Rick Rubin

They want us to do the social media stuff.

They want us to distract ourselves

From the work of the game.

And then I say, well, if then it's up to you, what's more important to please them or to win?

The first thing that comes to mind would be Johnny Cash because he had gone 25 years of not having success.

And he had been dropped from two labels.

And when I signed him, he didn't even know why I was interested.

That really was a conversation.

It's like, why do you think working with you is going to be any different than working with anyone else?

He had given up.

And for him to get into it, we recorded in my living room and he would just play me songs on an acoustic guitar.

And there was an honesty in what was happening there.

We didn't know that we were making a record.

At that time, we were just looking for songs.

So he was playing me songs.

It was almost like a way for us to musically meet each other.

He would play me the songs he loved, either from childhood

or songs that he thinks he'd like to sing or a song he wrote.

And it was just a very honest experience.

And then we went into the studio.