Rick Rubin

Speaker 30:01

BBC sounds music

Presenter0:03

Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne, and this is the Desert Island Discs Podcast. Every week, I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book, and luxury they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. And, for rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:45

My castaway this week is the music producer Rick Rubin. He has shaped the sound of popular music over the past four decades. As a student in New York in the early 80s, he fell in love with the emerging rap scene and founded the label Def Jam in his dorm room. He helped catapult the music into the mainstream, signing Public Enemy and the Beastie Boys and enjoying early international success with the hit single Walk This Way when rappers Rundy MC collaborated with the rock band Aerosmith. He's won nine Grammys and his credits run the gamut from Adele to Jay-Z, touching on if not every letter, then certainly every genre in between. Musicians speak of his mysterious production style in reverential tones. It is powerful creative alchemy that reinvigorated an ailing Johnny Cash and transformed the red-hot chili peppers from frat rock jokers to stadium dominating superstars. As for how he does it, he says, I just show up and try to make music that excites me. Sometimes there'll be an idea that'll make a record great, sometimes it'll just be patiently waiting for a magic occurrence to happen or setting the stage to allow it. Rick Rubin, welcome to Desert Island Discs.

Rick Rubin1:53

Thank you for having me.

Presenter1:55

So Rick, I've seen lots of photos of you at work over the years, but you are not, as many producers are, hunched over, sat behind a mixing desk. You are usually in these images recumbent on a sofa, often barefoot with your eyes closed. So as a production technique, it clearly works. I mean, you know, your CV speaks for itself, but I am very intrigued. Tell me a little bit more about your approach in the studio.

Rick Rubin2:19

Well, I'm not technical in any way, and my job is to listen. I can listen in the deepest way if I'm relaxed with my eyes closed.

Presenter2:28

And what are you listening for? Is it a search or is it just an experience?

Rick Rubin2:32

It's just an experience. I'm both listening to what's coming at me and Paying attention to what's going on in my body as I listen. Does something happen that makes me want to lean forward? Is there something that makes me want to laugh, even if it's not funny? Is there something that surprises me or makes me want to know more or bores me? Which happens, and then I would say that's a problem. If it's boring to me, it'll probably be boring to someone else, or it's likely to be.

Speaker 12:56

Uh

Presenter2:56

Mm-hmm.

Presenter3:02

Sometimes though you don't even work in the studio, where where else do you like to go with your artists? Where do those conversations start?

Rick Rubin3:09

We just finished the basic tracks for the Next Strokes album. We recorded it on a mountain top in Costa Rica, with the band outside looking over the ocean.

Presenter3:19

Oh wow.

Rick Rubin3:20

And it was unbelievable. I've never done that before.

Presenter3:22

I'm not sure.

Presenter3:23

And what does that bring to the music? I can imagine that's an unbelievable day at the office, so to speak, but you can it brings a quality to the recording.

Rick Rubin3:31

If you've made several albums, and if each album is going to a recording studio, you get into this habit of we're doing another one, we're doing another one.

Rick Rubin3:41

And when you create this new venue for something to happen, it's not just another one, it's a different experience. And sometimes something as simple as turning the lights off in the room can change the way a performance happens. Being in a remote place, or in the case of the Chili Peppers, the Blood Sugar Sex Magic album was recorded in a house, a haunted house. And it adds to the adventure. The whole project has this feeling of adventure to it. And sometimes it works its way into the way it sounds.

Presenter4:15

I think we better get started with your first disc. What are we going to hear for disc number one and why?

Rick Rubin4:20

First we're going to hear the Beatles across the universe.

Rick Rubin4:23

from three years old to seven years old.

Rick Rubin4:26

The Beatles was everywhere and everywhere in my in my home.

Rick Rubin4:31

And it somehow imprinted what a great song is in a very deep level before I knew that I was looking for what that was.

Rick Rubin4:39

Jaiguru Deva Om is sung, which is um a Maharishi greeting.

Rick Rubin4:47

And I learned to meditate when I was 14, in part because the Beatles did that. And it ended up informing so much in my life, probably more than anything else.

Speaker 34:57

Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup They slither wildly as they slip away across the universe

Speaker 35:10

Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my opened mind, possessing and caressing me.

Speaker 35:21

Psycho

Presenter5:24

Fair enough.

Presenter5:29

The Beatles and Across the Universe. So Rick Rubin, you were born in Long Beach on Long Island in nineteen sixty three. You moved to Ledo Beach on the island when you were seven. Tell me about your parents, Mickey and Linda. You were very close to them, weren't you?

Rick Rubin5:42

I slept in my parents' bed with them for the first five years of my life. So and I'm an only child, so it was a very tight-knit family.

Rick Rubin5:52

The fact that my parents were so loving and warm and supportive of everything, maybe to a fault, in my life, gave me the confidence to be able to do things that were other people felt were more challenging.

Presenter6:02

My life.

Presenter6:11

I know that you've said your mother Linda's job was you.

Rick Rubin6:13

Yeah.

Presenter6:13

Tell me more about that relationship.

Rick Rubin6:15

My mom's full-time job was me. I would get home from school and she would say, Where are we going today? and she was my driver. Early in life, I was a magician. She would drive me to the magic store, and then wait in the car and read while I was in the magic store for two hours, three hours. And then my dad was a bit of a workaholic, so I didn't see him as much. But when I did, he couldn't have been more loving.

Rick Rubin6:37

And I suppose I learned a strong work ethic from my dad because he was a very uh diligent person.

Presenter6:42

Okay, so you see that practical example of your dad and then you have this quite intense sounding relationship with your mum where it's she's utterly devoted to you. But that can that can bring a certain amount of of pressure with it as well, I think. Did it ever feel like it was a bit too much?

Rick Rubin6:57

Not until I left home when I once I left home, I understood it was out of balance. And they while they couldn't have been more positive about me,

Rick Rubin7:09

I would say, I honestly, I don't think that they actually saw who I was. They had a fantasy version of who I was.

Presenter7:15

Okay.

Rick Rubin7:16

And they saw the fantasy, but it I I don't think it was actually who I am.

Presenter7:21

What did that look like, do you think?

Rick Rubin7:23

Um perfection.

Rick Rubin7:24

And I was by no means perfect. I could tell you a a story about that. I um there's there's something called the Regents in New York State, which is a statewide test. And the first one's in algebra in junior high school. I got a hundred on the the Algebra Regent, which was a big deal in my household.

Rick Rubin7:43

But also maybe twenty-five kids in my school got a hundred, so it wasn't so remarkable.

Rick Rubin7:49

The next year was the geometry regents, and I got ninety nine.

Rick Rubin7:53

And my parents were disappointed. And only one person got a hundred, and me and one other person got ninety nine. But my parents felt like I missed the mark somehow. And it's interesting, even though the ninety nine was better than the hundred,

Presenter8:03

And

Rick Rubin8:07

To them it was a I wouldn't say a failure, but it was a disappointment.

Presenter8:12

Time for some more music, Rick.

Presenter8:14

It's disk number two.

Rick Rubin8:15

We're going to hear Wittinger Olofsson's rendition.

Rick Rubin8:19

of Bach and At the Hour of Death.

Rick Rubin8:23

I don't think we can have a conversation about music without somehow getting back to a foundational element. And if we're going to play a variety of music, including Bach seems necessary.

Rick Rubin8:35

There's something about this it's a it's a relatively new piece, he's an Icelandic pianist.

Rick Rubin8:41

There's this undercurrent, this groovy undercurrent that speaks to me and technically it's a very modern recording and we can hear things that we don't hear in the traditional classical recordings and it also tells the story of taking something old, putting it through a new filter and creating something fresh and new and exciting all over again after hundreds of years and I love that.

Presenter10:07

And At the Hour of Death, music by J. S. Bach, produced by Christian Badzura and performed by Wikinger Olafsson.

Presenter10:14

Now Rick Rubin, I must ask you about another important figure in your early life, your Aunt Carol.

Rick Rubin10:20

She worked in Manhattan at Este Lauder and she ran the Creative Service Department there.

Rick Rubin10:26

She was a real groundbreaking person and she never married, so for her I was like her child as well.

Rick Rubin10:34

And it was a beautiful relationship. She was a sophisticated intellectual, whereas my parents were not. And I had this balance between spending Monday through Friday with my parents and then Friday night to Monday morning with my Aunt Carol. So every weekend? Every weekend, my parents would bring me to my grandmother's house where my aunt Carol would come from the city for the weekend, and I would spend the weekend. And the reason that they did that was because Carol had something to offer that was different than what my parents had to offer. And my mom recognized that and wanted me to experience.

Presenter10:50

Every weekend.

Speaker 111:06

And want it.

Rick Rubin11:08

literature and classical music and um she would take me to Broadway shows and she would take me to museums and my parents were less interested in those things. My parents rarely read to me. My Aunt Carol read to me constantly. What did she read to you? Sherlock Holmes, lots of poetry. I loved it, I loved it.

Presenter11:27

The picture that you've painted for us so far of your yourself as a kid is almost like you in this world of adults. I wonder about your nature as an only child. Did you have quite a solitary nature? Did you have friends your own age?

Rick Rubin11:40

I had few friends my own age. I was mostly by myself. I was around adults a lot, but also in my room alone a lot.

Presenter11:48

And and you were good you were okay with that, with your own company and your imagination.

Rick Rubin11:51

I didn't know any option. It was what it was and it was fine.

Presenter11:57

I want to ask you about when you were in high school. I think that music was was already a huge passion for you, but that the music you were interested in kind of set you apart from people. What were you listening to and why did it make you different?

Rick Rubin12:10

I was a punk rocker. I was the only punk rocker in my school. There were no other punk rockers, and there was no internet, so I couldn't meet.

Rick Rubin12:18

like-minded people through social media. I I was uh the lone punk rocker.

Presenter12:23

Yeah. That's a lonely road to walk, isn't it?

Rick Rubin12:24

The Saloni

Rick Rubin12:25

For the longest time, yes. It was uh it was a little sad.

Rick Rubin12:29

And then hip hop came along, and there were some kids in my high school who liked hip hop, and they became my friends, and that was a little bit of a community that I had. First first time I had a musical community.

Presenter12:41

It's time for your next piece of music, Rick. Tell us what we're going to hear, disc number three.

Rick Rubin12:45

We are going to hear Rockaway Beach by the Ramones. They were the first punk rock band I ever heard. They were the first band to play fast that I ever heard. And I remember hearing them in junior high school and just laughing. It was really funny to me. Made no sense. And it's funny to hear the Ramones sing about Rockaway Beach in such a joyous manner because it was by no means a beautiful place. It was as much of a dump of a beach as you could find.

Speaker 113:10

It was it was

Speaker 113:19

And I won't sleep. It's that hard, that far to reach. We can eat to ride to ride the way it meets. I'm on the roof, at all streets.

Speaker 113:30

They ran the hot cool

Speaker 113:32

More

Speaker 113:33

It's too slow, and that's nothing that's going on

Speaker 113:37

Rock, ride, ride the witness

Speaker 113:40

I run away me.

Speaker 113:42

Ride, ride, ride away bitch, beginning to ride, to ride.

Presenter13:47

Rockaway Beach by Ramones. Rick Rubin, by the time you got to university, rap music had replaced Punk in Your Affections. Why were you drawn to it?

Rick Rubin13:56

To me it was it was punk rock.

Rick Rubin13:59

You didn't have to be a virtuoso to be a great rapper. You had to have a point of view, something to say, and usually something to be, let's say, excited about.

Presenter14:09

And this music wasn't always easy to access. You know, you would have to know the right club to go to, be tuned to a particular radio show. You were there, you were at hip hop clubs in New York, you were meeting the DJs and the MCs, and sometimes I think you were the only white person in the audience. Did you feel like you fitted in?

Rick Rubin14:26

I fit in because I love the music and we all love the music. The thing that bound us together had nothing to do with skin colour. It was this passion about this beautiful new art form.

Presenter14:36

So what made you make the jump from fan and consumer to someone who thought they could make hip-hop records for themselves? What did you want to capture?

Rick Rubin14:44

Well, I'll say the only reason I did it was because I bought every at this point in time it was 12-inch singles. Only there were no rap albums yet. There were only 12-inch singles. And the music in the hip-hop clubs didn't sound like those records. So my interest was I wanted to make records really for myself that sounded like what I liked about going to the club, which was much more raw, much less musical, and

Rick Rubin15:09

The fact that I didn't know how to make recordings allowed me to make ones that were true to what it was, instead of following the rules of recording where you hire a great a great band and you make everything sound a certain way. That was not the case. I was making it much more like someone who didn't know what they were doing.

Presenter15:27

Time for disc number four. What are you sitting with you and why?

Rick Rubin15:31

This is Us vs Them L C D Sound System. This song represents my time in New York when I was going to NYU and I was going out to dance Tyria every night with the Beastie Boys and with Rundy MC and with LL Cool J. And there was this incredible dance music scene going on that had groups like Liquid Liquid and ESG and while LCD was not yet a band, their music is the sound of New York at that period and LCD Sound System are actually the best version of any of this music. They perfected it. And also I got to meet my wife at an LCD sound system concert years and years later. So they hold an even more emotional place in my soul.

Speaker 116:08

Any of this music they

Rick Rubin16:33

The time has come, the time has come today The time has come, the time has come, the time has come today.

Presenter16:48

Fire to get the screws.

Presenter16:55

Us Versus Them by L C D Sound System. Rick Rubin, in nineteen eighty four you produced your first track, It's Yours, by the rapper Tila Rock, for your new label of Def Jam Recordings, which you ran from your dorm room. What were you aiming for and how confident were you that you could achieve it?

Rick Rubin17:11

Well, I was confident that I could achieve it because I had no expectation whatsoever. So the fact that.

Presenter17:15

I'm very sorry.

Rick Rubin17:17

I had a vinyl disc in my hand was it worked. I had a vinyl disc in my hand. Done. And I never thought music would be my work or career in any way. I thought I would have a real job and I would make music forever because it's what I love to do, but I never considered it as a career path.

Presenter17:36

Well, it didn't quite work out like that. You and your Def Jam business partner, Russell Simmons, soon enjoyed success, and your first album release was LL Cool J's Radio. Now your credit on that is actually reduced by Rick Rubin rather than produced. So what exactly was your role?

Rick Rubin17:54

I thought at the time of production as building something up, and I was interested in getting to the essence of things and using the least amount of information to get an idea across, so Reduce seemed more accurate.

Presenter18:07

You had a huge crossover hit in nineteen eighty six when you brought together the hip hop group Rundy MC with the rock band Aerosmith to record a version of the Aerosmith track Walk This Way. What did Rundy MC make of this when you suggested it? There's a smile on your face.

Rick Rubin18:22

There's a smile on your face. Yeah, they were fine with the idea of the music being the music because the beat, psst, dat, bum boom, boom, tat, pst, dat, b, boom, boom, tat, the intro was a well-known hip-hop break beat. So you would hear that beat in hip-hop clubs already before Ren DMC ever did it.

Rick Rubin18:43

They never heard of the song Walk This Way all they heard was the drum beat.

Rick Rubin18:47

And the drumbeat was one that they were excited about performing on. And then I suggested, well, we're going to do the lyrics.

Rick Rubin18:55

The Aerosmith lyrics, and they thought it was insane. Like, well, why would we do that?

Rick Rubin19:00

But eventually they came around to doing it. And I think Russell was persuasive. Run was his little brother. He's like, do what Rick says. And.

Rick Rubin19:09

It did what I hoped it would do in just explaining what rap music was to people who didn't understand.

Presenter19:16

We've got to take some time for the music, Rick. It's your fifth choice today. What are we going to hear next?

Rick Rubin19:21

I Believe in You by Neil Young. I had a spiritual experience listening to this song where I was driving from Malibu.

Rick Rubin19:29

Back into Los Angeles and there's a a long drive on Pacific Coast Highway, which is a magical, beautiful highway. And I turned from Pacific Coast Highway onto the 10 Freeway, and I'm listening to the words of the song and the emotion in the vocal. And I had an experience that's hard to describe. I stopped breathing.

Rick Rubin19:51

And I would say it was a feeling.

Rick Rubin19:54

somehow related to dying, everything stopped in my body and I pulled off the side of the highway and it's a big fast highway, but I pulled off to the side of the highway and just sat there with my eyes closed and let the song finish and I think I cried.

Rick Rubin20:11

And even saying, I believe in you now, I can tear up. The power of belief is so strong, it's so important in my life, and it's so important in going to a studio where you have nothing and then believing something's going to happen and that we have this thing in front of us. It's always a miracle. And this song hits me in this way of everything that I believe.

Speaker 120:34

Alice, you've made yourself love me.

Speaker 120:40

Do you think I can change it in a day?

Speaker 120:47

How can I place you above me?

Speaker 120:53

Am I lying to you when I say that?

Presenter21:00

I believe in you.

Presenter21:05

Neil Young, and I believe in you.

Presenter21:08

Rick Rubin, some of the artists you've signed have been controversial, accused of glamorizing or promoting violence or misogyny. How do you see your role when you're working with them?

Rick Rubin21:19

I'm only interested in the artist. I'm only interested in in the artist pushing the boundaries as far as they can in whatever it is they want to say.

Presenter21:31

For example, the Beastie Boys who you work with on produced their first record, and they have expressed a certain amount of regret about their choices at the time, and some of the lyrics and stuff like that.

Rick Rubin21:39

Yeah.

Rick Rubin21:41

And stuff like that.

Presenter21:42

Is that something that you've ever felt like, oh, I wouldn't do that now? Or do you reflect back on that?

Rick Rubin21:46

Do you reflect that? Now, but I have no regret about doing it. The best work divides the audience, and I embrace that. I want to go as far as we can to the edge, and sometimes we fall over.

Rick Rubin22:03

But those are the things that most excite me. That's what I want to hear from someone else. If we all are in agreement about everything, art's going to be dull. Life will be dull.

Presenter22:13

You know, the nineties was a a very fertile, rich period for you creatively. You produced critically acclaimed albums for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Tom Petty, Black Crows, some incredible collaborations. But I know that at the time that was somewhat at odds with your personal state of mind. What were you experiencing and going through?

Rick Rubin22:31

I went through a um

Rick Rubin22:33

a depression for the first time in my life. It wasn't anything that I um I understood. I I thought I was dying. I didn't understand what it was. Uh at one point in time I was going to see

Rick Rubin22:45

a therapeutic practitioner of one kind or another, probably two a day, five days a week, six days a week, just hoping I would drag myself out of bed to get to the appointment in the hopes that this is going to fix it. And that was my life for two years.

Presenter23:02

You'd been working with Warner Brothers at the time, and your long term collaborator was Mo Austin, an industry legend. So you two had a close relationship, but but he left after a corporate power struggle. What happened after that?

Rick Rubin23:14

The person who replaced him

Rick Rubin23:17

called me and said, you know, I d I don't I read your deal and uh

Rick Rubin23:21

It's too good. I don't like it.

Rick Rubin23:23

Now, to anyone else, especially a successful person, it's like, okay.

Rick Rubin23:28

We're going to talk about it, and it'll either work out or not. And if it doesn't work out, I'll do something else, no problem.

Speaker 123:31

I'll do

Rick Rubin23:33

But it's the first time in my life I didn't feel support.

Rick Rubin23:38

From my parents, I felt support. Through the whole Def Jam period, I felt support because, really, because we had so much success from the beginning.

Rick Rubin23:46

I just had never experienced anyone questioning me before.

Presenter23:48

You didn't know how to handle that.

Rick Rubin23:49

And I didn't have the musculature to deal with this. And I.

Rick Rubin23:56

I collapsed. I would say I'm not the same person now that I was before. In some ways, I miss the person I was before because the person I was before was more fearless than I am. Now I'm more rooted in reality, which I can't say I love, but it's real. And I would say I'm more empathetic with the artists I work with, many of whom have emotional issues because the best people do.

Speaker 124:21

Crap.

Rick Rubin24:23

And so I now understand it more. Before.

Rick Rubin24:28

It was at a distance.

Presenter24:29

Hmm.

Rick Rubin24:30

Now I'm in the boat too.

Presenter24:31

You're in it.

Presenter24:32

Time for some more music, I think, Rick. Number six, what are we going to hear and why are you taking this to the island with you?

Rick Rubin24:39

Okay, this is wholly affirming, wholly denying, wholly reconciling.

Rick Rubin24:44

And this music feels like it's from not just another time, a timeless time. And it doesn't bring up specific memories of things to miss, which I was thinking about. I don't want to miss anything when I'm on the island. And most of the things I can choose would give me memories of what I would miss. This doesn't do that. This is the soundtrack for another world.

Presenter26:06

Wholly Affirming, Wholly Denying, Wholly Reconciling, composed by George Gurdieff and performed by Thomas de Hartman.

Presenter26:15

So Rick Rubin, it was in nineteen ninety four that you began a creative partnership that would be one of the defining periods in your career and that of the artist you were working with. It was a collaboration with Johnny Cash.

Presenter26:27

He was playing a a a sort of after dinner show at at a theater when you first went to see it.

Rick Rubin26:31

At a theater when you're in the middle of the theater.

Rick Rubin26:36

A hundred or so people and every one was sitting down eating dinner while he played.

Rick Rubin26:41

And he was happy because he was performing and that's what he liked to do. He didn't know who I was, but he wanted to understand why I would want to work with him, because why would anybody want to work with him? In his mind he was done.

Presenter26:54

What did you tell him? How did you convince him?

Rick Rubin26:57

I I didn't convince him. We just sat and talked for a while.

Rick Rubin27:00

And I said, Well, let's just sit down and play me songs you love and we'll figure out what to do.

Rick Rubin27:06

He sat in my living room and he just started playing me these songs, most of which I'd never heard, old old country songs or old folk songs, and it was magnificent.

Presenter27:16

So tell me about choosing the songs.

Rick Rubin27:18

I thought of the image of Johnny Cash as the mythical man in black, and any song that he sang had to suit this mythical man in black. And one of the ones that that seemed to resonate with people after we did it was the Ninish Nails song Hurt. And if you listen to the words,

Rick Rubin27:38

It's like looking back over a life of regret and remorse. I played him the song first and Johnny just looked at me like I was insane because it's a the the Nine of Snails version of the song is a very noisy, aggressive

Rick Rubin27:52

And um and Johnny was wary.

Rick Rubin27:55

And I think I did a demo where I had a guitar player play it and I said the words the way I imagined him saying it. And then when he heard the lyrics and he heard the format of what it could be,

Rick Rubin28:07

And said let's try it.

Presenter28:09

During your final sessions, he was very frail, very ill, and he was also grieving for his wife, June, who'd died just a few months before. How did making music with you help him in those final months of his life?

Rick Rubin28:23

He wasn't well enough to tour any more. His partner was gone.

Rick Rubin28:27

And

Rick Rubin28:28

His choice was to to die or to carry on.

Rick Rubin28:34

and he chose to carry on.

Presenter28:35

And I know you were always on the end of the phone line, even if you weren't there in person. You you spoke most days. What did you talk about?

Rick Rubin28:42

Um there was a televangelist that I saw who was a real crazy character and his name was Doctor Gene Scott.

Rick Rubin28:50

and he was probably also mid seventies, and he found out that he had cancer and was dying. He believed that the in the healing power of communion and I told Johnny about this, and I was raised Jewish, I've never done communion,

Rick Rubin29:06

And I said, Next time we get together, maybe we can do communion together and he said, Oh, let's do that And we did every day. We spoke on the phone and we did communion together every day and he said the words and I visualized it. I closed my eyes and visualized what he was saying and

Rick Rubin29:23

say Amen with him. It was a beautiful ritual. And I continued on after he passed, I continued doing it and hearing his voice leading it,'cause we had done it long enough where I was in tune with it.

Presenter29:37

Rick, it's time for some more music. Number seven, what have you got for us and why are you taking this with you today?

Rick Rubin29:44

This is Dangling Conversation by Simon and Garfunkel. I can relate it to a story I was told two days ago. The person I was speaking to is from Edinburgh.

Rick Rubin29:54

And she said, People from Edinburgh look outward.

Rick Rubin29:58

People from London look inward, and people in Manhattan look inward, and people from Long Island, where I come from, look outward.

Rick Rubin30:07

Growing up on Long Island I wished I lived in Manhattan.

Rick Rubin30:11

But had I lived in Manhattan I might have looked inward more than looking outward. So in some way the fact that I wasn't where I wanted to be physically, geographically ended up being a very good thing taste wise in my life.

Rick Rubin30:26

It represents intellectual New York, the pretension of intellectual New York, but also beautiful music, harmony.

Rick Rubin30:33

And I love Simon and Garfunkel.

Rick Rubin30:35

As the sun shines through the curtain lace

Rick Rubin30:39

And shadows wash the room.

Speaker 130:44

And we sit and drink our coffee.

Rick Rubin30:47

Uh

Rick Rubin30:50

Count

Speaker 330:51

Just an hour and

Rick Rubin30:52

Uh

Speaker 330:52

Difference Like shells upon the shore, You can hear the ocean roar

Speaker 330:59

In the diamond card

Presenter31:01

Perceived.

Speaker 331:03

Uh

Presenter31:03

Uh Uh

Speaker 331:04

Super official.

Presenter31:05

The Dangling Conversation. Simon and Garfunkel. Rick Rubin, today you live mostly in Malibu with your wife and young son. When you started producing, I think you often worked throughout the night. Do you still keep those hours?

Rick Rubin31:17

I change my schedule to uh in tune with the planet, so I wake up as close to the sun as possible and I put on these red glasses as soon as the sun sets and live in harmony with with the way the planet supports.

Presenter31:34

As we're about to cast you away, I do want to ask you about the signature Rick Rubin look, because you are a step ahead of many castaways and that you already have the beard. That kind of comes with the territory. It's much talked about, part of your look. Newsweek once said it's so wide and long it could be its own ecosystem.

Presenter31:54

Was it a deliberate ploy on your part to create uh this image for yourself?

Rick Rubin31:58

Not at all. It's just what happens if you stop shaving. Happened all by itself. I had nothing to do with it.

Presenter32:04

So of course, you know, we're we're casting you away to your desert island. You will be very much in tune with the rhythms of nature there, but you will be cast away from everything you love otherwise. How will you adapt?

Rick Rubin32:15

I don't know. I'll find a way. I'm open to what comes next, you know, I'm pretty positive.

Presenter32:21

Well, one more song before we cast you away. Your final piece of music, if you would, today for what it gonna be, Rick Rubin.

Rick Rubin32:26

And the final piece of of music is The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face as performed by Roberta Flack. This deep soul, and I'll say spiritual. I don't know if she meant it that way, but I hear it that way. Almost a devotional

Rick Rubin32:42

Piece of music, and if you've ever heard the Ewan McCall original, it's not like that.

Rick Rubin32:48

Um

Rick Rubin32:49

So I love the idea that music can put on different masks and play different characters.

Speaker 332:55

Felt the ah

Speaker 332:59

Move it back.

Speaker 133:10

Like the trembling heart

Speaker 333:21

I'm a captain.

Presenter33:24

The first time ever I saw your face, Roberta Flack. So, Rick Rubin, I'm going to send you away to the island now. I'm giving you the Bible, the complete works of Shakespeare, and you can take one other book. What will it be?

Rick Rubin33:37

Carl Jung's Red Book. It's a book of his dreams and inner journey. It's pondering the inner world, the inner life, and it seems like a good guide for someone who's going to be pondering the inner life for some time.

Presenter33:50

You can also have a luxury item to make life more enjoyable. What will that be?

Rick Rubin33:55

I picked tarot cards, each card

Rick Rubin33:58

tells a an archetypal story.

Rick Rubin34:02

And there's enough detail in the cards to read deeper and deeper into them over time. So in some ways, while there are only seventy eight images, it's an endless journey inward.

Presenter34:15

And finally, which one of the eight tracks that you've shared with us today would you rush to save from the waves if you only had time to grab one?

Rick Rubin34:22

I would bring wholly affirming, wholly denying, wholly reconciling.

Rick Rubin34:27

If I was on a desert island, that is what I would want the soundtrack to be.

Presenter34:33

Rick Rubin, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island Discs.

Rick Rubin34:37

Thank you for having me.

Presenter34:59

Hello, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Rick. We'll leave him in peace to ponder his inner life. We've cast away many musicians and producers, including Niall Rogers, Robin Miller, and Nitton Sorney. You can find these episodes in our Desert Island Discs programme archive and through BBC Sounds. The studio manager for today's programme was Andy Garrett, the assistant producer was Christine Pavlovsky, and the producer was Paula McGinley. Next time, my guest will be the forensic scientist Professor Angela Gallup. I do hope you'll join us.

Presenter35:45

Lauren Laverne here with news of a very successful Desert Island Discs rescue.

Presenter35:51

They've been missing for decades. David Hockney.

Speaker 135:54

The website.

Presenter35:54

Uh

Speaker 135:54

Yeah. to the art school and they asked me if I had a prior But income and I said I didn't know what that was and uh they said well if you've not got one you can't be an artist because you'll never make a living at it.

Speaker 336:05

Dame Margot Fontaine. What I've always looked forward to most in my life would be an old age on a desert island just playing gramophone records all day long.

Presenter36:15

And Bing Crosby. Could you build a house?

Speaker 136:17

No way. Shelter? No way. I couldn't fix a safety pen.

Presenter36:20

But they're all back in Radio 4's Desert Island Discs archive, thanks to the efforts of keen vintage tape collectors. To listen to them, along with Dudley Moore, Sophie Tucker, Noel Coward, and dozens of other castaways, just head to the Desert Island Discs website.