe 15 countdown bells and you would hold two 15 countdown bells jump into the deep end, sink to the bottom and jump as hard as you can.
Throw your arms over your head and then kind of do one stroke pulling your arms down to your sides while holding the dumbbells and it was just enough to get your head out and you'd gasp for a breath and then you'd sink and we would do that over and over and over again and you know that first maybe the goal would be to try to get ten in a row and be really a big deal and we could do ten in a row.
And then you know over time we worked up to being able to do a hundred in a row and then doing it with heavier weights and then since then lareds come up with maybe I don't know. Fifty different exercises that we do with weights underwater either underwater or in water and while he dreams up some really fascinating not only exercises but devices that.
And so those people haven't seen the foil board is that what it is with the foil board is amazing the foil board yes people can you go to the pool and a paddling really you know he invented Santa paddling he invented to in surfing. He's an amazing he's got an amazing. And he's been in analytical mind.
I think he's very mechanical to start with think starts with that and very curious and very hard working and he's willing to try things and fail at things to be able to get to you know to be able to do something so he you know the first day I went to his gym. I couldn't do one push up and really it was through his.
His belief and his inspiration that I was able to learn all the different things that I was able to learn with him and I remember he showed me one exercise I couldn't do it at all and I said I can't do that and he said no don't say you can't do it say you haven't done it yet.
And then he said okay now let's divide it into three pieces do the first third of the exercise and I can do the first third and I do the last third of the exercise and I can do that and I do the middle third by itself and I can do that is I can put the first two pieces together and I can do that and then put the second and third piece together and I can do that and eventually I could do the whole exercise but at first it seemed impossible but he walked me through it and broke it down for him.
Yeah just taught me how to see past the limitations that I put on myself. What was the exercise? Do you recall what that was? That might have been a like a jump through like it would be like a like a burpee with weights where you would let you do a shoulder press. And then you put the weights out of the ground and then hold them hold the dumbbells jump back into a push up position then jump up and slide your legs forward through.
Right right and then jump up into a squat position and then lift up and that will be one round. That's an intense movement. What are some of the physical experiments that you're doing these days? Or training protocols that you're experimenting with? There's always so many I have to think of what's what's doing. I've been doing hyperbaric oxygen and I really like that. That's in a chamber.
Yeah. I do the Wim Hof breathing technique. I just started doing there's a Wim Hof ten week course you could check online WIMHOS. I just started learning that. He's a fascinating guy. He's really in the ice. I can see. I've never seen anyone more tolerant of ice. I think he has a world record for sitting in a box of basic a cube of ice. And I think the knee climb out Everest just didn't swim trunks. He has some incredible thermo regulatory capabilities. He has very impressive.
You ran a marathon in the desert with no water. That was another one. Yeah. So just the two extremes of the heat or the cold. The guys are monster. Yeah. I really want to get him on the podcast at some point. He'd be a good one. Let's see what else. Those are the ones that come to mind at the moment. What, how do you just as layered did for you when you are working with an artist who believes they can't do something or is just hitting that wall?
What are some of the ways that you help them get past that? Usually I'll give them the homework like a small doable task. I give you an example. There's an artist who works in one recently who was hadn't made an album in a long time and was struggling with struggling with finishing anything. And just had this like it was a version of a writer's block. But it was a, I don't know, hard to explain what it was. But I would give him very doable homework assignments that almost seemed like a joke.
Like tonight I want you to write one word, you know, one word in this song that needs five lines that you can't finish. I just want one word that you like by tomorrow. Do you think you'd come up with one word? And usually you'd be like, I think I can do one word. And then just be very quickly by breaking it down into pieces like I learned from the narrative and chipping away one step at a time. You can really get through anything. Yeah. Breaking it down into pieces. Yeah, nevermind.
By the beach we had a, we had a zipline. Nothing has a blind. You know the beam that you balance on. Oh a slackline. A slackline. And Laird was pretty good at it in the beginning but had never done it. And he would work for hours. He would just be there hour after hour after our following off and getting back on, following off, getting back on and then of all of the group of people. He was by far the first one who was able to do it. And it wasn't because he just naturally was gifted at it.
He knows that anything he sets his mind to learn to do if he focuses and just continues to, you know, not mind following off and not thinking he's supposed to be good out of the box. Learning to be able to do it. That's how you learn things. So I also will say that after having the weight problem that I had for so long and then finally finding the solution and making the change, it really makes me believe that anything's possible.
You know, we can learn, we can train ourselves to do absolutely anything. It's really just getting the right information. If we get the right information, we can learn from anything. Whatever it is, now it doesn't mean we can necessarily be the best in the world at something. But we can be our best at that thing. Right, the best version of ourselves. Yeah. And do things that never dreamed of as possible for us.
What advice would you give, and I'll ask this for a couple of different ages, but I'll start with your 20-year-old self. What advice would you give your 20-year-old self if any? Try to have more fun. Why do you think you weren't having as much fun as you could have at that point? I think I was more driven. I don't know, I want to say almost like I felt like I had something to prove.
I don't know if I did have something to prove, but I felt like doing the work was the most important thing in the world as opposed to doing the work and enjoying the process. And feeling what it was. Being able to step back and see what it was. Not just be so deeply into it that I missed a lot of years of my life because I was just in dark room working on music. Seven days a week for probably 20 years. Wow. I recall it.
It makes me think of a story from Neil Gaiman, the writer, when he was with the success of Sandman. And he was in a huge line of readers who wanted signatures and fans who wanted to tell him stories. And Stephen King pulled him aside and just said, enjoy it. What advice would you give to your 30-year-old self? I guess I would probably tell myself something that I that still might apply to me today. I wouldn't know that at all, but I know it now. I just still it's not a second nature.
But to be kinder to myself. Because I think I beat myself up a lot. Because I expect a lot from myself. I'll be hard on myself. And I don't know that I'm doing anyone in the world by doing that. Yeah, that's advice that I need to give myself as well. When do you tend to beat yourself up? I've made somewhat of a sport of it, it would seem. Yeah, it can happen anytime I can come up with anything that I could be doing further something. And didn't already think of it and didn't already do it.
I might beat myself up about why, but not done that. Something I struggle with that I'd love to get your two cents on and is related to this, which is on one hand, I don't want to beat myself up. On the other hand, I feel like the perfectionism that I have has enabled me to do, it's achieved whatever modicum of success I've been able to achieve. And I've heard stories and you can correct me from wrong.
But about, for instance, ZZ Top and La Fruittura and how they worked on it with you from, I guess, I want to say what 2008 to 2012, something like that. But how they realized the value of you wanting the art to be as perfect as it could be or the best that it could be and taking whatever time and pains necessary to make that possible. So I'd love to hear your thoughts on that because it's something that I continually struggle with.
I want to be easier on myself, but I worry that if I do that, I will lose whatever magic if there is such a thing that enables me to do what I do. Yeah, I think that ultimately, I think that's a myth.
And I think that your take on things is specific to you and it's not because of your, it's almost like you've won the war and to accept the fact that you've won the war, you have broken through to now, you have an audience, people are open to hear, hear what you are interested in, what you learn, what you're interested in learning about, and what you want to share. And you can do that without killing yourself. And that killing yourself won't be of service either to you or to your audience.
All right, you know what, let's, let's, this has been great. I need ice as well. Let's call a close to this. Is there any last parting advice or comment that you'd like to make before we sign off? I think it's too hot for me to know what's even, I don't know what's happening. What's up or down? Yeah, very confused at the moment. But I know that this ice bath is going to change everything from the bed there. All right, well on that note, thanks so much, Rick. Thank you. We will both get some ice.
I hope that you get up first.