#245 Rick Rubin (In the Studio)

**David Senra** (0:00)
I want to tell you about a one time only limited event that I don't think you're going to want to miss. I am doing a live show with Patrick O'Shaughnessy from the Invest Like the Best podcast in New York City on October 19th. Patrick has interviewed over 300 of the world's best investors and founders for his podcast. I've read over 300 biographies of history's greatest entrepreneurs for my podcast. We'll be talking about what we learned from seven years of podcasting, sharing our favorite ideas and stories and doing a live Q&A. There will also be special event-only swag. If you live in New York City, I think it's a no-brainer. But if not, I think it's a great excuse to fly in. I've already heard from a bunch of people that bought tickets. They're flying in from other cities. Some people are flying in from other countries. That's setting the bar really high, so I will have at least four shots of espresso or four energy drinks before or during the show so we can make it a night that you'll never forget. If you're interested in attending this unique live event, I will leave a link down below. I highly recommend you get your tickets today, and I hope I get to see you in New York on October 19th. There's no greater enigma than Rick Rubin working in record production today.
His career began in hip hop. He co-founded Def Jam Records with Russell Simmons in 1984
He produced rap's first number one album and was widely credited for launching hip hop as a viable commercial medium.
Refusing to play it safe, Rubin jumped ship from rap to metal, leaving Def Jam to found another record label, Def American, where he signed and produced groundbreaking acts like Slayer.
After his work on the hugely successful Red Hot Chili Peppers acclaimed album, Blood Sugar Sex Magic, Rubin was only seven years into his career and already a living legend.
Though he worked with legends like Mick Jagger, AC DC and Tom Petty in the early 1990s, it was his recordings with Johnny Cash that still stand out as his most astonishing and studied collaboration.
By the turn of the century, Rubin had invented, reinvented or redefined so many musical genres that there was no way to categorize his style.
Rolling Stones called him the most successful producer of any genre.
But the praise and album sales didn't shake Rubin's focus as he dedicated himself to artist after artist.
Grammy nominations and awards poured in, including winning producer of the year, but Rick Rubin, workaholic and recluse, found himself too busy to attend.
That is an excerpt from the book I'm going to talk to you about today, which is Rick Rubin, In the Studio, and it's written by Jake Brown. This book wasn't even on my radar. A few weeks ago, I did a podcast on Jay-Z. It's episode number 238 And in that podcast, I talked about Jay-Z studying and working with Rick Rubin, and he said something that I thought was interesting. He's like, Rick ain't normal. He is strange by strange standards. Rick's 20 years into his career and dude has not changed. He's got his own vibe. You gotta love him for that. And so after that episode came out, a listener contacted me and they're like, hey, you should check out Lex Friedman's podcast. He just released with Rick Rubin. And I started watching it and I absolutely loved it. And I realized as I was taking notes, listening to that episode, I was like, I need to find a biography of Rick Rubin immediately. So I'm working off of Rick Rubin's biography, the one I just read from you, or read apart to you from.
I took notes on Lex Friedman's podcast. I'm going to link all this below in the show notes, but below the link to the book, if you want to buy the book.
But I used Lex Friedman's podcast. I took notes on that. Peter Attia's podcast, which I'll link to. And then I watched a three part, excuse me, four part documentary on Rick Rubin's studio in Malibu. It's on Showtime. It's called Shangri-La. And then I also spent several hours listening to Rick's own podcast. I didn't even know he had a podcast. It's actually really, really good. It's called Broken Record. And listening to him speak for so many hours actually enhanced my understanding and reading of his biography because Rick, just like a ton of the other founders that you and I have said in the podcast, they identify a handful of core beliefs that's really important to their philosophy on work and life. And they repeat them over and over again. So I want to jump right into the book. And one of his core beliefs is in the beauty of simplicity. In fact, it's repeated so much. I had this idea of Da Vinci. If Leonardo Da Vinci was able to speak to Rick Rubin and say, and repeat one of his most famous quotes, which is, simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, I think Rick would have smiled and nodded his head. And so we go to the first chapter. It's called Production by Reduction. This is one of my favorite ideas of Rick Rubin's. So it says, when Rick enters the studio, his goal is to record music in, quote, its most basic and purest form. No extra bells and whistles. All wheat, no chaff.