Steven Pressfield

Steven Pressfield is a bestselling novelist, nonfiction author, and screenwriter. He published his first novel, The Legend of Bagger Vance, in his early fifties, launching him onto the literary map and leading to a 2000 film directed by Robert Redford. Pressfield’s 1998 Spartan epic Gates of Fire became a modern classic of military historical fiction and is widely read in military circles around the world, selling over one million copies worldwide. He is also the author of the 2002 bestseller The War of Art and subsequent titles like Turning Pro and Do the Work, which have made him a key voice on the inner challenges of writing, work, and creative life. Steven Pressfield is a bestselling novelist, nonfiction author, and screenwriter. He published his first novel, The Legend of Bagger Vance, in his early fifties, launching him onto the literary map and leading to a 2000 film directed by Robert Redford. His 1998 Spartan epic Gates of Fire became a modern classic of military historical fiction, widely read in military circles around the world and selling more than one million copies. His newest novel, The Arcadian, published in 2026, returns to the terrain of war and the warrior’s inner life in a genre-bending story set in sixteenth-century Spain. Following the mercenary Telamon across time and lifetimes, the novel explores fate, violence, redemption, and whether a man made for battle can ever truly lay down his sword. Pressfield is also the author of the 2002 bestseller The War of Art and subsequent books including Turning Pro and Do the Work, which have made him a defining voice on resistance, discipline, and the inner challenges of writing, work, and the creative life. The War of Art Gates of Fire Tides of War The Arcadian A Man at Arms The Legend of Bagger Vance ------ Thank you to the sponsors that fuel our podcast and our team: Anthropic ⁠https://Claude.com/tetra⁠ ------ AGZ ⁠https://DrinkAG1.com/tetra⁠ ------ Athletic Nicotine ⁠https://www. AthleticNicotine.com/tetra⁠ Use code 'TETRA' ------ LMNT Electrolytes ⁠https://DrinkLMNT.com/tetra⁠ Use code 'TETRA' ------ Lectio 365 ⁠https://Lectio365.com⁠ ------ Sign up to receive Tetragrammaton Transmissions https://www.tetragrammaton.com/join-newsletter Follow Tetragrammaton: ⁠https://x.com/tetranow⁠ https://www.instagram.com/tetragrammaton.now Follow Rick: ⁠https://x.com/rickrubin⁠ ⁠https://www.instagram.com/rickrubin⁠

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

• 0:24Speaker 00

  El concepto de resistencia con un R es que hay una fuerza negativa construida en el universo, una fuerza diabólica, inteligente, que siempre se va a mutar, cuya única tarea es detenernos, tú y yo, a convertirnos en nuestros auténticos, a lograr nuestra autorealización.

• 0:50Rick Rubin?

  Así que no se trata de nuestro trabajo. Está deteniéndonos de ser nosotros mismos.

• 0:54Speaker 00

  Deteniéndonos de ser lo que nacimos para ser.

• 0:57Rick Rubin?

  Sí.

• 0:57Speaker 00

  Y hacer lo que nacimos a hacer, lo que no necesariamente se aplica al trabajo. Puede ser algo más. Nadie te enseña esto, así que mucha gente, con todas las mejores intenciones, sucumben a esta fuerza negativa. Uno de los aspectos de esta fuerza es que es tan diabólica que ni siquiera sabes que está ahí. Es decir, me ha derrotado durante siete años corriendo por todo el país haciendo todo tipo de cosas y nunca sabía que estaba ahí. Y luego, cuando finalmente pude darle nombre y decir, "Ah, hay una fuerza negativa me estás poniendo a la mierda", entonces, yo me podía liberar de ella. Porque podía decir, "Ah, veo, veo a ti".

• 1:41Speaker 00

  Es como el predador, donde se puede mezclar en el bosque y nunca sabías que estaba ahí hasta que te lo mató. Y una vez que vieron, "Oh, ahí está".

• 1:51Rick Rubin?

  En tu proceso de tener un primer dibujo, ¿cuán cerca está el libro final de tu primer dibujo?

• 1:59Speaker 00

  Es bastante cerca.

• 2:00Rick Rubin?

  ¿En serio?

• 2:01Speaker 00

  Lo cual es... Estaba leyendo, ¿qué era? Un libro llamado "Escribiendo el novelo blockbuster", y fue por el agente, me olvidé de su nombre, Ken Follet, el tipo que hizo "Pillars of the Earth" y un millón de cosas. Y una de las cosas en el libro fue que mostró un primer dibujo de uno de los libros de Ken Follet, o parte de él, y luego mostró cómo cambió, como radicalmente. El segundo dibujo, el octavo dibujo, ese tipo de cosas. Y cuando lo leí, pensé, "Oh, hombre, creo que estoy haciendo algo malo porque el mío realmente no cambia mucho".

• 2:32Rick Rubin?

  Sí.

• 2:32Speaker 00

  Pero no, simplemente no. Puede que haya dos o tres grandes bloques de construcción que podrían cambiar. Puedo mover algo del tercer acto al segundo acto, o podría venir con dos cosas nuevas que se ajustaran. Pero básicamente, muchas veces, y me siento mal por esto, es como...

• 2:50Rick Rubin?

  No hay derecho ni error, pero funciona.

• 2:52Speaker 00

  Fue el primer momento, casi como esperaba que fuera.

• 2:55Rick Rubin?

  Cuéntame sobre el proceso de edición. ¿Las cosas se acortan?

• 2:59Speaker 00

  No, para mí no. Mientras que siguen alrededor del mismo. Si termino agregando algo, generalmente saco algo.

• 3:07Rick Rubin?

  ¿Pero estás trabajando hacia una longitud o no? Simplemente sucede de esa manera.

• 3:10Speaker 00

  Simplemente sucede por sí mismo. Tengo una sensación de cuánto debería ser, y lo principal que estoy mirando en mí mismo es si el lector se cansa. Si lo arrastro por otros 60 páginas, ¿voy a perderlos?

• 3:24Rick Rubin?

  Sí.

• 3:25Speaker 00

  O si lo hago demasiado corto, ¿no va a unirse?

• 3:29Rick Rubin?

  ¿Siempre trabajas en una cosa a la vez?

• 3:31Speaker 00

  Me gusta trabajar en una cosa a la vez porque me gusta estar completamente inmerso en ella. Pero a veces, ya sabes, en el mundo exterior tienes dos cosas, ¿verdad? Una cosa, puedes colaborar con alguien en algo, así que tienes que hacerlo, pero no quieres dejar que la primera cosa se vaya. No puedo juzgar cuatro o cinco cosas. ¿Qué tal tú, Rick, cuando estás trabajando en un estudio?

• 3:54Rick Rubin?

  Me gusta juzgar proyectos diferentes.

• 3:56Speaker 00

  Ah.

• 3:56Rick Rubin?

  Funciona como un limpiador de palitos.

• 3:58Speaker 00

  Ah.

• 3:59Rick Rubin?

  Siento que si me acerco demasiado dentro de algo, pierdo mi objetividad.

• 4:03Speaker 00

  Ah.

• 4:04Rick Rubin?

  Así que para mí, especialmente con la música, cuando estoy trabajando en múltiples cosas, la mejor situación es para mí volver a ello, incluso después de un día de pensar en algo más y sentir que lo estoy escuchando por primera vez. Eso realmente me ayuda.

• 4:19Speaker 00

  Ah, eso tiene sentido para mí.

• 4:21Rick Rubin?

  Sí.

• 4:22Speaker 00

  Por otro lado, puedo decirte que en ciertos proyectos, para mí, estar completamente inmerso en ello es realmente la única forma de ir.

• 4:31Rick Rubin?

  ¿Alguna vez empiezas un proyecto y luego lo abandonas?

• 4:34Speaker 00

  Casi nunca, lo cual es un poco extraño también. Principalmente, creo que es porque si estás escribiendo ficción, si estás escribiendo un novelo, tienes que, para venderlo a un editor, tienes que escribir todo, ¿verdad? No es como la ficción no ficción donde puedes hacer una propuesta y obtener un contrato basado en la propuesta. Así que si estoy jugando con dos o tres ideas, ¿cuál quiero hacer? Tengo que preguntarme, ¿a quién le quieres pasar dos y medio años completamente en el camino, ya sabes? Así que cuando he tomado esa decisión, he estado comprometido, ¿sabes? Y creo que no importa cuántas dudas te hayan, al menos en la ficción, en el novelo, termina con la puta, ¿sabes?

• 5:19Speaker 00

  No puedes tomar consejo con tus dudas de auto.

• 5:23Rick Rubin?

  Sí.

• 5:24Speaker 00

  Al menos, esa es mi experiencia.

• 5:26Rick Rubin?

  ¿No tienes una relación con el editor que has trabajado durante un tiempo?

• 5:29Speaker 00

  Han sido diferentes unas.

• 5:31Rick Rubin?

  ¿Cada vez?

• 5:32Speaker 00

  No cada vez, a veces han sido dos o tres en una fila, pero han sido bastante diferentes. Y la gente entra y sale del negocio, ¿verdad? Tu editor se retira, o tienes una pelea con él, o ese tipo de cosas.

• 5:44Rick Rubin?

  Cuéntame sobre la relación con un editor, ¿qué es eso?

• 5:48Speaker 00

  Mi editor muy grande es un tipo llamado Sean Coyne, que fuimos socios en la pequeña compañía de publicación que hizo "La guerra del arte" y otras cosas así.

• 5:58Rick Rubin?

  ¿Toda la ficción no ficción?

• 5:59Speaker 00

  Bueno, no, no, porque él fue el editor de "Gates of Fire", "Tides of War"...

• 6:05Rick Rubin?

  Pero en la compañía de publicación, ¿socios?

• 6:07Speaker 00

  Eso era toda la ficción no ficción. Fueron todos libros como "El acto creativo" y "La guerra del arte". Y fui bendecido por el cielo por haberlo encontrado y él por mí, porque nunca lo encontré equivocado en nada. Muchas veces, simplemente sacaba un libro, como Thomas Wolfe o algo así. Y si me preguntas, ¿a qué se trata este libro? En otras palabras, ¿cuál es el tema? No lo sabría. Y le daría a Sean y él me decía. Ya sabes, él decía, "Mira, este libro se trata de tal y tal y es por eso que tenemos que cortar esto y es por eso que tenemos..." Y cada vez que iba, "Wow, ¿es eso lo que realmente se trata? No tengo idea", ya sabes. Trabajar con él fue realmente una gran cosa.

• 6:51Speaker 00

  A pesar de que mi novia Diana es ahora... Sean y yo tuvimos un pequeño divorcio hace un tiempo. Ella es un editor terrificante.

• 7:00Rick Rubin?

  Genial.

• 7:00Speaker 00

  Y realmente me ha ayudado mucho. Pero siento vergüenza por aquellos escritores jóvenes, en particular, que no tienen a alguien a quien pueden ver que realmente lo entiende. Y creo que es realmente un talento raro. En esencia, tú estás proporcionando un tipo de rol de editor en el sentido de que dices, "Me encanta esto, no estoy muy seguro de esto", ese tipo de cosas. Y si no tienes a alguien como ese, puedes perderte en las selvas.

• 7:30Rick Rubin?

  Sí.

• 7:30Speaker 00

  Realmente fácil, y te estás desmayando.

• 7:32Rick Rubin?

  ¿Tienes gente que compartes? Como si escribieras un capítulo, ¿que compartes el capítulo?

• 7:36Speaker 00

  No, deliberadamente no lo hago. Nuestro amigo Randy...

• 7:39Rick Rubin?

  Sí.

• 7:39Speaker 00

  Es Randy Wallace, que escribió "Braveheart" y ha hecho muchas otras cosas. Él es probablemente el más cercano, pero no le impondría decir, "Lees esto".

• 7:48Rick Rubin?

  ¿Qué piensas?

• 7:49Speaker 00

  Sí. Él es ciertamente alguien a quien haría, pero no lo hago porque no quiero imponerle.

• 7:55Rick Rubin?

  ¿Y lo piensas como una imposición, o no necesariamente quieres retroalimentación demasiado pronto en el proceso?

• 8:00Speaker 00

  Es un poco de ambos, creo, un poco de ambos. Realmente creo que, en resumen, tienes que responder la pregunta tú mismo. Pero también es una gran imposición preguntarle a alguien como Randy o a ti, estás ocupado, tienes un millón de cosas. ¿Cómo se puede que yo diga, "Lees esto, te tomará diez horas", y luego déme retroalimentación? Eso es mucho, mucho preguntar. La gente me pide eso todo el tiempo.

• 8:23Rick Rubin?

  Sí.

• 8:23Speaker 00

  Y digo, ¿estoy libre, ya sabes? Pero olvídate de ello.

• 8:26Rick Rubin?

  Cuéntame sobre las diferentes colaboraciones que has estado en y cómo funcionan.

• 8:31Speaker 00

  Cuando trabajé con Ron Chousett como escritor de escena, él era muy bien el tipo establecido. Y él no era realmente un escritor de escritor. En otras palabras, él no podía sentarse en el escritorio, en la tecla, y escribir una escena. Él era más como un escritor de productor. Como pensando en la película Alien, ¿sabes? La escena donde el aliena explota del cuello del tipo, el cuello de John Hurt. Esa fue la idea de Ron. Ese es el tipo de cosa que él iba a inventar. Esto, esta idea de ciencia ficción dinamitaria.

• 9:01Rick Rubin?

  Conceptual.

• 9:02Speaker 00

  Sí. Así que él puede no poder escribirlo, pero podría decir, "Aquí es lo que va a ser". Fue un gran tipo. Si le tirara diez ideas, él elegiría la que era la mejor. Y yo era mucho más joven que él, y fue una gran colaboración para mí en el sentido de que aprendí mucho de él. No que él nunca me enseñara nada, él nunca me sentaba y me decía nada. Solo vi cómo trabajaba y cómo enseñaba. Como ser productor, él estaba constantemente buscando material. Y la ciencia ficción era su área. Así que él leería Analog y cualquier revista de ciencia ficción. Amaba "Film noir". Me haría ver estas cosas terribles de ellos, pero siempre estuvimos buscando el kernel,

• 9:48Speaker 00

  el concepto que podemos robar y mejorar.

• 9:54Speaker 02

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• 10:39Speaker 02

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• 11:20Speaker 02

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• 11:47Rick Rubin?

  "Are all good ideas based on stealing something?"

• 11:51Speaker 00

  "In one way or another, I think they are. Like the book that I just finished now, The Arcadian, which is a story set in the 16th century Spain, but it flashes back to the Roman legions and to that era because it's about previous lives. But that came... I stumbled on a quote 40 years ago from Empedocles, the Greek philosopher, and I hung onto it for like 40 years because I said, "There's a story in here somewhere, but I can't find it."

• 12:20Rick Rubin?

  "Yeah."

• 12:21Speaker 00

  "And so I'm stealing from that."

• 12:24Rick Rubin?

  "Could also say inspired by."

• 12:25Speaker 00

  "I'm inspired by that. It's the same, yeah, it's the same thing, you know? You might see a movie and there's a kernel of something, but something is always going to trigger something. And with Bob Dylan, like everything he does comes from somewhere."

• 12:39Rick Rubin?

  "So when you're studying a project like your latest one, do you do a lot of research?"

• 12:44Speaker 00

  "Not really. And this I also learned from Randy Wallace. If you think about Braveheart, that's quite historically accurate, we would think, you know? So I asked him one time, you know, I said, "Randy, how do you handle research?" And he said, "I do as little as possible." He said, "The most important thing is the story. Get the story right. What's going to happen to William Wallace? Not that he wouldn't immerse himself in the history of William Wallace all along, but then let's go back and see how it really fits into Edward Longshanks or the Battle of whatever it was, you know? But I know that he's like me. The story's the important thing, you know? The old thing of if it comes to a choice between the facts and the legend, print the legend, you know?"

• 13:28Rick Rubin?

  "Yeah. Tell me more about the new book."

• 13:31Speaker 00

  "The new book is... I have this recurring character, Telemann of Arcadia, who is a solitary mercenary of the ancient world. Kind of the, in my view, the one-man killing machine of the ancient world. Sort of like Clint Eastwood, "Man with No Name" type of character. And he's been in four books. He's sort of a bit of an alter ego for me. And the way, without getting into a long, long story, Rick, Telemann has a problem. And the problem is that for crimes that he committed in a previous life, he has been condemned by heaven to live lifetime after lifetime always as a soldier, always killing and being killed.

• 14:16Speaker 00

  In other words, he's on the wheel of karma, right? He's been damned, he's been cursed. And so his objective is to get off of this, to somehow serve his time and be made free from it. And so in each one of these Telemann books, he's in a different era, but he's like Hindus would think of previous lives. We're evolving, right? We're learning the same lesson kind of over and over and over and evolving little by little. So in this particular story, he has a hint at the start. Maybe this is his last life. Maybe he'll get off the wheel of karma in this one.

• 14:58Rick Rubin?

  "When you wrote the first story with him in it, did you know he was on the wheel of karma and he'd be coming back again and again?"

• 15:04Speaker 00

  "No, that's really interesting, I think, because, again, I'll get in the weeds here. The first story that I did about him, he was an assassin in the Peloponnesian War, the war between Athens and Sparta. He was a minor character. And he just sort of came in of his own, like somebody that walked in the door and I hadn't planned it at all. And I never thought, "Oh, I'll never see him again. That's the last..." He was like the final image of the book was him. Then, a few years later, I found myself bringing him back as a teacher to the young Alexander the Great. Again, he's sort of the archetypal soldier, the classic soldier. This was like 130 years apart and he hasn't aged a day."

• 15:48Rick Rubin?

  "How long was it in your life apart?"

• 15:51Speaker 00

  "Seven years, something like that. So then I began to think, "Something's going on here, you know? This guy has a life of his own." And I thought, "I gotta do a book that's about him only." But I couldn't find it. Finally, that Empedocles quote, I put that together with him and that gave me the idea for a book called "A Man at Arms" that came out about five years ago. And then this new book, The Arcadian, is sort of evolved out of that. So the character has a life of his own."

• 16:23Rick Rubin?

  "Would you say it's a sequel to the last book or no?"

• 16:26Speaker 00

  "It is a sequel, yes. Across 1,500 years, it's a sequel. And then, I just finished another Telemann story that I haven't shown to anybody yet. And it's set so far in the past that it's when the continents shifted. And it's my concept of what that era was like is that there were great civilizations then that had access to the occult powers beyond anything we know now. And these civilizations have completely vanished, below Atlantis type of thing. And so this is kind of the young Telemann, the young warrior in this setting."

• 17:06Rick Rubin?

  "Is that something that you believe might actually be true?"

• 17:10Speaker 00

  "I absolutely believe it's true. It goes against everything they say in science, like supposedly the human race has only been around 700,000 years, which to me, I can't even remotely believe that that's true. We've got to have been around for millions of years, you know? But what do I know? In any event, print the legend, forget the facts."

• 17:28Rick Rubin?

  "But is it rooted in any legends that you've researched or is it a knowingness that you have?"

• 17:33Speaker 00

  "It's kind of a knowingness, but I'm sure if I... If we had Joseph Campbell here and I told him his story, he'd say, "Oh, that's the story of Kekso Koa," you know, and he'd go through 30 things, yeah."

• 17:44Rick Rubin?

  "Tell me about your relationship to your characters."

• 17:47Speaker 00

  "I certainly love them all, including the villains. Particularly the villains, I love the villains. But they are like your kids, you know? They're all different. There are all different aspects of you. And in many ways, I sort of feel if I look back over my life and I remember my real friends or women I was really with, in some crazy way, my characters are more real to me than many real people. And people will sort of say, sometimes ask me or ask any writer, "Aren't you lonely just being in a room with a keyboard?" And I'm not because I'm there with my characters and I love them."

• 18:32Rick Rubin?

  "Do you ever speak to them out loud?"

• 18:35Speaker 00

  "No, I don't do that. But I know people do."

• 18:37Rick Rubin?

  "Do you read your work out loud ever to see what it sounds like?"

• 18:40Speaker 00

  "No, I don't do that either. But I will read it myself, to myself."

• 18:45Rick Rubin?

  "Silently."

• 18:46Speaker 00

  "Silently."

• 18:47Rick Rubin?

  "I see."

• 18:47Speaker 00

  "And another thing I'll do is I might say, "What if Rick Rubin were reading this? What would he think of this? What would Randy think of this if he read it? And that sometimes helps me, that I'll say, "Will they get... Would they be bored at this point here or would they think, 'Oh, this is really good,' rather than, 'What do I think of it?'"

• 19:07Rick Rubin?

  "What's going to happen with that new book, the one that no one's seen?"

• 19:11Speaker 00

  "Oh, the next person to read it will be Diana, who will be like my editor. If she likes it and has anything, you know, any... I'll just make changes, whatever that she might suggest. Then I'll give it to her. Actually, I have a real agent now that I trust. So he'll be the next person and then if he likes it, we'll take it to see if we can find somebody to publish it."

• 19:32Rick Rubin?

  "Does something like a personal issue that you're dealing with impact your work?"

• 19:38Speaker 00

  "Not consciously, but I do think when I look back on something that I did maybe two years ago or three years ago, I can say, 'Wow, I was really dealing with a certain issue and there it is in metaphorical form.'" "But certainly not consciously."

• 19:55Rick Rubin?

  "You don't find it harder to sit down to write if you have other troubles in your mind?"

• 19:59Speaker 00

  "No, in fact, writing is a refuge for me."

• 20:03Rick Rubin?

  "Do you look forward to writing?"

• 20:04Speaker 00

  "I do. Well, despite the fact of resistance for the capital R that it's always hard to do and you gotta fight your way through, you know, it must be the same for you when you go into the music studio, right?"

• 20:14Rick Rubin?

  "Yeah. At first, there's always apprehension because I have no idea what's going to happen."

• 20:20Speaker 00

  "Yeah."

• 20:21Rick Rubin?

  "And I know it's out of my control."

• 20:22Speaker 00

  "It's the unknown, yeah."

• 20:23Rick Rubin?

  "That's another part of it. So the unknown is always anxiety-producing."

• 20:27Speaker 00

  "So even for you?"

• 20:28Rick Rubin?

  "Oh, absolutely. Every time. But as soon as there's some glimmer of something good, then I know it's going to be okay and I relax."

• 20:39Speaker 03

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• 22:41Speaker 00

  Do you deal at all with self-doubt?

• 22:43Rick Rubin?

  No.

• 22:44Speaker 00

  Tell me about that. Why?

• 22:45Rick Rubin?

  Because think about this idea, doubting yourself. If I gave you a piece of pizza, and you tasted it, and I asked you, "Do you like the pizza or no?" You would answer, and there would be no doubt in, "I really love the pizza," or "I don't like it at all."

• 22:59Speaker 00

  But a piece of music, you might say to yourself, "Am I... Do I really... Do I love this?"

• 23:05Rick Rubin?

  It's all pizza.

• 23:06Speaker 00

  Uh-huh. Okay.

• 23:08Rick Rubin?

  And...

• 23:09Speaker 00

  That's the title of your next book.

• 23:12Rick Rubin?

  It's as simple as, "Is this something that I want to turn up the volume on? Is this something I want to skip to the next song?"

• 23:21Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 23:21Rick Rubin?

  That's the first part of it. To get to something you're interested in, something you want to hear again.

• 23:26Speaker 00

  Ah.

• 23:27Rick Rubin?

  Do I want to hear it again?

• 23:28Speaker 00

  Ah.

• 23:29Rick Rubin?

  While I'm listening, am I leaning forward because I don't know what's going to happen next? That's a good feeling.

• 23:34Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 23:35Rick Rubin?

  If it just goes through all of the steps that I'm expecting, it's much less interesting. If I don't completely understand what's happening, that could be a good thing, not a bad thing.

• 23:46Speaker 00

  Uh-huh.

• 23:47Rick Rubin?

  If it's unfamiliar in a way that causes me to wonder, that's a good thing.

• 23:53Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm. I mean, I have that feeling too, and it produces self-doubt in me, you know? It's like, I wonder, what is this? But I have found that, like, the first six months or nine months of a project, of a fiction project, that I'm racked with self-doubt all the way through. Is this a good idea? Is anybody going to... Can I pull it off?

• 24:13Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 24:13Speaker 00

  And to the point where I feel like, if I'm not feeling self-doubt, something's wrong. Because self-doubt, at least in my terms, it would be resistance. So it would be the devil trying to stop me. So if I... If I'm feeling that devil's voice, then I must be on to something.

• 24:32Rick Rubin?

  It's a similar thing with me, but it happens later. Like, once it's out in the world, if I love something and share it with the world, and if some people hate it, I get giddy. I love it when people hate something.

• 24:44Speaker 00

  You do.

• 24:45Rick Rubin?

  Love it.

• 24:45Speaker 00

  Tell me about why. Why?

• 24:47Rick Rubin?

  Well, because I know the best things, you either love them or you hate them.

• 24:52Speaker 00

  Well, that's true.

• 24:53Rick Rubin?

  If everyone's like, "Oh, that's pretty good."

• 24:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:56Rick Rubin?

  I don't want "that's pretty good." I want "this is the best thing I've ever heard," or "I absolutely hate it."

• 25:02Speaker 00

  Ah.

• 25:03Rick Rubin?

  And if it has a strong enough charge for people to hate it, so some small fraction of people can like it, that's the audience.

• 25:10Speaker 00

  Hmm. There you go. Can you really detach yourself from the outcome of something?

• 25:17Rick Rubin?

  Absolutely.

• 25:18Speaker 00

  You can?

• 25:19Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, I couldn't always, but I can now.

• 25:21Speaker 00

  Ah. What changed?

• 25:23Rick Rubin?

  Well, in the beginning of my career, I made a lot of things in a row that were very successful. And then, still doing the same things, I did the first couple of things that were not successful. And I realized that those are no less good than the ones that were successful. It's just a different metric, what people think.

• 25:43Speaker 00

  Uh-huh.

• 25:44Rick Rubin?

  I'm not playing the "what people think" game. I'm making the thing that I like, and I'm showing it to my friends.

• 25:50Speaker 00

  Uh-huh.

• 25:51Rick Rubin?

  And if they like it, great. And if they don't like it, it's okay. I can sleep well because I know I did everything I could to make it the best it could be. I always use the word greatness. I'm working towards greatness. I didn't know what it meant. Greatness is not sales. It's not reviews.

• 26:07Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 26:07Rick Rubin?

  It's not radio airplay. It's greatness.

• 26:10Speaker 00

  And are you the only judge of that?

• 26:12Rick Rubin?

  Well, yes. And what I've come to realize is greatness means it's an offering to God.

• 26:19Speaker 00

  Ah.

• 26:20Rick Rubin?

  And if you're making an offering to God, it's your very best. Your offering to God doesn't change because of airplay.

• 26:28Speaker 00

  Uh-huh.

• 26:29Rick Rubin?

  It's deeper than that. That's a surface thing.

• 26:32Speaker 00

  That's a great thing, Rick, you know?

• 26:33Rick Rubin?

  And that's what it's about. In that realm, it's always your best.

• 26:39Speaker 00

  Because that's like in the Bhagavad Gita, that's really almost the essence of the whole thing, that what you do, that Krishna says to Arjuna, "Give it to me."

• 26:48Rick Rubin?

  Yes.

• 26:49Speaker 00

  Give that to me. That's the highest form. My friend James Bishara, who actually just lives not too far from here, has this thing from Vedanta that is, "Work without attachment is worship." Which I think is really great. And it's sort of, in many ways, it's boiling down religion to like the nut of it. I think we're really in a deep area here.

• 27:14Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 27:14Speaker 00

  That it's an offering to God in that sense.

• 27:17Rick Rubin?

  Yes.

• 27:18Speaker 00

  And I would put it in a slightly different way that when we're working with attachment to an outcome, we're in our ego. We're going, "Ooh, I want this to be a hit. Ooh, I really want, you know, the girls. I want them..." That kind of thing. And no good music ever came out of that, right? We have to get to our Jungian self or soul and work out of that without that attachment. Then the good shit comes. But to be able to do that is a really tough thing, I think. When you're young, you really are attached to that outcome. And you have to evolve through that, I think.

• 28:00Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, because I was successful early on. I never had that pushback early on.

• 28:04Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 28:05Rick Rubin?

  And then, when I did feel it for the first time, it was like, "Hmm, they don't like everything."

• 28:10Speaker 00

  Uh-huh.

• 28:10Rick Rubin?

  "That's interesting. I know it's just as good."

• 28:12Speaker 00

  Ah.

• 28:13Rick Rubin?

  But then I realized there's so many things that have to go right for something to be successful in the world that have nothing to do with the work.

• 28:21Speaker 00

  Right. And a lot of times, it's because it's bad.

• 28:24Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, it's all out of our control.

• 28:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:26Rick Rubin?

  I made an album, and it came out the same week as 9/11. All of the focus in the world was on this disaster. And no one cared about a new album. Those things happen.

• 28:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:39Rick Rubin?

  You can't plan on that. And it doesn't reflect on the work at all.

• 28:43Speaker 00

  No. Of course, it's easy to say that and harder to do. I don't know if you know who Bruce Wagner is. He's a writer of fiction, really good writer of fiction. And I think this was on a podcast, and he was talking about this subject. And he was saying how, "Yeah, I tried to do this entirely for myself and what I love," and that sort of thing. But he says, "I can't help but looking at the bestseller list." You know?

• 29:06Rick Rubin?

  Does the muse direct you outside of your writing life?

• 29:11Speaker 00

  Since our house burned down, yes. I find that I'm reaching for... And that wasn't true before. I'm reaching for something, some divinity, some source of wisdom. And she's the one for me.

• 29:30Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 29:30Speaker 00

  So I do.

• 29:31Rick Rubin?

  How is your relationship with the muse these days?

• 29:34Speaker 00

  It's always been... It's always been great.

• 29:37Rick Rubin?

  Are you superstitious?

• 29:39Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, but I don't think it's superstition. I think it's reality.

• 29:43Rick Rubin?

  Now, is it reality because it goes for everybody? Or is it reality because you believe it?

• 29:48Speaker 00

  I certainly believe it, and it's certainly reality for me.

• 29:51Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 29:52Speaker 00

  That's as far as I can take it.

• 29:54Rick Rubin?

  How much does your day-to-day life and your writing life interact with each other?

• 30:02Speaker 00

  Like, right now, I have this new book coming. So I'm promoting it. So then, that's part of my everyday life, and it really is. But normally, I would say no. I mean, it's like, I go into my writing room like you go into the studio. I leave everything at the door. And it's a sacred space. I'm there to work and to serve the muse. And when it's over, the office is closed. I try not to think about it. I leave it. So, yeah, so my everyday life doesn't really react that much to my writing life.

• 30:36Rick Rubin?

  Do you ever have thoughts about your work after hours that you might note down?

• 30:41Speaker 00

  Yes, I do. Yeah, definitely. I've always had my phone.

• 30:44Rick Rubin?

  You're not actively pursuing it?

• 30:46Speaker 00

  I'm not. But every now and then, in the middle of the night, a dream or something like that. Yeah.

• 30:51Rick Rubin?

  Do you remember your dreams?

• 30:52Speaker 00

  I record them, otherwise I would forget them. Do you remember your dreams?

• 30:56Rick Rubin?

  Sometimes. Sometimes.

• 30:58Speaker 00

  Do you believe in dreams? Do you believe they're passing wisdom to you?

• 31:01Rick Rubin?

  I think so. I think there's information in them. I don't know if it's usable information or more like a reflection of what's going on, almost like some sort of a journal in a way.

• 31:14Speaker 00

  Ah. I would say the same thing. I would agree. I think a lot of times, my dreams, I do take them very seriously. I think a lot of times, they're sort of saying to me, "This is what's going on in your inner world, Steve, whether you realize it or not. You know, you're dealing with this issue." And usually, it's pretty dark.

• 31:33Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 31:33Speaker 00

  It's like, "Oh, fuck."

• 31:36Rick Rubin?

  Last time we spoke, there's a quote, something you said, which is, "Commitment is felt, not reasoned."

• 31:44Speaker 00

  I'm certainly a believer in commitment.

• 31:46Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 31:47Speaker 00

  That it's sort of, that when the gods look down on us, at you when you're working, or me when I'm working, what they are asking is, is this fucker committed or not? And if you are, that's the key that opens the lock.

• 32:03Rick Rubin?

  So the muse responds to commitment?

• 32:08Speaker 00

  Yes. Absolutely, I think. And hard work. Can't just be committed theoretically.

• 32:17Rick Rubin?

  Has your relationship to writing changed over the course of your life?

• 32:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, because for the first third of my writing life, I was running away from writing. Then, I was a bum, and I was just learning, and I didn't know anything, and I was no good, you know? And I was getting nowhere. Then there was a period where I started to do some good stuff, but it wasn't really coming from my soul. You know, or wherever that inner authenticity is. And then finally, I did start writing from that center, which is a mystery. Like you say, Rick, I didn't know, and it changes from one to another. But since then, which was like

• 33:04Speaker 00

  1995 or something like that, pretty much everything I've done has been, I'm proud of it, I'm not ashamed of it. Some failed, some didn't. But I'm writing from my relation with the goddess.

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• 34:53Speaker 05

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• 35:00Rick Rubin?

  Are you as interested in writing nonfiction books as you are writing fiction books?

• 35:06Speaker 00

  No. They're fun.

• 35:09Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, and they're helpful.

• 35:11Speaker 00

  And they are helpful, and like, there's the War of Art, and then there's like, six or seven follow-ups to it. And I've got another one that I'm actually noodling around with right now. And that's fun. But it's not the same, not the same challenge. One is prose, and one is poetry.

• 35:26Rick Rubin?

  Yeah. There's so much wisdom in The War of Art. And the people who read it are writers. And there are a lot of people out there who don't think of themselves as writers, who would really benefit from this information.

• 35:42Speaker 00

  Well, that book is the one that's coming out, The Arcadian, and the next one that I told you about, Where the Planets Shift.

• 35:51Rick Rubin?

  Really?

• 35:51Speaker 00

  So it's not a nonfiction instructional manual.

• 35:56Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 35:56Speaker 00

  It's a story.

• 35:57Rick Rubin?

  Yes.

• 35:58Speaker 00

  Like

• 35:58Rick Rubin?

  But it's about that subject.

• 36:00Speaker 00

  Or like Tolkien, you know, it's one of those, yeah.

• 36:03Rick Rubin?

  So are all of your fiction books about the War of Art also?

• 36:09Speaker 00

  I think they are in a way. You know, I mean, they're usually, a lot of my books are military, right?

• 36:14Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 36:14Speaker 00

  So there, it's a literal war. But yeah, I think they all are about the war inside our head.

• 36:21Rick Rubin?

  That's amazing, because I always sort of them as really two whole different worlds that you operated in.

• 36:27Speaker 00

  Yeah. One is about the inner war, and the other's about outer wars.

• 36:31Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 36:32Speaker 00

  Which are the same thing.

• 36:33Rick Rubin?

  Tell me about your years of working in New York at an ad agency.

• 36:38Speaker 00

  It was my first job, was as an office boy, for a hundred and five dollars a week at Gray Advertising in New York. I worked on the Revlon account, which was all cosmetics and that kind of stuff. And all of the copywriters on the account were women. And they were highly, highly paid. And I used to, they'd hand me a sheet of paper, and I would have to take it to the art director or something like that. And as I would kind of walk down the hall, I'd look at the copy that they'd written, and I'd say, "I can write this shit," you know? So I finally did become like a junior copywriter. But I never lasted more than a year. I had like, maybe four jobs. The first one I had, I had a boss named Ed Hannibal.

• 37:23Speaker 00

  I was like a junior, junior copywriter. And he wrote a novel that was an overnight hit.

• 37:28Rick Rubin?

  Wow.

• 37:28Speaker 00

  And he quit. And went on to write other novels. And I thought, well, fuck, why don't I do that? So then I dropped out of that, well, before I was anywhere. And then, after that, I would like, write novels that never got anywhere, never got published. And I would go back to advertising, work, save money, and then move to someplace cheap, write for two years, run out of money, go back, that kind of thing. I met a lot of great people in advertising, because you've got to be like a generalist, you've got to know a little bit about everything. And there are a lot of really funny people and stuff like that. And I learned a lot there, but I hated it. I would be so depressed at the end of the day, coming home from that, that I had to like, sit down at the keyboard and try to write something.

• 38:13Rick Rubin?

  Had your boss who wrote a novel and then quit, had that not happened in your life, do you think you still would have gone into writing novels?

• 38:24Speaker 00

  I don't think I would have gone into writing novels.

• 38:27Rick Rubin?

  And seeing the copy that was written as like, I can do, I see this copy, I can do this.

• 38:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:35Rick Rubin?

  Based on those two examples, what would be the kind of places that would be helpful to put yourself to allow good things to happen?

• 38:45Speaker 00

  I think people today think, well, let me get an MBA in marketing or something like that. Whereas I think maybe to work in a coal mine, to pick a bad example, but might be the best place.

• 38:58Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 38:59Speaker 00

  For that.

• 38:59Rick Rubin?

  Get some hard job.

• 39:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, something like that.

• 39:02Rick Rubin?

  Where you experience life.

• 39:04Speaker 00

  Yeah. Like, I drove tractor trailers for a while. I learned more doing that than I learned doing anything else. But now I want to ask you a question.

• 39:11Rick Rubin?

  Go.

• 39:13Speaker 00

  I know there are a lot of young people out there that hear what you say, or maybe what I say too, and say, "Oh, man, I wish I could find my thing like Rick has found his." And they look into their head, they look around, they go, "What is my calling? I just can't find, there's nothing I really love, dah dah dah, the world sucks." If you had to give someone like that, a young person like that, advice, what would you say?

• 39:40Rick Rubin?

  I would say, make a lot of things, try things. And I would say, what you're describing, I don't know any people like that. I don't know any people who aren't interested in anything and don't like anything.

• 39:51Speaker 00

  Ah.

• 39:52Rick Rubin?

  Most people I know like something, whatever it is. They like playing video games, you know, make your own video game.

• 39:59Speaker 00

  Ah.

• 40:00Rick Rubin?

  It usually starts with some sort of a passion, not related to the idea of work first.

• 40:07Speaker 00

  Hmm, mhm.

• 40:08Rick Rubin?

  What are you passionate about, whatever it is? And try making things within that realm of what you're passionate about. And pay attention to the feedback, not so much to listen to the feedback, but just to understand the world better. If someone says, "I don't like it, it'd be better if you did it like this," I wouldn't take that as law.

• 40:34Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 40:35Rick Rubin?

  But it's interesting data in the picture.

• 40:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 40:39Rick Rubin?

  If enough people don't like it, that even could be a reason to go further into it.

• 40:44Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 40:45Rick Rubin?

  It's not good and bad, and like and don't like, it's like, where's the energy? Where's the charge? Where is it combustible?

• 40:55Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 40:56Rick Rubin?

  Because the best things are like, they have this power to them that seems more than what's holding it. You know, you pick up two different books.

• 41:08Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 41:08Rick Rubin?

  One is exploding with energy.

• 41:11Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 41:12Rick Rubin?

  And one's dead. They're made from the same materials, they're both filled with words. But some have this like spark in them. And when you read it, you feel it. Lean towards where the energy is. The excitement, the thing that makes you laugh, the thing that upsets you.

• 41:31Speaker 00

  I would say, I would add to that, go to the thing that scares you the most. That if you fail that, you would be crushed. Because that's what's really important to you. That shows you care.

• 41:45Rick Rubin?

  It shows you care.

• 41:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:46Rick Rubin?

  That's great.

• 41:48Speaker 00

  Again, that's kind of the theory of resistance, right?

• 41:51Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 41:52Speaker 00

  Resistance is scaring you, because it wants you not to do that. Not to be a sculptor, or not to, whatever.

• 42:00Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 42:02Speaker 00

  The other thing I would say to any young person is sometimes it takes a long time. Took me till I was 52 before I really had a book published and till I really kind of found myself as a writer. Sometimes it takes time. Other people fall into it right away and your first things are hits.

• 42:18Rick Rubin?

  That's the other thing is that there's no right or wrong way to do any of these things. Try things and then depending on what the outcome is, it gives you back feedback of how you want to try it the next time.

• 42:33Speaker 00

  It's tough these days though, you know? I think it was a lot easier for us. You could afford an apartment. You could come to move to New York or someplace like that. And you didn't have to have four roommates and live in... My heart goes out to young people that are struggling right now.

• 42:47Rick Rubin?

  But I feel like you can make things wherever you are.

• 42:50Speaker 00

  That's true. You can make a movie, you can make a record.

• 42:53Rick Rubin?

  You can make anything.

• 42:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, which is scary too, because now there's 10,000 people doing it.

• 42:58Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, I take it as a positive.

• 43:00Speaker 00

  I think you're more optimistic than I am, Rick, as a general rule.

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• 44:43Rick Rubin?

  Tell me about the connections between The Legend of Bagarvans and the Bhagavad Gita.

• 44:50Speaker 00

  The Legend of Bagarvans was a ripoff. I ripped off the Bhagavad Gita. What is the Bhagavad Gita? Bhagavad Gita has been called the Hindu Bible. Gandhi supposedly used its principles to free India. And the story of... The Bhagavad Gita is essentially a mentor protege story where the great warrior Arjuna, on the eve of a great battle with chariots and that kind of ancient times, receives spiritual instruction from his charioteer, who happens to be Krishna. In other words, God in human form. And he teaches Arjuna about karma, yoga, duality, non-duality,

• 45:35Speaker 00

  previous lives, all that sort of thing. So I just sort of transposed it. Instead of a warrior and a charioteer, it's a golfer and it's caddy. And I love the idea that it was a servant. That when God appears in human form, he doesn't appear as a king or a mighty warrior. He appears as a servant, like Jesus was a man of sorrows, right? And so I just kind of loved that idea. And I wasn't a big fan of the movie, but the book I liked.

• 46:06Rick Rubin?

  Did it start with the Bhagavad Gita right from the beginning? It was always, I'm gonna modernize the Bhagavad Gita in today's world in a new context.

• 46:16Speaker 00

  I mean, you were asking me before if I stole from things, right? And I told you about that in Peddick Lee's quote. The Gita was that too. I read it like 50 times in all different translations. And I just always loved it and it was always beyond me. I never could quite understand it. And I just thought there's something here, something. I don't know what it is. But that was a, that was a book to me that was total, the muse totally seized me. I hardly revised it once. You know, I think I changed like one paragraph in the whole book. It just sort of, just came fast. So it was a mystery.

• 46:52Rick Rubin?

  Do you know how it got to the golf aspect of it? Where did that come from?

• 46:57Speaker 00

  I grew up as a caddy.

• 46:58Rick Rubin?

  Okay.

• 46:59Speaker 00

  So that was sort of, yeah, I don't know. But I don't know how that connection happened. It happened...

• 47:04Rick Rubin?

  No, but it was, you had a personal connection to that.

• 47:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 47:07Rick Rubin?

  So that made sense. It's a world you're experienced in. Did you have any other considerations before golf? Could it have been in a different...

• 47:17Speaker 00

  No, that was it.

• 47:18Rick Rubin?

  Right from the beginning, it was this combination.

• 47:20Speaker 00

  And I thought, when I had the idea, that it was a completely dumb idea, totally uncommercial. I thought, I am crazy to be doing this because nobody's gonna be interested in this except me. And in fact, when I pitched it to my agent, my screenplay agent, he fired me. He basically said...

• 47:40Rick Rubin?

  As a client?

• 47:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, he says a client. And he was right. He said, you know, I've been working for years to try to get you into the business. Now you're gonna drop out for a year, write this thing. You know, they forget you in Hollywood in two weeks. So he thought it was really stupid too. And he was actually an enthusiastic golfer. He loved golf. But he thought this is just a dumb idea. So I did too. This is kind of like, when I talk about self doubt. But yet I was seized to absolutely do it. And to my amazement, it sold right away.

• 48:11Rick Rubin?

  What do you attribute it selling right away to?

• 48:14Speaker 00

  I don't know. Maybe I just had so much bad luck for the previous 52 years of my life that maybe it all kind of, finally the penny came up heads, you know? Because like, it really was the... My editor happened to be sitting on a plane next to Jake Eberts, who is a producer of Gandhi, Chariots of Fire, The Mission, a lot of things. And he said, I got a book, we want to read it? And Jake opted immediately. And his partner in the Sundance catalog was Robert Redford. So he immediately, the whole thing came together like that.

• 48:49Rick Rubin?

  Crazy.

• 48:50Speaker 00

  So nothing has come together like that since, before or since.

• 48:55Rick Rubin?

  I feel like your work has a air of ancient story attached to it. You write new stories, but there's some relevance to the past in what you do.

• 49:10Speaker 00

  Definitely, yeah. Well, you know that I believe in the muse. That's the way I sort of imagine where stories and ideas come from. Now you believe in what you call Source.

• 49:22Rick Rubin?

  Yes.

• 49:23Speaker 00

  With a capital S. And I'm wondering, can you tell me how you perceive that? What is Source? And what does it do?

• 49:33Rick Rubin?

  Source is a universal intelligence or wisdom that knows all, sees all, and is available to all to access. Some people are better at accessing it than others. And there are things you can do to develop your ability to access it. You could also, some people would call it God. Sometimes I call it God. I both think you can call it God and you don't have to. And it's still this, why do things grow? Why are there seasons? How does, how does the natural world work? That's all Source information, making all that happen.

• 50:18Rick Rubin?

  Source intelligence, I'll call it.

• 50:19Speaker 00

  Does Source have an intention? Is it trying to produce or something?

• 50:27Rick Rubin?

  It's a living generative force. It's pregnant with the new.

• 50:34Speaker 00

  Uh huh. So it's, it's, it's evolving or it's, it's facilitating evolution in some way. Because if something's new, it would have to be evolving, right?

• 50:47Rick Rubin?

  Could be, or it also could just be starting from scratch, like, you know, we don't know that.

• 50:51Speaker 00

  And I suppose that's true too.

• 50:55Speaker 00

  How do you perceive your own role when you're working with a band or a group? How does that connect to Source? What do you provide? What are you doing?

• 51:08Rick Rubin?

  I'm a vehicle for Source. So I'm open and I don't have any ideas of my own. I'm blank. I have no say. And when something strikes me, I feel in my body this energetic pulling forward of interest. I'm the one feeling it, but the reason I'm feeling it is because of Source.

• 51:32Speaker 00

  Now, let's say we have a group, a band that comes into Shangri-La.

• 51:38Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 51:38Speaker 00

  And let's say they have not yet evolved whatever it album or whatever it is they're hoping to do. So you say you're a vehicle for Source, but they're obviously a vehicle too. It's gonna come out of them.

• 51:52Rick Rubin?

  Absolutely.

• 51:52Speaker 00

  So how does that collaboration work?

• 51:57Rick Rubin?

  I'll think of an example from recently New Strokes album. And on that album, there were some snippets of song ideas. Sometimes it would be a riff, a little jam on a riff. Sometimes it would have more than one part. Sometimes it would be an A part and a B part. But they weren't full songs. They were just little snippets of ideas. So they would play those ideas and just see where it goes. We wouldn't think about it. We wouldn't discuss it. We wouldn't say, "Try to do this." We didn't try to do anything. Just play and let it keep going. And then notice what happens. See if anything interesting showed up.

• 52:37Rick Rubin?

  Or I could think in one particular case, there was a suggestion of a song that there was only one part and the normal way to go about that would be, okay, what are going to be the other parts? That would be the first thing you'd do is like, we have this part. Is this a verse or a chorus? What's the part that would go with it? Is there gonna be a third part? Is there gonna be a fourth part? An outro or an intro or some other part? And for some reason, again, not because I've ever said this before, it just seemed obvious to me when they played it for a little while. It's like, what would happen if there are no other parts? It's just gonna be this part. And the only thing that changes is the intensity of playing it. So when you start playing it, it's quiet. And by the end, it's really loud.

• 53:21Rick Rubin?

  And the vocals follow that same energy pattern. So it's not song-like structure. It's more like an energetic ride. And we tried that and it turned out really good. Everybody liked it. But we'd never, I'd never done that before. They'd never done it before. It was just in the moment, something to try. And it could have also gone bad. And that happens all the time too, where let's try it like this. Like, that didn't work. You never know.

• 53:49Speaker 00

  So this real element of play to this isn't it?

• 53:53Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, it's all play. It's all experimentation, play. It's never, I know how we're gonna do it. It's never that. There may be, I have an idea of what we can try to start, but it's only ever a possible way in. And then the feedback that you get from that first experiment tells you ladder softer, faster, slower, left, right. Abort the mission.

• 54:18Speaker 00

  So it's always, so it's always new to you then?

• 54:21Rick Rubin?

  Always.

• 54:22Speaker 00

  It's always a different problem that you've never solved before.

• 54:25Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, or sometimes, I mean, I've been doing it for a long time now. So sometimes something comes up and it's like, hmm, this reminds me of something that happened 25 years ago and how we did it that way. That time was this. You wanna try this? This might be helpful. But never assume that that's the way. It's just, anyone who has an inclination of something to try, we try it. We never judge an idea based on saying the idea. We always judge an idea based on, well, play it and let's see what it sounds like. And then when you hear it, you either like it or you don't. Or you like it, but realize there's an even better way.

• 55:10Speaker 02

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• 55:53Speaker 02

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• 56:33Speaker 02

  to begin with intention, pause at midday, and wind down at night. The readings are less about information gathering and more for returning to wisdom again and again, letting familiar words meet new moments. A modern way to keep biblical wisdom close, quietly present, steady, and alive within everyday life. Lectio 365 is a free resource. Find inspiration there, now and always. Learn more at lectio365.com.

• 57:26Speaker 00

  When I was working as a screenwriter, I worked with a partner, a guy named Ron Chouset, who was the original, did the original Alien with his partner Dan O'Bannon. You know, he thought of himself as a genius and in a way, I think he was a genius. And kind of the way it would work, I was like the junior partner of this thing. He was an established guy and I was a newcomer, was a lot of times, I would throw like 10 ideas at him and he would pick the one. And he was right almost all the time. And I would sort of, and I still can't answer this. I would kind of marvel, it sounds, in other words, it sounds like what you do or something. I would wonder, how did he know?

• 58:04Rick Rubin?

  Well, he didn't know. He didn't know. But there was something in him that felt a different energetic charge to that information. It's the same as when you write something, do you ever have the experience of thinking, oh, that's really good?

• 58:23Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 58:23Rick Rubin?

  It's that. And it's not necessarily intellectual. It's some other thing.

• 58:30Speaker 00

  It's just taste, huh?

• 58:32Rick Rubin?

  You just feel it somehow.

• 58:34Speaker 00

  Yeah. Do you think everybody can feel it? Or are you someone special that can?

• 58:40Rick Rubin?

  I think, no, I think everyone can feel it. So much of our world pushes down our ability to feel it.

• 58:48Speaker 00

  What's the conventional response to this?

• 58:51Rick Rubin?

  None of this has to do with convention. Art and convention don't go together. There's a freedom in the art that happens that is always bucking convention. That's what makes it interesting. So I would say I practiced at it, but I support people practicing it as much as they possibly can in all aspects of their life. Because that's another part of it. It's like, it's hard to contain it just to the art world. It's like you're either living your life knowing nothing is impossible, which is the way that an artist sees the world, or you live in a conventional world of do's and don'ts and watch out for that and this is dangerous.

• 59:36Rick Rubin?

  Those established stories, they're not there to help us. They're there to hold us down as artists.

• 59:44Speaker 00

  How did you evolve to this place where you're, where you were always, as a little kid, were you always thinking in this way?

• 59:52Rick Rubin?

  I learned most of being able to talk about it through writing the book. Before, before writing the book, I didn't understand any of it. It was still instinctually the way I operated, but I didn't understand any of it. And only through

• 1:00:08Speaker 00

  So writing the book

• 1:00:10Rick Rubin?

  Years of trying to understand what happens, how does it work? That I got to be able to talk about it in the way that I can.

• 1:00:18Speaker 00

  How long did it take you to write the book? The creative act we're talking about?

• 1:00:21Rick Rubin?

  Eight years.

• 1:00:22Speaker 00

  Eight years, wow. Obviously, it wasn't steadily for eight years. It was bits and pieces. Is that how it evolved?

• 1:00:29Rick Rubin?

  Years of different stages of, you know, collecting ideas, trying to understand them, trying to refine the way that, once I could say it at all, then trying to refine the way to say it. And there were big times where it would just hit an impasse of like, okay, I have a thousand pages of really interesting material, but it has no beginning or end and it's impenetrable for anyone other than me to look at. And there were probably two years where it was just in this sort of dead state. I reached out to you. It's like, you know, what do I do? I don't know what to do. And there was a possibility that it would never happen. Now, I didn't, I wouldn't say I quit on it. I just don't know that I would ever find a way in, you know?

• 1:01:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:01:15Rick Rubin?

  I don't know. And then eventually, a series of events.

• 1:01:21Rick Rubin?

  Cracked windows in how to present it.

• 1:01:24Speaker 00

  Uh huh. What were you trying to accomplish when you write it? Were you trying to express, give, give a gift to people that would read it?

• 1:01:33Rick Rubin?

  I wanted to share the information of how good things happen in the recording studio. And I quickly realized it's not just a recording studio. Like the recording studios where I practice it most often. But it's a way of looking at the world. So it applies outside of music. It's not about music at all, really. I work in music, but the practice is not about music at all.

• 1:02:03Speaker 00

  And as I said before, were you always like that, Rick? Even as a little kid, or did this evolve at a certain?

• 1:02:10Rick Rubin?

  Well, I will say when I was 14, I learned to meditate. And most of the other kids I went to school with took drugs and drank. And I meditated. And I have a feeling that may have something to do with it, but I don't know. I can't, I can't say for sure. But I do know in meditation, I got much more grounded in myself. And through that, when I really like something or don't like something or hear something that everyone agrees with, I'm comfortable not agreeing. You know, I'm comfortable being an outcast essentially. And I've felt that way my whole life.

• 1:02:51Speaker 00

  I'm trying to imagine myself as like, if I'm a member of a group and I'm coming here to Sangra Laad, you're gonna work with us, right?

• 1:02:58Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:59Speaker 00

  And tell me if this is at all what, what it is. I've heard it said that like a movie director, working with an actor, that the best thing that he or she could do is to make, create an environment where the actor feels safe, that they can really let it out in their performance and not feel like anybody's gonna laugh at them or anything like that. Is that kind of what you do?

• 1:03:23Rick Rubin?

  It's definitely one of the aspects is creating the space where you can feel like you can be naked and it's safe and free. There are no boundaries, a truly judgment-free zone. Which is also odd, it's a judgment-free zone, yet a lot of the time, my job is to be critical.

• 1:03:43Speaker 00

  Uh huh, yeah.

• 1:03:44Rick Rubin?

  So it's like walking that line of like, how do we have this totally free zone where anything can happen and be able to talk about, hmm, this seemed to work better than this. What do you think?

• 1:03:57Speaker 00

  And how do you create that, that safety for a group? I'm quite sure you will don't just tell them that.

• 1:04:03Rick Rubin?

  One of the first things I think is that there are no additional people around. There's no audience. There's usually the artist, me, and a technical person. And the technical person usually doesn't say anything. And I usually draw out the artist through conversation, asking them, you know, what's this about?

• 1:04:28Speaker 00

  How, how long would you be working with a group?

• 1:04:32Rick Rubin?

  It could be days, it could be months, it could be years.

• 1:04:34Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 1:04:36Rick Rubin?

  There's no right way. And for each artist, it's also different. Some artists need a lot of notes and information from me and some need practically none. And I'm fine with that. If I don't say a word, if it's coming out well, and if they don't need more than me sitting in the room and allowing it to happen, I'm fine with that.

• 1:05:01Speaker 00

  Now, I know you've said that by talking to a band, you say, don't try to write the music that you think is gonna be a hit.

• 1:05:08Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, or don't think about that.

• 1:05:10Speaker 00

  Just do what you love.

• 1:05:11Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:12Speaker 00

  Which is sort of the same as acting without attachment to the outcome.

• 1:05:18Rick Rubin?

  Yes.

• 1:05:19Speaker 00

  Can you talk about that a little bit?

• 1:05:21Rick Rubin?

  Yeah. No one knows what a hit sounds like. If I ask you what a hit sounds like, you could only give me a reference from the past of what a hit sounds like.

• 1:05:29Speaker 00

  True.

• 1:05:30Rick Rubin?

  So if, if you have the job, I wanna write a hit. What's my reference point, something from the past? It'll somehow be a derivative work. It's not so interesting. Usually the one that was a hit last time was not a derivative work. So I don't think you get to it by aiming at it. Somewhere at some point in time, someone made something true to themselves and that became a hit. Over the course of my career, all the things I've made that were successful, I never considered hit, radio, sales, any of those things ever. Not for a second. I always thought about, what's the thing I wanna hear? What's the thing I'm excited to play for a friend? That's it.

• 1:06:14Rick Rubin?

  I have a friend with good taste. I can't wait till he hears this. That's it. And when it gets to the point where I'm excited to play it for a friend with good taste, it's ready to share with the world. It's done. That part happens fast. And that's a new thing. I didn't always know that. I used to maybe think and maybe even overthink things that were good for a long time. Is it the very best version it could ever be? Is there anything else we could ever possibly do?

• 1:06:45Speaker 00

  And you decided against that, like it's, comes quicker than that?

• 1:06:48Rick Rubin?

  Comes faster. Once it sounds good, we're in a safe zone. And then any additional things we wanna try are fine. But we always have to A, be it backward the first time it sounded good to us and make sure it's better than that. Do you know what I'm saying? And sometimes it's not. And sometimes with the records I make, we don't know we're making an album when it's happening. We're preparing to make an album. But then when we go to make the album, it's not as good as the preparation. So then in those cases, the preparation is the album.

• 1:07:19Speaker 00

  That's interesting. Yeah, I was talking to a friend of mine, Frank Oz. And he was saying how, in his role as a director, and he was saying that if a script, a movie script, might go through 14, 17 drafts, he'll sometimes say, let me look at the first draft. And then that will be the one, right?

• 1:07:43Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:43Speaker 00

  And it's, it's certainly a phenomenon we've all experienced, right? You catch lightning in the bottle and you try to make it better and better and it just doesn't happen like that.

• 1:07:52Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, and sometimes it's like a house of cards where you catch lightning in a bottle. You might even think, oh, it's pretty good. I imagine it's gonna be really great when it's done. And then any little change you do or anything you try, the whole thing crumbles.

• 1:08:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. Let me get to a deeper question on the subject of Source, which I'm really interested in, Rick. What does Source imply about the nature of the universe? I know what I would answer in my concept of the muse, but I wanna hear what you would say.

• 1:08:24Rick Rubin?

  Well, I think Source supplies everything, light and dark. It's, it's universal. I believe like anyone who creates anything, we're making it with a good intention. We all are doing our best in reflection of Source. Tell me about your spiritual life.

• 1:08:44Speaker 00

  It's based around writings, the concept, like I, I believe in the goddess. I believe that things come from another dimension of reality and that here on the material plane, we're stuck in our ego, no good. And that writing has taught me to respect and to invoke the higher plane, where the ideas come from. And that higher plane is the plane of the soul or the plane of the self. And I think that it's our job here in this material plane to live according to those laws, the laws of the higher level. Not that I can do that, but art or creating art or writing is a great discipline.

• 1:09:27Speaker 00

  That's my, that's my spiritual discipline.

• 1:09:30Rick Rubin?

  Beautiful. And where do you think your interest in ancient things comes from?

• 1:09:35Speaker 00

  Wow, that's a great question. I'm not even sure, but boy, I have it, you know?

• 1:09:39Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:40Speaker 00

  I'm at home back there, particularly in ancient Greece, maybe previous lives, something like that, probably. But also I think that was a better world. It had its own corruption, but it's not as corrupted as the modern, modern world is. And I think when you read, you read Homer, you read Thucydides, you read Xenophon, you read Plato, any of those people, at least to me, it's like pure mountain spring water. There's no existentialism, it's not jaded. And they believed in, in God, in the gods. Yeah, I'm still, I don't know, I can't put my finger on why it appeals to me, but it really, like for one thing, like in Gates of Fire, about the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae.

• 1:10:24Speaker 00

  I wanted to write about honor. But you cannot write a book said in the modern world about honor, cause there is none. They'd laugh you out of the room if a character said something. But if you go back to the ancient Spartans and they talk about honor, they can deal with an absolute straight face and the reader can relate to it. And I think that people today who are hungry for something about honor, they immediately glom onto those characters and go, whether they say this or not, boy, I wish I was back there and I could be one of those guys.

• 1:11:01Rick Rubin?

  Have you ever been to Greece?

• 1:11:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:11:03Rick Rubin?

  Tell me about the experience of walking around there, considering your interests. What's it like?

• 1:11:09Speaker 00

  Well, like, when I went to Delphi, the oracle of Apollo, a lot of tourists, that kind of thing. It's kind of out in the country, you know, it's a mountainous sort of region, where the priestesses used to go down into a cleft in the earth where vapors were coming up and they would be kind of get high on that and they would oraculate. And I definitely felt, when I was there, that those gods are still alive, you know? And Apollo is still here, he hasn't gone away. And sometimes, you know, I have a lot of fans in Greece. They'll write to me sometimes and say, "We're so screwed up today, you know, what do we need to do?" And I answer, I say, "Forgive me, go back to those gods.

• 1:11:52Speaker 00

  Forget Christianity, that was like the worst thing that ever happened to Greece." I mean, Apollo, Zeus, they're there. But also, all of those places have a kind of a magic to me, like the Olympic Stadium. There it is, it's grass, it's not a...

• 1:12:07Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:08Speaker 00

  But just to think of the stuff that happened there.

• 1:12:11Rick Rubin?

  And you can feel the presence when you're there?

• 1:12:13Speaker 00

  You can definitely feel the presence. Yeah, yeah. And the weird part is that the Greeks don't really value that as much as, like, us, Americans. If you go to Gettysburg, they've got, it's like, you know, Disneyland, right? I mean, if they've got, Pickett's Charge was here and the people will tell you. Whereas you go to Thermopylae, it's like, it's a private owner, owns the, you know, owns the land. It's a farmer, he's farming the land. I went to Marathon, they have the big mound where all of the bodies are still there from that battle. And the place was empty except for a little kiosk with a lady sitting in there. And I came up and I said, "Do I need to pay?" And she just, "Go in."

• 1:12:57Speaker 00

  Of course, the Acropolis and all that sort of stuff, that they take seriously. But a lot of the stuff, I guess it's so present to them that they don't even think about it.

• 1:14:50Speaker 03

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