Jimmy Iovine

31:06You can. You can have, you know, Hulu was Fox and NBC or something. You could do it, you know. And at one time you would have said, no way is somebody going to subscribe to Prime, Disney, HBO, Netflix, Paramount, Peacock. If you want to watch football, you need four streaming services. So people, you could build a model around the record business where people would either get the music from the label or from a combined distribution. Because if you control the distribution, you can deal with the communication between your customer. What these people refuse to have is customers. They were always wholesalers.

31:53And I think this is all changing in both television, movies. I think this guy, David Ellison, I met with him once. He seems to have a really interesting take on it. And I know that the people at UMG, I don't know the other labels. I know the people at UMG want a more progressive sort of relationship with the customer and stuff. You know, that's what this whole complex thing is. This whole complex thing is for artists to be able to have everything in one place, you know, and it's doing really well. And like everything else that we always do is everybody thinks you're crazy. But I don't think we're crazy.

32:44I think we got something going. But the school, I mean, think about it. I'm thinking 20 years out, which I probably won't be around. But to have an engineering society that truly understands the other disciplines will make the world. This is what I do. I do entertainment. I'm not a doctor. I don't know anything about any of that shit. I understand entertainment. And it will make entertainment a better place. It will make the instruments we use better. Remember, because Steve understood it. And the iPhone is still the most powerful thing in the world, right? It's the most powerful instrument. But he understood it.

33:24He could communicate it. And that's our little goal. That's why we built this school. And it's a great model. And we want, this is one where we want everybody to copy us. And by the way, we know nothing about education. You just see what's missing in the picture. Yeah. That's how we operate. Yeah. I didn't know how to build a headphone, neither did Dre. But we got it built. And we made the number one headphone company in the world. We were number one in Germany, and Sennheiser was number two. Unbelievable. We were number one in Japan, and Sony was number two. Unbelievable. Right? Crazy. Right.

34:02So that means we could do this. That's all I mean. I thought you were retired. I am retired. what I've done is I took the bit out of my mouth and I found individuals that had that same drive and I asked them to take the bit. Great. And so like a day like today, I have nothing to do. I'm talking to you and then I'm going to the Dodger game and I'm not going to the Dodger game, taking my son-in-law. I'm not going to talk business, you know, but I do have Zooms and stuff and meetings where I kind of set the tone for what I think we should do. Hey, you have a vision for the future and you want to see it happen.

34:45I have a vision for what it shouldn't be. Then I fall into what it should be. And I know it shouldn't be the way it is right now. I just don't believe it. I talked to Lucian Grange a lot about this and he really wants to get it right he's been great and um and i'm starting to reach out to other people but we got something going on and it's all one thing to me everything is one thing i don't see things siloed i think everything is should be in one place i know that sounds impossible but it's not impossible

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37:06Of all the groups on Interscope, who were you most surprised by their success? Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. Surprised. I was surprised at the scale of Black Eyed Peas. Really? How big they could become. Because they came to us as an alternative rap group. I have others that I'll mention. But Black Eyed Peas, what happened with Black Eyed Peas is a fabulous story that you'll love. Tell me. So I'm with Bono and Edge in France. And they were on Interscope at the time. Still, no? Yeah. Yeah. But they're trying to do something. And I always... How did they end up not being on Island Records? I never understood that.

37:55They were Island Records. Well, Chris was gone. I see. Chris was gone. Who's another person? They like me. I see. So when we sold to Universal, Bono went to Doug and said, I don't have anybody here that I know. Like I know Jimmy and I knew Chris. And Doug said, yes, Doug. It made sense to Doug. And the first thing we did together was Beautiful Day. And it was fantastic. I didn't write it, but, you know, we all made it happen, right? And then I brought Bono to meet Steve. And we put their songs in the commercial and all that stuff, right? So anyway, so Black Eyed Peas was one, definitely. No Doubt was another, I believed.

38:34But they came a long way in their songwriting after five years. You know, we had a lot of artists. And they were an alternative rock band. Scar. And they turned into a pop sensation. You can't plan that. Yeah, you can't. Because when they start out as something else and then they cross over to pop, that's always interesting. You know, like, there were some real hard rock bands that made a real penetration, like Helmet. Yeah. That was very, very aggressive that I thought, you know, I thought they'd be niche, and they became much more than niche. But I would say that, you know, I'm such a cheerleader, and I'm so optimistic.

39:11I wake up every day, I'm completely optimistic. So I think anything could be anything. What do you think at Interscope you did differently than what other record companies were doing? You were coming from outside of the music. No, I came from where you're coming from. Yeah, you came from making records to running a record company. Right. Most of the people who run record companies came from working at a record company. Because when I was broke, the first freedom, I call it freedom, independence, the first apartment I ever got was from a singer. I run the room with this really smart person and I went in a room with three of them in a row, which was John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith.

39:54And my life changed. So I said, OK, I need these people. And they taught me culture. They taught me everything you could possibly need to know about popular culture. I mean, that I could have possibly comprehended at the time. So when I went to Interscope, I applied the same rules. I said, this is where the answers are. The answers are not in me and not in the people that work here. The answers are there. The answers are with Dre. The answers are with Trent. The answers are there. I didn't care how much money we spent. I didn't give a flying fuck. It was all money. I didn't care. When I met Snoop and Dre, I didn't understand hip hop.

40:39But they reminded me of Mick and Keith. How Mick and Keith hit me when I was 12 years old. I said these guys that's who these guys are I went to MTV I said never play another Interscope record if G-Thing doesn't work on video and they put it on and you know boom so that was my different because I knew like you know I knew how to work with artists but I really knew how to work with artists I spent 20 years in a recording studio no one spends 20 years and I recorded. I'm not a businessman. I don't like business. I hate business. I still hate it. But I had to learn it for defensive purposes. You know what I mean?

41:28It's the truth. I mean, I still don't. I still not, you know, I'm not anywhere near the business people that I know. But Interscope, it was a different kind of label because we did things we shouldn't do, especially financially. I would go$25 million down on somebody. No problem. Do you ever miss leaving Interscope? No, not for a second. It was the right thing to do at the right time. No, no, no. I made headphones because I couldn't take the people anymore. Yeah. They don't talk. Yeah. I just said, I can't do this anymore. It was starting to get too much for me. I feel everything is a young man's sport.

42:12I feel you grow out of everything. That's why I grew out of running companies. I feel that at a certain age, you know, I just don't do it anymore. But I never feel funny about leaving the record business. As a matter of fact, I'm very happy I left the record business. I wish I had left it 10 years earlier because I did it. And for what? For one more hit? You know what I mean? I'm a one more hit record? Great. You're not making the music. You're making the music. You're like Jasper Johns. You sit there, you come in here, you paint, and you go home. And you put it out, right? Somebody puts it out.

42:52Yeah. Like I told Bruce Springsteen, when I retired, he asked me, man, why are you retiring? I said, man, I went to your show last night in Milan, 80 ,000 people yelling Bruce. If they were yelling Jimmy, I'd still be working. I said, I talk to scumbags all day. You know, I said, fuck this. You know, not everybody, but a lot of them, you know? It's like, okay, enough. You're the man, you're this, you're Illuminati, whatever the fuck that bullshit is. I'm like, no, I'm a record producer at heart. I'm an assistant engineer at heart. Yeah. Tell me the story of A &M Recording Studios. How'd you get involved?

43:36Okay, it was 1985. And my father just died, which was devastating to me. It's still the worst day of my life. And you know what? Every now and then I have a horrible day. 40 years later, still, that's how close we were, right? And Jerry Moss and Herb Alpert wanted to remodel the studio. Because that place was built by the people at Lincoln Center, and it was all iron and everything. So it sounded kind of, sounded good, but it was out there. I think Lincoln Center has problems with sound. Yeah. As well. Seriously, it's a known fact that it's. The same guy. It's like one of the great concert halls that just doesn't sound good.

44:23Same. That's interesting. Right. So we meet with Jerry and her, me and my engineer, and they like us. How long do you know them? Not long at all. I met Jerry because of this. Okay. so we go in there and you're a record producer at this point you're not a that's all i am you've never owned a recording studio you've never built i worked at a recording studio yeah you know i worked at a record plant and shelly yakis was my engineer and he worked at there and he worked there so we kind of understood all the way around yes so they said we want to remodel a &m studios where you guys head it up and do it i said wow that sounds like i went to the lot and i fell in love with the lot.

45:03The lot's super cool. The lot's beautiful, right? Yeah, Charlie Chaplin's lot. If you were at a different time in your life, you would have bought that place. For sure. You know? I heard John Mayer just bought it. Yeah, John Mayer just bought it with Mick G. Amazing. So we go in there and we tear the studio apart. We literally practically brought it down to its studs. It was a really great project and we gave ourselves the time to finish. The first record that was cut there was Angela Harlem on U2's record. And we designed the studio to record that band. So there was two of the studios, the two main, A and D, they had the big studio part, and then they had these big open booths surrounding it with glass doors.

45:54So you could put the drums in there. You could put a guitar. It was all about not needing blankets. And what people don't understand is that when you record, a lot of people put blankets and baffles and all this stuff. But we didn't like that. So we tried to build, if you wanted isolation, you could have it, but the instruments can still breathe. And if you go to that studio, you'll see that they changed a little bit, but it was a lot of fun. So now during that, which is something I did want to talk about. Like I said, my father died in 85. and I was at my sister's house, literally sitting on the floor because I just couldn't get up.

46:33And Springsteen called me to tell me he was sorry that my father died. And it was Christmas. He died the week after Christmas. And he loved Christmas. And we were very, very close. And we used to always do some great stuff at Christmas. So as I'm talking to him, I said, Bruce, you know, I want to make a Christmas album for my father. If I do that, would you help me? Would you be involved? He goes, absolutely. I said, okay, great. So I get off the phone and I go on a mission. So I stopped producing records for a little while and I go into that. And we made a deal with A &M, but my former wife took me to a party at the Shriver's house where Sergeant Shriver and Eunice Shriver were there because I didn't want any money.

47:27I said, I got to get money out of the way here. I want to give all the money to charity, right? So they had a charity called Special Olympics. And they took me to New Jersey. So there was fake Hulk Hogan and all these fake stars. And I said, why don't you have real people here? Now, I don't know if anybody was involved, but not the one I was at. so I said you know what let's do it here let's do it for these people and they were fabulous they had a son named Bobby Shriver who jumped in and we went on the road and I produced this album it took me a year and a half it was called A Very Special Christmas it had U2 had a Keith Haring cover if I remember correctly yeah well it earned $100 million for Special Olympics Oh, incredible.

48:23In 1987. Yeah. Right? That's amazing. Yeah. And... Who was on the first album? U2, Springsteen, Whitney Houston, Bon Jovi, The Arrhythmics, The Pointer Sisters, Sting. All doing Christmas songs. John Mellencamp, all doing Christmas songs. I recorded a lot of the album myself because I went on the road and I just... Like, for example, Whitney Houston, I went to North Carolina she did a show there and she met me in the studio on the way to sound check let me tell you something I didn't know miracles existed until I recorded that woman's voice she walked out there she sang the song in church it was do you hear what I hear as a kid she knew the song she went out there I can't explain this to laymen but you didn't need a microphone or tape.

49:20It was so powerful and extraordinary. Sang it in one take. She comes in and says, what do you need? I said, I'm not going to tell you this, but she said, I'm going to sing it one more time. Did all the backing vocals. She was gone in an hour. And it was so inspiring. If you get a chance, you should listen to it. Do you hear what I hear? Let's listen to it right now. That'd be great. When you hear this, it's going to blow your mind.

50:14Shepherd boy, do you hear what I hear? Hear what I hear? A song, a song, high above the tree With a voice as big as the sea With a voice as big as the sea

50:46Now sell the shepherd boy to the mighty king Do you know what I know, what I know In your palace, warm mighty king You know what I know A child, a child Shivers in the cold Let us bring him silver and gold Let us bring him silver and gold Oh.

51:36Oh, yeah. Oh.

51:44Send the king to the people everywhere. Yeah, listen to what I say. Listen to what I say. Pray for peace, peace and people everywhere Oh yeah, do what I say Oh, child for the child Sleeping in the night He will bring us goodness and light Yes, He will bring us a new life tonight Yes, He will I know He will Oh, yes, He will Do you want I do? Do you hear? Do you hear? Do you know To hear what I do What I do When I hear Do you know Do you know Do you know Do you know what I do

53:15She makes it sound completely effortless. Isn't it beautiful? Just comes out. Well, she's a miracle. I mean, she's a miracle. What an incredible, incredible gift she had and she gave everybody else. I mean, you know, Rick, I owe so much to black culture. And when I hear that, I just realized that, you know, especially since Dre entered my life and all this stuff that I've been able to do since 1990, right? I owe so much to black culture that I'm going to spend the rest of my life trying to just touch the debt that I owe, you know? And it's really hearing that just, I go back to that day. It was one of the greatest recording days that I've ever had in my life.

54:07The instrument was just so awesome and intimidating. Makes it easy for you. Oh, my God. She needs me like she needs me. She doesn't need me at all. I just went to North Carolina. Were these all songs that you listened to growing up? Yeah. And this is still multi-track tapes. You're carrying tapes to North Carolina. Yeah. Yeah. Me and my engineer, we went to North Carolina. Actually, it was Tom Fennon-Zio. Great. So A &M Studios, they ask you to remodel the studio. Yeah. The first thing you record there is a U2 song. Yeah. And it goes good? They're all one great. But then we lived there. Yeah. And that's kind of what got me not into produce records anymore.

54:52I'm still great friends with the band. I love the band. I was like, these guys are my family still. But I realized I have to pivot. I can't just do the same. At that point, I was producing records for 18 years. And I just said, you know, these guys are all younger than me, and I'm going to get older, and the new bands aren't going to want to work with me. So David Geffen had a record cover. We talked about this last time. And it's okay, I'm going to start a label. And it worked out. You know?

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57:03Tell me a little bit about the inner workings of U2 as compared to other bands. Their process of writing songs is so organic, U2, and so spontaneous that there were times I really felt like I was in over my head. You know, Brian Eno and Daniel Anwar are an incredible act to follow. those guys cover a lot of ground so you work with them after them well i worked with them before on a live album but then we made the studio album to rattle and hum after them i see we made some good music i think they wanted to work with me because it was a very americana kind of thing you know and um i knew how to do that you know but i was with brian eno and bono about three years ago in a room i think it was bono's house or in a hotel or something and i looked at bono and brian and i said you know i'm the second best record producer in this room you know and brian was very gracious was very gracious but those guys are really talented and but they they're the way they produce is actually it's painful and actually they give birth to music it's not like somebody walks in and says hey jude they don't come in with a song not all the time most of the times they don't they come in with an idea and a rough and then it forms in front of you and it's like it's magical yeah but it can take a long time yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah but it's really it's really magical and what they do because they create magnificent music but you work with a lot of artists would you say that the way they do it is particular to them yeah yeah Tom Petty walks in with a song.

58:54Yep. Bruce Springsteen walks in with a song. Stevie Nicks walks in with a song. Stevie Nicks will walk in with a song, song over another song on tape, right? And then you've got to figure out the arrangement and everything. But it's the song. Yeah. So they, for example, when I was in Hawaii with them after Under Blood, Red Sky, because they do it all different ways, I went to a soundcheck in Hawaii with them, And all of a sudden, I hear Adam playing something and Edge, Ken Larry, and I hear Bono humming. And he's singing. He doesn't have the words really yet. In the name. He's singing in the name.

59:37I hear a sound check pride forming. And I said, holy shit. That's why I so desperately wanted to produce the next album. Even before they had words, you could hear it was magic. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that song. And I wanted to produce the next album desperately because of that song. And I would have done a good job on that song, as the rest I wouldn't have gotten as good as Brian and Danny. So they didn't hire me, which crushed me. But they brought in Danny and Brian, who did a much better job than I would have done. Much better. And it set them up for Joshua Tree, which Danny and Brian did as well.

1:00:21And then Joshua Tree obviously was Joshua Tree, right? But they're a different kind of band. They work more song edge and Bono now, you know? I mean, they always wrote the songs, but again, I haven't been in the studio with them in a long time. But it's unlike anything I'd ever seen. Tell me the first time you met Springsteen. I had just finished working with John Lennon. We were going to go in the studio, and he had a song called Tennessee Williams. And we were going to go in the studio, and Sean, his son, was born. And we had the studio booked, I think it was for April. It was 1975.

1:01:08And John called me and said, come up and see me and Yoko. So I went up there. Did he play you the song? We played me the song at the Record Clan. So you've heard the song? Yeah. Great. That's why I say it was Tennessee Williams. That was the name of the song. Because I don't think that song has ever come out. I think it has come out somewhere. Oh, okay. It's somewhere. Let me look, because I would love to hear it. I've never heard it. Look on YouTube. Yeah. Or turn it into another song. Okay, let's see. Tennessee, oh Tennessee. That's it. What you've shown to me. Your world's like water, pure and clear.

1:01:43The sadness of your soul will be used to the music of the sphere And sealed behind your spirit mind, your call but to love and fear America, America, your heroes are alive Your fated men in glory will survive

1:02:11Membership yourself Did he typically write on piano? Both. So I went to the Dakota, and he and Yoko were sitting there, and Yoko spoke, and she said, Jimmy, John's going to retire for five years. So it was funny. It was cute actually in a way, because Sean was just born. I told my sister I was going to John's house, and she went to Tiffany and bought me a teething ring to bring as a gift. Beautiful. I was 21 years old. I had no idea. Gifts, what? Birth, children? I mean, you know, whatever, babies. So anyway, so she tells me, John's going to retire for five years. And she opened this book. And she started showing me his birthday and Sean's birthday.

1:02:58It's the same day and the thing. And he's got to stop for five years. So she said, what's your birthday? And I said, well, my birthday's March 11th. 1953 she looks at it and she goes you should stop as well i said yo i started laughing i said yoko i make ten dollars an hour because i had that relationship with john you know yeah i said yoko i make ten dollars an hour i said i can't quit anything i need more work i don't need less work so it was really a nice afternoon that's the last time i saw him so i go home and um about a week later I didn't know what to do because now I was engineering for John and I'd grown a little bit you know I did three albums with them and I really had grown in my position and everything so the owner of the studio called me I'm still living with my mother it was Royce O 'Carlin he said to me I need you to come in we got this guy Bruce Springsteen another studio just threw him out we're slow and we could use the business and you're good at teaching other engineers how to use our studios.

1:04:06I said, man, I don't want to do that. You know what I mean? I just don't want to do it, right? Yeah. And he started yelling at me and then he called my mother. And he said, I do everything for this guy. My mother starts yelling, you got, this is Roy. He's on everything for you guys. So I go to the studio, right? And it's Bruce Springsteen, John Landau, Mike Appel, and the band. So I'm working with them. I'm showing the engineer how to do things in the studio, make him comfortable. And the next day, he's gone. So John looks at me and says, look, one reason or another, Louisa was a great engineer.

1:04:43He said he had to leave. Can you do this? I said, absolutely. What was your feeling that first day? Well, I walked in on him writing Thunder Rogue. Good day. It blew my mind. It was like, holy shit. At that point in time, nobody sounded anything like that. No, no. He was, he had a sound in his head, Rick. He had a sound in his head. And he didn't know how to get it out. None of us did. But he had a sound in his head, sort of like what he calls it is Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan, and Phil Spector. You know? and he used to play me like the good and the bad, the ugly, Ennio Marconi records when he wanted a guitar sound.

1:05:33Yeah. How old was he at that time? He was 25. I was 22. And it was intense. We had a lot of fun, a lot of laugh, but it was intense. I learned the work ethic because John, in this last album we did, he came in the studio after court because he was being thrown out of the country with Richard Nixon. He used to come and we worked from 12 to 8, 12 to 9. And he went home, you know, because again, now he's 33 years old, he's made 15 albums. This was like, from the day we started Born to Run to the day we finished, we didn't stop. And that was a long time. No, it was all in 1975. Okay. But it was so intense and so work intensive and so not settling, not compromising, Not one fucking note.

1:06:27I really learned the work ethic in that room because I didn't know how to work. I worked hard and I worked a lot of hours. Yeah, yeah. But I didn't know why I was working a lot of hours. He showed me you work till you get it right, which sounds simple. But if you're honest with yourself. Yeah, it's hard. It's hard. It's hard. And it's exhausting. And when you're working a lot, sometimes it's hard to know when it's right. That's right. You get delirious. Boy, I'm telling you, man. Does that describe it properly? When I was mixing Born to Run, I thought I was going to die. Yeah. Of course, it's practical.

1:07:05But why is mixing always at the end when you're tired? When you're too tired to do it. You know what I mean? You're deaf. Yeah. You've been listening loud for months. You've heard the songs over and over and over and over again. Yeah. So, but, and it affords a relationship that we're still great friends. Me and Landau and Steven and Roy and Bruce, we're still all great friends. It's going to be 50 years next year. Amazing. Yeah. Congratulations. That's a good anniversary. Yeah, man. That was, it was really, really special.

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1:09:13Last time we talked, you mentioned Stevie Nicks taking pieces of a police song and looping them up. Other times that you were in the studio where somebody did something that you hadn't seen before, like a new technique or a new technology or doing something in a different way. Well, because I'm so old, I was on a session one day, I was producing, and there was a guy, a guitar player, that was a session guy. And in between every take, he would not listen back to our playback. He had a little computer that he put headphones on and he would go over to his own computer. And so I said to the guy, hey man, what are you doing?

1:10:00The guy's name was Roger Lynn. And he says, I'm inventing a drum machine. The Lin drum. Yes. I'm making a machine that plays the drums. I said, good, because drummers drive me crazy anyway, which they do, right? So few people can really play the goddamn thing. And with Roger Lin and... What was he playing on the session? He was a guitar player, he said? A guitar player. He's a guitar player, yeah. We just recorded Dammit Torpedoes, and he asked us for our drum sounds from Dammit Torpedoes. So the very first Lynn Drum Sound had Tom Petty's drums as a sounds. Wow. Yeah, yeah. Amazing. Any other times you could think of or technical stuff that was new?

1:10:46Well, first of all, we were lucky at Record Plant because we were the hottest studio and we were around the corner from a lot of tech companies, like even Tide Clockworks and stuff like that. So we would get the first phaser, the first digital delay. If you listen to Walls and Bridges, you hear like hours, you hear delays all over the place. Because they were new. It was like when the Beatles discovered stereo, the drums are on the left, the vocals on the right. You were experimenting, right? So that's why I always was curious about technology. because in those days when you got something, you got so jazzed just to try it, you know?

1:11:32I also remember quitting producing when the SSL came out because I was just like, okay, I don't know how to handle this. This is too much for me. It's like a new language. Yeah, it was a whole new language I had to learn. And I was just like, everything came to a head, you know? Tell me more about Bruce beyond the work ethic. Yeah, very simple. Tell me about the guy. Very simple. Zero compromise factor. about his art, his work, and his dignity, his morality, his life, zero, zero compromise. You can't buy him. You can't sell him. You can't rent him. I was for rent. You mentioned something about they were going to drop him.

1:12:12Yeah. I don't know that story. After the second album, Columbia was going to drop him, and I hadn't known them yet. And Mike Appel was the manager and producer at the time, and they had to really scamper around for studio time and stuff like that. And then they started recording and the label heard it and they got back interested. I think a song leaked or Born to Run leaked or something and he didn't care. This guy had nothing, but he didn't care. He's an all or nothing guy. guy he is one of the most just unbelievable guy remember i walked into him in a very different place in his life than lenin because lenin is what i knew i did three albums you know he did three albums but he already had been in the beatles he was already yes huge as huge as you could possibly be and as a solo act yes imagine and he was being thrown out of the country and He had all the political stuff.

1:13:18And Bruce is a guy about to be dropped from his label. Yeah. 25 years old. Yeah. And you got to see that work ethic. You got to see a hurricane form. Yeah. And you get to watch it up front and you just go, whoa. And my life was defined by that. In his success, did anything change after that? No. He's the same guy. Same guy. He's gotten better. You know, he talks about it. Good thing about it. I would never talk about it if he didn't, but depression and all that stuff, and he's worked through it. But the core of the guy, no. He knows who he is. He knows what he wants. He knows what he does. I'll talk to him about stuff, and he goes, wow, I mean, that sounds really good.

1:14:05Not for me. You mentioned last time we talked, passingly, that you mixed Evil Woman. Yeah. Tell me the story. How did that come to be? Well, I just finished working with Lennon, and Jeff Lynne was coming to Record Plant to work on Face the Music is the name of the album. And he asked for the guy who works with Lennon, so they just put me on it, you know. Talk about somebody who's self-contained. This guy, Jeff Lynne, he came in, he wanted to do backing vocals. So I knew Ellie Greenwich, who was the woman who helped me. I knew this girl singer Marge Raymond. I knew these girl singers that were fantastic.

1:14:46So I called Ellie. She put it together. And they came in and viola's backing vocals on Evil Woman. So we had some sub mixes, but we mixed like three songs. And Evil Woman was one of them. But Jeff, another guy, really technical, really knew what he wanted. Great arranger. I mean the mix was there because his arrangement as recording was so perfect yeah it was all him he was an unbelievable talent let's listen to a little Evil Woman oh man haven't heard it in a long time oh man it's a good one it's great it's great you made a fool of me but the broken dreams have got you

1:15:39You hear the girls come in, you know, listen.

1:15:54Hey, woman, you got the blues. Yes, you ain't got no one else to you. There's an open road that leads nowhere So just make some miles between you and there There's a hole in my head where the wind comes in You took my body and pledged to win High, high woman, cryin' shame But you ain't got nobody else to blame

1:16:45That's great. Right? And, you know, Rick, when I sit here with you, you're a record producer, you know, and I hear music and we're in a recording studio, You know, I don't ever want to go in one again. I haven't produced a record really in, I think it was 35 years. But I realized that I never liked business. I like music. I like getting ideas and doing them. But I don't like business. There's nothing about it. I just don't like it. Yeah, something you said about having to deal with people that you didn't like to deal with. Yeah, well, convincing people. The worst thing in the world is have to convince somebody of something.

1:17:24It's a lack of freedom. Yeah. That's what you're talking about. If I could flip the therapy for a second. Yeah. Having to convince somebody of something is a lack of freedom. It's the worst. It's the worst. Yeah. I never want to do that. That's the gift I gave myself when I left. Because, again, I don't know how to work without really doing it, right? So I call myself retired, but I'm retired from that. Understood. I wake up in the morning, I get on a Zoom, I help my son with his company, I help my wife where I can, but I'm not driving. Yeah. The hook's not in my mouth. Yeah. You can do anything.

1:18:10You can make money. But I had to spit the hook out. That's great. I couldn't take it. Great. How much better is your life now? My physical numbers are 10 times better. Everything is better. It's just a better life. Yeah. Is it just a question of less stress or is it something else? It's just less stress. 100%. 100%. Yeah. Because I turned that part of my brain off, the drill bit part. Yeah. Because I used to scan for problems, especially ones that I couldn't resolve, and then go in and fix them. But if you're running a company, there's an unlimited amount of that. It never ends. So if I go into a company now that I'm involved in or I'm invested in, they got a problem.

1:19:00I can say, okay, try this, this, and this. But then I leave. Yeah. You know what it's like? It's like grandkids. The kids bring the grandkids over. You love them. You give them whatever you do, anything you want to do. And then they leave. And they go home. Right? And you love your grandkids. I love my grandchildren as much as I love my children. Yeah. But I don't feel like I'm the only person. Not obligated. I'm not the only person raising him. Yeah. He has a mother and a father that don't want me to interfere like that, right? So what advice do you have for retiring? Well, my thing was very important that I get myself out of the position of my name being on something and being my responsibility.

1:19:46Apple Music was my responsibility Beats Music was my responsibility Beats was my responsibility Interscope was my responsibility I didn't want that anymore Yeah Because then Anything that's remotely wrong with it I gotta wrestle to the ground personally Because like Any company You got three or four really good people And the rest are good But they're not Gonna solve problems like this So what they do is Your bell gets rung Ding, ding, ding Can you You know And you want it to be wrong because you want the problem to be solved. If they don't tell you, it's bad too. Right. Exactly. So, I mean, there were good people at every company I worked with, but I'm saying there were those three or four unique people that you do the thing with, right?

1:20:28Yeah. So my recommendation is only do stuff with people you like. Yep. Only. Got to stick to that. Good rule. Right? And be in a position where you can always give it back. I say, you know what? If you agree with me, great. If you don't agree with me, great. You know, Patti Smith's, and I don't mean this about people that I work with, but she had one of the greatest lines ever. People have the power. The power to dream, the power to rule, and the power to wrestle the earth from fools. You know? And I don't want to wrestle anymore. Whether I'm the fool or they're the fool, I just don't want to wrestle anymore.

1:21:13So, but if I had to really answer that question and rewind my life, I would have gone for therapy earlier so I could learn how to work and be less obsessed. Yeah. If that's a possibility. When I watch everybody work around me, even if they're cool and aren't obsessed, they have really, works hard, man. You know, if you're going to be successful, if you want to get to the top of the game, it's brutal, man. And then what is success to you? Right? What does it mean? But I knew one thing, and I'm so glad I did. When I was 65, I said, no mas. Great. I just pulled the plug out. And you still get to do stuff and have fun.

1:21:55I'm doing the stuff that I love to do, meaning I get to do the creative stuff. And if I help people in business, I have instinct for business. I'm not good at business. I mean, everybody thinks I'm a businessman, but I build companies. You're an idea guy. Yeah. And I know how to get ideas done. Yeah. That's it, you know? You've had enough success over your life that if you didn't have whatever the last big win was, and the last big one was a huge win, probably your quality of life wouldn't have changed at all. No, no, no. What you're getting at is what we see a lot with our friends and people we see from afar, is nobody wants to give up the uniform.

1:22:36They are that uniform. They don't realize it, but it's seeped into their skin. and they are that job. Yeah. And without it... They don't know who they are. They feel naked. Yeah. They want to go in that room and want people to go, oh, shit. So that takes a lot of, for me, therapy as well. Because I don't give a shit. We see it happen with musicians who've been on the road for 40 years and then all of a sudden something happens where they can't do it anymore and they're completely lost. I know. Completely lost. But that was therapy. I prepared for that. By the way, I started that 20 years ago. David Geffen said to me, he goes, let me tell you something.

1:23:16I know you. You are not your job. And don't let that happen to you. And I take great input. I'm a sponge. So if somebody I respect says something, I go do it. I said, okay, I'm not going to be my job. And I'm not. And I wasn't. And it really helped me in life. and I'm still figuring it out, but I like what I'm doing now. I only work with an idea. And if I have an idea, like, you know, I have my friends at Bruce, Dre, the guys that I work with still a little bit creatively. And I got this other business my son's working on and, you know, I'm helping out. And that's it.

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