Original subtitles

So, Rick, how do we tell the whole history of Shangri-La,

of the studio, and of your role in it?

It's about the artists, the conversations that come out of it

and whatever story we weave around it.

In some ways, this is like a vehicle

to show the processes

of the different people that we get to talk to.

It's not about me at all.

It's just, it's challenging.

- No, I know. - Super challenging

because it's like a hall of mirrors.

-If you're reflecting what an artist brings...

- Yeah.

...then I'm looking at

a reflection of a reflection.

- Yeah. - So...

Hall of mirrors is a great way to look at it.

Nothing would please me more.

♪Your kisses take me...♪

♪To Shangri-La ♪

♪Each kiss is magic♪

♪That makes my little world♪

♪A Shangri-La...♪

♪For anywhere♪

♪You are♪

♪Is Shangri-La...♪

♪orchestra playing romantic soundtrack♪

Welcome to Shangri-La.

It's magical.

Through magic, you start understanding principles

of how there's really extraordinary magical,

and then there's really little mundane magic moments.

When they happen, there's just this spark of like,

"Wow, that's so exciting," it's like, "I wonder how this works?"

Anything's possible.

There's something so simple and naive about all this

that I suspect there's been a shrewd guiding intelligence somewhere.

Whose idea was it? How did it all start?

OK, so, Rick, what is Shangri-La?

Maybe give us a little tour, what is this Shangri-La?

It's a clubhouse, you know.

This is where we get together and play, make records.

Yeah?

Any of these places that have been around for a long time,

there's an extra added feeling of coming to a place

where a lot of good music has been made.

It seems like it's somehow in the walls.

There's a sense of holy ground.

I don't know if it's the energy collected in the space,

or if it's just people's belief.

It doesn't really matter.

Nah, I never met him.

There's a mystique to Rick Rubin.

He has a beard. He's usually, uh, shoeless.

What do you know about him?

Honestly, he was in a "99 Problems" video by Jay.

♪You crazy for this one, Rick♪

I think him and Russell did the Def Jam thing.

Beastie Boys stuff maybe.

The Beastie Boys!

See, the Beastie Boys are the most important thing

in music today.

I could sit here and lie and be like, ohhhh!

I don't know shit about this nigga, man.

He was part of this incredibly cool thing in the mid-'80s.

And then he could have spent the rest of his life always

just looking for who's like the new rapper from Queens.

The fact that he's been interested in helping

so many different types of artists,

that's kinda proof of where his priorities lie.

I love this. Oh my fucking God.

This is really, really cool to me,

cuz it's nothing in here that's not needed.

It's one sandbag right there.

Why? Because that was enough to hold that mic

where it was supposed to be.

The idea is to not have any art on the walls,

so your brain is as empty as possible.

Wow.

So you aren't thinking about a picture.

You have to come up with one.

That's cool. Deep.

It's interesting.

Ehhhh.

But it's cool.

Cuz a piece of me is like, "Oh, shut the fuck up."

But a piece of me is like, "Wow, that's, uh... that's cool."

- What up, G? - How are you, Tyler?

My pleasure, Rick. What up, man?

I love this just cuz the only shit that's here

is what's supposed to be here.

No decoration.

No, I could tell.

The studio was built in 1976 and has been here ever since.

Wow. What's the-- Why do you not like wearing--

That's crazy.

I automatically came to the conclusion

that you don't like wearing shoes.

-Why do you...? -I like being barefoot.

I most like to be barefoot.

I don't think humans should be, are supposed to wear shoes.

I think that's right.

Like we're supposed to feel the earth

and, "Oh nigga, an earthquake is coming."

Like we're supposed to have that, but we're idiots.

A hundred percent true. The earth actually

has electrical and magnetic energy

that goes into our body if we are naked on it.

And if we are covered all the time,

we don't get to feel it.

In terms of health and in terms of knowing things,

but like part of the life source is being tapped into the earth.

I don't know, it feels, feels really in tune with...

You're so goddamn free.

I think I'm free, but you're on

a-whole-nother level of fucking free.

Shangri-La is a little bit like Valhalla.

The fact that it's so beautiful

and by the beach and the air is different.

And there's like some feeling about Malibu

being this place that people ascend to.

Also cuz you gotta be rich to live in Malibu.

You feel like you're going to a different dimension or something.

You're above it all in a kind of weird, sacred space.

I know Shangri-La Studios is a studio where,

if you're doing music,

and you get called up here to do music,

then you're kinda doing it.

-How you doing? -Good. How you doin'?

I'm good.

I could tell there's no TVs in this bitch.

There's no anything in here.

Yeah, it's just furniture and a studio.

I got like a hundred TVs in my house.

My friends would be bored as fuck here, ya know what I'm saying?

I think it's dope, though. I told him I wanna record here.

I wanna record and see what I can come up with.

Cuz you kinda exclude, you kinda, you really like,

you kinda get away from the world

if you do it the proper way, you know?

Like I would turn my phones off and then just, like, detach.

You know what I'm saying?

And I'd bring a TV cuz ain't no TVs in this bitch.

I'd go buy one at the local Walmart.

DRAM: I love it at Shangri-La.

It's like a true musicians' paradise.

You got Rick and he just comes in, he magically appears.

You know, it's just air underneath his feet, you can't hear him.

Do you wanna listen on the bus while he gets bass sounds?

-Yes. -Cool.

Let's do it.

♪That money can go, yo money come and go, oh, oh, oh, yeah♪

♪Ooh, if you gotta check in your name♪

♪For a hundred thousand dollars♪

♪Honestly, what would you do?♪

♪What would you do?♪

♪Ooh, what would you do? what would you do?♪

♪Ooh, if you got that check in your name♪

♪Would you try to fix everyone's problems with dollars?♪

♪Cuz what's it to you?♪

So Rick had a thing going on on Twitter.

I don't know if he still does, but it's only two tweets.

The first one is, "Hi, I'm Rick Rubin."

The second one is, "Now playing, now listening to."

And one day, all of a sudden, he just put,

"Now listening to 'Get Money' by DRAM."

And I'm like, oh my fucking God.

People start asking me like, "Yo, you see this?"

I'm like, "Yo, shit's crazy, bruh. What the fuck?"

I was looking for new music on SoundCloud.

I was like, "Wow this is different than everything else."

Had maybe 300 listens.

And what, February 6th, 2015,

I came out to Malibu to Shangri-La for the very first time.

That's my favorite one.

Most soulful.

Yeah, yeah, just keep playing it back.

You're probably gonna lead the session in there.

But it'll be one of the best bands

you've ever played with, like last time.

What songs have I heard you play this on?

On this kit?

Let's see. Well, I Will Survive. Um...

-Got To Be Real. You know those? - Yeah.

I Want You , Marvin Gaye stuff.

Uh...man, I don't, I can't... You know, quite a few.

Working with Rick, you have the absolute power

to be as free as you want to be.

♪You know what it is You know what it is♪

♪You know what it is...♪

Watch it unfold. It's really interesting.

It's not just artists.

If you're open and pay attention

people will tell you what they need to say.

Everything just feels so claustrophobic

in, in, in my, in my outputs,

with every single thing, and that's so not me.

No, I feel that.

♪Huh, every time I turn around♪

♪I'm only viewing you♪

♪Huh huh, every time my eyes close♪

♪I know that I see you, too huh huh huh♪

♪Every time they open I do not appear to you♪

♪Oh whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa♪

He has just this authentic eagerness,

to really, really see where you're at with this shit.

Where have you been with it, what do you have working up?

♪suspenseful music playing♪

I can remember as a child the "Paul is Dead" myth.

I could see him on TV, and he was dead.

And the Beatles were leaving clues

about his death in the artwork.

I was sort of obsessed and terrified.

I started keeping the heavier of the Beatles' albums,

turning their binder to the wall so I couldn't see them.

Magical Mystery Tour was one that had many clues.

In my childhood bedroom, there was a poster

of the Beatles over my bed, and I was afraid

because Paul is dead but he's alive.

It just was so confusing to me.

You don't really know...

♪eerie soundtrack playing♪

...where is it fiction, where is it reality.

I get a serotonin reaction in my brain when those two things happen.

And it might also be similar to the one

when there's an unusually breathtaking sunset.

It hits you in a way that stops you.

I feel like all of those make me wanna look deeper.

Look deeper.

Look deeper. Look deeper.

When the Beatles, I heard they were meditating

I wasn't one bit interested.

And I thought you'd become a raisin eater,

a nut eater, you know, and like this.

-Yeah. -And I thought it was kind of a fad.

And it was my little sister who called one day

and said she started transcendental meditation.

Which, I always say I heard a change in her voice.

More self-assuredness, more happiness.

And then something clicked

and I couldn't get enough information.

In the transcendent, there's no time and there's no space.

Time and space are born out of that.

It's totally unmanifest, the most abstraction ever.

It's actually our self.

They say the transcendent is the self with a capital S.

Know thyself, that's that.

Yo, it feels... It feels like Jamaica.

There's something--

I think it's like the wood paneling and the incense.

That's not the chord but that's the root note.

Wanna try going around the rig of the cycle

a few times and do that?

All right. So...

So, as opposed to telling you what you should do

and like, "do this, try that,"

it's kinda like the whole "less is more."

It's kind of even in this space...

like, you see the room is kind of,

you kind of realize like that's his approach to life.

Can you make a loop outta that?

Can I also get a, um, a minor distortion?

I've always interpreted what an artist does

as having an antenna to draw in this information.

Like I don't think it comes from us, I feel like--

-It's outside, yeah. -We're more a vehicle

it can come through.

-We're like a radio. Yeah. -That's what it feels like.

Yeah. Exactly what it's like.

♪La la daa daa daa...♪

Is there an alternate bass line that it could go to?

Instead of coming up with more chords, could the bass

just change under what's going on

to accomplish what you wanna accomplish

without writing new chords?

Yeah.

Very hypnotic vibe.

Yeah, right?

What are you feeling next?

I think add drums.

Something like that.

In the stage right after the idea comes,

when you see something go

from a good theoretical idea

to blossoming in the world,

it's like a revelation when it happens.

Yeah, you're translating the idea.

It's so beautiful.

♪I've been runnin' my whole life♪

♪I can't just turn around and then try♪

♪When you cry, dear♪

♪You make a fool of me♪

♪Heard that you've been acting crazy♪

♪How could you, my poor sweet lady♪

♪Bad mixes with the good♪

♪This life ain't free♪

♪Ah-ah♪

-It sounds great. - It's good?

Yeah, and there's some good words in there too.

- I caught one-two, one-two. -Yeah.

I have another track.

I remember I got the opportunity

to get an interview at Shangri-La.

And I remember thinking like,

even if nothing comes from this,

like, I'm gonna get to see it.

If you're a musician at all,

you know how like nerve wracking it can be

just playing music in front of people,

let alone like singing or creating that music.

So, like, being invisible is really important.

If I'm doing a good job, no one knows I'm here.

No one notices the technical side of things.

Everything just goes smoothly, like an artist sings a melody

and suddenly that melody is like in the computer

and like being processed and chopped up into a beat.

That's like an A-plus sorta day right there.

I was in music school and...

came out here for a summer internship, and I never left.

Just put all my chips into this.

There's no clocks around here,

if anyone's ever paid attention to that.

Clocks and TVs.

You don't need to know the time.

You don't need to know what's going on in the news.

Just like, join the Shangri-La bubble,

and, uh, just live in it for a while.

Rick is really focused. You know, all the time.

And if you say too much, or go for a handshake,

or something like that,

it could break his Zen,

and that's not what we're here to do.

Applying to colleges, I had to write an essay on one person

I'd want to have lunch with someday,

and what I would talk about with them,

and I wrote that paper like about Rick.

I remember just looking back

at like the wide variety

of artists he had worked with.

It all seemed like super risky.

Like going from like Beastie Boys

straight into Slayer, you know.

Stuff like that just didn't make sense to me.

And I kinda wanna learn from him and understand like

why he was making these like leaps of faith.

We're going into the control room.

It's a little unique.

Oftentimes you'll see the glass will be in front of you

so you're looking directly across to the artist.

But when they built this room,

they decided to have the glass off to your right

so it actually makes for a better listening environment

because you're not hearing the reflection off of the glass.

This is the pool table from The Last Waltz.

They begin the film playing "cutthroat" right here on that.

OK, Rick, what's the game?

-Cutthroat.

Object is to keep your balls on the table

and knock everybody else's off.

One more room I wanna show you guys is the library,

where we keep a lot of sort of our musical artifacts

and inspirational pieces.

A lot of people don't know we have it here,

but it's right through here.

So this all used to be part of the original house,

and we've turned it into our library and archive,

where we have thousands of old recordings and books

and things that we like to refer to

when we're needing inspiration.

Hey, Josh, what's up?

-Hey. -How's it going?

- It's going great. -You wanna come down?

Sure.

-I'm just giving a tour of the space. - Cool.

What are you working on?

Rick's got me trying to figure out

if we can make any connections

between these original texts

and some new recordings he's working on.

Wow. What have you discovered so far?

Well, I see traces of what I think we could kind of see

as some of the roots of the idea of radio

in some of these texts.

Um, I would say not the technology itself,

but some of the bigger ideas of transmitting sound

across long distances and connecting people.

We're surrounded by all these incredible books.

Volume after volume of everything from western philosophy

and histories of spirituality

to really important archival histories of rhythm and blues,

um, some really rare heavy metal texts that are really important.

And that's one of the great joys of working here,

is that we're really surrounded by secrets.

We're surround by all of these items

from history that people have overlooked,

that they think they know things but the truth lies in here.

I led a pretty sheltered life as a child.

I didn't have much of an outward life.

Most of my experiences happened in my room

and in my head, often with music.

Frantic rock and roll, when I was really young,

that was the energy that I liked.

It was the Beatles' version of the Chuck Berry

Just Let Me Hear Some of that Rock and Roll Music

that just made me insane.

Because you'd get that feeling from music.

It's like that feeling of like, I don't know why

this thing that I can't touch is making me

feel all of this emotion

or getting me so excited, or making me so sad.

Chuck Berry, Little Richard.

If you listen to the Little Richard records,

they sound like they're gonna explode.

♪When you're rockin' and rollin'♪

♪Can't hear your mama call♪

There's always been the love of music

and the love of that feeling of like, um...

hearing something and it taking me away.

I've never been into drugs or drinking or anything

and I feel like music has always been, sort of, my...

that's been what's altered my consciousness.

-Same here, yeah. -It just, it takes me out of myself.

You know, it takes me and it touches me in a way that...

it's like you can't even put it into words.

Yeah, I know exactly, cuz I don't drink or anything.

As a child, I usually just sat and read the credits

to all the albums and the liner notes

and I love the smell of the paper.

That's like Zhané's first album,

Faith and Mary J. Blige's first album.

Erykah's first album.

Was that what your parents were listening to?

That was my mom.

It started off with, you know, O'Jays

and Teddy Pendergrass, and, um...

you know, a little We Will Rock You

kinda mixed in there.

My moms is Motown, Stax, Atlantic.

And she was the DJ in the house?

Pretty much. Meaning you don't go outside

until you finish these chores, so you're forced to listen.

And it plays over, and over,

and don't touch that record player.

I have this theory that I'm like

tumbling into my inner child or something because I'm listening

to all the things my dad would play

when I was really small, like Miles Davis and a lot of Stevie.

-My step-dad Walter, if you met him-- -I don't think so.

He played jazz in the house and that's how I got into music.

Beautiful. What was the first thing that got you into music?

The Delfonics and like James Brown.

I got really into Radiohead when I was young.

We loved folk music.

A lot of Buddy Holly when I was growing up, loved Buddy Holly.

Velvet Underground, Beach Boys, Bob Marley.

1999, by Prince.

Haven't heard that in a long time.

That'd be fun to listen to.

Yeah. Did you know every song on that record

uses the analogy of a car?

-I didn't know that. -Every single song.

Yeah, I'd hang out

with the white kids who would skate

and they introduced me to like rock,

all types of rock stuff,

and stuff that I wasn't too familiar with.

I love ZZ Top. I love them.

- They're great. -Yeah.

One of the questions that I have about what Shangri-La was like

back in the day was like, how remote was this back then?

There's some mythology around Shangri-La,

as a place where music was created.

It goes back to Elvis even.

We would hear that Elvis lived here.

I think Elvis did live here.

If he didn't, it was good enough to think he lived here.

There was a good little guru that was 15 years old.

Maharaja something, right?

He had this place, you know, before we got it.

I think he came here when he was 11 originally.

So this used to be his master bedroom,

and then that was the meeting room,

where the, you know, the people came

to meditate and do their thing, whatever they do, right?

There's a lot of myths about Shangri-La.

Bob Dylan lived in a teepee on the lawn.

The studio was a brothel before it was a recording studio.

Used to be a bordello.

I think you can tell by the wallpaper.

That decadence, that softness.

OK, there's that bedroom where Bob Dylan jumped out the window.

-This bathroom's still there.

Look, all the original pink tile is still here, which is amazing.

And there's that shot of Robbie standing here

talking about Sonny Boy Williamson in the movie.

The whole place was tiled in pink, you know.

Maybe Elvis did that.

What is now a studio,

there used to be a little guesthouse there with a stable, right?

Mr. Ed lived in the stable off-season.

What's out there?

What's beyond the stars?

The place is full of these great stories.

No, this is nice, though, it's great.

I mean it's wonderful, this new look that it has, it's great.

It's like this fabulous thing

that's been preserved and, you know, it's historic.

I mean, it's incredible, really.

The history of this place

goes really, really far back and we actually document it.

There's a three-volume history of Shangri-La that dates back,

just in these volumes at least, to 1890.

The kind of original idea that Shangri-La gets known for,

um, comes from this book, Lost Horizon, by James Hilton,

that was then a few years later turned into a Frank Capra film.

This place gives me the creeps.

Hidden away like this, no contact with civilization.

Well, you don't seem concerned at all.

Oh, I'm feeling far too peaceful to be concerned about anything.

I think I'm going to like it here.

That's where most people know about Shangri-La,

um, and what's really interesting is that

one of the actors in the Lost Horizon film

was a woman named Margo,

who was a single-name celebrity

years before Cher, from Mexico City,

who came to Hollywood and fell so in love

with the fictionalized version of it

that she actually was the one who first came here

and started building some of the structures

that still stand here on the Shangri-La property.

-Hey, how ya doing? -How ya doing, man?

-Pretty good, pretty good, yeah. -Nice.

You've done good by the place.

I'm impressed it's still standing,

because there were times when I thought, this place is doomed.

This place is gonna be burnt to the ground before we're done.

It's still a work in progress, but it's coming along.

You converted it from Mr. Ed's place to a chapel.

Yes.

That transition alone, you know, this is beautiful.

Yeah, and I like the idea of having the...

to be able to work with the doors open,

kinda indoor-outdoor.

It's fabulous.

Was the bus always here?

- No. - What do you do in here?

All kinds of stuff. We do vocals in that room.

We work on mixes in here.

We mixed half of the two

Kanye West albums ago, Yeezus, in this room.

- Look at that. - Isn't that crazy?

When we built the deck,

it was under where the deck was.

We saved it.

It lives on.

Every artist who comes, they come and they touch it.

Good rock-and-roll relic.

Yeah.

What I was doing with The Band,

in saying, "We're going to make a record in here,"

we're gonna make the studio come to us,

rather than us going somewhere,

and we go in these walls, and...

it's not our place, it's their place.

-Yeah. -And how do we make a comfort zone

that everybody feels free enough to do their best work?

♪When the rains♪

♪Fall down♪

♪On my door♪

The tapes from Northern Lights-Southern Cross,

every note was done here.

♪As true as the love♪

♪That dies untold♪

So the things that I think that are new...

these windows, I think, were here.

We put in this big door to get more light.

Now, I did a session here

with Booker T. & the M.G.'s.

Incredible.

Eric Clapton did an album here,

and then I did Neil Diamond.

- Yeah, here too. - Here.

We share Neil Diamond together,

we both have produced Neil Diamond.

-Yep. -Fantastic.

You said in The Band you had the drums here.

-Right. -And then how did everyone else sit?

What was the whole layout? Where did you sit?

Like I said, the piano was here,

and the drums were there,

and then Rick and I sat in the middle of the room.

-We insisted on eye contact. - Yeah.

Something magical happens when a band is playing

in balance with each other.

What's happening is so real.

You know, it's so real from anywhere you capture it.

That's how they do orchestras.

They don't mic everybody in the orchestra,

they get the balance.

There are versions of records

where you can hear the takes

leading up to the take,

and you hear the take before the take that you know.

It's all the same people, playing all the same parts,

at the same tempo, and...

it sounds pretty much the same and OK.

-Uh-huh. -And then all of a sudden

it's remarkable.

It's so abstract.

But you couldn't even say what changed.

It seems like it doesn't have to do with the parts.

It's some other...

Other thing.

Something else working

simultaneously that allows it to blossom.

It's like being open to the possibility

that these things that we don't understand or can't explain

happen regularly

and that it might even be possible

to support them happening.

You can't make them happen,

but we might be able to create an environment

that is conducive to it happening.

We spend a lot of time

prepping the studio for the next artist.

And that involves painting the floors

and keeping everything as new and open-looking as we can.

It needs a lot of attention to be in shape for a session.

So when you get here, there's sort of nothing

in the way between you and your creative process.

It's really... quite taken with your place there.

It has an intentionality about it that's really something.

There's something about places

where people make good things over a long period of time

that just takes on a certain energy.

I don't know if gets selected

because it had that energy to begin with,

or it's because of the work that it creates,

the ghosts are there.

We see it over and over again in these places

that you just wanna go back to and...

for some reason artists feel comfortable there.

Wow, look at the surfers.

What you seem to be able to do is

pull the authentic

out of the people that you work with,

and that's a really interesting art form.

It's kind of a Zen modality, I would imagine.

You gotta be pretty clear in order to get them to be clear.

Yes, and I think part of it is also

creating the environment to allow them

to be themselves and feel safe to be themselves

without any judgment.

But what is it you do that makes

so many different, disparate people have that experience?

I mean, what do you think?

In all legitimate humility what is it?

No, I don't know.

So you just trust your instinctive response?

It's only instinctive.

I have no skillset. I just am intuitive.

So it's, in the best sense of the word,

a magical relationship?

Absolutely. Absolutely.

And my relationship

to the taste involved

is a magical relationship, and I don't take it for granted.

It's, I know that it... it's not what's in my head.

You know, it's as much coming through me

as it comes through the artists that I work with.

So you're really...

you're sort of an absence, in a way.

I try to be. It's...

I try to be as...

My goal would be to be able to produce an artist

and have it be their best work

and never meet them or speak to them.

That would be the ultimate version of it.

I've not gotten there yet.

I haven't reached that level of skill yet.

I've never met Rick before.

At this point, Rick's contribution to music has been so massive

that like everything around it has been mythologized,

so you're quite aware that you're in this white space

because you're like, we're in Rick's space.

We're not just in a white space here,

like there's a reason this place is white,

and there's one person who's incredibly important to music

who has made that their ethos.

So it was just something very instant.

Like songs just sort of started coming.

And I feel like this is a place that you come to

to pull something a bit out of yourself emotionally.

We're also doing some stuff for the album.

This amazing, incredible new singer named Yebba.

I heard some demos that she did and I was kinda blown away

and I just said, if she wanted any help working on those...

♪But I swear I feel you with me♪

♪When I howl♪

♪Howling at the moon♪

Does Yebba still need to write lyrics for Howling ?

-Mm-hmm. - That'd be a cool thing to do,

if you wanna do it with her,

like you guys work on that while we're cutting.

These lyrics to me in this like pre-chorus type acting thing

is like...

me remembering my mom,

but also in the second verse I would want it to be

like it's this new thing where I'm remembering my mom,

finally I'm over the hump where I can have happy memories.

♪Time will heal...♪

I've never worked with an artist before

who maybe has something that's happened to them

that's... this momentous

and this is the record that they're dealing with it with.

So I just try to be sensitive to that.

♪I'll be howling over you♪

♪Cuz you're not here♪

♪You've gone somewhere♪

♪But I swear I feel you near me♪

♪When I howl♪

♪I'll be howling, I'll be howling♪

♪At the moon♪

I don't know if you know my story

but my mom shot herself outside of my bedroom window,

and I found her the next morning,

and so everything I write

is just completely obsessed with that.

Right, well, I mean, for good reason.

From that moment on and then like nothing behind.

I like forgot her because I was so struck

by such a lovely person with a gray body now.

♪Mama, light the windows♪

♪Open sill♪

♪Taking the heat off indoor♪

♪Time will heal me♪

♪I'll be howl...♪

♪Howling at the moon♪

♪I will be howl...♪

It's a memory

but also a reoccurring theme of me

realizing that this is a different season of my life.

And I use the word "season" because my dad's a pastor

and that's the language that I know.

You're walking into a new season of your life.

And I really feel like,

when I wrote that song,

that summer is here to stick around this time maybe.

♪I...♪

♪I'm waiting for the sun♪

♪To rise up again♪

♪I...♪

♪I'm waiting for the sun♪

♪To rise again♪

♪Waiting for the sun to rise again♪

♪Howl♪

♪Howling at the moon♪

♪Howling at the moon♪

♪Howl♪

♪Howling at the moon♪

♪Howling at the moon♪

♪I'll be howl...howl...♪

♪I'll be howling at the moon♪

♪The moon♪

♪Howl♪

♪I'll be howling at the moon♪

♪Howl howl♪

♪I'll be howling at the moon♪

♪I will be howling♪

People nowadays

are suffering from all kinds of negativity,

primarily stress, and a lot of people

are suffering from traumatic stress.

Negativity, stress,

and anxieties, tension, anger, fear,

all these things squeeze the tube through which ideas flow.

Negativity is the enemy to creativity.

But what are we gonna do about it?

People have to know

that within every human being is a treasury.

And this treasury is

an unbounded ocean of pure consciousness.

So within us all is unbounded intelligence,

creativity, happiness...

love, energy, power, and peace.

If we could contact that ocean,

experience it,

negativity naturally, effortlessly, lifts away.

Turn the awareness from out, out, out,

180 degrees to within, within, within.

And once we're pointed within,

we will naturally and easily dive

through subtler levels of mind,

then subtler levels of intellect,

and at the border of intellect,

we'll transcend,

we'll experience that big ocean, the treasury.

This makes me feel like it should just be the banjo.

Well, let's play the banjo. Do it.

This one's heavy, man.

Yeah, it is.

Put that on your back every night,

see if you don't get as fit as I am.

Yeah, Rob, welcome to a man's instrument.

-The "manjo."

One thing I don't do is talk about

how heavy it is every night.

Being on this planet is about

being the best version of yourself.

And what Rick said earlier on, "My job is to help you guys be

the best version of you."

He seems to facilitate that very well.

♪I live in the country♪

♪Because I love peace and quiet♪

♪But all of my neighbors♪

♪Have closets♪

♪Full of machine guns♪

♪And every Sunday♪

♪They're out there♪

♪Pretending to be Rambo♪

♪And I'm in here♪

♪Pretending like Sunday♪

♪Is still sacred♪

♪Another bang-bang shoot-em-up movie♪

♪Living room like a battle ground♪

♪A bang-bang shoot-em-up movie♪

♪Meant to push the envelope♪

♪Make me say wow♪

♪If I never hear gunfire again I'll be fine♪

♪So please turn it off♪

♪I'm tired♪

♪Of bang-bang♪

♪Bang-bang♪

♪Bang-bang♪

♪Bang♪

The bottom line artistically is, what serves the song?

♪Bang♪

And anything can work,

if you have an open enough mind about it.

Let's try something unexpected.

I don't know what it would be, but...

some unusual sound.

Sure.

-Pick up, and it'll jump out of the deck. -Let it fall?

No, pick up somewhere, wherever you think, yeah. Up.

Let it go?

Well, the six of spades jumped out of the deck,

folding in the air,

and it landed under your watch.

What?

Turn your wrist over, flip your wrist,

see if there's a card under there.

See if it's the right one.

Oh, my God.

Oh, my God!

I didn't even feel it.

So imagine this...

Yeah.

Right? And I'm gonna mimic that.

The design isn't right, but the simplicity of the idea.

Yeah, and the beauty of the imagery.

Yes. But like a kid. You know, like a dream.

It's interesting that all of it is about

allowing people to have that experience

of wonder and awe.

Because when I see a magic show, I'm always,

unless it's just sleight-of-hand guys or something, which I love,

but if I see a magic show, I'm usually very, ugh.

Yeah, it's boring.

Right, because I don't believe any of it.

But the guys that I like are the ones that they do these things

where you're like, "He must be really doing that,"

and once you know that he's really doing that,

then it makes the magic possible.

It makes it possible for you to believe that the magic is possible.

Yeah. Makes sense.

So you started doing magic when you were how old?

Nine. I was gifted a magic kit.

It looked almost like a Monopoly board set.

Yeah, one of those funny things.

And it had things like an egg cup,

and, you know, the first round.

The silly stuff that they still repackage.

But I think it also had a thumb-tip, which is really useful.

-Yeah. -Exactly.

And were you ever performing?

-I would perform... -Just to friends and stuff?

Mainly friends but when I was really young,

I would do kids' birthday parties and stuff.

♪mysterious music playing♪

Which is unusual because I was really shy.

My love of magic was bigger than my shyness.

When I was into magic as a kid,

the line between performing a card trick

and the ability to bilocate as a human being...

it wasn't so clear to me that one's fake magic and one's real magic.

It's all just kinda magic.

Through magic, you start understanding principles

of how there's the surface reality,

where I think most people spend most of their time,

and then there's a whole other

bigger story going on behind it.

♪mystical music playing♪

And I feel like music is sorta the soundtrack to that.

The unseen world.

It's all related.

Music is part of the search for magic.

♪Are you OK?♪

♪Been staring at your face♪

♪From across the room now♪

♪You seem out of place♪

♪Hmm-mm...♪

Well, music is a unifying,

mystical, uh, tool,

and we're all trying to figure out why we're on this planet.

We're seeking.

Like, if it wasn't songs, it'd be something else.

Like building a chicken house.

We probably look at building these songs

kinda like we would a chicken house.

I guarantee ya, if we were building a chicken house,

Rick would probably have some good suggestions.

No doubt. He'd be like, "Take your time."

We'd take our time,

we'd get that thing just looking beautiful.

It'd be like the super minimal chicken house.

The chickens would be very Zen inside the chicken house,

and they would probably create their best eggs.

♪ethereal music playing♪

How did you start?

What gave the name Rick Rubin the name Rick Rubin,

if that makes sense?

Always loved music.

Dedicated myself to it.

I realized that magic was a full-time commitment.

If I wanted to...

"pursue" is a funny word.

If I was gonna be interested in music,

there weren't enough hours in the day to be interested in both.

The music just took over.

I was lucky to be in New York City

at the time that hip-hop was just sort of bubbling.

It was a counter-cultural reaction

to mainstream music.

It wasn't shiny.

It wasn't polished.

It was raw

and felt more poetic and personal.

No one got into hip-hop at that time

thinking it was gonna be their road to success.

♪Money is the key to end all your woes♪

♪Your ups, your downs your highs and your lows♪

♪Won't you tell me the last time♪

♪That love bought you clothes?♪

♪It's like that and that's the way it is♪

♪Bills rise higher every day♪

♪We receive much lower pay♪

♪I'd rather stay young, go out and play♪

♪It's like that and that's the way it is♪