Episodes

Today we’re sharing one of the most intimate conversations Rick Rubin has ever had on Broken Record. It’s with the famed guitarist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, John Frusciante. Rick Rubin last spoke to John back in April when the Chili Peppers were getting ready to release their album, Unlimited Love, their first record with Frusciante in 16 years. Unlimited Love debuted at number one in the U.S. and 15 other countries. Today, just a little more than six months later, the Chili Peppers release...

Bartees Strange is an amalgamation of musical styles. Listen to any given song on his newest release, Farm To Table, and you can hear hints of early aughts emo, auto-tuned hip-hop vocals, and country blues—all housed in an indie rock veneer. Bartees wide-reaching sound makes perfect sense given his Midwest upbringing and early influences. He was raised in Mustang, Oklahoma as one of the few Black kids in an area rife with racial violence. As a teenager he discovered Christian hardcore punk and f...

Sylvan Esso’s Nick Sanborn and Amelia Meath have been making music together since 2013, when Amelia asked Nick, a music producer and bassist, to remix her band Mountain Man’s hit single “Play It Right.” He did, and the rest is history. Sylvan Esso has always had a very sleek, electro-pop feel to their production. Amelia’s powerful voice is front and center, surrounded by harmonies and samples of her own voice. Nick’s genre-destroying bass creates intricate, pulsing grooves for Amelia’s voice to ...

Today we have Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks of the Tedeschi Trucks Band on the show. Derek Trucks made his name as a slide guitar prodigy with a Hall of Fame pedigree. He’s the nephew of Butch Trucks, drummer of the Allman Brothers Band, who Derek toured with extensively throughout the 2000s before forming the Derek Trucks Band. Somewhere along the road, Derek met another great guitarist with a Berklee-pedigree, Susan Tedeschi, who is one of the best singers working today. Eventually the two ...

We have friend of the show Jack White back on the show today along with a legendary special guest. This conversation with Rick Rubin is full of fascinating ideas, asides and musical history that let you know just how deep Jack White is. Jack's work and a business ethic is unparalleled. His label Third Man Records has a rich roster of artists and three retail stores. They also own one of the few fully operational vinyl pressing plants in the U.S. which has been working overtime to keep up with th...

Today we are re-visiting one of our favorite episodes from 2019 featuring Rick Rubin in conversation with Justin Vernon and his engineer Chris Messina. In 2006 Justin Vernon started Bon Iver as a solo project after the end of a romantic relationship and the break up of his college band. Justin recorded Bon Iver's first album, For Emma, Forever Ago, alone over three months in his dad’s hunting cabin deep in the woods of Western Wisconsin. His setup consisted of a small recording rig and a couple...

Today we are revisiting one of our favorite early episodes of Broken Record with the legendary producer, Nile Rodgers. Over the course of his five decade-long career, Nile Rodgers has performed on, written, and produced some of the greatest dance songs of all time, including Diana Ross’s “I’m Coming Out,” Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky,” and Madonna’s “Like A Virgin.” Back in Fall of 2018, Nile met up with Bruce Headlam at the same New York City recording studio where 35 years earlier, Nile recorded th...

Kaytranada’s futuristic, soulful disco sound is suddenly everywhere—including on his new hit song “Twin Flame” with Anderson .Paak. The Haitian-Canadian DJ/producer got his start as a teenager by uploading J. Dilla and Flying Lotus-inspired beats to SoundCloud. In 2012 his edit of Janet Jackson’s “If” exploded and became a massive viral hit. In the 10 years since, Kaytranada has remixed dozens of records and released two studio albums, including the Grammy award-winning Bubba. On today’s episod...

Today we are featuring a chat with two members of the Nashville-based string band, Old Crow Medicine Show—lead singer Ketch Secor and drummer Jerry Pentecost. Since forming in 1998, Old Crow has helped preserve folk and blues songs that often pre-date World War II. Old Crow has also released a number of their own songs, and in the folk tradition, put their own spin on their favorite artists’ tunes. Their most successful song to date, the platinum-certified “Wagon Wheel,” was written around a Bob...

Today we are featuring a conversation with the world’s preeminent banjo player, Béla Fleck. Over the course of his four-decade career, Béla has won numerous Grammys in a variety of surprising genres including Jazz, Latin, Pop, and Classical. Last year, his latest release, My Bluegrass Heart, scored the Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album. In addition to Béla’s innovative style and expert technique, he is also an advocate for keeping the banjo’s rich historical tradition alive. In 2008, Béla made a ...

Nilüfer Yanya is a 27-year-old singer/songwriter from West London. After several years of hitting small stages with her guitar, Nilüfer broke through in 2016 with a series of soulful, indie-pop EPs and singles. Justin Richmond spoke with Nilüfer in April, just after her performance at Coachella, about the release of her second album, PAINLESS. The album’s tracks are laden with electronic drums and raucous guitar. They play like a diary entry, wrenched with heartbreak, loss, and hope. On today’s...

Swedish-born singer Neneh Cherry’s four-decade-long career has ricocheted between a number of genres including hip-hop, jazz, and trip-hop. Her first single in 1988, “Buffalo Stance,” cemented her standing as a no-nonsense Black feminist voice in contemporary urban music. This year Neneh released her sixth album, “The Versions.” It’s a collection of cover songs of some of Cherry’s biggest hits, and is performed exclusively by female artists including Robyn, Sia, and Neneh’s daughter Tyson. On t...

Today on the show, we're welcoming Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter, Lyle Lovett. Lovett follows in the footsteps of Texas troubadours like Guy Clark, Walter Hyatt, and Townes Van Zandt. In 1986, Lovett helped lay the foundation for the alternative country and Americana movements with his debut, self-titled album. Since then, he has continued to light up country music with a rich blend of country, big band, blues, folk, and jazz. All of those sounds are on display in 12th of June—his firs...

Today we have a fun follow-up to last week’s episode with Johnny Echols from the band Love. This week we’ll hear Rick interview the last two living members of The Doors—guitarist Robby Krieger and drummer John Densmore—about coming up in the LA rock scene alongside the band Love, who The Doors idolized and then later eclipsed. The Doors formed in 1965 and burned white-hot, releasing six albums in five years, until the death of their larger than life lead singer, Jim Morrison. In their brief tim...

Today we’re closing out Black Music Month by celebrating one of Rick Rubin’s favorite albums of all time—Forever Changes by the band Love. Formed in 1965, Love was a groundbreaking, interracial L.A. group. While their name isn’t usually mentioned alongside historic psychedelic bands like The Byrds or The Grateful Dead, Love’s influence is vast. Their charismatic, fashion-forward black frontman, Arthur Lee, inspired Jimi Hendrix’s look, and in the mid-60s Love was one of the hottest bands in Holl...

Today we’re continuing our celebration of Black Music Month with the incredible jazz legend, Sonny Rollins. Rollins is an American tenor saxophonist and composer who is widely regarded as one of the most influential jazz musicians of all time. Sadly, now at 91 years-old, Rollins no longer plays as a result of pulmonary fibrosis. Fortunately for us though, he's able to look back over an eight-decade career that started at the beginnings of Bebop, and included playing with the Rolling Stones, and ...

Today on the show, we’re talking to Grammy award-winning musician, Adrian Quesada who's best known as one-half of the Black Pumas. During the pandemic Adrian started working on a solo project inspired by his longtime love of psychedelic music and Latin American love songs from the ‘60s and ‘70s. The result is an album called Boleros Psicodelicos that reached number one on the Billboard Latin album chart when it was released earlier this month. On today’s episode, Adrian and a few of the singers ...

Today we’re talking to Dan Charnas—author, hip-hop journalist, professor, show runner, former A&R person for Def American, and also a longtime friend of Rick Rubin's. Charnas's latest book, Dilla Time: The Life and Afterlife of J Dilla, The Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm is the product of four years of exhaustive research and nearly 200 interviews. On today’s episode, Rick Rubin speaks with Dan Charnas about how the roots of his new book go all the way back to a trip to Detroit with rap...

Today we begin our month-long celebration of Black Music Month with PJ Morton—the New Orleans based singer/songwriter, producer, and keyboardist for Maroon 5. Morton recently released his eighth studio album Watch The Sun featuring collaborations with artists such as Stevie Wonder, Nas, Jill Scott, and Wale. On today’s episode, PJ Morton talks to Bruce Headlam about what it was like growing up as a preacher’s son and how his relationship with gospel music has impacted the way he makes music. He...

Sharon Van Etten joins us today—the singer/songwriter who Pitchfork recently crowned an “indie rock institution.” Earlier this month, Van Etten released her sixth and arguably best album, We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong. On today’s episode, Broken Record producer Leah Rose talks to Sharon Van Etten about recording her new album in her L.A.-based home studio during lockdown while attempting to balance domestic life. Sharon also explains how her inner Jersey girl comes out onstage. And why w...

Today we’ll hear Rick Rubin talk to one of his all-time favorite vocalists, Tom Jones. With his soulful baritone and unique interpretation of the American R&B and gospel, Jones became a mainstay at hip venues in London, New York and Las Vegas with now-timeless hits like “It’s Not Unusual,” and “Green Green Grass Of Home.” On today’s episode, Tom Jones shares stories with Rick from his remarkable career, including the first time he met Elvis on a movie set in Hollywood—and the night he turned do...

Today we’re talking to Stuart Murdoch and Stevie Jackson from the Scottish folk-pop band, Belle & Sebastian. After seven years, the indie pop band is releasing their ninth studio album, their first in seven years – A Bit of Previous. The album was recorded in Belle & Sebastian’s hometown of Glasgow, after plans to record in LA fell through because of the pandemic. Bruce Headlam talks to Stuart and Stevie about their new album and the band plays songs live from the new project. Stuart also talks...

Today we have a conversation between old friends Rick Rubin and Michael Stipe. Along with his former band R.E.M., Stipe's expert, open-hearted lyrics gave voice to the sensitive and misunderstood among us with hits like “The One I Love,” “Everybody Hurts,” and “Losing My Religion.” After R.E.M. broke up a little over a decade ago, Stipe followed other creative pursuits like photography. But now Stipe has found his way back to music and is working on his first ever solo album. On today’s episode...

Today we have the final interview in our month-long series with the Red Hot Chili Peppers in celebration of their new album, Unlimited Love, produced by Rick Rubin. There’s only one Chili Pepper left, Mr. “I eat-drums-for-breakfast” himself, Chad Smith. Chad has always been a bit of an outlier in the band, he’s the only member who isn’t from L.A. He’s from the suburbs of Detroit and he was reared more on classic rock than punk like the rest of the band. But Chad is an integral member of the Pep...