Rock and Roll Creativity

It happened in 1965. He woke up one morning with this tune in his head. It was so vivid, so catchy that he was convinced it must have been a song he'd heard before. He actually spent the next few days asking people if they recognized it, but nobody did. That's when he realized it was something new. He quickly grabbed his guitar and started playing the melody, trying to figure out where it came from. The words came to him as he played, and within a very short time, the whole song seemed to be there. It was like the universe just handed it to him while he was sleeping. Today we're going to explore the secrets of creativity through some rock music stories. I'm Curtis, my friend, and dude over there is Joe, and we are dudes in progress.

Hey, Joe, what is going on, my rock and roll friend?

I thought this would be a fun topic because we both love rock music and we're going to be talking about the secrets of creativity.

I can't wait, man.

I'm.

There is so much good stuff, good music out there that you feel like sometimes the old stuff's better, but give the new stuff a try. But boy, the old stuff still feels better. It does seem like there's a, when you hear remake after remake in the music world, it does feel like there might be a lack of creativity out there. I don't know. Just my own personal observation.

They got interested in this topic. We're creatives. Do you think you're a creative person, Joe?

I think I'm more creative than I give myself credit for the things that I get lost in our creative endeavors. But yeah, I would consider myself a creative person.

Yeah, I don't give myself enough credit either. And that's why I wanted to explore this. And as you do a YouTube search, I came up with this Rick Rubin being interviewed by Joe Rogan, and it was very intriguing. We're going to go through some of the secrets that Rick Rubin gave, of course, incredible producer of some of the great artists. I'm sure you know who he is, right?

Sure. Yeah.

I thank you for preparing me for this conversation. I'm just now actually seeing the notes from, for our show today. So there's going to be a lot. Now, I wouldn't say winging it, but a lot of creative conversation. Let's call it that. But I did watch Rick Rubin's interview with Joe Rogan last night and it is, it is very interesting. Joe Rogan is a great conversationalist and it's only eight minutes long, but there's a lot in that eight minutes, man. There's a lot in there about putting your stuff out there and creating and what the creative process really means. And, yeah, I'm looking forward to your take on it and how we can improve each other's lives through this.

Well, first of all, can you guess the songwriter and the song that was.

In my intro from that intro story?

Yeah.

Now, this is cold. Okay. This is cold.

Ah, good.

I'm not cheating. I'm not looking this up. I'm guessing it's either let it be or yesterday by the Beatles.

Yeah.

Paul McCartney's yesterday.

Yeah.

Yeah.

One of the most famous I've heard. That is the most re recorded song by other artists in the history of recorded music.

Now, that surprises me, because I've. I don't think I've ever heard another rendition. Not a popular rendition. And it may. It might appear on albums as a re recording or it might appear on live music, but it's a beautiful song, man. It's a beautiful song. I love it.

Yeah.

I'm a big Beatles fan. I'm. There is a. There is a documentary, like a. I don't know, a ten episode documentary or something like that, about the Beatles and their creative processes, and it's all like behind the scenes stuff.

Mmm.

Yes.

And if you don't like the Beatles, this will bore you to death, quite honestly.

Yes.

But the one thing that I found out is about the Beatles. I always thought, for some reason that John Lennon was the creative master of the Beatles, and the driver behind the Beatles, and the leader of the band. Paul McCartney was. Paul McCartney was the real foundation. If you had to pick. Now everybody says it's John and Paul. John and Paul. Right?

Yeah.

But Paul McCartney, seems to me, at least from this documentary, was the Glue, was the real foundation, was the real creative.

Oh, hold that story. Actually, for one of the points here, we're gonna go deep into more.

Yeah.

You gotta kid yourself. I think so.

Sorry, I had no idea. Is it in there? Is it in the notes?

No, but I'm gonna use stories to make the points that Rick did here and.

Okay, well, I don't want to steal your thunder, dude.

I want you to add to it, because you always do, even if you're winging it. I love this. I love having these Friday morning conversations.

He was the real creative genius. Now, of course, John. John Lennon had his thing, right? And he was certainly creative and a musical genius as well. But Paul was, seems to me, was the real driver behind that band. And I didn't know that. I always thought it was John Lennon.

Very interesting to see the behind the scenes of any band's creativity. And we'll get into this. Let's get it right into the list before Joe steals all my thunder.

That's. Sorry.

Sorry about that. Hey, everyone is creative, according to Rick Rubin. And I love that thought, because as we've explored, doing different creative things helps to know that not just those people that you think to as artists, either music or art, that even us can be. Because I can only draw stick figures and I can't write songs. At least I haven't tried. Can't say I can't, because maybe I could. But he really does believe everyone is creative, and it's really important as a creative, to follow your passion, I think. Joe and I have been coaching people on podcasting, and I say that if you want to be a podcaster, one thing you got to have is passion for it. Because if you want to be consistent, you'll never be consistent unless you have that passion. And you'll never create great creative work unless your passion for it and continue and are motivated to do it on a consistent basis. Right?

Yeah.

You have to let yourself be creative and let it flow from wherever it comes from. I'm always surprised, Kurt, by people who you would never guess are creative people. Take the most boring, mundane people. I've known, accountants, and just dry people, that when you go over their house, it's beautifully decorated with these amazing pictures on the wall.

Wow.

Where'd you get that? Well, I painted that. What? Where is this? I just do it on the sign, and it's as good as anything I've ever seen in my life. I'll tell you what. I'm a little embarrassed to say this, but my middle daughter is a really good artist, and I had no idea that she was this good until recently. She gave me a Christmas present this year that was. She took from photographs of each one of her sisters, her and her sisters, and gave me these 14 by twelve, maybe 16 by twelve, whatever it is, paintings that just blew me away. It brought me to tears.

Yeah. Yeah.

My son Ben and his girlfriend Ainsley. For Christmas, Ainsley painted a picture of my wife's mom, who passed away before Christmas, and it was one amazing gift, and I had no idea she could do that. I am fascinated by people that are great artists in that way, for sure. I have several friends through my Disney adventures, for sure. But follow your passion. You know what story comes to my mind. Joe, did you ever see the document? It's not a documentary. It's the Johnny Cash story. Joaquin Phoenix. Yeah, you've seen that. It's, there's a scene I'm thinking of, follow your passion. Johnny Cash has gone through a lot of the thing with the drug rehab scene, and then he's at Columbia in the business building and talking about going live. And in San Quentin, was it San Quentin or, I'm trying to remember. It was one of the jails. He does have an album, San Quentin, which I have right above my head. And the argument that he gets into with the executives, and he's very passionate that this is what he wants to do. And of course, the recording executives are totally against it. I think he does it anyway. And what happens, Joe, when that album comes out comes one of the best live recording ever made, and still critics absolutely love it because all of the raw emotion that came out of that performance, and Rick Rubin will tell you, all of this artists, that's one thing he's really good at is getting that passion and have the artists do what they want to do. Because you know why, Joe? He also says you don't know what's going to connect. You can create and create and you have no idea what is going to end up being popular with the listeners. Can you think of an example from your experience in the music industry?

Well, I know what, what has, what connected with me. You've heard of Edwin McCain? Yes. The musical artist Edwin McCain.

Yes.

I went to a concert with Edwin McCain hooting the blowfish. They were the headliners. And then it was the blues travelers that opened up for Hootie and the blowfish. And Edwin McCain was the opening act, I guess you would say was the open. So you had Edwin McCain, you had the blues travelers, and then you had Hootie and the bluefish. You with me?

Yeah.

And I could not wait to see Hootie and the bluefish. I was a huge fan during the time. Loved their songs. When Edwin McCain came out and started playing, I was blown away. Never heard of the guy. And I said, this guy's going to be huge. And you know what's interesting? He wasn't huge. He had a couple songs that were really big. It's the best music that I think that I've heard from that one concert, that, that concert, completely his session, I guess you would call it his act, blew the other two away.

Wow.

So I was really surprised when you talk about being surprised.

Yeah. Yeah.

That, that really surprised me.

And.

Cause you never know how many people would not experience that had. They just thought, you know, I'll skip that first act, maybe even the second act. Cause I'm here to see hooty and the blowfish. So on the inverse, man, you never know what kind of amazing creativity you're going to miss if you pigeonhole your own experiences.

Great point. Yeah, very true that there's many stories of the opening act.

Really?

I was just watching the bon Jovi story that's on, I think it's Amazon. And we just watched that two days ago, trying to remember who they were opening up for, but they started blowing away some of the highlighters that were there after them.

I can't remember either, but they. But first of all, who they were paired up with was very interesting. Right? And I. And I wish I could remember, but they didn't seem to be acts that you would expect. Bon Jovi and this person and really famous acts in their own right. But, yeah, you're right. The way it goes is Bon Jovi just blew these guys away. And Jon Bon Jovi was. We could do a whole podcast on the creative process of him and how he carried himself and the things that he did right. And his passion and what drove him. He never got into the. He never got into drugs and stuff like that. He just didn't. He stayed straight and focused on what he needed to accomplish.

The point that Rick was saying is, you don't know what's gonna connect. So a couple other stories in the music world, Rod Stewart's Maggie May. I don't know if you know that story. It's pretty simple story. Essentially, Maggie Mae was the b side. We talked about 45 records that radio stations used to play recently on the podcast. And there was a song, a single was reason to believe, which is a really good song, but for whatever reason, some radio station flipped it over and played Maggie May, which ended up being a huge hit for Rod Stewart. Never paid any attention to it. But another example is Eddie Van Halen just warming up in the studio, and he was playing eruption, and Ted Templeton, the producer, heard it and said, you got to play. That's going to be on the record, dude. And it became a huge Eddie Van Halen just goofing off. That's eruption on one of their self debuted albums in 1978.

I think the Beatles revolution also was a b side.

Yeah, I wouldn't doubt it. I mean, they were so prolific writers at the time. We're gonna talk a little bit.

Well, that's the key, isn't it? That's what we're talking about. These guys just kept doing it.

Sweet child of mine from Guns n Roses was slash again. He was just warming up and didn't think it was anything. Axl rose heard that melody and just told Slash, you gotta develop that even further. I don't even think they thought it was gonna be much of a song. And it became sweet child of mine, which is an iconic.

Oh, it's their hit, their hit guitar riff.

I'll give you one more. Another one bites the dust by Queen. This is the bassist John Beacon wrote it. The band didn't even plan to release it on a single. And then, of all people, Michael Jackson was visiting the band backstage and he convinced them to release it. Became the band.

No kidding.

Best selling single in the United States.

Wow.

Wow.

I mean, but you know, you know, this is true. So many bands create all kinds of stuff. Sometimes they hate those songs they wrote that just take off for the fans.

I don't want to get ahead of ourselves here, but that is true. You talk about Michael Jackson recognizing that song. You talk about the accidental play of Maggie Mae. A lot of these b side albums, a lot of these songs that were just throwaway songs on an album themselves. It's the last song on the album. Just as Filler, they had to have a 10th song. There's lots of those out there, right?

Yeah.

And you never know when people are ready for this, when it's going to resonate, when it's going to hit. And I think he talks about that in the video as well.

He did.

Timing could be part of it. He definitely, definitely. I was mentioned that I had it in my bullet points for sure. Well, I'm going to get into that creative collaboration next, Joe, because you're already leaning there again. The bands that are the most successful are the ones that, where everyone's working together for the best idea. And you, I had to bring this one, this topic up next because you just mentioned Michael Jackson and we just said Eddie Van Halen. I don't know the story exactly, other than I know Michael invited Eddie Van Halen. There was a part in beat it that I'm not sure why or how. Thinking of two artists that I would never put together. Maybe those two, but I was just listening recently to that guitar solo and you know, it's Eddie Van Halen. But that creative collaboration, it was brilliant.

Here's what's interesting about that story is I think somewhere in the video as well, Rick talks about. He doesn't, he may not say this, but he talks about setting your ego aside. Right.

Right.

In order to collaborate, your idea can't be the best idea. It's what he alluded to. And in setting your ego aside, now, there are a lot of bands that I like in rock music. If I could think of a band that is full of egos, it would be Van Halen. You think about David Lee, Rolf and Eddie Van Halen, maybe not Alex. And the bass player, Michael Anthony. Nobody ever remembers the bass player. Right. That's Michael Anthony, the bass player. But that seems like a group that has ego, right? Yeah, and. But Eddie Van Halen, I don't think Eddie Van Halen even took, even appeared on the credits for that song. While maybe recently. Until maybe recently, well, you talk about.

A guy passionate and caring about the music and doing what he wanted, because they changed directions a little bit, too, and they added synthesizers and. Yeah, they definitely probably broke up because of the rift between Eddie and David Lee Roth.

Well, let's talk about creativity of Eddie Van Halen. His style came as a result of ignorance. Yeah, he just. He didn't know that you weren't supposed to do things a certain way.

Right.

And the whole finger tapping, the whole. That whole process. Yeah, his style kind of came from him, not him not knowing you were not supposed to do it this way.

Good point.

And there's power in that, isn't there?

For sure, yeah. Definitely did different things that revolutionized rock music. So the creative piece I wanted to talk about the Beatles. One story came to mind, too. I know Paul McCartney was writing a song, and John Lennon was listening in to the words, and there's an awkward moment in the song, and Paul McCartney says, I know, I'll fix that. And John Lennon says, no, you won't. I know exactly what you mean. And they left it in. And I know the sessions that you're talking about, where Paul McCartney, to me, seemed to be the worker and the organizer, kept him straight and narrow to some respect. When John Lennon would show up late for the session and seem to be not as attuned to what's going on, not as engaged.

Right, right.

He seemed aloof in the sessions. But the thing that blows me away about the Beatles when you talk about creative collaboration is they really did, at the end of the day, collaborate together when they were their best selves, until they started getting at each other's nerves later in their career, which is only like a ten year career. But each one of those of the four contributed to the amazing amount of content they put out.

John and Paul, they get all the credit for creativity. But as each one of the Beatles branched out on their own. Now, John certainly had great success as a solo artist and as did Paul with wings.

Right.

But Ringo and George, man, they had their own success.

Oh, for sure.

Very creative. And I'm surprised to hear drummers espouse the talent of Ringo Starr because I didn't know that he was considered a great drummer.

Yes.

In his own right. And he is.

Yes.

He has a lot of really good drummers in music. Look to Ringo and say, man, I really gleaned a lot from his style.

I thought after they broke up, I thought, I read that Ringo had a bunch of number one hits that really eclipsed what some of the other guys did also. And my wife and I have seen Ringo in concert. He's a lot of fun and he does, and he's on tour now. I was thinking of getting tickets again, but he brings all of these individual artists that had hits over the years and they put together and they play their song, they play ringo songs. It's so much fun. They have so much fun on stage. But yeah, great creative collaboration. Talent versus work ethic. Rick will argue that work ethic trumps talent. That is surprising in a way. But the reason he makes that argument is because you got to put out a lot of stuff to know what will eventually be popular with the audience. And some of the people that I looked at that really exemplify this. And one of my favorite artists, and maybe you've got a couple of your own, too. But Bruce Springsteen, I can remember following Bruce Springsteen when I was a kid and one of the things that we always knew, he wrote a lot of songs and it was fun that we were always going to bootleg stores to try to get a hold of those, whether he played them live. Sometimes he only playing on live records. And we really knew that he put out. And then in recent years, he's released a lot of that stuff and a lot of it was actually pretty good, but he threw a lot away. And on stage it was hard to beat him for a three and a, I don't know, three and a half hours talking about Worthak and the amount of playing they did live, which just made him a lot of fun. Someone I didn't know, but through a search found Dave Grohl was another. I'm sure you know who Dave Grohl.

Is from Foo Fighters. Yeah, yeah.

And Nirvana. Drummer from Nirvana, if you think about.

And Foo Fighters. I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah.

I wondered, I guess he's really renowned for his work ethic.

Yeah.

You think about it, the way that Nirvana ended, he started playing, and he recorded all the instruments himself on his debut album. So, yeah, matter of fact, they said he had a commitment that in performing, he performed with a broken leg seated in a throne made of guitars. So I guess he's really well known. Yeah. Gene Simmons. I just saw a YouTube video recently. They were wondering how good of a bass player is, and I don't know, I didn't really pay much attention to it. Kiss was not known for their, or the critics really, really love their music, I wouldn't say, but they sure made a career for themselves. Is lots of great live performances and just prolific in the music scene.

Well, there's a band that found their niche, that had an idea, and Gene Jimmy's is just a marketing genius, but there's a band that found their niche, stayed true to what they wanted to accomplish, which is a very theatrical presentation, and people just grabbed onto it. And the more popular something gets, the more popular it gets. People just started jumping on the bandwagon. Let's make this. I want to make this connection. We're talking about artists and music, but I do want to make this connection of talent versus work ethic, and I want to make the connection in sales. Very young in my sales career, I decided that there may be people better than me, and there's lots of people better than me. Lots and lots. Most people are, but there's going to be very few people that outwork me. Yeah, I knew that. Okay, first of all, let's talk about the myth of these, quote unquote salesperson, that the super talented salesperson that goes out there and woos people by their, you know, by their vocal patterns and their gregarious nature. And this way, we all know that the stereotypical salesperson. Right, right. Kirk, those aren't the best salespeople. They may be the best presenters. They may be, they may have a good presence, and that may get them to a certain point. But the best salespeople, meaning the people that showed up on the scoreboard, on the top of the scoreboard, those were the people that were unassuming. They're in the back corner during meetings. They don't say a lot, but when you look at their activity, they're working harder than anybody else, and they're. They're late for meetings because they've. They've booked three meetings before the 08:00 a.m. Morning meeting, morning staff meeting, three presentations, and I will all day long say that you give me a salesperson that has a good work ethic and they'll outperform talent all day long.

Yeah.

I'm so glad you tied that to our, our careers and what we're aspiring to, because that's so true. I've had that feeling many times. If I just put the work in, I can be as good as, or I can make my way.

Right.

I can make my living in this space if I just work harder than the next guy. Great point. But, yeah, surprising in the creative world. But it's interesting Rick brings that in because I think it is so true. Couple of more ideas from Rick. What makes it great is the personal how you see the world that's different from how everyone else sees the world. The people you don't first understand are the people you come to and you dedicate your fandom to. And these are the people who change the world. You have any complex artists? You go back to.

Complex artists. And if I think about music, it's not necessarily music, but I do think about stand up comedians. I have a couple stand up comedians who are my favorite stand up comedians. One of them is Nate Bargetzy. Bargetzi. I think that's how you say he's really popular right now. And another one is Dusty slay. Both clean, relatively clean comedians. Nate is very clean, extremely family friendly. And Dusty is. Dusty keeps it clean. But the subject matter, he talks about smoking weed a lot and stuff like that. But when you think about the progress of a stand up comedian and the changes that they go through, and you talk about complex, a band can record one album and live off that album, right? A stand up comedian, about once a year, they have to come up with all brand new material. You see these stand up comedians that have a special once a year. And if you think about that, they've had to come up with, now, I guess artists do come up with new albums every year and or every few years. But the, but, but a musical act will go out and they'll play all their old stuff. A stand up comedian can't get away with that. They, when you go see a stand up comedian, you want to laugh at new stuff. You want to hear new stuff. Now, there may be a few marquee jokes. Everybody wants to hear that everybody's heard that is more nostalgic. And it's so funny that it's funny every time. But for the most part, a stand up comedian has to go out and produce new stuff each time, and it's a whole new act. They're not leaning on any of the old stuff. And you talk about the complexity of that process. And I think about generally stand up comedians, but you go back and you look at old stuff from Nate Bargetzy and Dusty Slay and any stand up comedian. It's the benefit of the technology that we have now, YouTube, and you can go back and see all some of this old stuff and you can see how they progressed through time. But also they've had to really be creative and just keep putting stuff out there. I read a story about Chris Rock and who was the guy that got, was that the guy who got slapped by Will Smith?

Yes.

Yes. But this was not a connecting story. But Chris Rock just recently did a big special and he addressed the thing about Will Smith. But the, this new comedy special that he put out, what people don't see is him spending time in clubs with a notebook, figuring it out, just, and what he's doing is just this process, just this creative process, this very complex creative process. They have to go deep into this catalog of material that they have and just see what works and see how they can massage it and push it through. So maybe not music, but I really have a lot of respect for the creative process of stand up comedians.

Yeah, you just made a couple of great points. All the material they got put out to find the jokes that resonate with people. And again, making Rick Rubin's point, you got to create a lot of stuff. You, we only see the successful stuff really that comes to light. You don't necessarily see all the stuff that didn't make it to the record or the performance for a comedian.

But here's what's interesting, and this is what I love about the digital archives that we have now, like I said, through music and YouTube and just the Internet that has captured and pulling all this together. And I think you alluded to this with Bruce Springsteen. Now, not being a big Bruce Springsteen fan myself, I can appreciate this, that you can go back and listen to some of that stuff that didn't, quote unquote, make it and you think, wow, a good song, man.

Right.

That's a good song. But for whatever reason, in the moment that the creative universe in the moment did not capture that.

Yeah.

Did not pull that along. And Rick Rubin, but you go back and you listen to it like, man, how did that not make it?

I know it. Exactly. And often the artist doesn't see the brilliance of it, what they created. So someone resonates with it. And Rick Rubin's good with that stuff. It's probably where his talent is. I've been following, speaking of complex artists, Neil Young's one of my favorites, and I've been going deep in his catalog. Very excited to be seeing him in a couple of weeks here in Bridgeport, Connecticut, with Crazy Horse, his band. And I did watch a couple of Rick Rubin and Neil Young talking about creating music together. But, yeah, Neil Young's one of my favorites because he's always done what resonated with him. He's not been trying to be a commercial success necessarily. He does what he wants to do. I think that's what Rick and I both love about Neil Young, not just in and all the music, all the different he'll do. I'm really excited because he's going to do acoustic. It looks like I'm watching some of the set lists that he's done already on the tour, and I like the hard rocking stuff he's doing, and he's also doing some of his acoustic material. But where do ideas come from, Joe? It's a mystery. Rick will say, maybe it's the universe conspiring for us. He says, listen for clues in the world. They're happening all the time. If two people tell you about two things that suck, check it out for yourself. I thought that was an interesting comment.

When you look to the catalog of artists and the stuff they didn't release, and just like we said before, and you hear a song like, why didn't that make it? It is that universal thing, that law of attraction, I guess you would call it. I know I don't want to get all woo woo here, but you and I could go down a whole path again about the law of attraction. But when you think about the universe conspiring to take a hold of something and bring it to people, I see that. I see that in some of the old songs from artists that weren't released. And you think, why wasn't that song a hit? Well, for some reason, the universe brought this one along, right?

Yeah.

I think of a story, one of my favorite stories from one of my favorite bands, the Allman Brothers, and one of my favorite songs of all time, Greg Allman's Melissa. And I saw him interviewed, and he wrote this when he was, like, 18 years old, which is really interesting. It's one of his first songs that he wrote, and he had the whole song pretty much, but he didn't have the title. This song did not have a name. This person that, this beautiful song that he's writing about, he didn't know. He, he didn't have the name for it. And he needed, like, this two syllable, he knew that and he's trying to work it out. And I was telling a friend at work, if you can't figure something out and you're struggling with your conscious mind, let your subconscious mind sleep on it. Or maybe in the shower, something will come to you. Or like Rick Rubin says, listen for clues in the world. So Greg was out late night or early morning or something like that, and he was in a convenience store just picking up some cigarettes or a coke or whatever, and he's at the counter, and this mom and the child were in the store, and the little girl was running around the store, and the mom starts yelling, Melissa, Melissa. And he's like, ah, that's it. And that's how that song became Melissa.

That's funny. That's funny. You know, when, when I think in this, in the video, Rick also talks about, again, I don't want to, I don't want to get too woo woo about this. But when a, when an idea has its time, the universe lets it go. And we've been talking a lot about music, and I threw in the stand up comedians, but we've been talking a lot about music. But the light bulb and television, both were invented. Now, let's see. Alexander Graham Bell gets credit for the light bulb. I don't know who gets credit for the television, but I remember reading that both of those inventions were created independently of each other by two different people that didn't know the other one was working on it, that didn't know the other one was working, and they both came about at the same time. Isn't that interesting? Yeah, there's been lots of things like that. If I think the car was like that, I think the telephone may have been like that and color photography and things like that. I think that when you keep putting stuff out there and when the universe lets it go, the universe lets it go. I know it's weird for me to say, because I don't believe in that woo woo stuff, but you know what I'm saying.

I just think the creative process is super interesting. I love watching. I'm gonna maybe read the book that he recently put out. I heard it's really good. But, yeah, I encourage you to check out if you don't think you're creative. I bet that you actually are. And if you put some effort into it and follow some of Rick's secrets to creativity, you'll find that you can also be creative in your own way. And it doesn't have to be revolutionary things like some of the stories we brought today, but could help you out in what you've been working on, too.

I think my biggest lesson from this, and I think the biggest takeaway for me on, on this conversation or the biggest takeaway from this conversation is follow what you want to put out in the world. Put it out there and keep putting it out over and over again. Every overnight success has been, has lasted at least ten years. Right? It's taken at least ten years. And that's because people just keep putting it, putting their stuff out, putting their stuff out, putting their stuff out. And that's what you got to do. Now there's the one hit wonders we all have. There are the kaja goo goos in the, of the world, right. But you just got to keep putting it out and keep trying and keep honing your skills and keep getting better.

Yeah.

We are all creatives. I do believe that if we let ourselves, if we let ourselves flow with what's coming from inside of us and let the world around us speak to us, like Rick said, I think we can create amazing things.

Love it.

Joe, thanks for your contribution as always. Hey, did you have a win for it?

Very interesting subject, brother. I do have a win for the week and you won't be surprised by this win for the week because we stay in touch with each other and know what's going on in each other's life. But this will, something like this, whenever this happens, I've said this before, this will always be my win for the week. I spent the weekend with my daughter and grandkids this past week. We drove up on Friday and came back Sunday night. A weekend full of baseball and soccer and sweet frog yogurt playing on playgrounds and monkey bars. And my grandson and I did some batting practice. We hit probably, I don't know. He, we hung out in his backyard and his backyard's reasonably large, but it has a fence way out there. And we started off with twelve baseballs and ended up with two baseballs because beyond the fence is thick woods with sticker bushes and thicket and all kinds of stuff that you just can't make it through. So we lost ten baseballs over the fence, which speaks to his, his ability to hit. But it was just a blast, man. Just a lot of nice downtime. Hanging out with my amazing daughter and my amazing son in law and just playing with the grandkids was very cool this weekend.

How far away do they live from you, Joe?

Two and a half hours.

Oh, okay. Well, I'm encouraged by that. You seem to have kept that relationship really close I need more of your encouragement. Cause as I have a grandchild coming this month and they live 2 hours.

Away, Cincinnati to Zanesville. It's about 2 hours, 40 minutes on a rough day, two and a half hours on a clear day.

All right. I'm looking forward to sharing some of those stories with you guys as my grandson comes this month. You made me remember. I was trying to think of my win for the week, but my daughter and I, we have a fun relationship going to shows. Waterbury, Connecticut, you would never think, but they have a great theater there and some of the traveling Broadway shows come. We saw the book of Mormon on Sunday night. I just love that show. We had great seats, had a great time. It's shocking for some of the people seeing the show for the first time. They don't know what they're getting into. But I love the music and the choreography. It's a lot of fun. There's actually, if you think of the comedy from South park, it's a lot of tongue in cheek and fun. But that was good. I won a $100 reward at work and I'm gonna. I haven't received it yet. I got word that it's coming. I'm going to do some work here in my office with led lights. So you might hear me talking about a resource or tip on led lights. Hopefully next week, if I get them bought and stringed up here, I'm going to try to light up my office and all the bookshelves I have here. But that was fun to do some good work and get a reward for that work. It's always a good thing. How about resource or tips? Yeah.

Yeah.

I have a. I have an interesting program on my computer that I use a lot. I use it all the time. I know something like this is available for Mac. I don't know if it's the same program, but I know for a fact that all computers have this. But I didn't realize how much I used it and how much it helps me in my productivity. It's called phone link. It's on my pc. And what it does is it connects my phone to my pc and it lets me use every feature of my phone from my computer. Texting, pictures, the phone itself. Making calls. Making phone calls. Every feature that my phone has, I can use on my pc through this phone link. Now, I know Mac has something from it. Like I said, I'm a pc guy. I don't know if this is a Microsoft product or whatever it is. I think it might be a Microsoft product, but it's called phone link. And if you view. If you've received a long text from me, Kurt, it's probably been because I've used phone link and not actually sat there with my thumbs and use the small keyboard. I like it. I use it a lot. I use it all the time. I use it to pull pictures from my phone to my pc. I use it to even make phone calls or answer the phone when I'm working on something. And I use it a lot to respond to texts and those types of things.

I love that tip and I would look into it for Mac, although there is one of the reasons I do like the apple products is the compatibility between the two. So same for me. Joe, when you get a long message, I try. I text you most of the time using my computer. But the messages app is the same because the operating system is the same between the two and there's some consistency.

Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. They're built to work together, the phone and the computer, they're built to work together for Apple. So.

Yeah, yeah.

But sometimes, of course, there's something. Sometimes I still have trouble with that compatibility, but we won't go there.

How about. Yeah.

My resource is check out this video from Rick Rubin. It's called Rick Rubin shares his secrets for creativity. You'll know you got the right one if it's Rick being interviewed by Joe Rogan. So search for that on YouTube or any of the other material of him talking about creativity. I think it's very inspiring. I know it has helped me. I loved some of his very interesting tips and helping me to move forward with some of the creative things I want to do in the future.

You'll know the video when you see the. You'll know the video when you're looking at a guy that is he, when you look at him and you think, okay, this is a guy that's either produced million dollar albums or he standing on a corner holding a will work for food sign. One or the other. He's certainly an interesting looking guy.

He's got a lot to say because he's been very successful in this space and artist. Huge. Is there more known? Well, he's the rock world. Producer.

I don't know. Yeah, producer. Very respected.

You know what he did that is really fantastic. Again, speaking of, Johnny Cash was nearing. We didn't know it at the time, but he wasn't long for this world. But Rick Rubin recorded a ton of records. The first record he did was all this acoustic and just that raw voice of Johnny Cash interpreting songs from other people. Oh, check those out. And they are. Some of them are haunting. The one he did of was that Nine Inch Nails song. I think that was the hurt.

The song hurt. Oh, it's amazing. That's all Rick Rubin, when you look at. I knew that he has his fingerprints all over that. But when you hear Johnny Cash's version of hurt by Nine Inch Nails. Yeah, you'll never want to hear another version of that song. Yeah, it's haunting. You're right, Kurt. It's haunting. When you think about the, the place that Johnny Cash was in his life on the downturn, he's the everything that he's been through, it's really interesting. It's a great, great song.

Well, his voice is breaking up, but it just works for a lot of those songs, especially on that first album. There's a box set that there's like five recordings that ended up doing, but again, taking what you wouldn't think would work and pushing them together, and it ends up working.

Now, one thing I found out about Rick Rubin is, uh, he is a big fan of professional wrestling. He's kind of used some of the stuff from professional wrestling in his work, believe it or not. And I'm a big fan of professional wrestling, especially some of that old school, eighties professional wrestling, but he's a big fan of professional wrestling. So you never know, man. You never know where your inspiration is going to come from, be it Johnny Cash or rowdy Roddy Piper.

Yeah. Yeah. Like he says, look out, be in tune of things that you're interested in, and can you take something from this area and bring it into something else you're doing? Great idea. What's your quote for the week?

Sticking with the music theme. You know, this. My two favorite musical acts, artists, I guess you would say. One would think they're completely opposition of each other. First one is Garth Brooks. Probably my favorite act of all time. I'm a huge Garth Brooks fan, but the next one would be Iron Maiden, the prolific heavy metal band. Those are my two favorites in this world. I love Iron Maiden, love their music, especially their older stuff, and I'm just a huge Garth Brooks fan. But this quote comes from Garth Brooks, and it's really interesting and it's deep, if you think about it. Garth said, you aren't wealthy until you have something money can't buy.

It's a fantastic quote, especially from someone who's made a lot of money as an artist. You have to recognize that.

A great perspective to recognize that. Hey, listen, this relationship that I have with my kids, this relation, this thing that I've did, this experience, money can't buy that I have this.

Did he kind of early retire to help raise his kids?

He retired. He retired to raise his kids. And he came out of retirement a couple times to do some things. But one of those things is there were some big floods in Nashville, Tennessee, and he came out of retirement almost completely cold. One day he's working on his farm in Nashville, and a week later or two weeks later, he's performing in front of sold out crowds to raise money for the victims of the floods of Nashville during that time. This was several years ago. Long time ago as I think about it. But I went to one of those concerts. Nashville is about, I don't know, 4 hours away from me. So we drove down to see one or two of those concerts. I think one or two, whatever it was, it doesn't matter. But the interesting thing about that is he came out of retirement to perform these concerts, and he performed like 15 concerts in a five day span or a seven day span or an eight days, but something like that. Some crazy amount of concerts. Now, I don't have the numbers right, but the spirit of what I'm trying to say. And he came cold, completely cold, and performed, performed these concerts to for flood victims relief. And this just shows what passion can do. Those concerts were as good as any concert Garth Brooks concert I've been to. And he just came out cold.

Yeah.

And it shows that he lived this quote, he walked away to raise his kids.

Absolutely.

He could have kept making lots of money. He's got. That just proves he's come back now and plays and sells out.

He's like one of the still selling out and still killing it.

One of the best live acts that goes out there.

I love that you aren't wealthy until you have something money can't buy. I dig it.

Good job on your quote. Look for what you notice but no one else sees. That's from Rick Rubin, from the book the Creative a way of being. So that's a book that I think I'm going to go check out. The reason that resonated with me is, again, looking at my podcast on Disney World, people always ask me, why do you keep, why do you keep going? People that don't understand. But that's one of the things I've always tried to do, is look for things. And when you get passionate about something and you want to go deep, you got to do that. You got to really go look for things. That no one else sees, and that's something that I want to focus on, the things that I'm passionate about. So I love that advice from Rick Rubin. Go notice what no one else is really seeing. That's what good artists do, and you.

Got to keep throwing it out there. You just got to keep throwing it out there. Kirk, this was a really good show. I love this conversation, this video by Rick Rubin. It's like eight minutes, but it's really deep, and I like it a lot, and I appreciate you sharing it with us and diving us deep into the creative process. As we wrap up, our website is dudesinprogress.com. Dudesinprogress.com. If you want to reach out to us and give a suggestion for a show or maybe you have something to say and you want to come on the show, we can certainly make that happen. Dudesudesinprogress.com. That's dudesinprogress.com. Dot. Remember, whether it's the creative process or you're just trying to vacuum the floor, progress is better than perfection. Kurt. We got to keep moving forward.

Yeah. The topic of creativity says that as much as anything we've ever talked about. Thanks, Joe.

Couldn't agree more. Take care, my friend.