Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

Maggie Rogers has never been one to mince words. Aside from her powerhouse voice, one of Maggie’s superpowers is her ability to write pop songs fueled by radical emotional transparency. And while it’s thrilling when an artist bares their soul, that level of constant vulnerability can be unsustainable. In 2019, after releasing her Grammy-nominated debut,  Heard It In A Past Life,  and then touring...

In her new Pushkin audiobook Inside Voice: My Obsession with How We Sound , actress/writer/director/producer Lake Bell goes down some fascinating rabbit holes, exploring the psychology and social science of our voices.  But you gotta start with the mechanics.  In this excerpt you’ll hear Lake's conversation with ENT doc to the stars Dr. Randolph Schnitman. He's treated the who’s who of music, stre...

Today we’re excited to bring you the next installment of our John Frusciante interview series. John first came on the podcast back in April to help celebrate the release of the Red Hot Chili Peppers album,  Unlimited Love . Then he returned in mid-October to discuss Chili Pepper history, one album at a time. On today's episode we'll hear John talk about the Chili Peppers brand new release—their se...

Today we are featuring one of the most thrilling new groups in contemporary soul music—Gabriels. And lucky for us, they performed three songs, one of which is still unreleased, live for  Broken Record . Gabriels consists of three very distinct pillars of talent: lead singer Jacob Lusk, who was raised in Compton singing gospel. Keyboardist and producer Ryan Hope, who grew up a lover of dance music...

Today we will hear from singer-songwriter and playwright Anaïs Mitchell who spent the past 16 years building the world of  Hadestown , a career-defining stage musical that has grown from a low-budget community production in Mitchell's native Vermont, to a Broadway phenomenon and the winner of eight Tony Awards, including Best Musical and Best Original Score. But in March 2020, when the COVID-19 pa...

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...

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 Blac...

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 h...

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...

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 fu...

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 ca...

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 wit...

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...

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...

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,...

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 a...

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, an...

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 co...

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...

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, Ar...

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-decad...

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 nu...

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&rsqu...

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...

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 stud...