"RZA"

Enter the 36 Chambers but grab your dash candle en route; it’s none other than The RZA. Wu Tang slang, the tongue as the sword, the first NFT, and the game of chess. Laughs rule everything around me, stream in the funny, hollers that fulfill, y’all… on an all-new SmartLess.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Sean Hayes?

  This episode of Smartless is sponsored by Google Book. So the other day, I wanted to make invitations for my dog Ricky's birthday party. And I've got three things open on my laptop. An adorable photo of Ricky, a picture of a birthday cake, and the RSVP details. Thing is, as much as I look like one, I'm not a canine birthday party invitation designer. That's where Google Book comes in. It's a whole new kind of laptop with a feature called Magic Pointer. I just click the photos and different elements on my screen, and boom, Magic Pointer designs a customized birthday party invitation for Ricky. Click anything on your screen to create whatever you want. Visit googlebook.com. Available to 18-plus users.

• 0:44Sean Hayes?

  Compatibility and availability vary.

• 0:49Sean Hayes?

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• 1:25Sean Hayes?

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• 2:01Sean Hayes?

  Sitting in traffic, huh? Watching an old lady with a walker make it further up the road than you have in the last 15 minutes? And of course, your gas tank is in the perfect spot between not a problem to stranded on the highway. Hit your booking point? Book with Southwest and enter airplane mode. Experience award-winning reliability, fly with the best crew in the sky, and never worry about change or cancellation fees. Now tell that old lady to slow down. Kids live around here. Southwest Airlines, enter airplane mode.

• 2:43Jason Bateman?

  All right, so guys, this is the start and we need a good, solid, cold open. Anybody have any interesting or funny something to say? Get our listener excited to...

• 2:56Sean Hayes?

  Or surprise them? Like, yeah, well, it was surprising that it rained a lot yesterday.

• 3:02Jason Bateman?

  No, Will, anything? Can you help?

• 3:04Will Arnett?

  No, we're still gonna be digging ourselves out of a rain yesterday hole that Sean put us in. But anyway, welcome to Smartless.

• 3:28Will Arnett?

  Oh, hi.

• 3:30Sean Hayes?

  Oh, hi.

• 3:31Jason Bateman?

  It's OJ.

• 3:33Sean Hayes?

  I'm wearing a hat that says, "Oh, hi." I told you guys last time, I was in Ohio yesterday. I just got back last night for Kevin's birthday, my friend Kevin's birthday.

• 3:42Will Arnett?

  Oh, man, what a story.

• 3:43Jason Bateman?

  You were in Ohio? Oh.

• 3:45Sean Hayes?

  Do you like it there?

• 3:46Jason Bateman?

  For whose birthday? Kevin Hart's?

• 3:48Sean Hayes?

  Kevin... Kevin Neustadt. It's a friend of ours.

• 3:52Will Arnett?

  He doesn't pay attention. He doesn't remember. You've mentioned Kevin and Carrie a million times. He has still no idea who they are.

• 3:58Sean Hayes?

  That's right. You've met them.

• 3:59Jason Bateman?

  Well, why would I know who they are?

• 4:02Sean Hayes?

  Because you sat and talked with Kevin for a few hours.

• 4:03Will Arnett?

  You talked to him for a few hours, but he's not working at Netflix or any show business.

• 4:07Jason Bateman?

  Do you know how many people you guys have sat and talked to for hours that you have no idea who they are? You can't remember them?

• 4:12Will Arnett?

  JB, I remember there used to be somebody years ago, I won't say the gender, because I don't want to give it away, but there was somebody who you kept introducing yourself to over years and finally they got mad at you and you were like, "Hey, F you."

• 4:23Jason Bateman?

  Really?

• 4:23Will Arnett?

  "You think I fucking remember it?" Do you remember that?

• 4:25Jason Bateman?

  No.

• 4:26Will Arnett?

  And eventually you're like, "I don't fucking know you."

• 4:31Jason Bateman?

  Well, I can't, I mean, I'm certainly not unique to being, you know, bad at remembering names.

• 4:39Will Arnett?

  No, no, no, you're not unique. No, no, no, same, same.

• 4:42Jason Bateman?

  Right? But you're great at dates. You're incredible at dates.

• 4:46Will Arnett?

  I'm good at dates, but the names and stuff, no, I, yeah, dates is weird. It's, I don't know what that is.

• 4:52Jason Bateman?

  And also, you know, and I have particular trouble, like, you know, guys don't typically change their look often. Present company excluded.

• 5:00Sean Hayes?

  Right.

• 5:01Jason Bateman?

  But, so it's not difficult for me to remember a dude's face over the course of a few years.

• 5:07Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 5:07Jason Bateman?

  I've had like two hairdos my whole life.

• 5:09Sean Hayes?

  Right.

• 5:10Jason Bateman?

  But, you know, women get to change the color of their hair all the time and the cut of their hair and

• 5:15Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 5:15Jason Bateman?

  they accessorize.

• 5:16Will Arnett?

  You've had a few hair don'ts too. I mean, let's be honest.

• 5:19Jason Bateman?

  Oh, they're, they're all online. Enjoy.

• 5:21Sean Hayes?

  It is the, one of the worst things I ever did was, we, we, years and years and years ago, we remodeled our house. And I walk out the front door and there's this girl running, I may have said this already. There's this girl running down the sidewalk right towards me jogging. And she goes, hey, Sean. And I'm like, hey. And she goes, you finished? Meaning to the house? And I'm like,

• 5:44Will Arnett?

  Oh.

• 5:45Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, yeah. How would, how would, did they even know I was remodeling? And she goes, I'd love to see it sometime. And I'm like, wait a minute. What? This just girl jogging randomly. And I'm like, do I know you? And she goes, it's Julia, your neighbor for the past 20 years.

• 6:03Jason Bateman?

  How bad did you feel?

• 6:05Sean Hayes?

  And I said, I said, Jay, I go, the worst thing you could ever come back with, I said, which was, did you change your hair? It was just terrible. It was horrible.

• 6:15Will Arnett?

  Last week when I was in New York and I was riding a bike through the village. I'm riding along and this girl goes, Will.

• 6:20Jason Bateman?

  Were you shooting additional photography for Flate?

• 6:22Will Arnett?

  No. And I go, and I'm riding, F you, bro. And I'm riding my bike through the village and this girl goes, Will. I look over and she goes, hey. And so I turn over, I like, I steer the bike over to her and I go, hey, what's going on? I'm like, who? And then she goes, I get right up closer and she goes, you don't know me. And I go.

• 6:40Jason Bateman?

  Love the show.

• 6:41Will Arnett?

  Yeah, and so I go, okay, see you later. So then I go by, right? So then I go and it's a city bike and I park it in the thing and I'm walking down a block later. I'm walking by and there's this grown guy sitting outside this place. And she's wearing a baseball cap. She looks up at me and she goes, kind of waves like, hi. And I go, hey. And I keep going. I get home, there's a taxi and it's this friend of mine, Emily, and she goes, did you not know that was me? So I thought I recognized the person who was a stranger and the person I knew, I blew off.

• 7:11Jason Bateman?

  So is it just?

• 7:11Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, I have the worst. It's face blindness. It's face blindness. I swear I have it.

• 7:15Jason Bateman?

  Or are we just rude dicks? Or are we just getting old and we're losing our minds?

• 7:20Will Arnett?

  I think I've always been like that.

• 7:21Sean Hayes?

  I think it's all of it.

• 7:22Will Arnett?

  Yeah, I think it's all of it too.

• 7:23Jason Bateman?

  Wicked combination of all of it.

• 7:25Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, but I, I, I, I'm terrible. I, I.

• 7:28Will Arnett?

  Yo, you're the worst. What's the subject?

• 7:33Sean Hayes?

  Can we fill in the blank?

• 7:34Will Arnett?

  Yeah, can we?

• 7:35Sean Hayes?

  Let me go first.

• 7:36Will Arnett?

  Can I go blanket on that? You're just the worst.

• 7:38Sean Hayes?

  I kind of think everybody looks the same. I swear, I think I have a little bit of like face blindness. I really do.

• 7:43Jason Bateman?

  No, but that's a real thing. I know one person that, that's like that.

• 7:46Sean Hayes?

  Right. I think, I think we're talking, we know the same person.

• 7:49Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 7:49Will Arnett?

  Oh.

• 7:50Sean Hayes?

  And I said to this.

• 7:51Will Arnett?

  Yeah, I'm blanking on their face.

• 7:52Jason Bateman?

  Wonderful, Will.

• 7:55Will Arnett?

  Okay, listen, listen, listen.

• 7:57Sean Hayes?

  Wait, wait, but I asked that guy really quick. I asked that guy, I was like, so if I walk out of the room and come back, because he, he has like been diagnosed as face blindness.

• 8:05Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 8:06Sean Hayes?

  I go, if I walk out of the room and come back in, you won't know it's me? He's like, no. I'm like, really?

• 8:13Jason Bateman?

  And this guy's making six figures a year.

• 8:16Sean Hayes?

  I know.

• 8:17Will Arnett?

  By the way, again, not to go too far, there is a documentary that came out in the eighties about this guy in England who had a memory of seven seconds. And it's, it's a poor fellow. It's, he got, he got, he had, he had an injury, head injury. And it's crazy and his wife would like, she eventually lived on his own, had to be taken care of. But she would go out of the room, he'd come in, she'd come in, she'd go, he'd go, hi, oh my God. He'd hug her, hug her, hug her. She'd go to make a cup of tea, she comes back and he'd go, hello.

• 8:41Jason Bateman?

  Oh, the most annoying man to ever live with.

• 8:44Will Arnett?

  She was the only person that he remembered. So it's, you can, it's on YouTube. It's fucking crazy.

• 8:50Jason Bateman?

  Could you imagine having face blindness and the seven second memory?

• 8:54Will Arnett?

  Dude, it's the craziest, craziest thing ever. Anyway.

• 8:58Sean Hayes?

  That's such a, that'd be a great character.

• 8:59Will Arnett?

  We have a crazy talented guest on the, on the show today. I've been looking forward to having this guest for so long. He, this person is. He's a true, he's a visionary. He's, he's done everything in music and film. He's ventured into horror core. He's produced solo albums. He's made a mark in film and TV. He's scored a lot of great films. He scored Ghost Dog, The Way of the Samurai. He scored the Both Kill Bill movies. He starred last year in an award-winning comedy, Probable Mista. He's just wrapped his own film, One Spoon of Chocolate. He's published, he's a published author. He, he released a classical album last year, A Ballet Through the Mud, which is unbelievable.

• 9:40Will Arnett?

  Guys, he's a titan of, of everything, not just the industry. He's a founding member of the Wu-Tang Clan. Not only shaped the genre with their groundbreaking debut album, Enter the Wu-Tang, but he's also crafted a sound that's booming beats and chilling samples and influenced countless musicians. It's the one and only RZA, you guys.

• 9:59Jason Bateman?

  Wow. Whoa.

• 10:02Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 10:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, I guess I'll take off my camera. There it is.

• 10:07Jason Bateman?

  Oh, boy. John Heilmann's gonna be thrilled.

• 10:09Sean Hayes?

  This is so cool.

• 10:11Jason Bateman?

  Hello, good morning.

• 10:12Speaker 03

  Good morning, good afternoon. I'm actually on the East Coast, so it's good afternoon.

• 10:16Jason Bateman?

  Happy lunch. Oh, yeah.

• 10:17Will Arnett?

  Good afternoon. Oh, man, thank you for joining us today. What an absolute thrill to have you on the show today, man.

• 10:24Speaker 03

  My pleasure. And I will start off by saying I have a great memory, aight?

• 10:30Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 10:31Will Arnett?

  We're the same age.

• 10:32Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 10:33Jason Bateman?

  Will you, will you remember for me right now what it was like to score Both Kill Bills? I mean, that's like, was that, was that the all, was it, is that the only film that you, the films that you've scored?

• 10:44Speaker 03

  No, that was, no, I went on to score maybe a dozen after that and some TV shows, et cetera.

• 10:52Jason Bateman?

  Do you love that?

• 10:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, scoring is, scoring is the ultimate, one of the ultimate expressions of art, right? You're trying to tell a story and complement a story with your music. Yes, I love it.

• 11:03Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, but I, but they, sometimes the cues have to only like be 10, 20, 30 seconds or like, do you feel like you're like boxed in with that?

• 11:12Speaker 03

  Nah, I think, to be quite frank, it's, you know, you may have a cue that's just a symbol.

• 11:19Speaker 03

  That's your cue, right?

• 11:20Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 11:22Speaker 03

  But you may have one that's like, you know, that's a whole Nutcracker Suite, you know what I mean?

• 11:27Jason Bateman?

  Uh huh.

• 11:27Speaker 03

  A whole big sequence. So, I mean, that's the beauty of music. You think about, uh, I mean, one of our great composers, uh, John Williams. He was

• 11:38Speaker 03

  and it's just a few notes.

• 11:40Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 11:41Sean Hayes?

  Uh, that's so awesome.

• 11:42Will Arnett?

  So was Ghost Dog, uh, Way of the Samurai, was that your first one that you did?

• 11:46Speaker 03

  Yeah. So John Woo brought me in to score that film. I never scored a film before. I was pretty, I didn't know what it was, to be honest with you. I still, I didn't know, when you make a movie, you gotta edit, you gotta do all these things, right? And Jim used to want the music and he'd be like, you know, come to the editing room, which is basically, editing is a nine to five job, maybe a nine to eight.

• 12:10Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 12:11Speaker 03

  And I'd be coming like midnight, you know what I mean? Everybody'd be gone. But at those days, we had the music on a DAT. So I would just have it on a DAT player, pull up to the place and, and give him the DATs and he'd be like, like, like, you know, it's midnight. I'm like, well, you know, here it is.

• 12:30Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, why is that? Why, why is it historically, you know, music studio sessions late, late in the night? Uh, what is that? I don't understand.

• 12:38Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, musicians, yeah. Yeah, you guys have like a different clock.

• 12:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, my musician clock was ridiculous. I mean, it was embarrassing to be quite frank. I remember, uh, as I'm scoring movies, I started sampling some music from one of John Woo's movies, uh, The Killer, which was one of my favorite, The Killer, Hard Boil, great, um,

• 12:57Will Arnett?

  Yeah, great movies.

• 12:57Speaker 03

  Great titles by the great director, John Woo.

• 13:00Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 13:00Speaker 03

  And, and we became friends and he came to New York and he's like, you know, I wanna have, let's have dinner. And, uh, I said, cool, let's have dinner. I said, all right, you know, meet you at the restaurant, you know, six thirty in Manhattan. And at the time, I was in a studio that was like an hour away. And I just got caught up in the studio. And then it's like nine o'clock, they're like, wait, you're supposed to be at dinner with John.

• 13:23Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, you kind of get sucked into it and it's like this like you it yeah. My husband Scotty, he also composes scores and stuff for stuff. And he'll be back there and like eight hours fly by, you don't even know.

• 13:36Speaker 03

  But John was such a gentleman, Sean, that I got there around 11. And he held the restaurant open and he sat down and had a great meal.

• 13:46Sean Hayes?

  Oh, that's amazing.

• 13:47Speaker 03

  And he gave me some wisdom about time.

• 13:49Will Arnett?

  Well, I was gonna say some wisdom about time, I like that.

• 13:52Sean Hayes?

  About time, which is so funny because all music is in time.

• 13:55Will Arnett?

  Is all time.

• 13:56Sean Hayes?

  And we're all, we're all late.

• 13:58Will Arnett?

  So it's funny, you know, Riz, when I think about it, because I was asking about the first film that you scored, which was Ghost Dog. And I was gonna say, how did you get into it? But it makes sense because you mentioned like John Woo's films being a huge influence. I mean, there's a cinematic influence in the Wu-Tang music, right? I mean, that's part of your origin story. Can you talk a little bit about that?

• 14:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, my aspirations at the time of making music was trying to make a movie. Trying to make my album play like a movie.

• 14:29Sean Hayes?

  Oh, wow.

• 14:29Speaker 03

  You know, in New York, a lot of us kind of would drive to like DC to the Howard Homecoming or to Morgan State College, you know what I mean? Or go up to Connecticut. It was like, that's the weekend thing to do, right? That's where the chicks are at.

• 14:44Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 14:46Speaker 03

  And my idea was to make people who are driving that journey to listen to my music and to get a movie in their head and pick up some game, pick up some slang, pick up some visions. So I was always trying to make movies. And my first five albums, if you listen to them, they always start with a beginning, there's a theme. Like there's an album we did called Cuban Links, which is really a mafia movie. It starts off with three guys, one for you, one for me, one guy cheating them, right? He's like, you know the old thing, one for you, one for me, two for you, one, two for me, three.

• 15:22Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, yeah, right, right, right, right.

• 15:23Speaker 03

  And it goes on and the way the album plays out is like these guys are gonna pull a heist. Somebody's gonna die like once upon a time in America. The other two guys are gonna go grab the rest of the crew, the Wu Gambinos, bring them back, and then pull a bigger heist with 2 million and everybody gonna ride off into the sunset. And that album was so influential that hip hop began to change their names. Like every, like we was the first ones to change their names, like the, from Wu-Tang to the Wu Gambinos. And every artist started following that trend.

• 15:54Jason Bateman?

  Wow.

• 15:55Will Arnett?

  Wow, wow, that's so cool. I mean, so you guys, so I mentioned in the, in the intro that in ninety-three, you guys released Enter the Wu-Tang, and that kind of changed, that kind of changed the game. Certainly it must have changed your life in a big way. You had already been making music for years, right? With those guys?

• 16:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:14Will Arnett?

  But that, but that was the first big release that went kind of crazy, must have, what, what was that experience like?

• 16:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was, um, I tried to enter the industry before, um, just as a solo artist. Prince Rock came, you know, sold about ten thousand records, got a couple of, uh, you know, a couple of shows and a couple of groupies, right? That was, at that age, nineteen years old, that's not a bad start, but.

• 16:39Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, right.

• 16:40Speaker 03

  Couldn't pay my rent, though, right?

• 16:44Speaker 03

  But I went back to my crew and I was just like, you know, we had this thing in the neighborhood called the Wu-Tang Sling. And we was all big Kung Fu movie lovers. And I just caught an inspiration that, um, that we should take with our childhood love. Take the concept of Asian cinema from Hong Kong or from Japan. And since our lyrics are, you know, from your mouth and your mouth is like a sword, right? It says that in the Book of Revelations. It says, "Out of the mouth comes a double-edged sword." So I was like, if, if we take our tongue and make it our sword, and the best sword style ever filmed was the Wu-Tang style, and we become the Wu-Tang Clan, we could go into the industry and chop everybody's heads off.

• 17:28Speaker 03

  You know, my brothers was like, "Sounds good to me."

• 17:32Jason Bateman?

  Well, that was, that was my, that was my, my question, because I'm, I'm a, I'm a dumb, a dumb, soft white guy from Los Angeles. And I, I, I not know about, well, you know, I'm, I'm not.

• 17:43Will Arnett?

  That's very true. That's a really accurate description of you.

• 17:45Jason Bateman?

  I'm not, I'm not, as the kids say, I'm not down. I'm not hip to it all. And so I'm, I'm not. Clear on Asian cinema, on Kung Fu, on the genesis of the title of the band and stuff. So I was gonna ask you about that. So how did your love of Kung Fu and Asian films? And how does that start? Because you wouldn't necessarily put hip hop with Asian cinema in the same group. Right. Right? Typically?

• 18:17Speaker 03

  I mean, you kind of have to, if you think about it, right? If you go back into hip hop, according to hip hop history, it says it started in 1973, in that summer. But in that same summer, Bruce Lee Enter the Dragon hits Forty Second Street. In that same summer, Fred Williams and Black Caesar hits.

• 18:39Jason Bateman?

  Okay.

• 18:39Speaker 03

  And also The Godfather is in the theaters. Mean Streets, right? So the art of the cinema is still cohesive with the art of the music. There's actually a thread because most of us are in those theaters.

• 18:57Jason Bateman?

  Wow.

• 18:57Speaker 03

  And then when we go back to our neighborhoods, the things that we are gaining from cinema is finding its way into our art. If you look at some of the early breakdance moves, you'll see that some of those moves were seen in a martial art film and then, of course, took it to another level.

• 19:15Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, that's amazing. I didn't think of that. That's so true.

• 19:18Will Arnett?

  Of course, you didn't think of that.

• 19:20Jason Bateman?

  But you're dumb. You're...

• 19:21Will Arnett?

  What the fuck do you know, dude? You don't know anything. Just listen to it and learn, okay?

• 19:26Jason Bateman?

  That is true. Breakdancing is, yeah, you could duck a lot of punches, yeah, and kicks down there on the floor.

• 19:36Will Arnett?

  So that makes sense. And so then you guys do, you produce and you form Wu-Tang and you release some records and just a huge, massively influential. But also, what's interesting to me is, and tell these guys and educate all of us a little bit about... Not only were you guys doing Wu-Tang, but then as you're doing, I mean, you're doing all sorts of solo projects under a bunch of different names, right? And you mentioned Prince Rakim, which was your, that you released before, but also some stuff after, right, as well? And also, but also other guys from Wu-Tang, you produce their stuff. Like oftentimes, people leave a band and go and do something on their own, on their own, on their own. But you were still producing everybody's music, is that true?

• 20:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was with, so since the martial art world or the Shaolin philosophy was so embedded in us, we took it and applied it to our lives. So for instance, Staten Island, my hometown, we renamed it Shaolin. You know what I mean? That's why you see Pete Davidson has a Shaolin tattoo, of course.

• 20:37Will Arnett?

  Oh, wow.

• 20:39Speaker 03

  He's from Staten Island, but we renamed it Shaolin. So Shaolin is considered the temple of the well, they would say, from which all martial arts springs from. It's the strongest philosophy place that even before Zen made it to Japan, it was developed in Shaolin. And so in Shaolin, they had the monks, but the leader, the leader of the monks was called the Abbot. And so my Wu-Tang brothers called me the Abbot. You know what I mean? So now, so as the Abbot, it's my job to make the best decisions, the best direction of which way we go. And as the producer, I went on to produce, of course, the first album, Thirty-Six Shames, it went platinum. So going platinum, of course, is a, is a bong-bong, right?

• 21:24Speaker 03

  So, so we, so then after that, of course, I became a sort after producer. But what I did was to keep my energy contained within my crew. So I went on to produce Method Man's first album, double platinum, Baekwon, platinum, Old Dirty Bastard, platinum, JZA, platinum, Ghostface, platinum. So.

• 21:42Will Arnett?

  That's unbelievable.

• 21:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I might have did about seven platinum albums back to back. I don't think too many people probably did that, so that's a blessing. But it was, it was, it was, it was us, it was a contained energy. You know what I mean?

• 21:56Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 21:57Speaker 03

  I remember talking to Seth Rogen when they had their, when they had their breakout. He, you know, he made a joke, cause he, him and his crew, who were listeners of the Wu-Tang Clan, they called themselves the Ju-Tang Clan, he said.

• 22:11Speaker 03

  He said they all live together and him and Evan and everybody. They actually took that concept and did the same thing and continue hit after hit. And I think that's the great thing for any group of artists is if you could combine that art together and then direct it as a brand, you will increase your fan base, of course, but also give each one of you a chance to go through the same tunnel.

• 22:41Will Arnett?

  That's so cool. I love that. There's a sort of like, you harness the power of the collective a little bit and you don't let it dissipate. You kind of keep it and you all kind of move and then all boats rise, right? You know what I mean?

• 22:54Jason Bateman?

  And what would we call our little clan here? Like the Chin Chin Clan?

• 23:00Will Arnett?

  I don't know. By the way, you mentioned-

• 23:02Jason Bateman?

  I really like Chin Chin.

• 23:03Will Arnett?

  Well, Chin Chin went out of business. Did you see that?

• 23:04Jason Bateman?

  Well, no, they just shut down the Sunset.

• 23:07Sean Hayes?

  They did? They shut down the one in Beverly Hills?

• 23:09Jason Bateman?

  Get through the interview.

• 23:11Will Arnett?

  You'll get your sodium somewhere else. Don't worry about that.

• 23:17Sean Hayes?

  And we will be right back.

• 23:21Sean Hayes?

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• 23:56Sean Hayes?

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• 24:31Sean Hayes?

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• 25:16Sean Hayes?

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• 25:20Sean Hayes?

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• 26:34Sean Hayes?

  And now, back to the show.

• 26:37Will Arnett?

  So, you talk about Shaolin, I didn't know any of that. That is such a cool concept, dude. I'm so blown away by it. I'm like riveted. And you guys recorded, your seventh album was Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, right? And you made one copy. Do you guys know about this story, Sean and Jason?

• 26:54Sean Hayes?

  No, no, no, no.

• 26:55Will Arnett?

  Can you, can you tell these guys a little bit about, because it's one of the coolest stories in art history. Forget music.

• 27:00Sean Hayes?

  Oh, wait, yeah, yeah.

• 27:01Will Arnett?

  It's so, it's so sad.

• 27:03Sean Hayes?

  And then that guy did with a controversial purchase of it, correct? I don't know this, I don't know this.

• 27:06Speaker 03

  Yes, a very controversial purchase.

• 27:08Sean Hayes?

  Please, please tell me.

• 27:09Will Arnett?

  Will you tell these guys what happened, what that album's about and why you did it all?

• 27:14Speaker 03

  Okay, first, you know, once streaming took over music, uh, you know, music went from being worth, uh, two cent a record spin on your radio to being worth zero, zero, zero, zero point four, okay?

• 27:27Sean Hayes?

  Sure.

• 27:28Speaker 03

  And so it was totally devalued and a lot of artists were suffering because of that devaluation at this time. And for me-

• 27:36Sean Hayes?

  Napster.

• 27:37Speaker 03

  Pardon?

• 27:38Sean Hayes?

  Napster.

• 27:38Speaker 03

  If you think about Napster, that was the foundation of-

• 27:41Sean Hayes?

  He'll bark out moments of knowledge every once in a while.

• 27:43Will Arnett?

  You're like my grandmother in the other room, just like, "Napster!"

• 27:46Speaker 03

  Napster!

• 27:47Sean Hayes?

  Wait, I know that!

• 27:49Speaker 03

  Well, anyway-

• 27:50Sean Hayes?

  That was the first one, yeah.

• 27:51Speaker 03

  After everything got devalued, we tried to figure out a way to bring value back to music. And the idea was, music is art and it should be treated as such. And it's, it's not something that, it's not just a privilege, right? Because the creation of it is such a process. Like, for a Wu-Tang album to make it, you gotta get nine to 20 people together, the engineers. And it's an endeavor, like a film, right? It costs a lot of money, right, to make it. And then the goal is to sell it so you could continue to make it again. You know what I mean?

• 28:23Sean Hayes?

  Right, yeah.

• 28:24Speaker 03

  So, anyway, it got so devalued that we was like, well, let's make an album that will make one single copy, treat it like it's a Mona Lisa or an Egyptian scepter, something like that.

• 28:35Sean Hayes?

  Ah, very good.

• 28:36Speaker 03

  That it belonged in a museum. And the only way that you can now get it, you have to go to it. You have to go see it.

• 28:43Sean Hayes?

  This is amazing. Oh, that's cool.

• 28:44Speaker 03

  And, and we auctioned it. Um, the funny thing is when we auctioned it, um, we auctioned it to a guy named, uh, uh, Mike Scarelli.

• 28:53Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 28:54Speaker 03

  Now, Scarelli, at the time when he bought the album, I gotta confess this, cause I don't talk about this a lot. At the time I shook his hand, he wasn't known yet. Like, I met him, it was a few different, so, you know, billionaires that was gonna buy this album from this Sotheby's paddleweight auction type of thing.

• 29:12Sean Hayes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:12Speaker 03

  And he was probably the, the poorest amongst them. He only worth about two hundred million at the time.

• 29:18Speaker 03

  But he was into it, right? And he told me, he said, I'm gonna buy the last Enigma machine. I'm gonna buy the turning papers. And I'm gonna buy your single album all in one week, and I'm gonna take this and I'm gonna create something that's gonna, for him, he's gonna become like a new supervillain or something. He didn't say villain though, but he was like, he's gonna take these elements and he's gonna create something crazy. And he went and formed this company, the Turning Company, et cetera, et cetera. And I shook hands with him. In that same company, a few months later, before we announced, uh, the purchase and everything, because we had a, a scheduled

• 29:58Speaker 03

  date of closing, is how we call it, a few months later, this guy shows up on the news as the evilest man in the world.

• 30:09Speaker 03

  He, he took the price of a, of a medicine that was maybe fifteen dollars a pill.

• 30:15Sean Hayes?

  That guy, that guy.

• 30:18Speaker 03

  And he, and he, and he turned it to two thousand, four thousand dollar a pill. And, and the saddest thing about it was that this pill, uh, was for, for, for our citizens who have HIV.

• 30:31Sean Hayes?

  Right, I remember that, yeah.

• 30:32Speaker 03

  It was a dire need for this pill for them. And so, basically, he was, uh, you know, burning down a village. That, I mean, you could put it to that analogy, that he's burning down villages by this price gouging.

• 30:47Speaker 03

  But he had already purchased the album, so now.

• 30:51Will Arnett?

  Yeah, so now you're stuck.

• 30:52Speaker 03

  You know, you know, he sells it. And then I did say this to him though, I said, listen, so his name was Martin Scrooge, I said, listen, Martin, you doing a lot of bad things, bro. The Wu-Tang is good, okay? If I was you, I would take this album and do something good with it, meaning he could give it to the people. It can't be sold because we made an eighty-eight year non-commercialization law for it. So he can't sell it, right? He can't like make mass produce.

• 31:18Sean Hayes?

  I know, it's so cool, that is amazing.

• 31:21Speaker 03

  But he didn't, he didn't decide to do nothing good. He went, he doubled down on his, on his darkness. And he got into a big fight with Ghostface Killer and all the other Wu-Tang brothers. And he, and then he, you know, he took Hillary's hair and whatever, he just, he just went all the way down until he went to jail. And then the government seized the album.

• 31:42Sean Hayes?

  Good.

• 31:42Speaker 03

  And they kept it.

• 31:44Sean Hayes?

  What?

• 31:44Speaker 03

  And then, so he paid two million for the album. So at the time, it was the most expensive album in history.

• 31:50Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 31:51Speaker 03

  But when he went to jail, the government now needed to pay all of his, you know, his liens or default judgments, whatever he had on him. And so the government now gets to auction this album as a personal asset of his.

• 32:03Sean Hayes?

  Okay, alright.

• 32:04Speaker 03

  And they auction it and someone buys it for four million dollars.

• 32:08Sean Hayes?

  No way, okay, okay.

• 32:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:11Sean Hayes?

  What?

• 32:12Will Arnett?

  Do you know who?

• 32:12Sean Hayes?

  So who's got it and where is it?

• 32:14Speaker 03

  It was a, it was a group of people called the Pleaser Dow.

• 32:18Sean Hayes?

  Okay.

• 32:18Speaker 03

  Um, so they have it now and they're just, you know, hopefully they will take the advice of showing it to the people, putting it in museums and.

• 32:30Will Arnett?

  Yeah, didn't they do an exhibit or something? They took it to somewhere like, like Tasmania or something, is that true?

• 32:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, they took it to Tasmania and exhibited, you're right, yeah. And people flew in for that.

• 32:38Sean Hayes?

  So, has the public been able to hear it?

• 32:41Speaker 03

  So far, maybe about six hundred people have heard it.

• 32:45Will Arnett?

  Dude.

• 32:46Sean Hayes?

  That's amazing, like, how do you, how do you, that's an incredible story. How do you, how do you protect, um, the person who owns it from copying it and kind of, I don't know, it just got leaked or, you know, they, and then they act, you know.

• 33:01Speaker 03

  Well, there's a contract, there's a, it's, it's, this, this particular album is.

• 33:07Speaker 03

  On a macro level, considered the first NFT.

• 33:11Jason Bateman?

  Ah, very good. I understand.

• 33:12Speaker 03

  So you understand, yeah. So that's the situation with it. And so it's like a smart contract built in, you know what I mean?

• 33:19Jason Bateman?

  And this was your idea. I mean, it's such an incredible forward-thinking idea.

• 33:23Will Arnett?

  I know, I know.

• 33:24Jason Bateman?

  It's brilliant.

• 33:26Speaker 03

  Me and my student Silver Rings, I won't take all the credit. It was a combination of ideas that led to it, so.

• 33:35Jason Bateman?

  Yeah. Would you ever do it again?

• 33:38Speaker 03

  Um, I don't know.

• 33:41Jason Bateman?

  What about, what about, what about, what about what Radiohead? Didn't Radiohead did something where they made an album and they put it up on the internet for free? Basically said, "Pay whatever you want." And that kind of freedom made me, I think I ended up paying like 50 bucks for it or something like that. Like, just like, if you tell me, I don't have to do anything, then I'll do it.

• 34:03Will Arnett?

  That was the perfect thing. You're the perfect sucker, man.

• 34:06Jason Bateman?

  Exactly.

• 34:07Will Arnett?

  That's why your nickname is DJ Sucker.

• 34:10Jason Bateman?

  Dingbat.

• 34:14Will Arnett?

  I mean, God, that is such a, you're right. Sean, like you said, it's so forward-thinking and you've, I mean, you constantly have looked for different ways to express yourself as an artist and kind of do things outside the box. You've acted in, I was looking it up, I mean, I don't know, 50 things, 60 things as an actor? You just, tell us a little bit about your film that's coming out that you directed.

• 34:36Speaker 03

  Thank you. First, let me say this to y'all gentlemen. First of all, Jason, I'm a big fan of yours.

• 34:41Jason Bateman?

  Come on.

• 34:42Will Arnett?

  Yeah, there we go.

• 34:44Speaker 03

  Timing, your style.

• 34:47Jason Bateman?

  Nice man, you.

• 34:48Speaker 03

  I've watched, seen almost everything you do, and so just want to let you know that. You got a fan on this side of the microphone.

• 34:56Jason Bateman?

  Thank you, pal.

• 34:58Speaker 03

  And for myself, you know, I got a chance to study underneath Quentin Tarantino for about six years. And I caught the directing bug and understood what it could be. And I did my first film, of course, in 2011. Came out 2012, called The Man with the Iron Fist. And I realized that directing movies is actually the epitome of expression art. Because you have to be lyrical in the words.

• 35:32Speaker 03

  Colorful in the production design and costume design. Music is a part of it. The storytelling element, the, the energy of getting other people to portray an idea that's written and to, and, and describe it. It's like the total use of my brain for me. And so I became in love with it. And now, uh, this is my fourth, my fourth directorial film is called One Spoon of Chocolate.

• 36:02Will Arnett?

  Wait, oh, this is your fourth film?

• 36:03Speaker 03

  This is my fourth one, yeah.

• 36:04Will Arnett?

  Wow.

• 36:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, and, and this one, um, uh, probably my boldest one, pretty bold. To kind of take a chance like this. And it, it, it, it took thirteen years to get to this point, like, once I finished Man with the Iron Fist. I wanted like, so, you know, Universal gave me the money to make the movie. And there was like, you know, when it came out the first week, I think Hurricane Sandy hit. And so to me, so the East Coast was kind of fucked up for me. And so, uh, so it didn't hit the numbers we wanted to hit. I think we probably ended up around thirty million total in box office on a, sorry to talk numbers, that's what it kind of.

• 36:42Will Arnett?

  No, that's okay.

• 36:43Sean Hayes?

  No, no, yeah, yeah.

• 36:44Speaker 03

  We ended up about thirty million total in box office on a movie that cost about seventeen million, right?

• 36:50Will Arnett?

  Pretty good.

• 36:51Speaker 03

  Not, well, okay, not for Universal, for Universal, that's.

• 36:54Sean Hayes?

  Break even.

• 36:55Speaker 03

  I paid the lights that, that day.

• 36:57Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 36:59Speaker 03

  But, um, I waited to, to it be cooked before I went back and sat down with the executive who was in charge of, of, gave me the green light, which is, uh, Mr. Adam Ferguson. And, uh, and I sat down and he said, you okay, you know, like, you broke, you did, you did cool. Okay, nobody's over here, you know, we're not jumping up and down nor are we sad, right? I said, okay, I got it now, I, I like to try another one. And so he said, okay, well, this, let me, let me hear some ideas. And I pitched the ideas and one of them was One Spoon of Chocolate. The other ones didn't really gravitate, but he said, that one seems like something you could chase. And then I started writing it and I got writer's block, uh, page forty.

• 37:40Speaker 03

  And it took almost, you know, this, this will be thirteen years from the day of, of me starting it to it now being available. And it just kept taking time and time and time. And it didn't fully materialize until. Uh, two summers ago, I'm, I'm on a tour bus with Nas and we're doing the New York State of Mind. We're traveling across America and I'm just, and my pen just started flowing. And so I wrote the whole movie. Uh, my wife was right beside me, just sitting right there. And I, you know, we got home and I said, okay, I got a movie written. And we had a chance to, you know, we had, we had some good economics, uh, blessings in our lives.

• 38:21Speaker 03

  And so I said, well, she was looking at another house. She likes to get nice houses and shit. That's the kind of her thing. And so I said, well, I wrote the movie. You wanna get another house or you wanna make a movie?

• 38:33Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 38:34Speaker 03

  And she said, well, what do you wanna do? I said, to be honest, I really wanna make, make a movie, like with no, with no interruptions. Like just go ahead and do it. And she said, okay. She gave me the green light. She's the producer of the film.

• 38:46Jason Bateman?

  Wow, self-financed?

• 38:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, so, so she's, yeah, self, self-financed from, you know, leveraging some assets. And, um, and we, we did it and we shot in Atlanta. We, uh, finished it and it's gonna premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, uh,

• 39:01Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 39:02Speaker 03

  On June 8th. I'm super excited about it.

• 39:05Jason Bateman?

  Awesome. And so were you, are you gonna be looking for distribution at that festival or has, or have you already sold it?

• 39:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, looking for, yeah, it's gonna be like the first time we show it and we're looking for distribution. So, you know, like I hate to use the word hopefully, but hopefully.

• 39:19Jason Bateman?

  What's it about? What was, what was, what was the pitch you gave to Adam? And did, and did it remain the same once you got past the, the page 40 or did it, did it morph into something else?

• 39:28Speaker 03

  You know what? It actually, I guess without giving a spoiler.

• 39:32Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 39:33Speaker 03

  It morphed into 200 pages.

• 39:35Jason Bateman?

  Oh, wow.

• 39:36Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 39:37Jason Bateman?

  For the listener, usually a, a movie script is about a hundred and 10.

• 39:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, it morphed to about 200 pages. And I think I got about a hundred and 10 pages that we'll see when we look at this thing. Yeah.

• 39:52Jason Bateman?

  That's amazing. And now Kill Bill was famously, uh, what, 200 and something? And so you had to split it up into two parts.

• 39:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:59Jason Bateman?

  Right?

• 39:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, I actually read the, the, the 220-page, uh, Kill Bill.

• 40:04Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 40:05Speaker 03

  Which, which, like I said, so Tarantino is my, uh, My professor, I call him the god, my godfather of film.

• 40:12Jason Bateman?

  Ah, he's incredible. Love to have you on the show, Quentin, if you're listening.

• 40:16Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, he's incredible.

• 40:16Speaker 03

  He gotta come on, he gotta come to us.

• 40:18Jason Bateman?

  He's got it, yeah.

• 40:19Sean Hayes?

  Um, but now, I'm always amazed when people like us, meaning that are artists or in the entertainment business or whatever, that create the stuff, like your films and music and everything else, and us, TV shows, films, whatever we do, and that at some point in your life, you became aware of the business side of it. And what was that point and who, or who was that person where you're like? Because when I was on the set of Will and Grace, it's a TV show I did a long time ago.

• 40:50Speaker 03

  This is something.

• 40:55Speaker 03

  Hey, a masterpiece, a masterpiece.

• 40:59Sean Hayes?

  We, um, after, it took about five, six seasons for me to kind of look. Yeah.

• 41:06Sean Hayes?

  For me to, for me to look around and I was kind of like, wait a minute. I was really young. I was like, how did this all happen? Because I was just an actor who memorized my lines and showed up and went home. And then I was like, wait, how did this come together? Like, whose idea? And then the phone call. Then I got really interested. I was really young. I, I got interested in, in the business side of how to produce something and make something. So what was that moment for you? And, or, or was there a person you were like, wait a minute, how did they do that? And then it kind of snowballed from there?

• 41:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think it was a couple of points for me. You know, first in music, of course, right? As a producer, um, no, you could, you could control, let's just say, like I said, making an album, maybe it's 20 people. Right? But when I was composing films, the thing with Kill Bill is that I wasn't, no, I wasn't going to be the composer, let me just be clear. Me and Quentin just used to watch movies together and he gave me that script. And when I read the script of Kill Bill, it was just such an amazing script. I just said, yo, anything you may need from me, I'm here. I said, also, I would love to see how you're going to bring this to life. Right? At the time, we were just buddies, film buddies.

• 42:20Speaker 03

  And he was like, yeah, sure, you know, if you show up on set, you know, you go be the guy, the eyes and ears behind me.

• 42:27Sean Hayes?

  Wow.

• 42:28Speaker 03

  And now they were shooting in China, in Beijing, but I showed up.

• 42:32Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, yeah. Nice. Great.

• 42:34Speaker 03

  And then I'm watching him, I'm watching Rob, Robert do the DP. And I'm the guy who's there with, uh, no job.

• 42:43Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 42:43Speaker 03

  So I got to study every job. I'm just chilling, hanging, watching, studying. And I've realized that this was.

• 42:49Sean Hayes?

  And how old were you then?

• 42:51Speaker 03

  Oh, no, I'm a man, hell. This is, uh, to kill Bill, I'm thirty-two at least, right? Thirty.

• 42:56Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 42:56Speaker 03

  So I'm a man.

• 42:58Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 42:59Speaker 03

  But I mean, I'm not a kid, meaning.

• 43:01Sean Hayes?

  All right.

• 43:01Speaker 03

  You know, I was, I was evolved as a. I guess you could say this too, Sean, right? That, you said after five or six years, right?

• 43:10Sean Hayes?

  Right.

• 43:10Speaker 03

  You're not economically thinking about those problems no more.

• 43:13Sean Hayes?

  That's, that's right.

• 43:14Speaker 03

  Okay? Uh, love is good in life, most likely, right?

• 43:18Sean Hayes?

  Right.

• 43:18Speaker 03

  And so, and the art is starting to really feel fulfilling, like a different type of fulfillment, almost a calling.

• 43:25Sean Hayes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 43:25Speaker 03

  Right? And so that's what, that's what's happening to me. My love life is good, my economics is good, and my art is insatiable, though. It wants more, it wants more. And so that's what led me down that path. And then, of course, as a businessman, I think, um, you know, if you look, go back and look at Wu-Tang, it's, you know, from the beginning, we was entrepreneurs, you know, from opening up our clothing stores to video games, like, all those things was just part of it. Um, and then the last lesson for me, and I'll just share this with your audience, why that, you would say, why the heck would you self-finance a film? Which is probably, everybody says, don't do that. That's like a book, there's a book on that.

• 44:08Sean Hayes?

  Right, right. It's the first chapter, yeah.

• 44:10Speaker 03

  Exactly, right? But I got the chance, um, from the year of twenty eighteen to twenty twenty-three, to be the showrunner of my own TV show, right?

• 44:23Sean Hayes?

  Which one?

• 44:23Speaker 03

  Uh, it's Wu-Tang and the American Saga on Hulu.

• 44:27Sean Hayes?

  Okay.

• 44:27Speaker 03

  Um, so doing that show, it's just like, okay, the best way to do it is to do it. You know what I mean?

• 44:35Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, right, right, right.

• 44:35Speaker 03

  The best way to do it is to do it. And, and so, and so, and I, so I'm in that philosophy. Um, cause me spending a dollar may take somebody else ten dollars to spend that dollar, because they don't know how to spend a dollar.

• 44:47Sean Hayes?

  All right.

• 44:49Jason Bateman?

  We'll be right back.

• 44:52Sean Hayes?

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• 45:29Sean Hayes?

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• 46:34Sean Hayes?

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• 47:10Sean Hayes?

  And back to the show.

• 47:13Jason Bateman?

  You know, people who are as accomplished as you in as many

• 47:21Jason Bateman?

  in as many different skill sets, it takes it takes an enormous amount of not only ambition, but but concentration and focus and discipline. Where, what would you say to the listeners who are, you know, trying to get their feet under themselves and really find that gear that it's going to take to hit the passing lane and get past the folks that they're competing with? What is what is that special sauce for you? For you and and and from whom did you learn it from? Or or what happened that that gave you that that spark that you tap into? That has, you know, fueled so much incredible accomplished work?

• 48:04Speaker 03

  I would show anybody, the first thing is mastery of something.

• 48:09Jason Bateman?

  Okay.

• 48:10Speaker 03

  If you master one thing and you mastered it, then you'll understand the relation of all things.

• 48:17Jason Bateman?

  Okay.

• 48:17Speaker 03

  Right? Because

• 48:18Jason Bateman?

  That makes sense.

• 48:19Speaker 03

  And for me, you know, of course, the first thing is gonna be my lyrics, right? And I've been writing lyrics since the age of nine. So by the time, and you know, I'm the guy that finishes schoolwork first. So I could write another lyric. So mastery of your passion, I guess, would would to go together. Master your passion.

• 48:36Jason Bateman?

  That's great.

• 48:37Speaker 03

  And if you master your passion, I think that when it's time for other disciplines to come amongst you, you're going to have a foundation because you'll be able to apply it. And I think we all can agree, us here, all of us artists right here, that we could say that it is the artist has, I use this word, artistry is a wavelength. Right? It's like if you got a, so let's take a trumpet, right? And let's call the trumpet the artist. Whatever plays through that trumpet, though, it could be jazz, soul, rock, pop, doesn't matter. It's going to come through that trumpet to turn it to music. But when the artist knows the wavelength, he knows what to pass through his his vessel.

• 49:22Speaker 03

  You know what I mean? Could we, could you see that?

• 49:23Sean Hayes?

  Geez, man.

• 49:24Jason Bateman?

  I know.

• 49:24Sean Hayes?

  That's that's really cool.

• 49:27Jason Bateman?

  I know.

• 49:27Sean Hayes?

  Yeah. That's kind of amazing. Yeah. That's really cool. What if it's a piano? Just kidding.

• 49:36Will Arnett?

  Sean's an accomplished pianist. I don't know if you knew that. He is. He really is.

• 49:41Sean Hayes?

  Who cares?

• 49:42Speaker 03

  My favorite instrument, Sean.

• 49:43Sean Hayes?

  Okay, there you go. Well, we'll jam.

• 49:45Jason Bateman?

  How many, how many, how many can you play? How many different instruments?

• 49:48Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 49:49Speaker 03

  Um, I mean, I played, you know, I'm not gonna, no, I'm a producer, so producer's a lot technology, but no, I play guitar, drums, of course guitar, this bass is no problem. Uh, I could blow some notes on, on, on my trumpet. And I spent a lot of time on the piano too. But I'm very shy on the piano, meaning mostly my wife gets to hear me.

• 50:10Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 50:12Speaker 03

  You know, I gotta be nice to play in front of an audience.

• 50:16Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 50:17Will Arnett?

  Sean's very coy on a piano. He's very coy. You know, it's funny, you, you do, you mentioned like different instruments and stuff. You've done so many different, and you've done a lot of collabs in different genres. I remember you did that. I love that record you put out with, um, Paul Banks from, from Interpol, Banks and Steel.

• 50:32Speaker 03

  I love Paul, yeah.

• 50:33Will Arnett?

  Dude, that was so rad, that, that record. Talk a little bit about that experience and how you guys got together.

• 50:40Speaker 03

  Let's shout out Paul Banks first and the whole Interpol family.

• 50:42Jason Bateman?

  I put an Interpol song in, uh, Black Rabbit coming out.

• 50:45Will Arnett?

  Well, congrats, man.

• 50:46Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, thank you, thank you, thank you.

• 50:49Speaker 03

  And Paul's getting married this summer.

• 50:50Will Arnett?

  Oh, is he?

• 50:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, this, one of the coolest bachelors. I was married while we was making that album. He wasn't, you know what I mean?

• 50:58Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 50:59Speaker 03

  And all the girls always scream for him. He's a cool dude, man.

• 51:02Will Arnett?

  Oh, I mean, I don't know him, but I'm such a fan. Yeah, ta-talk a little bit about that experience.

• 51:07Speaker 03

  Well, we met because he, I guess he had, uh, he listened to some of my music and he was making it, he used, I guess one of his articles, he used me as a reference to something he was striving to do as an artist. And, um, I think, uh, my manager read it and was like, oh, my manager's a fan of Paul. He's like, oh, Paul is a fan of yours? And he kind of quoted something about you. Uh, you guys are both New Yorkers, you know, hook up. I mean, I mean, he's, he's not a native New Yorker, but he's, you know, he was living in New York at the time. He said, maybe you guys could hook up and, uh, chop it up. And we hooked up and we both were chess players. And so we would just play chess. At the time, you know, he, he did drink tequila. We met at a tequila bar.

• 51:51Speaker 03

  There's tequila and chess and that built the, that built the friendship. And maybe, uh, a couple of years later, um, I think Warner Brothers approached us and was like, would you guys be interested in kinda collaborating on something together? We just think you guys are just too cool, too cool motherfuckers, just to be quite frank, was the slang they used. And we was like, yeah, whatever, yo, we hang anyway. Like, you want us to do music too? Cool.

• 52:15Jason Bateman?

  You wanna pass, hang on?

• 52:17Will Arnett?

  I used that, um, I used that single, uh, actually as a temp track in my show. Uh, Shaysen, you mentioned, uh, quite drolly flake the other day, but we couldn't afford it. Uh, but we used it as, we used it as a temp, uh, in, in the show. So I was a, I was a big fan.

• 52:34Speaker 03

  Hold on, well, any, anytime you can't afford something, the minds, hit me up. I got it.

• 52:38Will Arnett?

  I'm gonna hit you from now on.

• 52:40Speaker 03

  I discount, I discount so many things and one dollar gratis. It just, if it gets to my desk, it gets easy. If it don't get to my desk, yeah, they gonna smack it.

• 52:48Jason Bateman?

  I'm gonna take you up on that. I'm coming. Hey, did you score, did you score your, your four films that you directed?

• 52:54Speaker 03

  No, I scored, uh, two. I scored the first one with, with my buddy Howard Drossen. Uh, the second one, Richard Gibbs, me and him collaborated on the second one. The third one, I passed it over to Danny Harrison, uh, good friend, uh, you know, uh, George Harrison's son, him and his, him and his crew did it. And on the fourth one, I actually combined with Tyler Bates, which is, I think Tyler is an incredible, um, incredible composer. Just very bold and brave in his sound selection. So the, so the fourth film is me and Tyler together.

• 53:27Jason Bateman?

  Wow, I see that.

• 53:28Will Arnett?

  I know, me too. I, you know, yeah, go ahead, Jason, you had a phone.

• 53:31Jason Bateman?

  Well, I was unrelated, but one thing I keep forgetting to ask, what about?

• 53:36Will Arnett?

  Oh, this is our, sorry, this is our new segment we're doing called Unrelated. Go ahead.

• 53:38Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 53:39Speaker 03

  I like it.

• 53:40Jason Bateman?

  What about, what about martial arts for you? Are you, are you an accomplished martial artist? Or, or is there any crossover there?

• 53:49Speaker 03

  That's a big word, accomplished.

• 53:53Speaker 03

  Look, no, I wouldn't say that. I don't know, right? Of course, I practice martial art.

• 53:58Jason Bateman?

  You do, okay.

• 53:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, but my philosophy is mental martial art, cultural artistic martial arts. You know what I mean? It's, you know, just to give you a little bit about the Wu-Tang philosophy in the martial world. So the Shaolin philosophy is known to be external, right? You train your body to be hard as iron, right? In the Wu-Tang, you train your body to be soft as cotton. The Shaolin martial artist would throw a thousand punches a day. The Wu-Tang martial artist would sit still

• 54:33Speaker 03

  and contemplate the thousand punches in his mind.

• 54:37Speaker 03

  So exercising the mind is known as, because it's kind of Daoist. So it's known as that's the Wu-Tang way. But exercising the body is Zen or Buddhist way. So being a Wu-Tang abbot, I'm going here. And so that's why, you know, my lyrics or my art is always formulating. Now, somebody would have stepped to me now.

• 55:04Jason Bateman?

  It's a mistake.

• 55:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, so Shaolin would jump up out of me.

• 55:08Will Arnett?

  Dude, I am so, I'm entranced. I am, this is like unbelievable.

• 55:14Jason Bateman?

  I'm going into a Wu-Tang cave when this interview is over.

• 55:18Will Arnett?

  I've been into Wu-Tang. We were supposed to record a little while ago. I've been into Wu-Tang, just absolute cave for months now. Hey, speaking of Wu-Tang, so when you, and just your music in general, do you see? You guys have been so, like I said, you're so influential on other musicians for the last, over thirty years. Do you, can you see, can you like catch glimpses of your influence in music now when you listen to hip-hop?

• 55:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, definitely. I mean, it's a blessing, right? To be able to inspire anything or anybody, right? After getting inspiration from life yourself. But yeah, that's, you know, constantly, you know? Some of our greatest artists, they are not shy to, you know, give us a name, drop. You know, I mean Drake named his song Wu-Tang Forever, you know?

• 56:01Will Arnett?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 56:04Speaker 03

  You know, one of Kendrick Lamar's first samples, you know, was a a RZA sample, which I cleared for free.

• 56:11Sean Hayes?

  Nice, nice, nice. Very good, very good. You're welcome, man.

• 56:17Will Arnett?

  I mean, you guys did so much, you did so much sampling over the years. I mean, you guys were like the masters of it. Was there ever a sample that you couldn't clear, that you, that you wished you could have gotten and you were not able to get?

• 56:27Speaker 03

  Um, what, what was, no, the worst, no, I wouldn't say that I, let me see, uh, yeah, there was a couple, because some people would like become born again Christians and they don't, they didn't, they wasn't letting hip hop go. But my biggest, one of my biggest glitches was this, and I don't mind sharing this with your audience, is that there's no, uh, floor or ceiling when it comes to sampling and the interpolation rights. And I totally disagree with that, right? The reason why I disagree is because if you sample a song, say you sample a James Brown song, right? And you got, you know, um, you know, Bootsy on bass, but you got all these, you know, all these different people playing, Macey, all right? They all playing.

• 57:08Speaker 03

  The, the publisher will come and could potentially take 100% of that song away from you.

• 57:14Sean Hayes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 57:15Speaker 03

  Right? And say that because you're copyright infringing. And even though your song could be almost unrecognizable from their song.

• 57:25Sean Hayes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 57:26Speaker 03

  And then the musicians who, you're probably more into the musicians than the song itself. Like if I sampled a little bass part from here, a little horn from this guy, a little snare from this guy. And me, I'm the type of guy that had Peter Pan records, so I may get a strange section from that, you know what I mean?

• 57:44Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 57:45Speaker 03

  And make a track. So it's like, what about those musicians? They never get compensated. It's just the, the, the publishing company. And then I said this last, to me, in my opinion, that it should be a floor and a ceiling. The ceiling should be 50%. That should be the ceiling. You should never take more than half. Because you got the lyrics, you got the talent, you got everything else that the other person is building to make the song.

• 58:09Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 58:09Speaker 03

  Right? And then the floor should be then prorated by how much you took. You know, versus what the song is. But with a ceiling, so the floor could be, I'll put the floor at even twenty percent to be merciful. Twenty percent floor, no matter what, if you put my record on, you take something, give me twenty percent for that inspiration. Right? But most I could take from you is fifty percent, and we'll measure how to get to fifty percent. I got a situation where I did sample Marvin Gaye and Tammy Terrell's All I Need. And it was a double platinum selling song. Won the Grammy, Met the Man and Mary J Blige. It was the Coca-Cola commercial of the summer.

• 58:52Speaker 03

  And all we received is ten percent of the song.

• 58:55Will Arnett?

  Wow. Wow.

• 58:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I mean, that song made.

• 59:02Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 59:03Speaker 03

  Every time it made a dollar, they only gave us a dime.

• 59:06Will Arnett?

  No way.

• 59:07Speaker 03

  And look, and I could argue back, they, you know, they, it was ours. You took it. And but also I could then argue back, but no, we didn't know. We didn't know that that was a law or. Because hip hop started from a guy with a turntable, and he's scratching beats back and forth, we rapping over it. And then they made a sampler. The sampler says, "Sampling instrument." Okay, that's my new instrument. And now I'm sampling sounds and records for my collection, and I'm making my own thing. We didn't know that it's gonna, it was gonna be a law or some type of thing that was gonna stop us. And eventually hip hop got slowed down because of sampling and interpolation laws.

• 59:45Will Arnett?

  Because of lawyers.

• 59:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:46Jason Bateman?

  And then all those fees, all those fees were assessed retroactively in all of those songs that were created with some samples and stuff. Once the law went into effect, then they reached back.

• 59:56Speaker 03

  They reached back.

• 59:56Jason Bateman?

  And charged. Oh, wow.

• 59:58Speaker 03

  You got some songs now, I got some, I got a song of mine that is totally wrong. Two, three of my songs.

• 1:00:06Speaker 03

  Because they thought that it was it and it wasn't it.

• 1:00:09Sean Hayes?

  Wow.

• 1:00:10Speaker 03

  And it's like, hold on, that's not Roger Troutman. What is, I didn't even, I wasn't, I wasn't a Roger Troutman fan, right? I was a Thelonious Monk fan, but I wasn't a Roger Troutman.

• 1:00:21Will Arnett?

  I love that. I love your, I love your floor and ceiling idea. I think that that's something that should, that should take root. Hopefully, I, I think that that makes a lot of sense and seems really fair. Really, really fair. So I hope that works out. Um, all right, before I let you go, I want to talk a little bit about um, a ballet through mud. Because you released a classical album last year.

• 1:00:42Sean Hayes?

  I, I can't, I did not know this. I want to hear this.

• 1:00:45Will Arnett?

  It's unbelievable. Like every time there's like something else that you did. Talk a little bit about how that came about and your ambition with that.

• 1:00:51Sean Hayes?

  And, and where we can see it. Will it ever be done again or?

• 1:00:55Speaker 03

  Well, the ballet was performed a few times already. And so we don't know if it's gonna, if I'm gonna, you know, do it like perform it again. But we did perform it in LA. We did in Colorado, which we, I wrote it for Colorado. I was part of this artist and resident where for three years I would create something to take to the Colorado Symphony Orchestra and, and perform. So it was during the pandemic, of course, that I found this notebook of old lyrics. And then inside these lyrics, uh, these are like my high school lyrics. So this book is so old, um, my buddy Ray Quan made a joke, said, that book is growing hair, man. Like it's, it's that old, right?

• 1:01:40Speaker 03

  But in it is all of the ideas from ninth grade up until graduation. Right? So you could hear, you could see the first blunt, the first weed. You could hear the, the early sexual ideas and everything. And you could also hear the imagination growing. And so when I found the book, I said, I can't, I said, I can't rap these. Right? What should I do? And then I eventually decided, uh, talking with my wife about it, of course, that what if I kind of composed it into like a ballet or something?

• 1:02:12Sean Hayes?

  Great idea.

• 1:02:13Speaker 03

  And so she thought it was a great idea as well. And I kind of went into it. The funny thing is that, uh, let me, let me share one of the lyrics that led to it. Okay?

• 1:02:22Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:22Speaker 03

  So one of the lyrics was, uh, about these six teenagers, um, who, uh,

• 1:02:31Speaker 03

  Exploring life, right? So Sue was this girl who was really quite fly. And Brad was real cool. He was her guy. Lisa was freaky. She loved to have sex. Her brother's name was Dexter, but they called him Dex. His girlfriend's name was Monica. She was a verge. And Joe, he was their friend, and he was a nerd. Brad bought the beer, Sue bought the smoke, Lisa had sheets, Dexter had coke. Joe was the type who didn't get high, nor did Monica, but she was willing to try. So Brad lit a blunt and passed it to Joe saying, come on, man, smoke it. And Joe said, no. What's wrong? Are you scared? Was asked by Sue. Oh, you're just a nerd. Joe said, that's not true. Monica said, come on, Joe, just have a taste.

• 1:03:15Speaker 03

  And she puffed on the joint and blew smoke in his face. Now, on Monica, Joe had a crush. He didn't want to do it, but felt that he must. Like many we know, love made him a fool, so he smoked a joint to prove he was cool. Then Lisa was like, yo, forget about Joe. Then say, hey Dex, where the heck is the blow? He pulled out two grams, said, it's all that I bought. Well, it's more than enough, and they proceeded to snort. Now with this time, Joe had finished two beers. And Brad was like, here, have another, you queer? And Joe said, no, while holding his stomach. And while facing Monica, he suddenly vomited. She screamed, oh, my God, shit, how absurd. And everyone laughed and said, Joe is a nerd, Joe is a nerd, Joe is a nerd. Joe felt embarrassed, so he did the bird. They chased him. He ran.

• 1:03:58Speaker 03

  They screamed and they laughed into this abandoned housing with the sound of this crashing glass. And it was dark in there, so Brad had to get a light to check to see if Joe was all right. But when they found him, he was laying on his back with cords of red blood spurting from his head. And Monica said, oh, my God, Joey is dead. And they started to run, and they never mentioned this incident again to anyone. So.

• 1:04:21Jason Bateman?

  Wow.

• 1:04:22Sean Hayes?

  That's beautiful. That is amazing.

• 1:04:25Speaker 03

  And not turn that to a ballet.

• 1:04:27Sean Hayes?

  That's unbelievable. Oh, I've gotta see that.

• 1:04:31Will Arnett?

  Just riveted.

• 1:04:32Sean Hayes?

  How in the world do you remember?

• 1:04:34Will Arnett?

  I know.

• 1:04:34Sean Hayes?

  Not only remember that, but remember everything that you make? I mean, it's just incredible.

• 1:04:38Will Arnett?

  It's so good. Oh, God, man, we could talk for hours. We've taken up way too much of your time. What an absolute, like I said at the beginning, what an absolute honor to have you, man. I'm such a fan.

• 1:04:49Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, it really has been.

• 1:04:50Will Arnett?

  You're such a creative juggernaut, dude, in every way. So just, you know, continued success.

• 1:04:56Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, thanks for coming.

• 1:04:57Speaker 03

  And I send all the respect and I'm just saying I'm a fan of all you guys' work as well. Thank you for what you contributed to my life. It's just, you know, I've watched you. I've watched as a fan, you know, the things you guys create, whether in the theater or in front of my TV set, and got my laughs, got my inspiration, and probably took something from your tree here and there. I'm hip-hop, so I sample.

• 1:05:23Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, you sampled us. You sampled us, yeah.

• 1:05:25Speaker 03

  I sampled, yes, indeed. So I appreciate you guys.

• 1:05:27Sean Hayes?

  Well, right back at you. You've touched all of us and millions and millions around the world, too. So thank you for what you do.

• 1:05:32Will Arnett?

  You really inspired us today. Well, thank you, RZA, for your time, man.

• 1:05:35Speaker 03

  Thank you, guys.

• 1:05:36Will Arnett?

  And, yeah, Spoonful of Chocolate, all the best of luck with it, man. Can't wait for it.

• 1:05:41Sean Hayes?

  We'll be watching.

• 1:05:41Speaker 03

  Respect. Peace.

• 1:05:42Sean Hayes?

  Thank you.

• 1:05:43Will Arnett?

  Peace.

• 1:05:43Sean Hayes?

  Yeah. Bye, pal.

• 1:05:47Sean Hayes?

  Wow, Willie, that was, I didn't think you had it in you, you know?

• 1:05:51Will Arnett?

  I know, you always talk about them.

• 1:05:52Sean Hayes?

  You've talked about them forever.

• 1:05:54Will Arnett?

  And I wanted to have him on for a long time and I'm so, I'm like, I knew the bar was high. I was like, oh, he's gonna be inspirational, he's gonna be cool. And I can't believe how he just exceeds expectations just as a creative, right? It's just unbelievable. It's like an endless well of creativity.

• 1:06:14Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, and also like just philosophies and like,

• 1:06:17Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:18Sean Hayes?

  I mean, spiritual, like, I love the thing you said about the trumpet, like, where the artist has to connect the energy to the vibrations that go through the thing that makes the sound, like, whatever that was. But that was really cool.

• 1:06:30Will Arnett?

  Yeah, we're like trumpet. Jay, you're more like a Waymo, you know what I mean? You're just like a

• 1:06:35Sean Hayes?

  Nobody's in it.

• 1:06:36Will Arnett?

  ... automated car with nothing inside. So

• 1:06:39Sean Hayes?

  Please rate me.

• 1:06:40Will Arnett?

  Empty vehicle that goes from just destination to destination. But that's fine. That's fine. And we still love you. But honestly, yeah, he had so, you're right, he had so many cool philosophies.

• 1:06:51Sean Hayes?

  I mean, I could, I could be.

• 1:06:53Will Arnett?

  Shaolin approach that he does and the way they created that community and kind of like there's just, and he produced all those records for all those guys, for, you know, for Ghostface and for all those dudes like Method Man. It's insane.

• 1:07:06Sean Hayes?

  It is wild.

• 1:07:07Jason Bateman?

  I want to be in the music world a little bit. They all just seem like they just, they kind of got it all together.

• 1:07:12Sean Hayes?

  They're super chill.

• 1:07:13Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, no one's running. They're just, you know, they're just doing their thing.

• 1:07:18Will Arnett?

  I'm really excited for him for, I knew Jay, you'd be excited that he's, you know, he's directing. I didn't know he'd done four films, but I saw the trailer. I saw the trailer for his new film. It looks really, really good.

• 1:07:27Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:28Will Arnett?

  So I'm excited for that and, and how cool. And it makes sense that he'd be a good director because he has been sort of the abbot, as he says, of the Wu-Tang for so long and does so many, and wears so many hats. And Jay, as you know, as a director, that's what you have to, that's what you have to do.

• 1:07:43Jason Bateman?

  Pulling on all those different levers. Yeah. And just a great leader.

• 1:07:45Sean Hayes?

  I've spent a lot of time on Abbott Kinney, where there's a gay bar in Abbott Kinney.

• 1:07:49Jason Bateman?

  You know, funny story about that gay bar. It's called, uh,

• 1:07:52Will Arnett?

  Roosterfish.

• 1:07:52Jason Bateman?

  The Roosterfish.

• 1:07:54Sean Hayes?

  How do you guys know that?

• 1:07:55Will Arnett?

  I think, I think, I think.

• 1:07:56Jason Bateman?

  So when I, when I first,

• 1:07:58Sean Hayes?

  That's totally true.

• 1:07:58Jason Bateman?

  When I, I, I,

• 1:08:00Will Arnett?

  There's a light bulb out in the back alley behind, anyway, forget it.

• 1:08:02Jason Bateman?

  Oh, no.

• 1:08:03Will Arnett?

  It doesn't matter.

• 1:08:04Sean Hayes?

  Way to go.

• 1:08:05Jason Bateman?

  I used to live right around there and, uh, when I first moved into my house, me and my buddy went down, went down the street like, well, we gotta find our local bar, right? If we're gonna be living down here. And this place is, is, at the time, I don't know if it still is, it was painted this, like, this really cool, like, turquoise blue.

• 1:08:22Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:08:23Jason Bateman?

  And, uh, and we're like, well, this place looks kind of cool. Walked in there, fucking sat at the bar and ordered a couple of beers and just started talking to each other and, uh, I get a little tap, tap on the shoulder.

• 1:08:37Jason Bateman?

  I don't think the guy had like a gag ball in his mouth, but it seemed, it was, something was, it was very clear that we were in the wrong spot. Almost immediately.

• 1:08:46Sean Hayes?

  Right, right.

• 1:08:47Jason Bateman?

  We finished the beer and we shook some hands and, yeah.

• 1:08:51Will Arnett?

  So we only have three more beers. I only had three more and then I was out of there. By the way, I forgot to mention, I forgot to mention that for RZA that they're, they're, his, they're on tour this summer, right? The Wu-Tang final tour. So I also wanted to mention that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We should go. We should really go. How.

• 1:09:10Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, why didn't you mention that during the interview so we could lock up some tikkies?

• 1:09:14Will Arnett?

  I know, I forgot. We can still lock up. Please don't say tikkies.

• 1:09:17Sean Hayes?

  Look, he picked it up from, he picked it, he picked it up from Roosterfish.

• 1:09:20Jason Bateman?

  Well, that's the way I would have phrased it with him too. I say, hey, RZA, any chance we get some tikkies? You know, and we would have, it would have been uncomfortable ambush him in the interview live, you know, he would have had to give us his tikkies.

• 1:09:31Will Arnett?

  That would have been uncomfortable for anybody, dude. Okay? No way. The way you sort of infantilize everything is so gross.

• 1:09:38Sean Hayes?

  I want to, by the way, I feel like that Roosterfish story isn't over, but well, it can, it can be for now.

• 1:09:43Jason Bateman?

  I'll tell you the ending after we, after we got to a shutdown.

• 1:09:46Will Arnett?

  Is that the, that was the day that you discovered that you weren't gay, but that maybe you were gay adjacent?

• 1:09:51Jason Bateman?

  Bye!

• 1:09:53Sean Hayes?

  There he is.

• 1:09:56Speaker 04

  Smartless.

• 1:10:03Speaker 04

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• 1:10:08Will Arnett?

  Smartless is 100% organic and artisanally handcrafted by Bennett Barbaco, Michael Grant Terry, and Rob Armjarf.

• 1:10:21Speaker 04

  Smartless.

• 1:10:24Speaker 05

  Time for a quick break to talk about McDonald's. It's the tangiest time of the year. For a limited time, head to McDonald's and get a McRib sandwich. Make it a meal by adding a medium fries and a soft drink like an ice cold Diet Dr. Pepper. So grab a McRib sandwich and embrace the tang. Save time by ordering ahead on the app at participating McDonald's for a limited time. Dr. Pepper is a registered trademark of Dr. Pepper, 7-Up, Inc.

• 1:10:49Speaker 06

  Hi, I'm Cyndi Lauper, Cosentyx Lead Detective in the new mystery series, Unpredictable Symptom Squad. My team and I are on a curious case to gather clues about plaque psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis, and learn how Cosentyx treats both. And can help stop further joint damage in psoriatic arthritis.

• 1:11:10Speaker 07

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• 1:11:42Speaker 06

  Don't let mysterious symptoms go unsolved. Talk to your doctor about Cosentyx.