WEBVTT - Rick Rubin 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:03.960 Welcome to Ruthie's Table four, a production of iHeartRadio and 0:00:04.000 --> 0:00:05.519 Adamized Studios. 0:00:08.320 --> 0:00:10.560 When I told my friends that I would be recording 0:00:10.560 --> 0:00:15.440 a podcast with Rick Rubin this weekend, the responses were rapturous, 0:00:16.040 --> 0:00:21.599 what wow, incredible? And can I come? It was the 0:00:21.640 --> 0:00:23.840 same in the River Cafe the other day when Rick 0:00:24.000 --> 0:00:27.760 was there. Grown men trembled, women found excuses to hover 0:00:27.880 --> 0:00:31.280 near his table. Chefs could barely grill the sea bass. 0:00:31.960 --> 0:00:35.120 Rick Rubin is a decades long creative force with a 0:00:35.200 --> 0:00:39.519 voice and influence that carries immeasurable weight. Co founder of 0:00:39.560 --> 0:00:42.760 def Jam, winner of seven Grammys. As a friend in 0:00:42.880 --> 0:00:48.199 music told me, Rick is unique together with discovering, mentoring, 0:00:48.360 --> 0:00:53.520 creating beautiful music with artists such as Adele Eminin, Beastie Boys, 0:00:53.600 --> 0:00:58.680 Public Enemy, Run DMC and for me most movingly Johnny Cash. 0:00:58.960 --> 0:01:03.640 His values, princess and kindness guide everyone he comes close to. 0:01:04.240 --> 0:01:06.600 Rick is in London with his family for his brilliant 0:01:06.720 --> 0:01:10.479 radical book, The Creative Act. We are at home sitting 0:01:10.480 --> 0:01:13.479 around a table. A cook with a passion for music 0:01:13.880 --> 0:01:17.679 and a music producer, writer and philosopher with a passion 0:01:17.720 --> 0:01:21.039 for food. Though in his achievements he is up there 0:01:21.040 --> 0:01:23.800 in the clouds, and I am firmly on earthed. We 0:01:23.880 --> 0:01:26.920 look at our work in a similar way. Keep it simple, 0:01:27.400 --> 0:01:31.399 keep it honest, admire, respect, and love the people you 0:01:31.480 --> 0:01:40.960 work with. That is exactly what I feel about Rick. 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:52.120 It's so beautiful. 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:56.880 Well, it's true. We just recently became friends, and it's 0:01:56.960 --> 0:01:59.560 so nice to be here together to talk about what 0:01:59.560 --> 0:02:02.600 we love. And so I think what we usually do 0:02:03.200 --> 0:02:07.400 is to ask you the gas to read a recipe 0:02:07.440 --> 0:02:09.480 from any one of our cookbooks, and there are quite 0:02:09.520 --> 0:02:11.160 a lot of them, and quite a lot of recipes 0:02:11.200 --> 0:02:14.600 span in the years. And you chose a dish that 0:02:14.720 --> 0:02:19.119 I love, which is also very easy, called chicken with nutmeg. 0:02:19.320 --> 0:02:21.400 Would you like to read the recipe. 0:02:21.000 --> 0:02:24.600 Chicken with nutmeg? Preheat the oven to one hundred and 0:02:24.760 --> 0:02:29.440 ninety degrees. Wipe the chicken clean, Trim off all excess fat, 0:02:29.760 --> 0:02:33.480 cut lemon in half, grate the nutmeg. Rub the chicken 0:02:33.520 --> 0:02:36.800 with the lemon, squeezing the juice into the skin. Season 0:02:36.840 --> 0:02:41.320 the skin and inside the cavity with salt, pepper and nutmeg. 0:02:42.000 --> 0:02:45.880 Cut the prescudo slices into the cavity. Put the chicken 0:02:45.960 --> 0:02:50.200 on an oven tray, breastside down, Drizzle with olive oil, 0:02:50.440 --> 0:02:53.000 and roast for one and a half hours, basting from 0:02:53.000 --> 0:02:56.799 time to time. Add wine after half an hour, turn 0:02:56.840 --> 0:02:59.760 the bird breastside up for the last twenty minutes. Serve 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:01.359 the juices from the pan. 0:03:02.360 --> 0:03:05.480 So why, of all the recipes did you choose this? 0:03:05.680 --> 0:03:07.799 Is there something that you particularly liked? Do you eat 0:03:07.840 --> 0:03:08.600 a lot of chicken? 0:03:08.840 --> 0:03:12.119 The reason I picked the chicken dishes. It's particularly simple dish, 0:03:12.480 --> 0:03:15.000 and in general, the foods that I like tend to 0:03:15.040 --> 0:03:19.320 be the best version of a very simple thing. If 0:03:19.360 --> 0:03:22.360 the sauce is too complicated, if the chef is trying 0:03:22.400 --> 0:03:25.200 to impress me, I tend not to like it. What 0:03:25.400 --> 0:03:29.720 gets me is the quality of the produce, the quality 0:03:29.720 --> 0:03:32.600 of the food, the quality of the meat, and the 0:03:32.639 --> 0:03:36.880 perfection of the preparation. Not necessarily the innovation involved. It's 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:41.760 more the craft of the best version of the regular thing. 0:03:41.840 --> 0:03:42.640 It's my favorite. 0:03:42.760 --> 0:03:45.480 I always worry when somebody says I have an idea 0:03:45.800 --> 0:03:49.800 for you know, cooking chicken or fish or meat or vegetable, 0:03:49.840 --> 0:03:52.680 because for me, it's not suddenly you have an idea 0:03:52.760 --> 0:03:55.200 to do something. It's the last time you made chicken. 0:03:55.240 --> 0:03:58.400 It might have been with tucking the pishutto under the skin, 0:03:58.480 --> 0:04:00.600 and then the next time we had make Do you 0:04:00.600 --> 0:04:01.360 feel that way? 0:04:01.520 --> 0:04:04.680 Yes, it's an iterative process. We try different things and 0:04:04.720 --> 0:04:07.440 then something like hmm, that was good last time. Maybe 0:04:07.440 --> 0:04:09.800 we'll try it that way again, and then add something 0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:12.640 else and eventually get to a point where this is 0:04:12.680 --> 0:04:14.360 the way I'm going to do it now and it 0:04:14.400 --> 0:04:14.920 feels good. 0:04:15.040 --> 0:04:16.800 Are you talking about music, cooking, everything? 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:19.480 No, I'm talking about everything everything. Yes, that's what the 0:04:19.520 --> 0:04:22.520 book's about. Really is how we do anything, is how 0:04:22.600 --> 0:04:24.960 we do everything, and it all is of a piece. 0:04:25.120 --> 0:04:28.039 All the choices we make are essentially are the way 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:31.000 we live. Our life is an artistic choice. 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:35.520 The cooking and the ingredient and the music, I suppose, 0:04:35.640 --> 0:04:38.920 is also knowing that if you're going to cook things, 0:04:38.960 --> 0:04:41.640 simply the ingredient has to be superb. 0:04:41.839 --> 0:04:44.600 Same. It's true in music that the individual if you're 0:04:45.440 --> 0:04:49.080 doing work that has many, many instruments, in a way, 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:52.040 they almost the sound of them cancel each other out. Yes, 0:04:52.160 --> 0:04:55.360 they do make something new when they add up. That said, 0:04:55.440 --> 0:05:00.480 I like the personality of each of the individual ingredients music. 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:05.280 If you have three ingredients, it's easier to understand them. 0:05:05.320 --> 0:05:08.520 It's also harder to get them right because there's only three. 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:12.360 They're not being it's not being masked, it's not being hidden. 0:05:12.680 --> 0:05:15.320 I remember a producer friend saying to me, you know, 0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:17.080 I don't know how you have the patience to make 0:05:17.120 --> 0:05:19.600 the records you make with so few things going on, 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:22.400 because he'll put down one thing and then put something 0:05:22.400 --> 0:05:24.360 on top, and put something on top, put something on top, 0:05:24.600 --> 0:05:28.440 and he makes a great sounding, you know, very successful producer. 0:05:28.760 --> 0:05:32.320 But it's a different process, and mine is, Okay, let's 0:05:32.360 --> 0:05:36.159 take everything away and what's left. Are each of these 0:05:36.200 --> 0:05:39.120 elements the most interesting version of themselves they can be, 0:05:39.920 --> 0:05:43.400 and are we presenting them in the best light that 0:05:43.120 --> 0:05:45.440 we that we can. That's that's how I like to 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:45.680 do it. 0:05:46.120 --> 0:05:48.400 For me, it was a revelation to go to Italy 0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:52.600 because I grew up in upstate New York, where everything 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:56.839 considered Italian food was very rich. You had mozzarella, you 0:05:56.880 --> 0:06:00.960 had parmesan, you had breadcrumbs, You bake it, you boiled it, 0:06:01.000 --> 0:06:05.000 you did a whole process. But then if you go 0:06:05.080 --> 0:06:07.359 to Italy and they put a piece of fish on 0:06:07.400 --> 0:06:10.320 the grill with a few fresh herbs and a drizzle 0:06:10.360 --> 0:06:12.760 of olive oil, and you know that the fish has 0:06:12.800 --> 0:06:15.520 to be really fresh, the olive oil has to be 0:06:15.600 --> 0:06:19.000 really recently pressed and very strong, and the herbs have 0:06:19.080 --> 0:06:22.160 to be of the season because you can't basket, as 0:06:22.160 --> 0:06:25.239 you say, So maybe there are real parallels, do you think? 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:27.719 I think so. I think it's all related. And I 0:06:27.760 --> 0:06:31.280 remember the first time I went to Florence and I 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:33.960 remember asking and what's the best fish restaurant? And they're like, 0:06:34.320 --> 0:06:36.240 we don't have fish. It's like, what do you mean. 0:06:36.279 --> 0:06:40.200 It's a city and by the way, like an hour 0:06:40.200 --> 0:06:41.039 and a half from the sea. 0:06:41.240 --> 0:06:45.040 Well that's what they said. They said, if you want fish, 0:06:45.160 --> 0:06:47.760 the fissure is an hour and a half away. So 0:06:47.839 --> 0:06:49.719 that's how fresh it is. An hour and a half 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:53.200 is too far to travel with the ingredient for it 0:06:53.240 --> 0:06:56.880 to be fresh in Italy. So Italy is my favorite 0:06:56.920 --> 0:07:00.000 place to eat, and I spend as much time there 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:03.720 possible and eat quite a lot delicious. 0:07:03.760 --> 0:07:06.480 I agree. So how was it actually growing up when 0:07:06.520 --> 0:07:09.040 you grew up in Long Island? I grew up in 0:07:09.120 --> 0:07:09.560 Long Island. 0:07:09.640 --> 0:07:12.880 Yes, Long Beach was about an hour outside of Manhattan, 0:07:13.400 --> 0:07:17.080 small beach community, not so unlike Malibu, where I've lived 0:07:17.120 --> 0:07:17.760 for a long time. 0:07:17.960 --> 0:07:20.800 Was it a multicultural undo? Yeah, it was. 0:07:21.040 --> 0:07:24.240 The different parts of town were mixed in different ways. 0:07:24.440 --> 0:07:26.200 And it was tiny, little town, but there were these 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:30.240 little subcultures. And we lived on the bay and we 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:32.520 had a boat, and you could walk six blocks and 0:07:32.600 --> 0:07:35.000 be on the ocean side and you know, swim in 0:07:35.040 --> 0:07:37.800 the waves. It was a mixed community. In My high 0:07:37.800 --> 0:07:39.720 school was a multiracial high school. 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:42.520 And what was it like growing up there? What was it? 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:45.200 The food was not great and my mom was not 0:07:45.280 --> 0:07:49.720 a good cook. We ate out pretty much for every meal. 0:07:49.800 --> 0:07:53.000 We almost never ate home, almost never. 0:07:53.240 --> 0:07:54.640 What year would that be, Brick. 0:07:54.760 --> 0:07:59.400 I left home maybe in nineteen eighty one to go 0:07:59.400 --> 0:07:59.920 to college. 0:08:00.880 --> 0:08:03.120 About the center of these yeah, yeah, I. 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:05.119 Ate the worst food, you know, I ate fast food 0:08:05.360 --> 0:08:07.880 on a regular basis. I would say it's pretty limited. 0:08:07.960 --> 0:08:11.320 There were a couple of Chinese restaurants. There was a 0:08:11.320 --> 0:08:17.440 couple of Italian restaurants, delicatessen, pastrami, sandwich type places, but 0:08:17.600 --> 0:08:20.640 all of the restaurants were more like mom and pop restaurants, 0:08:21.120 --> 0:08:24.160 tending to be heavier in the way they prepared the food, 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:28.040 you know, like the Italian food would all be covered 0:08:28.040 --> 0:08:30.800 in bread crumbs and deep fried and lots of mozzarella 0:08:30.840 --> 0:08:33.000 and lots of sauces. 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:35.920 Do you think you had a healthy relationship with food 0:08:36.000 --> 0:08:38.080 or you know, you say your mother was overweight. 0:08:38.280 --> 0:08:42.880 Yes, we ate lots of food and good tasting, low quality, 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:47.760 high carbohydrate, high calorie food. Also lots of you know, 0:08:47.880 --> 0:08:50.160 seed oils and just terrible stuff. It was always an 0:08:50.280 --> 0:08:52.400 argument because I didn't like to sit for a long 0:08:52.440 --> 0:08:53.800 time in a restaurant. I still don't like to sit 0:08:53.840 --> 0:08:55.200 for a long time in a restaurant. I like to 0:08:55.200 --> 0:08:59.559 eat and go, and my parents would like to eat, sit, smoke, 0:08:59.600 --> 0:09:02.160 and drink. And as a little kid, and I'm an 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:04.120 only child, so I had no one else to play with, 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:06.600 I did not want to be there. I didn't want 0:09:06.640 --> 0:09:06.839 to be. 0:09:06.800 --> 0:09:09.000 There, especially when you see them lifting up the coffee 0:09:09.000 --> 0:09:10.800 cup and then they don't put it to their mouth 0:09:10.840 --> 0:09:13.000 and they put it down in the saucer. That's what 0:09:13.160 --> 0:09:16.000 used to kill me as a kid, Yeah, is that 0:09:16.120 --> 0:09:18.120 I'd sort of think we're just about to go, and 0:09:18.120 --> 0:09:20.440 then they'd sort of get it up and put it down, 0:09:20.440 --> 0:09:22.960 and they said, no, drink that coffee. I want to 0:09:22.960 --> 0:09:26.720 go home. So I feel really interested in women who 0:09:26.720 --> 0:09:30.240 don't cook, mothers who didn't cook, you know, and I 0:09:30.280 --> 0:09:33.160 feel so respectful towards them as well. Was your mother 0:09:33.360 --> 0:09:34.000 did she work? 0:09:34.520 --> 0:09:37.520 She did not. She raised me. That was her full 0:09:37.520 --> 0:09:40.320 time job, and food was not an important part of that. 0:09:40.760 --> 0:09:43.000 Although everybody in the house loved to eat and she 0:09:43.120 --> 0:09:45.520 loved to eat, and she was overweight. She was the 0:09:45.520 --> 0:09:49.640 youngest of four sisters, and I think she was always 0:09:49.720 --> 0:09:52.720 like the child in her family, so the idea that 0:09:52.720 --> 0:09:56.080 the child would be the cook didn't make sense in 0:09:56.120 --> 0:09:59.280 her family. But the one thing that my mom cooked 0:09:59.320 --> 0:10:03.080 well is turkey, and only made it maybe twice a year, 0:10:03.160 --> 0:10:06.800 but it is to this day maybe my favorite meal. 0:10:07.120 --> 0:10:10.160 It had onions, it had lemon, salt and pepper. It 0:10:10.240 --> 0:10:13.679 was it was simple, but it was seasoned and it 0:10:13.760 --> 0:10:17.040 was cooked to where the skin was crispy and the 0:10:17.080 --> 0:10:21.480 meat was dry, but there was lots of ozu. So 0:10:21.520 --> 0:10:24.280 the combination of the dryer meat, which I prefer, with 0:10:24.440 --> 0:10:28.400 the wet aujou was the perfect combination. You could moisten 0:10:28.440 --> 0:10:30.760 it to taste. And I wonder if that there's. 0:10:30.520 --> 0:10:32.959 So psychological home. 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:37.160 A simple roasted turkey that was incredible, incredible, and now 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:42.160 we made it a habit at home to do Thanksgiving 0:10:42.200 --> 0:10:46.400 dinner once a month. Oh really, And we do Thanksgiving 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:49.120 once a month and invite friends and it's great. 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:52.559 Yeah, it's great. It is the best American meal, isn't it? 0:10:53.440 --> 0:10:54.000 Once a year? 0:10:54.160 --> 0:10:55.040 Absolutely? And why? 0:10:55.320 --> 0:10:57.240 And so this is how you grew up and did 0:10:57.280 --> 0:10:58.800 the music start in high school? 0:10:59.000 --> 0:11:01.760 My love of music started before that, from the time 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:03.960 I was probably three years old, you know, listening to 0:11:04.000 --> 0:11:06.400 the Beatles as a kid. My parents played music in 0:11:06.440 --> 0:11:09.679 the house and somehow there was a lot of music 0:11:09.720 --> 0:11:12.959 around and I can't can't put my finger on it. 0:11:13.040 --> 0:11:16.000 Usually friends had older brothers or sisters who had record 0:11:16.040 --> 0:11:20.559 collections or extended family, and they were all really different. 0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:24.400 And one cousin, Mitchell, who liked Bruce Springsteen in more 0:11:24.720 --> 0:11:28.920 rock music, and I had another cousin, Marris, who liked 0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:32.360 things like Kraftwork and more experimental music. And I would 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:34.760 spend every weekend with my aunt Carol, who was like 0:11:34.800 --> 0:11:37.720 my second mom, and she would take me to the 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:40.360 theater and take me to museums and play classical music 0:11:40.400 --> 0:11:43.040 for me. And it was a whole other world. Whereas 0:11:43.240 --> 0:11:46.040 my parents were it was different than that. My dad 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:49.880 liked Latin jazz and Frank Sinatra, and my mom liked 0:11:49.920 --> 0:11:52.400 the pop music of the day, and maybe Barber Streisan, 0:11:52.600 --> 0:11:53.880 certain singers. 0:11:54.000 --> 0:11:55.600 And do you think when we were just talking about 0:11:55.679 --> 0:11:59.240 music and food and about the simplicity and the layering 0:11:59.360 --> 0:12:02.120 and the ingredient, did you feel that growing up or 0:12:02.160 --> 0:12:03.040 did that come later? 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:06.280 I would say I probably liked simple food, and I 0:12:06.400 --> 0:12:09.160 probably never had great simple food when I was young, 0:12:09.840 --> 0:12:12.200 but I tended to like simpler food. So I think 0:12:12.280 --> 0:12:15.720 always a music I always had a clectic taste in music. 0:12:15.800 --> 0:12:18.840 I would hang out in record stores forever to learn, 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:22.360 you know. I would befriend the people who work there, 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:25.400 and I like the Stooges. What else would I like? 0:12:25.440 --> 0:12:27.320 And they're like, oh, you might like the MC five, 0:12:27.360 --> 0:12:28.920 and they would play it for me in the store. 0:12:29.120 --> 0:12:32.880 And just had an education in the things I was 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:34.640 interested in. And so I would get home from school 0:12:34.640 --> 0:12:36.480 and she and my mom would say, Okay, where are 0:12:36.480 --> 0:12:39.320 we going today? And she would be my driver, and well, 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:42.000 let's go to the Magic Store. So she would drive 0:12:42.000 --> 0:12:43.240 me to the Magic Store and she would sit in 0:12:43.320 --> 0:12:44.880 the car and wait, and then I would come out 0:12:44.960 --> 0:12:46.680 and she'd be reading, you know, she would just read 0:12:46.760 --> 0:12:48.800 in the car, and I would be in the magic 0:12:48.800 --> 0:12:51.800 store for probably three hours, because from nine years old 0:12:51.880 --> 0:12:55.120 until probably sixteen, I was really into magic. And I 0:12:55.120 --> 0:12:57.959 would spend a tremendous amount of time in bookstores as well. 0:12:58.000 --> 0:13:00.920 I love bookstores. I would just hang out out and read, 0:13:00.960 --> 0:13:02.600 and I spend a lot of time in the library also, 0:13:02.640 --> 0:13:03.520 I love the library. 0:13:03.880 --> 0:13:08.239 You talk about going to the magic shop very endearingly, 0:13:08.720 --> 0:13:12.760 describing your mother sitting in the car for three hours, 0:13:13.120 --> 0:13:16.160 three hours in a magic shop. Do you think there 0:13:16.200 --> 0:13:21.840 is a link between the transformational process of magic, of music, 0:13:22.040 --> 0:13:22.640 and of food. 0:13:23.200 --> 0:13:27.040 The thing with magic is you learn to be skeptical 0:13:27.040 --> 0:13:32.079 of everything. Once you understand how tricks work, you see 0:13:32.120 --> 0:13:36.560 that the same methods used by magicians are used by 0:13:36.880 --> 0:13:42.640 advertisers and by newscasters, and you start to be able 0:13:42.640 --> 0:13:46.360 to see the layer of what's really going on behind 0:13:46.360 --> 0:13:51.440 this facade. So I would say it affects everything going on, 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:53.480 and you look at things in a deep way, and 0:13:53.520 --> 0:13:57.280 not necessarily in just a skeptical way, in a more 0:13:58.000 --> 0:14:01.600 based in reality versus an narrative way. When I go 0:14:01.679 --> 0:14:05.480 to a show of any kind, I'm always paying attention 0:14:05.640 --> 0:14:10.040 to the mechanisms at play as much as the content. 0:14:10.400 --> 0:14:13.199 You know, My favorite trick was called metamorphosis. It was 0:14:13.240 --> 0:14:16.319 a trick made famous originally, I believe by Houdini. I 0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:20.160 never did it, but I liked seeing it, and I 0:14:20.320 --> 0:14:24.160 like the idea of it. The magician gets bound, put 0:14:24.200 --> 0:14:29.240 in a sack and put in a steamer trunk, sealed 0:14:29.240 --> 0:14:33.160 in a trunk, and then the assistant would stand on 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:36.320 top of the trunk and raise a curtain and drop 0:14:36.400 --> 0:14:40.280 the curtain, and it happens instantaneously. The curtain comes up, 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:45.000 the curtain comes down, and when the assistant raises the curtain, 0:14:45.680 --> 0:14:48.800 the magician lowers the curtain, and the magician's now standing 0:14:48.800 --> 0:14:51.520 on top of the box, opens up the box and 0:14:51.560 --> 0:14:54.840 the assistant is inside. And love that. I love that. 0:14:55.720 --> 0:14:59.400 I love this feeling of this instant transposition. The same 0:14:59.480 --> 0:15:02.800 is true in me in that a certain person plays 0:15:02.960 --> 0:15:07.600 a guitar piece and it's beautiful, and another person plays 0:15:07.600 --> 0:15:12.280 the same guitar piece and there's this other magical dimension 0:15:12.400 --> 0:15:15.080 to it that you can't put a finger on. You 0:15:15.120 --> 0:15:18.120 don't know why it's I don't even know if it 0:15:18.120 --> 0:15:20.320 better's the right words. You don't know why it's different 0:15:20.400 --> 0:15:23.760 because technically it looks the same, but one of them 0:15:23.960 --> 0:15:25.880 you want to hear over and over and over again 0:15:25.920 --> 0:15:29.640 forever and you're filled with wonder, and the other one 0:15:29.760 --> 0:15:32.120 it's the same notes in the same order. It's the 0:15:32.160 --> 0:15:36.600 same speed, played with great dexterity, but it doesn't have 0:15:36.760 --> 0:15:40.040 this other life to it. And I would say the 0:15:40.080 --> 0:15:40.600 same with food. 0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:42.920 It's the same with a recipe that you can say. 0:15:42.960 --> 0:15:45.800 I always say that a recipe is part poetry and 0:15:45.880 --> 0:15:49.320 part science, Yes, and that the science is the cord 0:15:49.400 --> 0:15:54.560 of a teaspoon of baking powder or three tablespoons of sugar. 0:15:54.640 --> 0:15:57.720 And yet, as you say, the way it stirred, in 0:15:57.920 --> 0:15:59.720 the way it sifted, the way it's put in the 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:00.560 p So. 0:16:00.520 --> 0:16:02.520 I have a question for you, how difficult is it 0:16:02.600 --> 0:16:07.000 to keep the consistency of the quality of the food 0:16:07.040 --> 0:16:08.520 with different people involved over time. 0:16:08.760 --> 0:16:11.200 Yeah, that's a good question. I think that we have 0:16:11.280 --> 0:16:14.240 very few chefs, so it's not a big kitchen, and 0:16:14.280 --> 0:16:17.160 we don't have what you're doing in Los Angeles when 0:16:17.200 --> 0:16:19.840 I was in kitchens that you have one head chef 0:16:19.840 --> 0:16:22.440 and a lot of chefs on the line. So there 0:16:22.520 --> 0:16:26.120 is a kind of communication really of how you do it. 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:26.440 But that. 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:30.360 Is what I look for every time if you come 0:16:30.400 --> 0:16:33.760 to eat, my fears is that you know, I'm grilled 0:16:33.760 --> 0:16:37.160 sea bass coming to the table going to be the 0:16:37.200 --> 0:16:39.200 way it was the night before, and you know, and 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:41.440 very often when you're on the past, the head chef, 0:16:41.880 --> 0:16:43.440 I don't know how it is in music, but the 0:16:43.440 --> 0:16:45.680 head chef is the last person to see the plate 0:16:45.720 --> 0:16:49.160 that goes out. And it's tricky because sometimes you just 0:16:49.360 --> 0:16:51.880 keep sending it back to the chef who didn't quite 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:54.840 get it right, and you're taking away their confidence, you're 0:16:55.320 --> 0:16:58.680 diminishing them, and you're destroying them. But on the other hand, 0:16:58.720 --> 0:17:00.480 you know that you don't want to sense something out, 0:17:00.560 --> 0:17:04.160 so it's constant, you know, judgment. How can you tell 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:06.520 a musician who's just the one that didn't play the 0:17:06.600 --> 0:17:09.560 guitar the way? What do you do with someone who's 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:13.640 played something that isn't It's how do you give that. 0:17:13.760 --> 0:17:19.119 I'd do my best to cast the people that I 0:17:19.720 --> 0:17:22.000 that that can do the work, and if not, I'll 0:17:22.480 --> 0:17:23.680 do it again with someone else. 0:17:24.119 --> 0:17:27.160 Tell me what happens when you go into the studio. 0:17:27.359 --> 0:17:32.320 You've eaten definitely, I've eaten before and now the way 0:17:32.359 --> 0:17:34.119 it used to work for the majority of my life. 0:17:34.200 --> 0:17:37.639 I would wake up, do whatever I would do before 0:17:37.720 --> 0:17:39.520 going into the studio, but once I would go to 0:17:39.520 --> 0:17:41.600 the studio, that would be it for until I was 0:17:41.680 --> 0:17:44.400 time to go to bed. So I would spend the 0:17:44.400 --> 0:17:47.680 majority of my time, and which also means in those 0:17:47.760 --> 0:17:51.080 days working in New York, it'd be a small room 0:17:51.119 --> 0:17:54.120 with no windows, and I would be there for as 0:17:54.119 --> 0:17:56.280 long as you know, until the sun came up, and 0:17:56.320 --> 0:17:59.320 then I would walk or take a taxi home. So 0:17:59.440 --> 0:18:02.919 the majority of my life, I would say, for at 0:18:03.040 --> 0:18:06.880 least twenty five years, was being in a small dark room. 0:18:07.280 --> 0:18:09.680 So I had very little life outside of a recording 0:18:09.720 --> 0:18:13.160 studio because I worked so much so long. Now I've 0:18:13.200 --> 0:18:16.520 found a way and just through doing it enough understanding 0:18:17.040 --> 0:18:19.240 what's important for me to be there for, what's not 0:18:19.320 --> 0:18:21.480 important for me to be there for. And now I 0:18:21.560 --> 0:18:25.040 tend to have lunch, go to the studio, work from 0:18:25.080 --> 0:18:28.159 maybe one till six. 0:18:28.440 --> 0:18:30.280 And what do you do when you say you were. 0:18:30.240 --> 0:18:32.160 Listen to music and then talk about what we can 0:18:32.200 --> 0:18:35.200 try next. Sometimes we do it right then, and sometimes 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:37.480 we're making a list of things to try after I 0:18:37.600 --> 0:18:40.639 leave in the evening. It depends. I always have anxiety 0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:42.520 when a project starts because I never know what's going 0:18:42.600 --> 0:18:45.080 to happen. We don't go in with any script. I 0:18:45.200 --> 0:18:48.040 prefer to go in when we have songs, but then 0:18:48.280 --> 0:18:50.840 there are a million ways to present a song. So 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:54.320 there's always this sense of what's going to separate this 0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:57.359 body of work from the rest of the artist body 0:18:57.400 --> 0:18:59.600 of work and everyone else's work, And I don't know 0:18:59.720 --> 0:19:04.320 what that is going in. So it's a real experiment 0:19:04.400 --> 0:19:09.640 and we come in and I'm nervous until something good happens, 0:19:09.640 --> 0:19:13.120 like ah, And then if that thing that's good, even 0:19:13.160 --> 0:19:16.040 if it's a even if it doesn't end up this way, 0:19:16.200 --> 0:19:18.840 if it's a clue of what the whole vision of 0:19:18.880 --> 0:19:22.600 the project can be, even if it's not what it is, 0:19:23.359 --> 0:19:25.800 I feel better because at least there's a solution, even 0:19:25.800 --> 0:19:28.359 if it doesn't end up being the solution, there's a 0:19:28.480 --> 0:19:29.440 possible solution. 0:19:29.880 --> 0:19:33.080 And that feels good because I was reading about the 0:19:33.119 --> 0:19:35.520 way you work and you said that you start with 0:19:35.560 --> 0:19:39.840 an empty sheet. You know that you basically start with nothing, yes, 0:19:39.920 --> 0:19:43.400 and then you move from nothing to what you're going 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:46.240 to record that day or work. In my own little way, 0:19:46.280 --> 0:19:48.760 in my own little restaurant, we come in with an 0:19:48.760 --> 0:19:50.880 empty sheet of paper. Can we write the menu? Of course, 0:19:50.880 --> 0:19:52.640 there are things that we always know we'll have mons area, 0:19:52.680 --> 0:19:55.119 and we always know that we'll have four pastas, and 0:19:55.119 --> 0:19:57.640 we always know that we'll have two dishes on the grill, 0:19:57.720 --> 0:20:00.439 two dishes in the wood oven, then two dishes to roast. 0:20:01.080 --> 0:20:04.159 But it does start with an empty sheet, and do 0:20:04.320 --> 0:20:05.320 have a parallel in that. 0:20:05.760 --> 0:20:10.679 Absolutely. I come and we usually start by listening to 0:20:10.760 --> 0:20:14.120 any ideas that the artists have. Whatever they are, they 0:20:14.119 --> 0:20:17.360 could be. It could be a song. They may play 0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:19.679 a whole song and then talk about how to do it, 0:20:19.800 --> 0:20:22.000 or they may play a demo of a whole worked 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:26.120 out arrangement of a song with musicians and everything. They 0:20:26.160 --> 0:20:30.000 may come in and with a riff, you know, just 0:20:30.080 --> 0:20:33.359 a little snippet of a song, or a melodic idea 0:20:33.480 --> 0:20:36.920 or a lyrical idea, and then we talk about ways 0:20:36.920 --> 0:20:39.160 of fleshing it out and what are the next stages 0:20:39.200 --> 0:20:42.200 and what can it be. Sometimes they'll come to me 0:20:42.320 --> 0:20:46.119 with a whole body of work, like an album's worth 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:50.080 of things that are in various stages of completion, and 0:20:50.119 --> 0:20:52.760 then we listen and see is this something that we 0:20:52.840 --> 0:20:54.840