#1537 - Lex Fridman

Lex Fridman (0:13)

Hey, Joe.

Joe Rogan (0:14)

Before we get started, how about that Colder Wall guy that I just played for you? How crazy is it that he was 21 when he made that song?

Lex Fridman (0:21)

Is he close to 21 right now?

Joe Rogan (0:22)

He's 25 now.

Lex Fridman (0:23)

Yeah, he sounds like Johnny, like later Johnny Cash.

Joe Rogan (0:26)

Like Johnny Cash when he did Hurt.

Lex Fridman (0:28)

Yeah.

You know? Like a pain, a depth, a richness of his voice, so badass.

Joe Rogan (0:33)

It's weird. Like how do you get that at 21?

Lex Fridman (0:37)

I want to see him at like 14 He probably developed early, probably went through some shit in his life.

Joe Rogan (0:46)

Oh, he...

Lex Fridman (0:46)

There's got to be some whiskey in that story somewhere.

Joe Rogan (0:48)

Oh, yeah. He had to go through some real shit to have that voice and that... Just the sensibility, just the mindset of those songs.

That Kate McKannon song, like Jesus Christ. You have to listen to the whole song. It's crazy. And it's...

Lex Fridman (1:06)

Yeah, one of the things I hope, like with your Spotify thing is that you'll be able to play songs.

Joe Rogan (1:13)

We want to, but it's weird. It's like they've left open... They're trying to figure it out, right? All this stuff is basically... There's a lot of work in progress. They're trying to figure it out.

Lex Fridman (1:23)

Listen, my dream, here at Spotify, if you're listening, my dream as a little boy is to play Stevie Ray Vaughan or Jimi Hendrix on The Joe Rogan Experience. Oh, I'd love that. And not be nervous about it being taken down or something, because I don't have the rights to cover the song or whatever.

Joe Rogan (1:43)

I wonder how that works for the artist. Well, for someone like Stevie Ray Vaughan or Jimi Hendrix, they're both dead, so it would be the estate of the artist, which oftentimes I believe probably makes it more slippery.

Lex Fridman (1:52)

Yeah.

Joe Rogan (1:53)

Because then you're dealing with people that kind of own it as a commodity rather than the actual artist itself.

Lex Fridman (2:00)

But there's a difference between the Beatles and then the Stevie Ray Vaughan. Whoever owns Stevie Ray Vaughan, you know, is a bad mother of her.

You know it's not corporate.

Joe Rogan (2:12)

You would hope so, but you never know, man. He might have had an ex-wife who sold it.

Who knows?

Lex Fridman (2:18)

Anyway, Spotify, please make it happen.

Joe Rogan (2:21)

I almost had the opportunity to drive Stevie Ray Vaughan once when I was driving limos.

Yeah, man, but he wouldn't take limos. He would always take a cab. So they'd have a limo, and the limo would pick up everybody else. Like all the other band members, all the other people, they would get in the limo, and Stevie Ray Vaughan would get in a cab, because he's that motherfucker.

Lex Fridman (2:41)

Yeah, just for the first time, actually, yeah, he is. He's real. He's a genuine human being. I just, for the first time, listened to an interview with him.

Like I've never heard Jimi Hendrix really talk or Stevie Ray Vaughan talk before this interview. And he was really drunk in the interview.

And then I realized that there was a man behind the music. There was some pain, there was some drinking, and just, I don't know, demons that he was running from.

Joe Rogan (3:11)

I think there's like a disconnect that you almost have to have from the normal mind to create that kind of sound. Like when you go to, there's some Hendrix songs, like Voodoo Child is a great one, right?

Just the sound in that guitar is so, he's so out there. He's so wild. You know, there's like a famous story where Eric Clapton first saw Steve Ray Vaughan play, and he was like, what in the fuck am I doing? You might as good as Eric Clapton is seeing, did I say Steve Ray Vaughan or Jimi Hendrix? I meant Jimi Hendrix. I meant Jimi Hendrix.

But that Eric Clapton went and saw Jimi Hendrix play live, and he was such a talent that everybody else was like, what are we doing?

Lex Fridman (4:04)

Yeah, the cool thing is, I mean, I don't know if you know, but Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix both play a Fender Strat, so it's the same guitar. So I can imagine, and then Eric Clapton has this warm, smooth tone, and I could just imagine Eric Clapton seeing like, how the fuck did he get that sound out of that thing?