Jaden Smith Gets Trippy

00:00:15 Speaker 1: Pushkin, Jaden Smith's proved to be so much more than just the sum of his famous parents. At twenty three, he spent more than half his life working as an actor, a musician, and an entrepreneur. Jaden co founded the sustainable water company Just Water when he was only twelve years old. It's now valued at one hundred million dollars. I'm thinking about you every day. I think it's just Since the release of Jaden's debut mixtape in twenty twelve, he's gone on to put out three studio albums that loosely follow a semi autobiographical character named Sire, who Chase's sun sets after a painful breakup. Jaden's latest album, Cool Tape Volume three Day Tripper's Edition, picks up with Sire's personal journey, but this time around set to a psychedelic rock inspired soundscape. On today's episode, Jaden talks to Rick Rubin about an ex girlfriend who inspired him to embrace the sixties and seventies classic rock sound that influenced his latest album. He also explains how recording with live musicians as opposed to building tracks digitally, brought a new found energy to this project, and Jaden also tells Rick how growing up at Malibu allows him to feel intimately connected to the Beach Boys. This is broken record liner notes for the digital Age. I'm justin Richmond. Here's Rick Rubin and Jaden Smith. Who's been going on main How are you bro? Thank you so much for having me. I'm glad we're doing this. I was. I can't remember i was, but I saw a flyer up for your new projects, like, oh we should talk. Wow, Oh thank you man. Yeah, I've I've been putting them up like in Malibu and like just all around nice. Yeah, tell me what's been going on. How was the process of making this one different than the previous ones? So, you know, with this one, I feel like I was really trying to dive into just into music theory and to learning about the history of music. And I feel like with the other ones that I was kind of just like, hey, you know, this is how I feel about things that are going on in my life right now, and I'm going to kind of talk about it. And you know, with Sire, for example, that one was all about like heartbreak in like a relationship that had gone through, and it was kind of about like the aftermath of that relationship with what happened to me afterwards, and I kind of just went fully into that, but just kind of in a place of like, hey, you know, these are my influences, this is what I like, this is the type of music that I make. And with this project, I'm really like, you know what, I know that those have been my influences historically, but I want to dive into some different type of music, you know. And I really started listening to like really just kind of old school classic rock and roll music, and I started to get into Chuck Berry, and I started to get into Little Richard and and you know, I started listening to the Beats Boys and the Beatles and like really trying to like really go in and like listen to the words and listen to the chords, like just try to understand what's happening. That was really an eye opening experience for me. And I feel like that's kind of the difference from this project and a lot of other projects that I've worked on, is me kind of sitting there as my guitar teacher and being like, hey, well talk to me about this song, and talk to me about what's happening in this song and why does it, you know, why does it feel like this? And just going through it and just kind of trying to just learn from experience and from history. That was the major difference. Yeah, Yeah, I definitely got some feelings listening to it that just reminded me of old music that I really like to listen to and flavors that I'm not used to hearing today and I miss you know like that I can't remember then, I'm not good with names, but second track in particular had just like a real breezy vibe that just reminds me of like old music that I like to listen to. Totally don's fallen for you, And that's the one that we really like focused on a lot to be like, yeah, we just want to make something that just feels good. We don't want it to like kind of live in any genre in any world. We just wanted to feel good and to just to come alive, and so we worked on that was actually one of the first songs that we worked on for the album. That's We made that song and we were like, wow, we should try to make an album in this kind of sound, you know, and in this kind of vibe. And I put justin on that song because I wanted to take like some old school flavors and then bring people that you know are here and that are working right now on the industry and put them onto that type of a vibe and me and him to do that together. That was just like I just love making music with him too, So that was just an excuse to just be with someone that I really care about. And but yeah, I wanted to give that type of a different flavor to the youth right now to let them know, hey, you know, we could also do this. Who played drums on that? Do you know? I actually worked with a really amazing jazz drummer on that one. I'm blinking on their name right now. The vibe was great, just amazing, amazing. They were so good that we actually brought them on to play drums on a bunch of the other songs too, because it was just like it was just just such a groove that they found on that day, and even like recording live drums like that wasn't something that I was like, you know, I had done that a little bit before on like the Irish album, when I was trying to go for more of like a more of a punk sound, but like, I still even when I was working on that album, a lot of the drums were just made in the computer and everything. It's always just made in the computer, you know nowadays. And I really the eye opening part about it was like trying to pick up a guitar and learn how to play the guitar and trying that and seeing how difficult that is, and me still being on that journey and recording bass live or how you know when you play a guitar into the computer that it sounds different than when you plug it into an amp and then you put a mic in front of it and then you put that into the you know, like just all these different things that I was like, Man, I feel like I'm learning so much on this journey, and I want to bring my fan base and my generation with me on that journey. Yeah. The other song that I remember that really stuck out to me was next to the last song, Oh yeah, the Bret's Sire right from the time it came on the viewing caught me, you know, the emotion and the music thank you so much. Yeah, So when I was working on that one, that one's kind of like the end of the album, and that's that's the song where it's like, you know, Sire, My first album was all about the heartbreak and what I went through, and so Sire is my middle name, and Jade Smith is how people referred to me on the world. Jayden is how people refer to me at home. But I felt like, you know, people out in the world didn't get me. People at home didn't get me. So I wasn't Jaden. I wasn't Jaden Smith. I was Sire because I was this like other thing that was like just confused and like in the sunset all the time. So that was me after I got my heart broken and cool te vob three was me before I got my heartbroken. And that's why that last song is the birth of Sire, because that's me going into it, and that's me kind of accepting, Hey, this young love that we had is like kind of like over now. I was actually really inspired by She's Leaving Home, and that's why I mentioned Melanie Coe inside of the song, and it kind of felt like, you know, she's leaving home being about a different type of relationship with somebody leaving home, and this one felt like kind of like a girlfriend that you love or somebody is like leaving home, leaving everything that you know of like this relationship together of like, so that's just kind of how like these historical references have touched me in a specific way made me feel a way where it's like, hey, I want to talk about that aspect of the side of it. And then that guitar is like kind of a guitar melody that's coming in earlier in the album of a song called Rainbow bab But then my guitar teacher put a like a harmony in our peggiated harmony with it along at the same time. And then that's when it really just brought out all of these like emotions from me because it felt like two things that were going on at the same time that we're working together for so long, and then eventually they just kind of fall apart towards the end of the song. In so that one, that one's really close to me because that one is like the precursor to like everything that had done on my first album. So I'm glad that you liked that one because that's the one that I'm really obsessed with as well, because yeah, it just had it had, as I say, right right from the beginning, it had a feeling that just sucked me in, and I love when music can do that, you know. I mean, there's just an emotion there that you don't know what it is about it, but just draws you in and like forces you to pay attention. I love that feeling. Thank you. I really appreciate that. And we were trying to just experience met with different things on this album as well, because I love when music can influence people in their normal lives, you know. And I love how some music from these historical references that I'm always talking about, a lot of music I would listen to, I'll be surprised of how many Eastern or different types of instruments that I would be hearing in this music and how it makes me feel. And it would kind of like, you know, like the buzz of a satar kind of makes you feel in like a meditative way. I don't I don't know if it's the way that the notes are set up, and like me even learning like a Western keyboard versus a Eastern keys and how they work and how they make you feel differently. I really wanted to bring certain elements into this album that we're like make people feel meditative almost in a way, because I really wanted to get across that feeling of just like that calm and that stillness that can come over, you know, a person, and I wanted to try to capture that in some of the songs. When you're writing, is the music or the lyrical piece more important to you? Would you say? I think, to me, the lyrics are going to be the most important thing. But throughout the course of this album, my teachers have helped to show me that, hey, it's about the whole thing, and it's also about the music, and it's about everything that you're doing with that, and it's about how that moves and where that goes, and that it doesn't just stay the same. And they made me realize that as a human being, that you don't want to just listen to something that's on loop all the time. You kind of want to hear something that's alive. You kind of want to hear something that's moving and has these micro changes or these vast changes in it that kind of feels like it's breathing. And that's when I started to realize how important it is to have a band, to work with a band, to work with people who are playing live and the difference between you know, click click click record this stack that stack, that stack, that stack that let me do my vocals now, and opposed to, hey, let's all do it. Let's go right now, let's feel the vibe. We're all humans, we're all alive. We can do this if we focus. So let's do it. There's something in there that gets captured that just makes it so beautiful. And the decisions that each musician is going to make. Oh, you know, I know he said we were going to do this, we rehearsed to this, but I feel like doing this right now, and I have to go with it because you know, you have me here, because I'm a human and I make split second decisions, you know, at the drop of a dime, to like push the song into a different place. And throughout the process of the album, I realized that, man, the music is so important. For example, with a song like Falling for You, you know, with rapping, you know, you can come up with sixteen bars that are sick, and then you can go up to somebody and be like, yo, try it on that, tryed it on that, try it on that, tried it on that, and figure out which works best. But with this, it was like the guitar came and the vocals came in the bass. It all came at the same time, you know, and it was like boom, and it kind of just glued together. And so now I feel like the music is extremely important and I need to I'm trying to grow as a producer and just how I arrange things because it's very important. Would the melodies come before the words or do they come together for you? The melodies come before the words. Usually they come like far before the words, where I'll have enough time to just even record the melodies down before I even have the words. And then once I have time to know that, I'm not going to lose the melodies because I feel like I don't lose words. Really, I'm good at keeping track of words, but melodies. Since I'm not fluent in music theory, it's easy for me to lose melodies because I'm not like, oh, that was that melody? You know what I mean? It's like, or oh, let me play it on the guitar. It sounded like this. I can't. I'm not to that level yet. So I'm like, when I find a good melody, I'm like, oh, I have to record it down right now because I'll forget So just record this and then I will come up with lyrics later. And then just in life do you record, Like will you record a melody into your phone or a lyric idea or a vocal idea? How do you save them? So I will record if I have like two devices, I will record a melody idea into a phone, or I'll just record it, you know, with no music, and I'll just record the straight melody right there. Sometimes, but usually a lot of the times, I won't even listen to certain things until I get into the studio so that if I do get inspired, that I have everything that I need right there to record it the best way, because you know, the melody comes to me, and then the harmony comes to me, and then all of these things come to me where I then I'm like, oh, I'm getting lost. Which one was the original one? Which one was the stack? Which one was that maybe one that I would maybe add in. That started to get really difficult, and harmonies was a whole other journey on this album that I just I couldn't recognize harmonies when I started this album, and now I can, maybe recognize one. You know. Now I can sing and I can always maybe get you know, one of the harmonies, um, but then I'll need help on other ones. But at the beginning of the album, it's like I had no no way of recognizing harmonies, and it was it was really a journey to get to get all the way to the end of the album. And now when I'm working on the deluxe, like just going back in and working on different parts of the album and just like beefing them up, I'm just starting to see how much I've just grown from even working on this deluxe version of the album. I think it's gonna be something really special. And with the visuals too, I think I think you're gonna like the visuals. They're gonna they're gonna be really cool. We'll be back after a short break with more from Rick Rubin and Jaden Smith. We're back with more from Rick Rubin's conversation with Jaden Smith. Before you talked about Jaden Smith and Jaden Sire. Is that more how people see you or do you feel like you're all of those people at different times? I've feel like that's how people see me. But since that's how they see me. It does feel like I do switch around from like different types of personnel because I'll know i'm going on stage, people see me like this when I'm on stage, So I'm gonna I'm not gonna burst their bubble. I'm gonna be myself, but I'm also gonna give them the version of myself that they're expecting to see right now. You know. So it's like I going on the stage and I'm like boom, I'm doing this, And then when I go to a conference to talk about sustainability, I'm like, Okay, everybody in here is thinking like this. They're thinking about these things. These are the things that are important to them. These are the you know, everybody in here hasn't seen my album. They've probably seen Jus Water. They've seen what I'm doing with five or one C three. So therefore I'm going to present that version of myself to them, you know, just for the sake of all of us. But I always feel like I am myself, and I feel like Jaden is the one who holds the many. You know. It's like going through growing through your teenage years and going through those different phases of your life and you're like, I'm a punk now like NA, like I want to be a psychedelic rock star. Nah, I'm a rapper. No, I'm not. I'm an actor. I feel like I just held onto all of those different phases that I went through and I put them in my pocket just in case I was like, Hey, little punk phase that you went through when you're making iris, just put that in your pocket, you know what I'm saying, because you never know something might happen in the future to where, oh, you know, you feel like this or like that or whatever you want to yell or whatever. Okay, you pulled a little punk phase out of your pocket, you can you can snap right back into that, you know. And even the phase that I'm in right now in my life, it is the phase that I was in when I was, you know, fifteen sixteen years old. When I was you know, living this this love story, this psychedelic love story that I talk about in the album. You know, when I was living that, I was like fifteen sixteen years old. I had dreads like how I have right now. You know what I mean. I'm just I'm twenty three now and I'm I'm not fifteen anymore. But I feel like I kept that fifteen year old version of myself for this moment, So that could be like, you know what, the dreads are coming back, the guitars aren't coming back. All the singing songs and the talking about being in love and the flowers and the psychedelic like vibe, it's all back. I remember, like when I was like fifteen years old that I would like I went to Coachella and I was like, this is amazing. I love this energy that's here. And then I was like, I wonder what the history of this is. And then I started to just dive into Woodstock and into everything of nineteen sixty seven in Beuth of New York, and I was like, oh my gosh, this is crazy. Then I realized that my grandmother was one of those people who was on her way to Woodstock and got stuck in the line, Like what's happening. I'm diving into the music. But now I'm learning more about my own family. I didn't know that my grandma tried to do that. I didn't know that she used to love the Beatles. So I have a song on the Deluxe called Your Voice, where it's about you know, grandma went to Woodstocks. That's what the song's about, and it's about like my story of being in love with this girl right now, and then also talking about how my grandma went to Woodstock, because you know, I'm always trying to like create these positions where it's like that doesn't even make sense. And yeah, it's just been a whole just like soul searching journey. But yeah, I feel like I am Jaden and all of those different things exist in me and I just pulled them out. It's like different colors. I just pulled them out for the for the piece, for the painting. That sounds great. It's like more tools in your arsenal to whatever the job needs, you know how to achieve it. So that's great. Thank you. You brought up your grandma and you brought up being at one point your punk phase. And it's not unusual for kids to rebel again see their culture against their parents. And you have particularly cool parents, like particularly forward thinking parents. Have you ever felt the need to like rebel against them or is it more like they feel more like you're on the same page most of the time. No, I think I'm really on the same page with my parents most of the time. And for a lot of years in my life, I've always been on the same page with them. But when I was fifteen, that is in the time where I felt as though that was rebelling against my parents and that I wanted to do other things and that they you know, it's just I felt like how every fifteen year old feels, where it's like, hey, you know, I want to do and experience different things. And that's when I really started to tap into my music. And that's when I really started to dive into my music, and that's where I would pour out my heart, you know. And that's why fifteen flash forwards and now it's like it's so important to me this music because that's always where I've poured out my heart. And like, that's why this relationship that I was in when I was fifteen was so important to me even now to this day, and it still affects me because that was the time in my life where I was like, I'm rebelling against my parents, I'm rebelling against the things that I've known in my life, and I'm putting my faith over here because this is what I've leaving my music. You know, this girl that I'm in love with, this like new life, like we're going to run away into the sunset type of energy, and then we didn't, and then I was just left into the sunset by myself, rebelling against my parents, breaking up with this thing that I thought that I could create this ho new world with. And then now I'm just on a hill and the sun is setting and the sky goes pink, and then Cyrus born. In that moment, I'm like, oh no, I'm trapped in the sunset forever. That's when my obsession with sunsets began, and that's when I was like addicted to sunsets, Like, oh no, I have to go watch the sunset right now, Like oh, so and so wants to hang out, Like you have an opportunity to like start a new relationship, to be with like a new person, to like start something new. No, I don't want to do that. I'm gonna go watch the sunset. You know. Oh there's you know, something's happening. You know, the family's doing this, we're getting together. Oh yeah, I can hang out with you guys in the day, but as soon as the sunsets, I have to leave. Like it got like that, and that's when I made my first album you know, I took three years to do that. That's when I made Icon, That's what I made all these different songs, and I created the Boy in the Sunset Sire, and this album is about hey hold on. It wasn't always like that, though, because there was a time where he lived in Sunset City where he was happy, you know, and he lives with the girl Lucy, and they were happy. And then eventually, by the time we get to the birth of Sire, which is a song that we were talking about, Lucy has left and Sire has now just these guitars in the hills and the dust and the sunset, and it's like, I don't know if you're home, but sure, you know, I'm all alone. It's like it's just like just straight to the point, like I'm just bound myself on a hill. There's not much to it. Do you make it a point to see to watch the sunset every day? Yeah, I'm gonna show you a video of yesterday's sunset, because I too, am a sunset lover. And yes, it's particularly good. I'm just I'm just obsessed with them. Man, Like, let's see if I can get to sounds. Oh my gosh, stopped it then yesterday. That's ridiculous. That's ridiculous. I cannot believe that. And the colors were changing so fast and so radically and psychedelically, it was unbelievable. It went from like everything in front of me the ocean turned pink, and then to the right it was bright yellow, and then it turned purple, and then it all went dark and it just kept wild color changes, wild beautiful magnificence. So amazing. Yeah, I live for that. You know, the music that I make. I hope that some people that are just in love and going through some similar situations can look at the sunset and hear a song like the Birth of Sire and they're like, Yo, I'm sad, I'm whatever. But you know, there's other people out there that, you know, relate to me. There's a whole group of these people that relate to what I'm going through, you know what I mean, and what's happening, and that are also here watching the sunset. And that's really what I'm trying to create, like a community of people because also with the pandemic and everything that's happened, the mental health of people is just at a rapid decline right now. It's creating serious mental problem mental health issues for everyone. But I'm specifically worried about the people that are like under twenty two years old that are going to be dealing with this stuff, that are inside that are scared, and I just want them all to know that everything's going to be okay. You know, it's one thing to go through a pandemic, and it's another thing to go through a pandemic and to go through a breakup and to go through all these other things that everybody is going through. So I just want people to know, hey, we're here for you. We're all here for you, and we all go through crazy things. And I also try just a part of just me, I try to like I don't want people to always think that like everything is just like perfect and okay in my life, you know what I mean. I don't want to come across as one of those people where it's like, oh, you know, this is fun and this is fun and everything that I do is fun and everything is awesome. It's like I want people to know where it's like, man, nah, I'm gonna come clean it with you guys. Like if I'm having a not good day, I'm going to tell you that I'm not having a good day. I'm going to tell you that, you know, this hurt my feelings, that I'm sad, that I'm scared or whatever, because sometimes when you see everybody else around you it's just having the best time and you're like suffering in silence, that it makes it so much worse. So I just wanted everyone to know that it's like, hey, we're here together, and we don't have to suffer in silence, Like we can make music together and like change the world and like and like impact everybody around us, and everybody gets lonely and regardless of we can have great things happen in our lives and we still have severe hardships and unhappiness all the time. It's it's a regular part of life. So it's I definitely understand what you're talking about and the and they're something. Also you talked about the album having a meditative quality, and you talked about being alone and paying attention to the sunset. And in both of those cases, those are like solitary moments and maybe some sadness brought you to them, but within them there's great beauty. Great beauty, yes, And I feel like That's what I ultimately realize throughout the story of Sire, and that is the metaphor of the subset where you have this love, they no longer have you wander up like just a road because that's the only thing there. There's just nothing else. There's just a dirt road where I live, there's just hills and horses and like that's it. And you know, so it's just a dirt road and you walk up it and then you get to a hill and you think your relationships over, You think that the love in your life is over. You think that your happiness is over, and the day is over, everything's over. But then when you get to the top of the hill and the day finally ends, everything goes pink. And at that point you can realize, Wow, magic exists, Miracles exist, happiness can still exist, meditation exists, and you know it's not about just you know, there's a difference between being alone and being lonely, you know what I'm saying. And it's like, and I want people to realize that you can grow into a place where you could be by yourself, but it can be fine, and it can be beautiful, and it can be a happy and amazing experience once we talk through all of this trauma and all of these different things that we've gone through, and then we can sit with ourselfs and our thoughts, and we can try to steal our mind to the point beyond thoughts, and we can really get to a beautiful, beautiful place. That's what the metaphor of the sunset is to me. It's like the blossoming of the flower. Tell me about your relationship to meditation. When did you first encounter it and what's your practice? Like, I think that my mom has always, ever since I was very young, my mom has been interested in meditation. There's these pictures of my mom and my sister meditating in New York City at an apartment that we were living in a New York City where my dad was shooting Men in Black Too, or he was shooting a movie in New York. And there's a photo of my mom and my sister meditating that I remember. So I just feel like it's been a part of my life for really a long time. But then also at that point of fifteen years old, when I said that I was having that rebellion away from my parents, I started to dive deeper into meditation. I started to learn more, I started to read more. Then I started to to really get down to an understanding that I didn't previously have and that I was like, I thought it. Yeah, I thought that meditation was something different than what it actually was. And I learned that you can meditate with your eyes open, you know what I mean. You can meditate, tate while you walk, that you can meditate while you do things. And then I started to learn about Taoism and Zen and that like all of these different that there's meditative arts that you can do these different things in their meditation that you can the way that you shoot a bow and narrow can be meditation. The way that you draw and the way that you create art and lines in the sand you can be a meditation. I had no idea of that. I was like everybody else where. I thought that meditation was, you know, you have to sit down, you have to say a mantra, you have to close your eyes. If you open your eyes, you're not good at meditating. And I thought that you could be good or bad at it. I didn't know that it was something that we all have inside of us, or it's like that wave of feeling that you feel when you're getting so tired and you just go into the feeling of your body and how it feels, and just feeling every different part of your body. Like I didn't understand it for what it was. And then at fifteen, I started to begin to tap in and to read these different books, and then me and my group of friends, you know, we all started to tap in on what it was. And then and we slowly started to put that into our music and slowly started to put that into everything that we do. And then you know, you can get to that. We got to the front, you know, we got to the beginning of the of the trail. We saw the beginning of the trail, and then we then proceeded to begin our slow journey and walk in. It was like, you know, of course we're still at the beginning, but it was really ie opening to just see the beginning of the trail and be like, oh wow, it's different than what we thought. It's more attainable than what we thought. We're gonna take a quick break, but we'll be right back with more from Jade and Smith. We're back with the rest of Rick Rubin's conversation with Jade and Smith. How has your relationship to music changed from Let's start with you, what's your first memory of music? And wife, Oh my mom in the car. And the first song that I can really remember memorizing was the living my life like is go and living my life Lie is Gold Live and Life Like. That's the first so that I can remember, like really memorizing. And then of course I remember watching Thriller for the first time, just being scared, just being so scared to watch Thriller and then understanding why my parents like had me watch it because then I got to the end and then I saw the dancing and I was like, yes, oh, the first memory this is not even a real memory, but my mom used to put on Michael Jackson videos when I was like very young, So I guess that's the first memories that I have of music is trying to dance to Michael Jackson songs. And what would be the first time you remember where you felt like the music was yours, Like it wasn't what your mom was listening to, it wasn't what your dad was listening to. It's like, this is my shit. What was that moment? I think it was when I got an iPod that I started to genuinely believe like it was mine. Was that the first iPod, like the first generation iPod. I got the first generation iPod, and a little bit before that, I had started listening to E forties and I had my first iPod, and that's when I was like listening to E forty and then I started to listen to eminem and then that's what I was listening to. Music that people were like, oh, you shouldn't be listening to that. I felt like I had control of, Oh, well, you think I shouldn't be listening to it, but I'm still gonna. I'm still gonna listen to it. And the music genuinely feels like it's mine. It's not my mom's, it's not anyone else's, it's it's really really mine. So it's really it was really kind of harder hip hop. That was where you found your personal love of music, Like, yes, your music, you know, because I had I had my older cousins, I had my older brother, I had a lot of older influences in my life, and I always loved to hang out with the bigger kids, and I was a middle child, so I kind of could, you know, because I wasn't the youngest, so it's like they would be like, well, least it's not the youngest, you know what I mean. So they would let me to hang out with them sometimes and I would listen to certain things that they were listening to. But yeah, it was the harder hip hop that would really change my life and and make me really inspired until I heard I think it was Viva La Vida by cold Play on YouTube. It was a Kingdom Hearts video that had like Viva la Vita in the background, and I was just like, oh wow, what's this? What is this? This is blowing my mind. That's the first time I was like, Okay, what is this sound? What are those instruments? And the way that they're just choosing to say these lyrics and sing them. I was like, what's going on? And I feel like that song and I never even realized that, But like I feel like with I don't like, I feel like without hearing that song that I would not have gone down the rabbit holes that I've gone down to to create these things like cool tapot three and singing and doing all that stuff. But really, I can't talk about like music becoming my own and coming into my own without talking about Man on the Moon One by Kid Cutty. That was the first time that I was like, music can transport you to different locations in space and time like that. That's when I was like, yo, music is a portal and a transformation device for the soul. Like I was like, okay, music can like make people better and it can change the course of history. That's when I with Man on the Moon One. That's when I realized it just by hearing it. And then I realized it once again. And when I had realized that other people had heard the album and they had also felt the same way, but not that other people, but like almost everybody else has also heard the album and they feel the same way about it, then it blew my mind again because I thought that Cutty was just something that me and my brother listened to because we were just like whatever, and like I would just lived in a bubble like with me and my brother. That's it, you know what I mean. And then I went outside and I was like, oh my gosh, everybody listens to this. This changed everyone's life. Oh my gosh, that's awesome. Cutty is the coolest person ever. I want to be like him. And then that's when it kind of really started to spiralal and I was like, I gotta make music, man, I gotta make music. If I could maybe make anyone on the earth, just one person, feel like how I felt after I listened to Man Them on one, then I did it. Beautiful music has such incredible power. It really can take you away. It happens to me all the time where I closed my eyes when I listen to music, and if I'm listening to music with my eyes closed and I'm really present with the music, and the peace ends and I opened my eyes and I'm surprised I'm in the place that I'm in because I've been so far gone in the music that coming back is strange. Yeah, it really is, because it just takes you away. And that's how I felt the other day when I was listening to Man on the Moon one up on the Hill, and I was like, oh my god, Like I just almost started crying because I was like, gosh, this is take me back to like where I was when I was fifteen, when I was like so confused when Saya was first born, Like yeah, it just it takes me back. It's like a cool thing byting three is trying to take place in that time of my life, you know what I mean. So it was just like it was a really crazy experience. Have you ever kept a dream diary? You know, I have a trouble remembering my dreams, but what I do know about my dreams. Well, I'm gonna start keeping a dream diary now because you said so. But what I do know about my dreams is that I always go back to the same places. This is one place that's like a resort by the beach that like is totally impossible. It's kind of like inception, Like it's it doesn't that architecture doesn't make sense, but it's by the beach. And then I'm always by beach and the waves are always way too big at the beach every time, and like I always go back there and I live different dreams there, and then I have another dream where it's like I'm in this super tall skyscraper and I keep going through the elevator, and like every time I go through the elevator, it's just like some crazy stuff. But I'm going to start keeping a little dream diary. Cool. I have some suggestions if you do do it. First thing is keep the pen in the paper right next to the bed, and as soon as you wake up, trying not to move at all, just start writing, like in whatever position you wake up in. Because if you and there's another thing, if you ever wake up after having a bad dream and you don't want to remember the dream, if you shake your head, the chemicals it's like it's a chemical reaction the dream. So if you don't move, you have a better chance of remembering the dream if you shake. If you move, it like it dislodges the memory of the dream. Another thing it's interesting is that as soon as you start writing it, write as much as even if you don't remember much, just remember, write down what you remember, and you'll see through the process of writing it, more of the dream will come back. It's like it's something about that process of writing it down and thinking about it, and it just starts. You'll think you remember like one little picture, and you start writing to pick what the picture is, and it's with as much detail as possible, and then it'll end up going for pages of information. Wow, I'm gonna start doing it. Actually, I feel like I have to mention this too. The reason that I made this album was because somebody that I was with, she was obsessed with like old rock and roll music and she would only only listen to it. And we would hang out and I would try to play my music around her and she would just she wasn't having it. But like I loved her and we like spent all of our time together and she just she would listen to some of it, but she really wasn't having it, and she would play guitar for herself. And she's an amazing singer too. And oh, she's actually on a song that I have called Photograph. She's on that song with me because she wanted to be on the song and it's about us breaking up. So she inspired me to make this album because she made she changed my taste of music. And it's actually something that I mentioned in a song that I have called Fallen, which is on Sire, where I say, you know, you change my taste of music. But this is like the real repercussions of that really playing out in Cool Tap Volume three, where it's like even when we broke up, she made me want to be like this thing that would be like good for like the version of myself that she would want is what I was like creating with Cool Tap Volume three and a version of myself where I'm like, hey, let me give this other thing a chance. Maybe she's a genius. You know what I mean, she is, you know what I'm like, maybe I should give this whole thing a chance. And I went from being like, oh my gosh, my girlfriend is playing you know these songs all all the time to being like she's not here and I'm playing them all the time, and I have the vinyls and I'm da dada, I'm diving into it. And she really really opened me up to a lot of different music. And that's what took me down the place where it's like I want to study this. I want to study this. I want to study this and just go deeper and deeper and deeper into it and not to study and actual like visit places where historical things have happened. Like I went to a studio here in Los Angeles where I know that the Beach Boys recorded some of pet Sounds, you know, And I went there and I just sat there and I was like, this is just an amazing experience. I just want to I just want to be in this room to say that I've been in this room not too long ago. I actually went to Liverpool not too long ago because I just wanted to go. I just wanted to go. I wanted to see it. I sat next to the eleanor Rigby's statue. I went into the Cavern Club, you know what I mean. I watched people play on stage. I went to Penny Lane, I got straight back onto the train and I had to go back to London. But I was only there for a second while I was like, I'm not gonna come even close to this place without going, like I have to go, and I have to go and see it. And it was just such a beautiful experience. And while I was there, my friend called me and he was like, Bro, you have to see this new like TV show that comes out. It's just Paul McCartney and Rick Rubin talking about music. And I was like, Bro, there's no way that you're calling me about this when I'm here on Penny Lane right now in Liverpool, Like you can't be talking to me about this, Like dude, this is crazy. And then yeah, so like and and by the way, that was just totally awesome everything you guys did together. But yeah, I just love I love music. I love music history and everything, and and just to study about it because I feel like it can really inform what we're doing now. Because I got so lost into the charts of like where we're at right now and everybody's releasing and take and everything. I got so lost that I was like, hold on, let me just let me take a bunch of steps back really quickly, and let me educate myself and then let me try to come out with something else. Two of the things you said really resonate with me. One is going to a recording studio where great things have been made. I historically have always tried to work in place as much as possible where there's a history of making good music in that space. And I don't know what it is. It's like it's like going to a great cathedral, you know, Like whenever I go to New York, I always go to Saint John the Divine in Harlem. There's a European style cathedral, the only one in the United States in Harlem, and I go there and I meditate every time I'm in New York and just the feeling it's built to the harmonic proportions of a human being. It's a it's a huge structure, huge. You've heard the expression like the ring of truth. You know, there's a there's a rhythm sence in this room that's like the ring of truth when you're when you're in it. So to just be in that space really is enlivening. And the same is true with recording studios that where you know, I've had the great blessing of getting to work in Abbey Roads Studio too, where the Beatles recorded not many times, but a couple of times, and so much magic occurred in that room that it can't help but have some effect. I don't know whether it's a physical effect or a psychic effect or a psychological effect. I don't know how it works. But when you come into a place where something great happened, I feel like you have an expectation in yourself to like tap into whatever that is. You know. It's like there are many arenas in the in the country, but for some reason, Madison Square Garden has this like air of magic about it, you know, like I think Former Ali happened in Madison Square Garden. And so you can play at NASA Coliseum an hour away, or you can play at Madison Square Garden. They're about the same size, and for some reason, when you're playing at Madison Square Garden, it feels like it's historic and you're playing an hour away to the same number of people in the same place, and it just feels regular. So I mean, still great, Still you know, twenty thousand people, twenty thousand people, But you know what I'm saying, there's some magical thing that these places take on that we can't understand, and if any opportunities to tap into those energies feels really strong. And then on the other side, seeing places that inspired great songs, like I've never been to Penny Lane, but when I think of the song Penny Lane, I think a Penny Lane as a magical place. It doesn't exist on the planet. So to be able to go there and see that it's it's just a place that's part of town helps us as creators to know, Oh, I can notice the things around me, and depending on the way I frame them and the story I tell with them, someone else can have that experience like I have of the magic place Penny Lane, or you know with the Mamas and the Papas talking about California dreaming. When I grew up in New York. Like for me, it was a dream to someday get to see California, you know, just because it was in the music, you know, I wanted to just see it, just like someday Yeah, or the San Francisco song Yeah, Flowers in your Hair San Francisco. I remember going to Hey Ashbury and being like, oh my gosh, like this is this is where they're writing the song about, like hippie Hill, like San Francisco. Like I've been here, but not like this, you know what I mean. Like it was like this is the coolest thing. And then I actually performed in San Francisco. Sadly it wasn't for this album, but I still didn't and I was like, man, this is amazing. This is cool, you know, I love it. And yeah, everything you're saying it is just so so true and it's it's just beautiful. I remember I went to I was in Milan and there's this magnificent like cathedral in Milan as well, and it was my first time going there and it was just so tall and so amazing that it's like certain spaces they really truly do hold a specific energy and it will affect us and like how you're saying in some type of way, I don't know how, but it truly does, and it's just it's beautiful. What have you been listening too lately? Where would you say your paste range? Now? So I've been listening to a lot of the same stuff. So I'm just listening a lot of the Beach Boys because I'm trying to work on my harmonies. And then I also feel like, you know, I love the Beatles so much, and I love going to London and going down and like, you know, just a second ago, I went outside of the Abbey Road studios and I just looked at the things and the things and I was like, yes, this is amazing. But with the Beach Boys, I feel like, I don't know, I feel like it's buried in my soul somehow because it's like Malimpo, like that's where I grew up, you know what I mean. I feel like I've walked on the same sand as them, you know, and I'm so connected to it. So I'm listening to a lot of the Beach Boys. I'm listening to obviously a lot of the Beatles. I'm listening to a lot of Homeshake and now I'm starting to listen to rap music again, and I really am listening to a lot of trip called quest though, that's what I'm really listening to a lot of. Yeah, I really liked when you did your your radio show on Apple. I thought you picked great your music. I wanted to ask, like, where do you hear new music? What's your What are the ways that you find the new things that speak to you. There's the show on Apple TV. It's called nineteen seventy one, and I'm watching this this new show, and it's really about history of music. And I like to go back and and find like really dope albums that I find in the history of music, like Tapestry, you know what I mean, and finding old, old, just songs that I never heard of before, or like Slide the Family Stone. People that I've heard of are like, oh, yeah, I've heard this song before, but not like, oh, let me listen to the whole album. So that's really how I've been doing it, is going and just going backwards to find music, and then also just like finding somebody that I like, like Slide the Family Stone, and then just being like all right, cool, I'm going to look at their related artists. You know, I'm going to look at their contemporaries or who did they listen to? You know, I'm always looking for what other people are listening to, and that's how I try to find new songs. And I also just feel like so much like music history related content is coming out too, because people are really getting interested in this, it feels like and it's just a blessing for those of us who are out there just trying to learn more and learn more about it. Who your favorite rappers? I'm going to start off this is like not in order of like number one, but I'm just gonna be like Q tip you know for sure, and then or just try to call question general. I gotta say jay Z too, I gotta say most deaf, Q tip jay Z, most Deff. I gotta say Biggie, and I also have to say Tupac. I also love caras work. Do you write down either lyrics or phrases? Like just in life? If you if you get either a phrase or a couplet, would you write it down? Yeah, Like I might think of something like while I'm up on the hill, like oh, you know, like like fragmented like rainbow, like a piece of a rainbow that you would see like oh okay, yeah, that's tight, like fragmented rainbow or like rainbow bap or like you know, I feel like Cavin Fever was like that a lot, a little bit, like I got that Cavin fever, you know, just like writing that down. Yeah, I'm definitely just writing random things down at different times to like try to pull to pull from or like just remembering certain things, Like there's all these equestrian trails around me, so it's like, you know, making a song it's just about the equestrian trail because that's where I was when like Sire was born, you know, and that could be like your Penny Lane. Yeah, yeah, totally, yeah, yeah, because totally you know, it's like trying to create something magical out of just an ordinary, mundane thing that's in my neighborhood. Cool. It may be too soon to ask this, but is do you really have a vision of what the next like, what the next phase of your work is going to be like compared to what you're doing now. Yeah. Yeah, because I realized because I just did a performance recently, and during that performance, I realized that this album has been made in like by myself pretty much. I made it during Like Quarantine and Like Being Alone, which was perfect for the album, and it's made for people who are in their rooms, who you know, maybe are meditating or on some type of psychedelic journey on the top of a hill or in their room, or just vibing out for a day, to just kind of catch a vibe and to tap into the flow of just like happiness in the world, in life, you know. And so for this next phase of my musical journey, I think that I'm really going to tap back into what it's like to be in large crowds with people, because that's something that I haven't been experiencing for a very long time and that none of us have. So I think slowly, by the time my next series of projects come out, the world will be ready for that, and I'm actually gonna hopefully be able to perform in front of people, so that I'm going to make music that's conducive to that and try to get back into inter wrapping, but in a way that I feel like works with all of the things I've learned up to this point. Cool Man, it's a pleasure speaking to you. Thank you so much for this opportunity. I feel like I've learned so much, you know, just getting and talking to you. And can I just ask you why you you chose to interview me today and what made you think that? As I told I told you in the beginning, I was, I saw a poster up, It's like, oh, he's got a new album out, it'd be fun to talk to him. We never I mean, we see each other around and we say hello, but we've never really talked so much. And like the beauty of this doing this is I get to talk to people who even people I know well through this process, we get to talk about stuff we don't normally talk about when we you know, when we're hanging out. I never asked like, um, I saw I've been working with the Chili Peppers for twenty nine years, and I interviewed Flee for something and I asked them all these questions. Now, I've known him for twenty nine years, but I don't know anything about him. I know about how we make music together, but I don't really know anything else other than what has happened to come up during those times. So it's fascinating both with people that I already know and then people who I just you know, see from a distance and I'm curious, like be fun to talk, see see what I see, what's going on inside. I'm so I'm so happy, I'm so honored and yeah, thank you so much for this. Honestly, this is really like this has just been a dream come true for me. So I really appreciate you. Pleasure Sara. Same thanks to Jaden Smith for sharing the inspiration for his latest album, Cool Tape Volume three Deluxe with Rick. You can check out all our favorite Jaden Smith songs at broken Record podcast dot com. You should have subscribed to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast. We can find all our new episodes and you can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is produced with helpful Lea Rose, Jason Gambrel, Martin Gonzalez, Eric Sandler, and Jennifer Sanchez, with engineering help from Nick Chafee. Our executive producer is Mela Bell. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider becoming a Pushnick. Pushnick is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content and uninterrupted ad free listening for four and hunty nine a month. Look for Pushnick exclusively on Apple podcast subscriptions, and if you like this show, please remember to share rate and viewers on your podcast app. A theme music for Kenny Beats, I'm justin Richmond.