Speaker 1: Pushkin. Just a quick note here, you can listen to
Speaker 1: all of the music mentioned in this episode on our playlist,
Speaker 1: which you can find a link to in the show
Speaker 1: notes for licensing reasons, each time a song is referenced
Speaker 1: in this episode, you'll hear this sound effect. All right,
Speaker 1: enjoyed the episode, Flying Lotus isn't one of those producers
Speaker 1: who just programs beats. He creates an entire esthetic world
Speaker 1: for the music he makes to live in. Over the
Speaker 1: past thirteen years, he's a massed a diverse body of
Speaker 1: work through the label he started, Brain Feeder. He's released
Speaker 1: four solo albums, produced tracks with Kendrick Lamar, Tom York
Speaker 1: director actor David Lynch in The Climb featuring Thundercat. Musical
Speaker 1: innovation runs deep in Flylo's family. His grandmother, Marilyn McLeod,
Speaker 1: wrote songs from Van Gay, Diana Ross, and other motown artists.
Speaker 1: His great aunt Alice Coltrane married and played in John
Speaker 1: Coltrane's final bands, then after his death, released a slew
Speaker 1: of classic albums that seemed to grow in stature every
Speaker 1: passing year. In this episode, Rick Rubin and Flying Loads
Speaker 1: chop it up about visiting Alice Coltrane's ashram as a kid,
Speaker 1: why his peak creative hours have changed over the years,
Speaker 1: and why he directed a horror flick despite being scared
Speaker 1: to death as a child by the thriller video. This
Speaker 1: is broken record liner notes for the digital age. I'm
Speaker 1: justin Richmond. Here's Rick Rubin and Flying Loice. How would
Speaker 1: you say your relationship to music has changed from when
Speaker 1: you were a kid till now? It's funny. There's this
Speaker 1: video of me when I was a little kid, and
Speaker 1: I was it was like my mom my grandma asked
Speaker 1: me questions, was I so, Steve, how old are you?
Speaker 1: And he like, like, Steve, what do you want to do?
Speaker 1: When you go? I want to I don't know whatever,
Speaker 1: But I was. I was kind of in this little
Speaker 1: interview moment, and then I think there was some Stevie
Speaker 1: Wonder that kind of turned on in the background, and
Speaker 1: you just saw that I was just like perked up
Speaker 1: and just was like I'm out of here, and I
Speaker 1: went towards the speaker and I was like, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the same same. Nothing's strange. I would just say
Speaker 1: that over time that my relationship with music has just
Speaker 1: gotten so much deeper. You know, at this point, it's
Speaker 1: so crazy to think that I thought, maybe four or
Speaker 1: five years ago, that I was the peak of my
Speaker 1: love for music or my love for creating music. And
Speaker 1: now I know that I was wrong, because I feel like,
Speaker 1: right now I'm there again. You know, I feel like
Speaker 1: I spent so much time learning things the past couple
Speaker 1: of years with synthesis and you know, studying piano and
Speaker 1: studying theory, harmonic theory and stuff that actually just yeah,
Speaker 1: it gave me another burst of life in this whole thing.
Speaker 1: You know, I feel like I just added more time
Speaker 1: than my clock. That's good for all of us, I hope.
Speaker 1: So what was the LA scene like when you were
Speaker 1: coming up? What was going on when you first started?
Speaker 1: When I first started, the scene that I was really
Speaker 1: kind of watching was what stone Throw Records were doing.
Speaker 1: They were doing a lot of stuff, Ubiquity was doing
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff. We had all these cool parties
Speaker 1: like Pooh Bah and Sketch Book. That was a cool scene.
Speaker 1: And you know, there was like a lot of people
Speaker 1: playing music that we like, you like shift from, like
Speaker 1: Jay Dillah and mad Lib, you know, that kind of
Speaker 1: beat music that that kind of vibe was going around,
Speaker 1: and you started to see all these other producer beat
Speaker 1: maker kids who were kind of hanging around, but they
Speaker 1: didn't feel I think it was like even more underground
Speaker 1: than Mad Living Diala. It was. It was just like
Speaker 1: weird because we we didn't care about rappers. We didn't.
Speaker 1: We were just like we're gonna do this without them,
Speaker 1: you know, like we just came for the beats, you know.
Speaker 1: And I think that was like that freak a lot
Speaker 1: of people out, I think at first, but I think
Speaker 1: we were there was at a point where it just
Speaker 1: didn't seem like rappers going anywhere, so I think the
Speaker 1: producers were just like, oh, let's just do this. I
Speaker 1: think the scene was kind of built in the parking
Speaker 1: lots of a lot of parties because we were just
Speaker 1: like listening the tracks in the cars, like with the
Speaker 1: doors open, blasting them out in the parking lot. You know,
Speaker 1: Like that was like a whole vibe playing tracks on
Speaker 1: the Homies boombox. Could you tell that something was going on?
Speaker 1: Could you tell, like there's a vibe? Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: like that it was important. That was important totally. You
Speaker 1: can totally tell it was important. It was because there's
Speaker 1: so many people who loved the same things. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: was just there was this just this frustration. It was
Speaker 1: just like this empty thing. It was just a void still.
Speaker 1: And I think that that became something that I held
Speaker 1: onto for so long actually and try to recognize, is that,
Speaker 1: you know, people need to be heard. They have to
Speaker 1: keep your ear out to the scene. You gotta keep
Speaker 1: your ear out. You gotta like know what's going on
Speaker 1: in the streets, man, because you don't want to miss it.
Speaker 1: You don't want to miss the thing. You don't you
Speaker 1: don't want to be left out of the of that
Speaker 1: new moment, the next moment. At that point in time,
Speaker 1: while the underground was just sort of taking form in La,
Speaker 1: what was the mainstream of hip hop like at that time?
Speaker 1: Do you remember, oh, mainstream? Was it still like New
Speaker 1: York centric or not? Necessarily? I would say it was
Speaker 1: still New York, but it was starting to get southern,
Speaker 1: you know, starting to go in that direction for some reason,
Speaker 1: I feel like, why do I want to say, gee,
Speaker 1: even it was a thing you know, like around around
Speaker 1: then it was like two thousand and five, I guess. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was like that kind of post Shining Suit era
Speaker 1: of hip hop. Looking back, now on the lacne men.
Speaker 1: Would you say that there were any similar scenes anywhere
Speaker 1: else in the world at that time, like kind of
Speaker 1: picking up the same kind of vibe. Absolutely, there was
Speaker 1: a crazy synergy around that moment for us because at
Speaker 1: the same time MySpace came out too, and that was
Speaker 1: a way for all of us to kind of hear
Speaker 1: what everyone else was doing around the world, especially you know,
Speaker 1: I think that that kind of helped cultivate the scene
Speaker 1: and let us know that it wasn't just us out there.
Speaker 1: There's small labels in Europe trying to do this stuff now,
Speaker 1: and there's small labels in Japan trying to do it,
Speaker 1: and it was like, okay, well this is something, this
Speaker 1: is actually something, and they keep looking to la So
Speaker 1: that was that was another thing. But I had a
Speaker 1: feeling then my Space was was kind of popping off
Speaker 1: and dubstep was kind of popping it was at the
Speaker 1: same time. Like so it was like a new electronic
Speaker 1: thing was brewing. The beats and the wobbly stuff going
Speaker 1: on and calling it wonky and all. They were trying
Speaker 1: to find all types of names to describe it. But
Speaker 1: it was just dope because it was the first time
Speaker 1: LA and UK are connecting like this, we're hearing stuff
Speaker 1: that just was just born in the studio, you know,
Speaker 1: last night, and that's that never happened before then. So
Speaker 1: I think it allowed a lot of people to just
Speaker 1: kind of accelerate the sound quicker too. You know, you
Speaker 1: hear something like it becomes part of the consciousness and
Speaker 1: then it just snowballs and gets bigger and bigger and bigger,
Speaker 1: and suddenly you know, there's hell of people trying to
Speaker 1: do this thing. Yeah, it does seem like that connection
Speaker 1: between the UK and LA at that time. It's a
Speaker 1: fascinating one. Yeah, And it was definitely like just the
Speaker 1: underground sound. He knew it wasn't meant to be for everybody,
Speaker 1: but people really wanted it back in the day. How
Speaker 1: did you first connect with Kendrick? I first connected with
Speaker 1: Kendrick on on Twitter. He was like, have somebody tell
Speaker 1: Flying loadus to hit me up. I was like, I
Speaker 1: was already following this cat. I was like, whoa, what
Speaker 1: do you talk? I'm here, hello, here, here, I am, sir.
Speaker 1: What did he already what did he already have out
Speaker 1: at that time? He was he was still on section eighty.
Speaker 1: I think around then. It's just still a kind of
Speaker 1: early days. I think when Good Kid Mad City came out,
Speaker 1: he and I that at his signing in San Francisco.
Speaker 1: When that album came out, I came out to a
Speaker 1: signing and he hung out for a little bit. And
Speaker 1: you know, ever since then, it was like, we gonna
Speaker 1: make something, We gotta do something, we gotta do some
Speaker 1: we gotta do a project, gotta do ep, you got
Speaker 1: you know something. And then, um, the way we really
Speaker 1: started connecting was for some reason, he reached out to
Speaker 1: me because he wanted me to help him make his
Speaker 1: live show for the Yeasest tour that he did. What
Speaker 1: a time. I mean that record right there, that was
Speaker 1: that was huge record, that one. But anyway, yeah, I
Speaker 1: started working with him around then and I started playing
Speaker 1: stuff to him on that tour that kind of had
Speaker 1: that sort of like Parliament sound to it, kind of
Speaker 1: like Funkadelic sound, and he was really feeling that and
Speaker 1: that kind of kicked things off for the Pimp Butterfly
Speaker 1: and it kind of, you know, that was kind of
Speaker 1: the beginning of our collaboration. For our song never Catch
Speaker 1: Me In That was did you did you go on
Speaker 1: the tour. Yeah, I was on the tour for Little Bit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was there. I was there for the first few stops.
Speaker 1: How was that? It was cool? It was cool. It
Speaker 1: was really uh. It was really trippy to have been
Speaker 1: part of that show. And I'd never done anything like
Speaker 1: that before. I never put on helped anybody build a
Speaker 1: live show, so it was really uh, it was really fun.
Speaker 1: I never thought that would happen. It sounds great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it sounds like fun experience and it's interesting to get
Speaker 1: to to get to experimenting new arenas. It's just fun.
Speaker 1: It's a fun. You know, if all you ever did
Speaker 1: was just sit and make beats forever, I know, But
Speaker 1: then when you go and do something else interesting, and
Speaker 1: then you come back, you get to make beats again,
Speaker 1: and it's incredible all over again. Yoh yeah. That's the thing.
Speaker 1: Like anytime I have to do anything else, I get
Speaker 1: so excited to just go home make some beats. But
Speaker 1: it's just let me make beats, that's it. That's all
Speaker 1: I want to do. I found the same with working
Speaker 1: on different kinds of music. If if all I have, dude,
Speaker 1: was make hip hop records, it would have gotten old
Speaker 1: long time ago. For all I made was heavy metal records.
Speaker 1: It would have gotten old. But the fact that I
Speaker 1: get to really submerge myself in different different things keeps
Speaker 1: it really interesting. It's always new. I never you know,
Speaker 1: I never know what's going to happen next, and that's
Speaker 1: a good feeling. Yeah, tell me, tell me a little
Speaker 1: bit about your creative process, like, um, are you always
Speaker 1: making something? What's the what's the rhythm of your work?
Speaker 1: Like I'm kind of similar, you know, I'm always in something,
Speaker 1: but with music especially, I'm like so in it right
Speaker 1: now and always trying to learn more. You know. I
Speaker 1: think whenever I get in a place where I feel comfortable,
Speaker 1: I'm like, all right, I need to learn some more stuff.
Speaker 1: I need to learn how to do things that I
Speaker 1: don't know yet. And this, this kind of quarantine time
Speaker 1: has been really good for me to just kind of
Speaker 1: focus and hone in on a couple of little things
Speaker 1: that I wanted to learn. You know, I really wanted
Speaker 1: to understand synthesis on like a very detailed level. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't want to be one of those people who's
Speaker 1: just like always using the presets and stuff on synthesizers.
Speaker 1: I wanted to know like exactly what everything does, and
Speaker 1: I spend time like just digging into that. So now
Speaker 1: I can go up to any of these boards, I
Speaker 1: know exactly how to get the sounds I want. And
Speaker 1: you know, this is like a little bit of time
Speaker 1: that has now, you know, changed the rest of my life.
Speaker 1: Now it's like I know from here on out, I'll
Speaker 1: be able to get get busy on it, you know,
Speaker 1: like like I always wanted to. So, yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: know my process. Though I wake up early. I'm not
Speaker 1: one of those people who stays up until crazy. I
Speaker 1: wish I could. What are your hours? Usually I start
Speaker 1: to day at six in the morning and then I
Speaker 1: go to bed like twelve one, But I'm like always
Speaker 1: on the machine between you know, work hours. I try
Speaker 1: to treat it like a job now really, where I'm
Speaker 1: just like on it nine to five at least, and
Speaker 1: then if it's super inspired, keep going. But at five
Speaker 1: I feel comfortable like stepping away and throwing on some cartoons.
Speaker 1: From the time you wake up, how soon do you
Speaker 1: start working? Usually after I brush my teeth and do
Speaker 1: all that stuff, you know, I'm like right right on it.
Speaker 1: I feel like that's my best, my best energetic moment.
Speaker 1: It actually is when I'm like just fresh out of
Speaker 1: bed ready to work, you know, sometimes after coffee and
Speaker 1: a joint or something good to go. But I wish
Speaker 1: I could do the late night thing because I do
Speaker 1: find that when I'm up late at night working on
Speaker 1: music that I'm less inhibited and the ideas they're not
Speaker 1: as you know, just you don't think so much. She's
Speaker 1: just kind of like flowing whatever. The the ghost is
Speaker 1: just like it flows through you way easier, less cerebral,
Speaker 1: you know. But I also find that I'm way less
Speaker 1: attentive to detail, and I don't really care about the
Speaker 1: little things as much. It's just like all idea. Do
Speaker 1: you think that has to do with you and how
Speaker 1: long you've been awake or do you think it has
Speaker 1: to do with something else? For me, personally, it's definitely
Speaker 1: time of day and energy. I feel like by the
Speaker 1: time eight o'clock rolls around, you know, I like smoked
Speaker 1: like several blunts, and you know, I'm tired, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's just I feel like I need a lot of
Speaker 1: energy to make music. Personally, I need a lot of
Speaker 1: energy or else it's just gonna be like you know,
Speaker 1: a couple of chords. You know, I need to be
Speaker 1: able to, like, I need to have this pulse in me,
Speaker 1: like when I'm working on stuff, or it just don't work.
Speaker 1: So whenever I got that, when I got that energy,
Speaker 1: it's good to go. Has this schedule and that rhythm
Speaker 1: of working always been your whole life. No, I feel
Speaker 1: like I only really started waking up early when I
Speaker 1: started having like British management and then my label, my
Speaker 1: record label, Warp Records. They they're based in the UK,
Speaker 1: so I think I started getting used to getting emails
Speaker 1: and phone calls super early in the morning. So my
Speaker 1: brain just kind of go. I was like, whoa, they
Speaker 1: might be trying to find me. I don't know, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe my brain just starts going. But before then I
Speaker 1: was definitely like a night out. But now I'm just
Speaker 1: kind of adjusted too, you know, always being awake. And
Speaker 1: so it's so funny you say that when I was
Speaker 1: when I lived in New York, I was on the
Speaker 1: late schedule, and I would usually sleep until three and
Speaker 1: then yeah, probably not be outside until it was dark,
Speaker 1: and then that would be my schedule. And you go
Speaker 1: to sleep sort of typically heading home as the sun
Speaker 1: was coming up was typical. Yeah, that's the artist special
Speaker 1: right there. That's it. So in the morning, you brush
Speaker 1: your teeth, go into the studio, and how does the
Speaker 1: process start, Like, what's the first thing you do? Well, lately,
Speaker 1: what I do now is I try to just write
Speaker 1: some patches and the keyboard or like synthesizer stuff. I
Speaker 1: go up to a machine, one of my machines and
Speaker 1: try to make a patch that I've not heard before,
Speaker 1: whether it's like a cool pad sound or a cool
Speaker 1: lead tone something, because then that will inspire an idea always,
Speaker 1: so it starts with it. So it starts with a sound. Yeah,
Speaker 1: usually starts with a sound, or you know, I'll just
Speaker 1: start playing keys, play some chords and then you know,
Speaker 1: then trying to find a sound that goes with it,
Speaker 1: and then a thing happens. But yeah, I love just
Speaker 1: trying to write patches. I think that's been a really
Speaker 1: fun kind of thing to add to my daily routine.
Speaker 1: Is I have to make a new sound today. What
Speaker 1: does it sound like? And you know what can I
Speaker 1: apply from other things that I've learned to it? I
Speaker 1: mix it with samples. You know what happens when I
Speaker 1: run through a reverb? This that whatever, and then maybe
Speaker 1: that's the beginning of a song, and like the past
Speaker 1: few times I've done that, it comes out as a song.
Speaker 1: Does the sound from the time that you get sound
Speaker 1: where it's like, okay, this is the sound and you're
Speaker 1: inspired by it and you feel like, okay, now I'm
Speaker 1: ready to develop past finding the sound, does that sound
Speaker 1: ever change going forward? Or is that sort of the
Speaker 1: central theme that is unchanged regardless of what else goes
Speaker 1: on around it. That part is usually unchanged because I
Speaker 1: feel like I end up structuring everything else around it,
Speaker 1: you know. But sometimes you find that, oh, well, this
Speaker 1: sound was actually too bright in the context of the
Speaker 1: track now, so you gotta filter it down a little
Speaker 1: bit and then change things. But yeah, usually it is
Speaker 1: the spark happens with that sound is like oh and
Speaker 1: then you know you started like, oh it sounds good
Speaker 1: with these drums, and oh, he just keeps going, and
Speaker 1: you know, two hours goes by, and yeah, typically, how
Speaker 1: long does it take to find the sound? And from
Speaker 1: the time it takes to find the sound, what give
Speaker 1: me an idea? Um, it can take from like five
Speaker 1: to twenty minutes, I think to write a patch when
Speaker 1: I'm not in a hurry to put something out. I
Speaker 1: really do enjoy recording sounds and recording noises, grabbing different
Speaker 1: tones and things because that's my palette. That's that's what
Speaker 1: I have to work with. And you know, we're kind
Speaker 1: of in this time where everyone is using like the
Speaker 1: same sounds and the same drums and the same noises.
Speaker 1: So for me personally, I'm in this place now where
Speaker 1: I'm trying to go out of my way to make
Speaker 1: sure that all the sounds that I have are unique.
Speaker 1: So you're working on the sound, what's the feeling in
Speaker 1: you that tells you, Okay, I'm gonna move forward with
Speaker 1: this sound? What does it? What does that feel like?
Speaker 1: How do you know? It's it's like it's the same
Speaker 1: sound as when you hear that break on a record,
Speaker 1: you know, where you hear something and you're like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, I gotta sample this where it's like it
Speaker 1: almost feels like you cheated, Like it's just like there's
Speaker 1: no way I'm supposed to have this right now, no
Speaker 1: one's watching, you know, It's like it feels like that,
Speaker 1: and that's when you know, and then you like you
Speaker 1: get you like you play some chords and there's like
Speaker 1: a little like chord. It sounds like, you know, that's
Speaker 1: when that's when they do it, when you hit the
Speaker 1: record button. Yeah, it's a it's a thrilling feeling, isn't
Speaker 1: it that? It is? It is. It's addicting because you know,
Speaker 1: every time you feel like you're getting close to that
Speaker 1: perfect beat, that perfect thing, and it never is, but
Speaker 1: you just feel like, oh, i'most there, you know, if only,
Speaker 1: if only? Typically do you work on music thinking it's
Speaker 1: going to be instrumental? Is that the typical default? No,
Speaker 1: there's no default. I think I just try to make
Speaker 1: stuff and then serve whatever the sound is later, you know,
Speaker 1: like it's like, okay, this don't need nobody, just let
Speaker 1: it be. But I think lately I do write music
Speaker 1: with vocalists in mind a lot of times, because there's
Speaker 1: you know how it is, there's people knocking on the door.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm working with Thundercat, you know, and all
Speaker 1: these different people and they're gonna want tracks. So I
Speaker 1: always try to keep that in mind. But I don't
Speaker 1: ever go into it a thing thinking it's going to
Speaker 1: be a certain type of track. But I like to
Speaker 1: just kind of just feel the ghost where we're going,
Speaker 1: I don't know, but you got me hype now talking
Speaker 1: about making tracks right now, we'll be back with Flying
Speaker 1: Lotus after quick break. We're back with Flying Lotus. After
Speaker 1: talking about the difficulties that come along with directing movies,
Speaker 1: Flylow tells Rick about his great aunt, jazz legend and
Speaker 1: spiritualist Alice Coltrane. How would you say the creative muscle
Speaker 1: is different between making music and making film. Making films
Speaker 1: and making music are so different, and they're they're such
Speaker 1: different muscles. But it's weird because there are things that
Speaker 1: relate where especially with producing, where you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: up to us to kind of vocalize a lot of
Speaker 1: things that are in our minds and manifest these ideas
Speaker 1: to people who can. You know, they have these different
Speaker 1: tools and different things that they bring to the table,
Speaker 1: so you have to be able to wrangle each department
Speaker 1: and be able to communicate with them this grand vision
Speaker 1: that you have. Same with music, same with film, though
Speaker 1: both of those things relate. But I would say film
Speaker 1: it's it's way more fucked up because there's way more
Speaker 1: money involved and there's way more people involved. And when
Speaker 1: it comes to music, I can i can just sit
Speaker 1: here in my room and make an album alone, really,
Speaker 1: But with film you could do that, but it wouldn't
Speaker 1: be the most interesting movie in the world. But you know,
Speaker 1: if you did it with CG animation or something, that
Speaker 1: could be great. But it's hard to make a movie
Speaker 1: on your own. I think producing making beats and stuff,
Speaker 1: it lends itself to people who are kind of more introverted, introspective,
Speaker 1: But I think with films you have to really be
Speaker 1: able to be outward and expressive, and it's it's it
Speaker 1: is a different muscle for sure. Yeah, it sounds like
Speaker 1: with music you have to motivate yourself to do it,
Speaker 1: and with a movie you have to motivate the cast
Speaker 1: and crew. Yeah, absolutely, get the vision to come to life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you have to stay You have to obviously be
Speaker 1: the most motivated, you know, like, because there's no one
Speaker 1: who's going to be nearly as motivated as you on
Speaker 1: your film project. It's hard. It's hard. It's one of
Speaker 1: those things where you know, if anyone ever recommends, like
Speaker 1: what should I do? How should I don't do it?
Speaker 1: Don't I just don't do it? But would you imagine
Speaker 1: doing it again? Oh? Absolutely, Yeah, I will. I don't
Speaker 1: know if I recommend it for everyone, but I definitely will.
Speaker 1: But you know the things that I've done, and you know,
Speaker 1: I've learned so much in my process that you can't
Speaker 1: wait to do it again because of all the things
Speaker 1: that you've learned. You say, Okay, well, next time I
Speaker 1: make a film, I could do it like this, And
Speaker 1: you know, it's like could have, would have, should have hindsight.
Speaker 1: It's crazy, you know. So when people are building things
Speaker 1: and constructing props from your imagination and you're seeing these
Speaker 1: things manifested and people acting out dialogue that you wrote,
Speaker 1: that's there's no drug that can compare to nothing like it.
Speaker 1: How did you choose to make that particular movie? Are
Speaker 1: you a fanatic of horror movies? I love horror films.
Speaker 1: I love horror films. I've always loved horror films, especially
Speaker 1: because when I was a kid, I was terrified of
Speaker 1: horror films until maybe like ten years old. I was
Speaker 1: like really afraid of these movies, you know, like Freddy Krueger.
Speaker 1: He would always be in my dreams and stuff and
Speaker 1: the be like so like why would they make these
Speaker 1: horrible things to frighten us? You know, and even like thriller.
Speaker 1: I remember that video was like so scary. When I
Speaker 1: was a kid, I didn't want to see the thrillers
Speaker 1: into Michael Jackson change and none of that stuff. Just
Speaker 1: I couldn't deal with it. And eventually when it starts
Speaker 1: to get fun and you're like, oh, this is just
Speaker 1: props and effects and stuff and you learn all the stuff,
Speaker 1: and I don't know, I just fell in love with it.
Speaker 1: I think because it was so scary to me. I
Speaker 1: loved it so much. And yeah, I love the genre.
Speaker 1: I love horror. I love horror films and scary games
Speaker 1: and you know the maccab but I love I love
Speaker 1: all that stuff. But I also love funny stuff too.
Speaker 1: I love when those things can intersect. I don't love
Speaker 1: serious horror as much as I like funny horror and
Speaker 1: being able to have fun with it and be playful.
Speaker 1: I guess because life is pretty serious enough. You know
Speaker 1: that life is pretty real, So when you can have
Speaker 1: your horror with comedy, it's it's a lot easier to
Speaker 1: digest for me these days. But I think when it
Speaker 1: came to me making my own movie, I wanted to
Speaker 1: make something that I know i'd have fun with because
Speaker 1: making movies as hard as shit. I was like, Yo,
Speaker 1: I want to make something that every day that I
Speaker 1: work on this thing, I will have a great time.
Speaker 1: I will laugh my ass off, and you know, just
Speaker 1: it'll be a blast for everyone in the process. How
Speaker 1: much does the work that you've aid in the past
Speaker 1: influenced the work that you make? Now, that's a good question,
Speaker 1: you know. I actually I think that's why, you know,
Speaker 1: side projects and alter egos become so attractive to people,
Speaker 1: to other artists, because they get to take a little
Speaker 1: bit of pressure off themselves to explore different things. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I definitely feel the pressure of things that I've done
Speaker 1: in my catalog. I mean, man, you must feel the
Speaker 1: pressure of your beard, dude, come on, man like like
Speaker 1: you know, like that beard. You know, like people are like, oh, man,
Speaker 1: Rick Rubin, It's like, you know the thing, man, you know,
Speaker 1: I would say it's more itch than pressure. Pressure. It's like,
Speaker 1: but what was the last time you thought about cutting
Speaker 1: it off? I've never thought about cutting it off, right,
Speaker 1: But I also didn't think about growing it at any point.
Speaker 1: It just kind of happened. It was I decided to
Speaker 1: stop shaving, and this is what happens when you stop.
Speaker 1: But you know, if you cut it off, that shit
Speaker 1: would suck people up. Me especially, I wouldn't recognize myself.
Speaker 1: Tell me about Alice. Oh yeah, Alice was just always Auntie.
Speaker 1: You know, she was she was Auntie. She was my
Speaker 1: closest aunt, close, one of my closest relatives. So my
Speaker 1: experience with her was was really unique. I saw her
Speaker 1: as you know, my grandmother's sister, mostly um, but she
Speaker 1: was also you knew that she was this very special,
Speaker 1: unique individual. And as time went on and as I
Speaker 1: grew up, and you know, I just would respect her
Speaker 1: more and more every head seeing like every decade, I
Speaker 1: would just wow, my Auntie is amazing human being. Oh wow,
Speaker 1: my aunt amazing. You know. I remember going to college
Speaker 1: and then really really falling in love with her music
Speaker 1: and coming home from college and you know, it was like, wow, teacher,
Speaker 1: where have you been this whole time? You know, you
Speaker 1: were just telling me how to just you know, break
Speaker 1: the lawn and stuff. You show me different things on
Speaker 1: the piano. But I didn't know how deep it went,
Speaker 1: you know, because I felt like in my youth and
Speaker 1: in a lot of her lifetime, she was John Coltrane's wife.
Speaker 1: That was her thing. You know, she wasn't Alice Coltrane
Speaker 1: a great jazz icon in her own right. People were
Speaker 1: always asking her, what was it like being John Coltrane's
Speaker 1: you know, you know, it was like she didn't have
Speaker 1: any problem with that. But I think that that just
Speaker 1: kind of became her thing, you know, for for so long,
Speaker 1: so we the emphasis wasn't on her music or on
Speaker 1: her personal legacy or it was always about his. And
Speaker 1: you know, I think only towards the end of her
Speaker 1: life she really started getting back into making music again
Speaker 1: and then that was you know, it just kind of
Speaker 1: we started to see her as the artist again, you know,
Speaker 1: the things that she would create because she took so
Speaker 1: much time off of it. I mean I would I'd
Speaker 1: never I see her a lot. I never I've never
Speaker 1: seen her practice. Yeah, never see her practice, but I
Speaker 1: see her play. She would play, But there never of
Speaker 1: that time where I come by this auntie and she
Speaker 1: was at the piano, messed around right, never ever ever ever,
Speaker 1: And you know, but she would unleash on Sundays at
Speaker 1: the ashram Um, but yeah, never never practice. Tell me
Speaker 1: about the ashram What was the scene like at the Ashram.
Speaker 1: Ashram Um as this beautiful, beautiful land in Agora Hills
Speaker 1: and it was recently destroyed by the fires. We had
Speaker 1: the wildfires two years ago, and but the Ashram was
Speaker 1: it was Yeah, it was beautiful. It was a big,
Speaker 1: big space and it was you know, as soon as
Speaker 1: you would get out of your car, you would notice
Speaker 1: is how you could hear a pin drop. It was
Speaker 1: just so quiet there and you know, there are people
Speaker 1: wearing white everywhere and like you rot coyfish ponds and stuff.
Speaker 1: It was very, very, very beautiful. But again, it's one
Speaker 1: of those things that I kind of just took for
Speaker 1: granted because it was there in my whole life, and
Speaker 1: you know, it was just something that we did on Sundays.
Speaker 1: But then as you get older you start living, you
Speaker 1: see how amazing spaces like this are, and yeah, it
Speaker 1: was a very unique experience. Did you ever talk about
Speaker 1: spirituality with you all the time? Yeah, yeah, she would,
Speaker 1: and she would always be kind of my my spiritual guide,
Speaker 1: I guess, And you know, i'd call all her up
Speaker 1: whenever I had a question that about the universe or
Speaker 1: wanted to try to make sense of this world, help
Speaker 1: me understand. She would always always have the right thing
Speaker 1: to say. Yeah, so unique, beautiful, beautiful. Yeah, we'll be
Speaker 1: right back with Flying Lotus. After a quick break, we're
Speaker 1: back with the rest of Rick's conversation with Flying Lotus.
Speaker 1: What are you working on now? Talk about it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: a few things actually read just as a fun thing.
Speaker 1: I was friends with Johnny Ramone from the Ramones, and
Speaker 1: Ramones were one of my favorite groups, top you know,
Speaker 1: top three favorite groups, and they made an album there
Speaker 1: I think it was their fifth album called End of
Speaker 1: the Century with Phil Spector, and it's it's as a
Speaker 1: Ramones fan at the time. I remember I was in
Speaker 1: junior high school when it came out, and I already
Speaker 1: loved the Ramones, maybe high school, first year high school maybe,
Speaker 1: And I remember buying the album and putting it on
Speaker 1: and being so disappointed because I loved the Ramons so
Speaker 1: much and it didn't sound like the Ramones and it
Speaker 1: just broke my heart. And then years later I met
Speaker 1: Johnny and then who lived in LA when I moved
Speaker 1: to LA started hanging out with him, and I told
Speaker 1: him the story when I heard the album, and he said,
Speaker 1: it breaks his heart hearing the album because he said
Speaker 1: they're great Ramones songs, but the way they were presented
Speaker 1: didn't sound like the Ramones. So he always thought it
Speaker 1: was a miss and his dream was for some day
Speaker 1: that album to be remixed and re released as a
Speaker 1: proper Ramones album again, not to take away anything from
Speaker 1: the original version, both of them. You know, you could
Speaker 1: listen to him back to back. So through a series
Speaker 1: of events, we tried doing it about ten years ago
Speaker 1: and it didn't come together. And in that time, Johnny
Speaker 1: passed away, and I always felt like, since he passed away,
Speaker 1: I always wanted to make his dream come true, like
Speaker 1: a true man. Yeah. Yeah, So we're just finishing at
Speaker 1: now and it's uh good. Yeah, And it's just like
Speaker 1: it's just a feel good project, like an artist's dream
Speaker 1: gets to come true posthumously. Yeah, that's good. What did
Speaker 1: you want to be different about it? He just wants
Speaker 1: to sound just like a Ramones record, like much more
Speaker 1: stripped down, much more direct, much more raw, Just to
Speaker 1: like to sound like if you listen to their first
Speaker 1: four albums, to have this fifth one sound like what
Speaker 1: you'd expect after those first four in the trajectory instead
Speaker 1: of the left turn. And it's interesting too, like I like,
Speaker 1: I like Left Turn albums, you know, I like both.
Speaker 1: Some people though, right, Yeah, depend people want them to change.
Speaker 1: That's what's fucked up. You know. It's rough. It's rough. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's one of the things I recommend young artists is
Speaker 1: if they want to have that ability to do that,
Speaker 1: it's important to set that standard early in their career. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that you change all the time. Yeah, it's like if
Speaker 1: you make if you make four albums that are very
Speaker 1: much like Volume one, two, three, and four of the
Speaker 1: same idea, if Volume five is really different, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of people who are just not gonna like that.
Speaker 1: That's real. That's so real. Yeah. So it's almost like,
Speaker 1: in a way, it's like training your audience to be
Speaker 1: open to go on the journey review. It's like if
Speaker 1: you if you listen to the Beatles. The Beatles were
Speaker 1: clearly well received, and if you listen to the thirteen
Speaker 1: albums from the beginning to the end, they don't sound
Speaker 1: like the same band. Like they radically change every two
Speaker 1: albums radically, and those were typically thirteen albums over seven years,
Speaker 1: so it was two albums a year, so every year
Speaker 1: they were a different band essentially. Yeah, that's hard. It's
Speaker 1: hard to do. But yeah, I think I think doing
Speaker 1: the same thing and it's such a drag. But then
Speaker 1: like if James Brown did something else, I don't know
Speaker 1: if I want to hear it right right, Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm very happy with James Brown trajectory. Yeah. There's certain artists, yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of Yeah, a lot of them. You just
Speaker 1: don't don't go there. You don't gotta you don't gotta
Speaker 1: be that person, don't do that. Yeah. I think it
Speaker 1: has to do with how much the artist is a
Speaker 1: genre defining artist. Maybe maybe I don't know, I don't know,
Speaker 1: something I never thought about before. But be interesting to
Speaker 1: understand why certain artists you you're excited about them to change,
Speaker 1: and other artists you don't want them to change. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I think I think, yeah, you might you might
Speaker 1: be right about that. If they define a sound and
Speaker 1: then they step away from it, then it might be
Speaker 1: way way too jarring. Yeah, that was that was the
Speaker 1: experience with Jesus. There were a lot of people who
Speaker 1: were not on board with Jesus oh god man, Yeah, yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: And to me, that was my that's my favorite of
Speaker 1: all his stuff. I think it's just it's the most different.
Speaker 1: But yeah, the first listen was like, what the fuck
Speaker 1: is this shit? Fuck but fucking sounds that there ain't
Speaker 1: no sounds on here, And then it was like, whoa,
Speaker 1: this is some other futuristic shit. It's cool. I can
Speaker 1: remember also hearing Um trouble Funk for the first time.
Speaker 1: Right in the early days of hip hop. The only
Speaker 1: way that I was able to hear the only place
Speaker 1: you could hear hip hop when I was growing up
Speaker 1: was WHBI had a Mister Magic show, which was like
Speaker 1: a oh yeah, an hour long mix show of I'll
Speaker 1: call it underground hip hop because there was only underground
Speaker 1: hip hop at that time. There was no there was
Speaker 1: no above ground, you know. It's all the hip hop
Speaker 1: in the world was underground at that time, and you
Speaker 1: couldn't hear it on any mainstream station ever. UM, but
Speaker 1: this one weekly show for an hour played hip hop
Speaker 1: records and so we took it very uh. We cared
Speaker 1: a lot about that show because it was the only
Speaker 1: source of hearing this music and UM and then one
Speaker 1: week he played this Trouble Funk record which was like
Speaker 1: and it was also like a seven or eight minute
Speaker 1: track which had of an hour show that's a lot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't a rap record. Yeah. Yeah, it's like,
Speaker 1: why did you give away our time? Time this exactly,
Speaker 1: and I would forward, you know, the cassette. I would
Speaker 1: forward through the cassette, pass the trouble funk song to
Speaker 1: get back to the hip hop records. Yeah, and then
Speaker 1: within a couple of weeks the only thing I would
Speaker 1: listen to on the tape was a trouble funk song. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's how it goes. I always think about that, like
Speaker 1: I always try to spot out my least favorite song
Speaker 1: on the record that I listened to, and like, all right,
Speaker 1: is this going to be the one that I actually
Speaker 1: fall in love with? Because that happens so much, so much. Yea,
Speaker 1: it happens. Also sometimes with the thing that you love,
Speaker 1: the first time you hear it might not have sustaining power.
Speaker 1: Yeah it doesn't. Yeah, so I mean sometimes it does,
Speaker 1: but sometimes it doesn't. Yeah, yeah, sometimes it doesn't. The
Speaker 1: first thing that the single or whatever, that thing you
Speaker 1: fell in love with it is like, yeah, that's cool,
Speaker 1: but there's other deep cut that's gonna last me the
Speaker 1: rest of the year. Yeah. Can you think of any
Speaker 1: music in general, any Like, I remember when I was
Speaker 1: a kid, classical music didn't speak to me at all,
Speaker 1: and now I probably listened to that more than anything else.
Speaker 1: Definitely classical for me. Um, I didn't really vibe with
Speaker 1: it until I heard Stravinsky, um, some of that stuff,
Speaker 1: and then I connected it to Fantasia, and then I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, okay, all classical music is just Fantasia
Speaker 1: with no with no images. Okay, cool, it's all It's
Speaker 1: all this vibrant cartoon that keeps change changing, and you
Speaker 1: know obviously your connection with the changes. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that was that was huge. Fall in love with
Speaker 1: that music and just kind of being open to that
Speaker 1: at an early age I think was so so good
Speaker 1: for me. My favorite my favorite thing is new old music,
Speaker 1: you know, old music that I haven't heard before. That's
Speaker 1: that's the best because I just like the way that
Speaker 1: music's made and it, uh, it's a flavor I like,
Speaker 1: and I'm really used to all of the stuff that's familiar.
Speaker 1: But when I can hear something in that flavor that's
Speaker 1: not familiar, that really feels like it expands the mind. Yeah. Same,
Speaker 1: I've been on that too. Man. Like anytime you just
Speaker 1: like you find something from the seventies you haven't heard before.
Speaker 1: You're like, oh wow, you know you can dig into it.
Speaker 1: You know, like it's gonna have certain instruments, certain ideas
Speaker 1: and techniques of how they recorded in everything. What have
Speaker 1: you been What have you been vibing on? Though? Just
Speaker 1: a lot of all the kinds of old music, a
Speaker 1: lot of old psychedelic music, a lot of classical music,
Speaker 1: a lot of jazz, kind of the new you know,
Speaker 1: the the new classical. It's like somewhere in between new
Speaker 1: age and classical like Max Richter and meals from and yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't I don't even know what you really call that.
Speaker 1: I guess it's contemporary classical. I don't know, but yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's the vibe though. Yeah, it's often electronic based,
Speaker 1: but doesn't have to be. It feels inspiring. It feels like, um,
Speaker 1: they're using the same machines in different ways, and I
Speaker 1: like that. Do you like Philip Glass and Ryuichi Sakamoto? Yes,
Speaker 1: Rucci Sakamo amazing, incredible. Yeah, I've been listening to a
Speaker 1: lot of his stuff and it's it's so crazy to
Speaker 1: hear all the different vibes that cat. It's been across
Speaker 1: you know, like from the seventies to now, he was
Speaker 1: always in the electron of music, but always in the
Speaker 1: kind of classical and playing and whatnot. And it's just
Speaker 1: it's wild. Yeah, the stuff he was doing back then
Speaker 1: kind of sounds so new and fresh. Also a lot
Speaker 1: of you know David Axel rods always always come out.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah. Do you hear that there's a there's
Speaker 1: an album he produced of the Electric Prunes. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: so good. Yeah, yeah, it sounds amazing too. Yeah. I didn't,
Speaker 1: and I the way I found it wasn't through him.
Speaker 1: It was just through listening to old psychedelic music and
Speaker 1: Matt came up. It's like, oh, this is different than
Speaker 1: everything else, and who produced it? Turn it turns out
Speaker 1: he produced it, but I didn't know that. It's like,
Speaker 1: why is this different than everything else? Why is this
Speaker 1: so special? Then I listened to the whole album before
Speaker 1: I even knew he produced it, and thinking like, this
Speaker 1: doesn't sound anything like anything this band did before this.
Speaker 1: This is a unique moment. Oh yeah, cool, A pleasure.
Speaker 1: I look forward to hanging soon. Yeah, I would love
Speaker 1: to real a pleasure. Sir, Thank you very much much love,
Speaker 1: thanks the Flying Lotus for Talking Shop with Rick, you
Speaker 1: can hear all of her favorite fly Loow tracks long
Speaker 1: with a bunch of other songs he's produced over the
Speaker 1: years on a playlist at broken record podcast dot com,
Speaker 1: and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel at
Speaker 1: YouTube dot com slash broken record Podcast. There you can
Speaker 1: find extended cuts of our past episodes. Broken Record is
Speaker 1: produced with help from Jason Gambrell, Mila Belle, Leah Rose,
Speaker 1: Eric Sandler, and Martin Gonzalez for Pushkin Industries. A theme
Speaker 1: musics by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.