Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin - Joe Sabia

Episode Date: September 11, 2024

Joe Sabia is a filmmaker, digital creator, and celebrity interviewer. He began his career in media working across various platforms including television, film, and music videos. In his six years as Senior Vice President of Creative Development at Condé Nast Entertainment, he became a renowned multimedia storyteller, best known for the creations of Vogue’s 73 Questions, Vanity Fair’s One Year Later series with Billie Eilish, and Wired’s Autocomplete Interviews. This past year, Sabia directed his debut feature film “Federer: Twelve Final Days” for Amazon Studios, which recounts Roger Federer’s journey to retirement from tennis. As the operator of Studio Sabia, a full-service production company, he continues to help media companies create memorable content across digital and cinematic landscapes. ------ Thank you to the sponsors that fuel our podcast and our team: Squarespace https://squarespace.com/tetra Use code 'TETRA' ------ Lucy https://lucy.co/tetra Use code 'TETRA' ------ LMNT Electrolytes https://drinklmnt.com/tetra Use code 'TETRA' ------ House of Macadamias https://www.houseofmacadamias.com/tetra Use code 'TETRA'

Tetragrammaton. Tetragrammaton. Tetragrammaton. Tetragrammaton. Tetragrammaton. Tetragrammaton. Tetragrammaton. I met Roger for the first time

ever in 2019, and it was right before Wimbledon. And that was the match where he made it to the finals and lost to his rival Djokovic. And at that point, I had really never seen matches of Roger Federer. I didn't really watch tennis. I just knew he was an icon. So I show up to interview him for 73 questions for Vogue. And he was the first person I've ever interviewed who just showed up and just said my name and gave me a big bear hug.

And whenever you get into these types of things, you're always hoping for that moment you realize everything's gonna be okay when you're trying to do a really hard video interview. And that was the quickest point A to point B where I felt, okay, this whole complicated shoot's gonna go okay. What allowed that to happen?

Disarmament. It's a genuine desire to connect. That's who that guy is. Yeah, that's it. That's connect. That's who that guy is. Yeah, that's it. That's it. That's really interesting. It makes you think about all the other times it doesn't happen.

And I think it doesn't happen less because maybe the person's a mean person or maybe they're disinterested. It just shows you that there's other things on their mind which may get in the way of simply connecting with someone within three seconds and giving them a hug. That's amazing. Yeah.

And then how did the video go? The video went great. It was at Center Court on Wimbledon, which is the place no one can have access to unless they are interviewing someone like the King of Wimbledon, Roger Federer. Yeah. So the stakes were pretty special and high. How old was he at the time? That was 2019, so he's probably 38. Just a couple years.

And how old was he the first time he was in Wimbledon? Oh, my gosh. Well, he won Wimbledon Juniors, I think, at 16. And then it was only just a short number of years before he won it for the first time, possibly 2004, I think. And how did the movie come about? So the interview went really well, and I think we both realized that there was a connection there. We both really had a good, enjoyable time together.

I think another reason was that I kept in touch with one of the management team, not his lead manager and agent, but another manager named Alessandro. I developed a friendship with him. So around the time Roger said that he was going to retire from the sport of tennis, I was brought into a room meeting his lead agent and his lead agent had never met me before. And he said, all right, we got some top secret information.

He's retiring the audio message on his Instagram channel. It's happening in a few days. Should we film something around it? And I said, yeah, of course you should film something around it. So the opportunity presented itself there, but not as a film, as footage we can capture, as flies on the wall, to be invisible, to capture an extremely sensitive material here, to show his family, his children for the first time,

his living room for the first time. So because of that, the cell, if you will, was don't worry, he doesn't have to see the light of day if you don't want him to see the light of day. So there's this purity to this film because everything you see in this film was really meant to be home videos, and that's rare. So originally the idea was to really just create

a volume for him? And his kids and his kids' kids. There was a natural start and finish to this. Day one is the announcement of the retirement to the world via his Instagram channel. But 12 days later was the last match he's ever going to play. The opportunity handed itself with these parameters

that ended up unfolding in a way, day by day, where I realized... It was a movie, regardless of whether it was filmed or not. It was a significant moment in time in his life. Significant, but there was an arc regardless of whether it was filmed or not. It was a significant moment in time in his life. Significant, but there was an arc to this slice of a very anxiety-ridden and stressful 12 days

of facing the abyss, the unknown. And am I gonna survive it? Tell me about The Last Match. The Last Match was particularly special because it was a doubles match, which is not something that Roger normally does. But this was for the the Labor Cup tournament. Do you know why?

Roger is a, is part organizer of the Labor Cup. It also is a really unique tournament because it brings together 16 of the world's best players and divides them along two teams. Team Europe for all the European players versus the world for all the non-Europeans. And it also just felt like a really right time for him to retire rather than the labor cup being the opportunity itself I think at that point in his life He's like I need to do this now and the labor cup happened to have been in the proximity of the readiness

Did you talk to him about why he was ready to stop? Mm-hmm. Tell me I think a lot of it had to do with his knee injuries The pain in his knee and the surgeries he had, and the fact that he was not the same player that he was in the past, and the added pressure of having the love of his life, his wife, Mirka, who never missed a match, and the weight of realizing that she was watching him play the weight of realizing that she was watching him play,

knowing that he can get even more seriously injured. And then on top of that, his friends and the rest of his family. And I think it was just enough for him to say, I'm never going to be the athlete that I was. And now's the time to do it and do it gracefully and classy, of course. But yeah, I think it's a fascinating thing where you're faced with the death.

And then the movie, his manager, Severin, says athletes die twice. And I think he realized the inevitable. All athletes have to go through this. And for him, the timing was that mostly because of his body not working the same way that it used to. And do you think it was simply feeling like he might not be able to win or the threat

of getting more injured? I think it was just the reality of knowing that this man went to 41 years old. That's not normal to have a career that goes two decades. He accomplished more than anyone would ever imagine. He's one of the world's greatest to ever play the game. So I don't think it's about winning. I think it's about, okay, this is inevitable and now's the time to do it.

Describe to me the announcement of the film in London. Well, for a few months now, Amazon Prime, the platform that this movie's coming out on, they were really excited to go all in to make this the biggest doc of the year. And given the humble origins of this, it's incredibly surprising that this landed where it did. Talk about a dream, this is the first film I've ever made.

How did it end up that home videos would end up there? So to see the marketing push that a company like Amazon is willing to do and dedicate itself towards is remarkable because the other, like just yesterday, you know, we're here and I said, Rick, like you're never gonna believe this. Like, look what my friend just sent me. And then the day before the release of the movie,

they show this crazy projection of Roger on the Tower Bridge in London, of Roger Federer on the left side of the tower, kind of whacking a ball to the other side of the tower where he's a kid and he's playing himself. Roger Federer older, Roger Federer younger, in this projection, math tennis, to promote the movie with a big poster drapes

down over the entire bridge, revealing the documentary. It's like, how did it end up on the tower bridge? How did this happen? How did it unfold this way? How did it go from home movies to being a feature film? It's such an interesting question because you're not going to find a doc with this much promotion where they're promoting it on the Tower Bridge that has its origins in such a strange, unexpected and unlikely way.

And the way that this happened was, as I mentioned, you know, there were only two people on camera. I was holding a camera. And we had no support. There was no time for support. We had 48 hours to go to Roger Federer's living room with no on-the-ground production support. We had a local sound guy.

There was no time to plan, no time to prepare. We were being thrown into environments. Because the timing was the timing. It was happening. And you just happened to be able to capture it. Yes. On the seat of our pants. It's like, Mirka, his wife, is ready to talk. Go. And we're just like, sit down. And then she goes for it.

I think everyone was by the seat of their pants. There's no script for anyone here in the way that Roger needed to go through these emotions towards his last match. The events unfolded in a way where it felt like a movie was happening in real time. And halfway through, I myself realized this would be such a loss if this footage was only for Roger Federer's family. But when you filmed it, you were thinking it was only for him. Yeah.

The purpose of the filming was home movies, family film, documentation. Yeah, and on top of that, his entire team reminding me every single day, there's no way this footage, the intimacy of this footage is ever going to see the light of the day. Right.

For a man as in control and put together as Roger Federer. So the mandate, because a lot of these things, you need a deal, because my company was the company that produced it, and my producing partner, Greg Gordon, is the one that put together a budget. So there needs to be parameters to anything that you get budget for.

So the parameters for this was, okay, extremely efficient budget for an eight to 12 minute short film. Right. That's the deliverable. Yeah. And there was this assistant editor who we were working with, Guy Rahamim, who in London, his job was to basically just collect the daily footage and put it together because we had a fast turnaround

to deliver the home videos to Roger as an 8 to 12 minute short film. So after the experience ended, I went to Guy and I said, let's go beyond the 12 minutes. Let's just see if we can make something that is worthy of the time it takes to tell the full story. Why will we stop at 12 minutes? So we-

Who made that call? That was me. Because in my head, I had this delusion that this really would see the light of day. Because you thought it's too good not to. It just deserves to. It was so raw and so real and really like nothing I'd ever seen before. And if Roger was willing to be so brave on the camera for me, then I felt like there was an intuitive understanding that he could come around to showing that to,

first and foremost, his fans. I think his fans were on my mind. Like his fans really deserve this added dimension to him. And eventually we showed him a one hour edit, and he saw it and he gave the best compliment when he saw it. He got emotional, he cried, he's with his wife, Mir wife America, and he said if this leaked tomorrow, I wouldn't care Wow talk about validation from a control freak. Yeah, exactly leaking is the opposite of control Yeah from that point on what happened next?

What happened next was an understanding that? All the stuff that he didn't need to preoccupy himself with, mostly on the shoulders of his agent, Tony Gotsick, he could take a step back and realize, okay, this is gonna be my first film, let's get it done. So Tony goes and hits up all the streamers who've been begging Tony to get to Roger

to try to do some sort of film for a long time, because Roger's never had an official film before. Think about that, right? And I think right now we're in this time where a lot of athletes are making life docs, and there's always the distribution of it. There's always the, can we make six episodes?

Can we make it a full arc of a life to go back to the childhood to cover all the bases? The last dance by Michael Jordan is in everyone's head. If we could only get an athlete to be able to reveal so much about the past that the world never knew about, and if we can have it go for hours, it could be the defining way in which people change

their mind about an athlete. We didn't have that. we just had 12 days. With some opportunity to talk about the past with his injury and his rivals, sure. But this was not that, this was the anti-life doc. So I think a lot of streamers when looking at this 63 minute edit that we put together, I think a lot of them were like, well,

okay, this is great as a last episode of the full life doc, but we want the full life doc. And I think Amazon was a streamer that's like, no, that's not the important thing. The important thing is to treat this as the film it needs to be. It is what it is. It is what it is.

It's a portrait, that's all this is. And I give a lot of credit to Amazon because they saw it as that. A problem with so many documentaries is that they try to do too much in a limited period of time. And if you can take one story and tell it really well, it takes a while. Mm-hmm. I mean, we're talking about productions that last for years to create a life doc. That's hard, a lot of money. And it still misses a whole lot.

You know, it's still, it's just tastes along the way. Well, what's interesting too is that we're at a time too where I think a lot of celebrities who do life docs are under a certain type of fire for creating extremely whitewashing, commercial reframings of their life in a way where the authoritative story of their life is the story that they wanna tell.

Because it's nice lighting, because it's nice cameras, it really feels like that's the take. That's the last word to the story. And rightfully so, some docs do it better than others, but it's a tricky game, the life doc thing. Do you watch a lot of docs? A good amount. I'm always interested in seeing how a director can do something different in a format

that is already saturated. Yeah. Any come to mind that have spoke to you over the years? Yeah. Tell me. I was particularly moved by this documentary named Christopher Newpin, who's a fascinating guy. He basically is the South African guy

who moved to London in the BBC and convinced the BBC that you could do so much more than just audio programming. You can actually put cameras in concert halls and get classical musicians to be seen through the camera lens. And it could be done in a very intimate way. And it doesn't have to interfere with the performance. It can actually, through the use of long lenses and the technology at that time, was allowing for it to happen for, you know, still expensive, but a more cost-effective way than before. And Christopher Newpin is credited with

in a more cost-effective way than before. And Christopher Newpin is credited with creating, for the first time ever, a type of visual language and intimacy to the capturing of music. And on top of that, he did these amazing portraits of these really young superstars who had become the world's greatest musicians at a time where they were in their early 20s. We're talking about Daniel Berenboim, Vladimir Ashkenazi,

Pinchas, Zuckerman, Jacqueline Dupré, the kinetic and innocent and tender dynamic that these musicians had, not realizing just how much their career would unfold in a way that just would turn them into complete superstars. So cool that they exist. Yeah, and it's portraits of them at that time. Yeah.

And it reminds me of just what we've lost in a lot of docs that just need to be all about the pacing. It needs to be about the story. It needs to be about the notes coming and saying, we need more drama. We need more salaciousness. And you watch Christopher Newpin's films and Itzhak Perlman is just with his family upstate

cooking a meal and you hear some voiceover but you're just observing this, one of the most talented violinists of all time, just spending time with his family and it's no fast cuts and there's something incredibly meditative about it, and I was very moved by it by his work So much of today's life happens on the web Squarespace is your home base for building your dream presence in an online world Designing a website is easy using one of Squarespace's best-in-class templates.

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of being able to read music and being able to play a couple. How old were you when you learned? Oh, so I was about eight, nine, or 10, and I never enjoyed it. And my mom never forced me to do it. It was just a thing that, hey, you can do, and she let me do it.

But I felt like I was sleepwalking through it. I was just doing it because I felt bad to say I didn't want to do it. And I was just good enough to make the teacher realize that, okay, I can slip in like 20 minutes of practice before this meeting and that sufficiently gets by. But it wasn't until June 10th where I was watching, I just graduated eighth grade. How do you know it was June 10th?

Because these things stay with you. These days stay with you. Important days stay with me. Really? Yes, very much so. That's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know the date of anything.

Really? No. I think about the past a lot more than you maybe. Maybe. Okay, so June 10th, what happened? I just graduated eighth grade and I'm so proud to get my diploma to go on to high school. And I was at my friend's house

and on the background was the Truman Show. And if you've seen the Truman Show, you'll realize that there's, the Turkish March by Mozart reprises itself over and over again, da-da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da- I just sat there transfixed by that melody, by the sound of that piano, that it made me immediately go to my piano in my house and just take out and acquire

and put on the rack classical music. And it began with Turkish March by Mozart. And I started playing it and I became obsessed. I didn't have the proper technique in my fingers to do it, but I just forced myself, knowing that I knew how to read it, to play it. And it didn't stop there. I went from that to going on, right before Napster,

but finding access to midis of Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da-da, and then saying, I need to play that now. So my mom got the sheet music for me and I start playing that. This is really hard music considering this is like the fourth song I've ever, the piece of music I've ever heard.

And how old are you at this time? Just 14. 14. 14. And the appetite just consumed me. I would watch this movie Shine with Jeffrey Rush, where he plays Rachmaninoff's third concerto. And I remember realizing watching this movie that this is an actor portraying a real person

playing what a lot of the music world regards as the most difficult piece of music, Rachmaninoff's third concerto. And it dawned on me, wait, if this actor is playing it, then it probably means that there's real people who play it, real pianists who play it. So I went online, and this is back in like 1998 internet, and I realized that there was a VHS tape of this guy, Vladimir Horowitz, playing Rachmaninov's Sturken Charitae with

the New York Phil, with Zubin Meta as a conductor in 1978. So I begged my mom, mom, can I get this cassette tape? Came in the mail. And I watched that thing 50 times that summer. I could not believe. VHS. Yeah, VHS tape. I could not believe that there was a human being

that was able to play this level of difficulty in music this beautiful with such virtuosity. And it changed my life forever, that tape. difficulty in music this beautiful with such virtuosity. And it changed my life forever, that tape. I was set on fire by this. Where for the rest of my life that fire has stayed, it has not ever been extinguished. Why do you think the difficulty of it is interesting to you or important to you?

There's something about watching him or any classical musician, I mean any artist for that matter, knowing that what you're seeing is the exponent of thousands of hours of meticulous practice and perfection towards an art that only becomes the art when you put that time in, when you put that dedication. And on top of it, what I'm so blown away by is that there is a legacy of instruction

that for most, nearly all, the classical pianists that go all the way to Beethoven. Like all roads lead to Rome, all teachers lead to Beethoven in the lineage of all the students that came after him. From Czerny, there was Liszt, from Liszt, Anton Rubinstein, and then you go down to Leszczykis Bath. And then all these students became teachers. So the insights that classical pianists have. It's a true passed down tradition.

Yes. You're basically, in the same way that you look at a galaxy and see the version of itself in the past, you're looking at technique and approach to an instrument and craft that, for the most part, of course, I say this loosely, for the most part is handed down all the way from Beethoven. There's something so beautiful about that.

That's amazing. Yeah. How's your relationship to classical music changed since that date? I realized, first and foremost, I'm really, I would never have the ability to be like that. And I think there's a point for a lot of pianists where you either realize you can't get to that level

or you can't. And I sometimes say to myself, well, if I ever had the proper training at an early age, maybe I can get into a conservatory, maybe I can give it a shot, but I'm kind of glad I didn't have that because I think a lot of pianists who go down that path realize, they make me realize that

there's just kind of a purity and a joy to my relationship to music that's somewhat untainted by realizing that I may not make it or I may not be as good as other people. From an early age, I accepted I'm never going to be that. I'm never going to aspire to be that level. I saw virtuosity in front of me firsthand. You know, I met John Baptiste, who's now such a superstar,

but I remember being on a boat cruise with him, and he said he was a pianist, and we were the only ones there, and he just goes to the piano and he starts playing. And I had never seen that level I'm talking about three feet in front of me until it was John. And then I'm like, whoa, this is not just a VHS tape thing. This is like, we're in the same room thing.

This can really happen in real life. Yeah. Yeah, there's no movie magic here. Vladimir Horowitz could have been an actor. This guy is not an actor, this is real. And then it really hit me, wow, there's a whole world of these people currently doing this that are that good. And then I just wanted to be around all of them.

Can you enjoy playing as much knowing your position as playing for yourself and not being world class performer? Or do you not play? I'm able to play with joy. I'm able to play in a way where I don't imagine not winning a certain competition or not making a certain cut. It breaks my heart, because there's so many people my age right now who gave it up at age nine, because they had a teacher that forced them to do scales and learn music they didn't like. It should be enjoyable. You should be finding joy in meditation and its craft.

You shouldn't be flagellating yourself over it. What's your favorite piece of classical music? I'm gonna have to think about this for a second. And which version? Yeah. I think I need to reframe this by saying this is probably not my favorite, but if you want to listen to something that's just completely beautiful. Because I know I'm going to kick myself after, say, oh man, it should have been something

else. For some reason I'm thinking, I mean, a constellation number three by list by Horowitz. That's a good one. I think I got it. ["The Last Supper"] I'm going to play a little bit of the piano. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm going to be a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a

little bit of a little bit of a I'm going to be a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a That is spectacular.

Unbelievable. You remember when you first heard it? No, no. So beautiful. Yeah. So beautiful. Great choice. Yeah, yeah.

It's delicate. There's such care, attentiveness and care. Second time I've cried with you listening to music now. First was the Avett Brothers and now it's Franz Liszt and Vladimir Horowitz. Meant to be. Good music. Yeah, I'm really excited that you are diving deeper

and deeper into this music. Yeah. I treasure the exchanges. I wanna learn and I to find ways in. It's a little impenetrable, you know? It's not so, it's just the nature of it. It's just a big world. The access to information, there's not a clear path.

As opposed to more modern genres. I want to break into the impenetrable world of hip hop where there's a lot of people I can talk to. There's a lot of information, there's a lot of. Exactly, I know more people in other genres. Well, it would be a great privilege to introduce you to the people I'm discovering because I feel I don't know. Yeah, it's a big world.

It is, it is. And it's also a world that celebrates aging because the longer you live, the more you absorb and the more wisdom that comes with the insights that you gain. I can't think of any other genre where you're rewarded with so much insight the longer you listen to this music. Here's another thing I think about too. I want to bring this up. I think a lot about how beautiful it is, composers back then,

how they did everything themselves. composers back then, how they did everything themselves. In a world today where most output is a collaborative effort between other band members or writers on a track, notes that come in, these guys would just sit there with a piano, sometimes without a piano. Berlioz, the composer, didn't even know how to play piano. He would just sit in a corner and just imagine orchestras. Right?

And Brahms himself said that the best rendition of one of his symphonies is the orchestra in his head. They would just read the sheet music and they would just go for it. And when you think about it, these guys, it was really the only way was for them to be the sole author of what they were doing. For a lot of people in an orchestra,

for all those musicians to balance out the sound, to imagine the different melodies and harmonies coming from different positions in an orchestra for all those musicians to balance out the sound, to imagine the different melodies and harmonies coming from different positions and in the orchestra, right? To make those choices, those decisions, and on top of it be four movements an hour long. How does it not captivate someone today to realize that that was the way back then?

That was the creative, the only way to exist in making music. the only way to exist in making music. It has been cherished in tribal wisdom traditions for thousands of years. Indigenous peoples all over the world have used this plant-based compound in spiritual healing and ceremonial rites and rituals for centuries. spiritual, healing and ceremonial rites and rituals for centuries. More recently, it has been shown to increase alertness, improve focus, elevate mood, enhance cognition, heightened reward sensation and more. We are talking about nicotine.

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what's the score in the 5% to be the interpretation of the style and the persona of who the interpreter is. So it basically means like, you better not break the rules. If it says largo, you better play slow. If it shows those notes, you better not. But how do we know that your slow and my slow means the same thing? That's the 5% he's getting at.

Sometimes they put the BPM, the beats per minute, up on the score. Not in the history, they didn't. Yeah, yeah they did. Really? Yeah. Composers like Beethoven would put a BPM in the score. Really?

Is that true? Absolutely. I never knew that. Mahler is one of the most meticulous composers that put more notes about how to play the music than the notes itself in the score. That's fascinating. Yeah, it's just kind of a look,

this is how you play it. This is how I want you to play it is what they're saying to all people. But this is how I think it goes. Yes, but there's such fidelity over the score that there's a lot of people, it's kind of in the same way that people look at the Constitution and say,

the originalist interpretation of the Constitution is to imagine what it was like back then. The living interpretation is to imagine it may be more adapted in modern times. It's really no different with interpreting music. Some people believe that there's a little bit more of a flexibility and freedom to bend what they see.

Glenn Gould is notorious, like listen to his Mozart. He is not paying attention to half of what's written there. More than half of the people would be like, well that's not exactly Mozart. All the other people would be electrified by the sense that he's just being himself. And a lot of people would say, oh. And some would say he's breathing new life into Mozart.

Yes, but what he would say, I'm just breathing me into Mozart. And that is what Mozart means to me. But you're also dealing, it's almost like Picasso making weird art. He's making really abstract stuff, but if you look at his previous stuff, he did the thing. He showed he was competent at all the technical proficiency

that all the other artists were doing. Glenn Gould is the same thing, absolute genius. He could beat out anyone in his meticulousness over interpretations of scores. It's just that it got interesting as he got older because then he started doing things that revealed a nature to who he was. He was remixing.

He was remixing, but doing it in the most authentic way. He had the most authentic reasons for why he was doing this. So there's actually an amazing video you should watch. My friend Ben Lotty created this amazing essay called Why Glenn Gould Broke Classical Music. And he gets into this. He gets into this like who are you to change the music? Well this is who I am.

I'm me. And it's this fascinating conversation because classical music is kind of stuffy, has a reputation for being snobbish, for keeping their lopers at bay. And yeah, I agree that there has to be some degree of possibly modifying this for, modifying this, but maybe not so much for modern times,

as long as people are just being individuals. I think that's the key distinction, is that as long as there is a real reason, a calling to why you're doing this, then look at Vick Unger, Olufsen, like he's taking Bach and he's changing it. That's who he is. That's who he is.

He's not doing it because he feels like he needs to stand out. He's just doing it because that's him as an artist. That's how he hears it. Yeah, that's right. That's what's interesting to him. That's right, that's right. So I think we all need to maybe like chill

if someone's altering. What's also fascinating, sorry, I'm getting really excited about this, is Leopold Godofsky. I mean, one of the most under-recognized, under-appreciated technicians of the piano of the 20th century. This guy added a whole level of technical ability

beyond Busoni, who is beyond Liszt. I mean, some people argue the last real technician for the piano. He was in love with Chopin's etudes, you know? Two opuses, 12 each, opus 10, opus 25. And he basically said, I can take this material, take Chopin and turn it into my own studies. And etudes are studies.

Etudes are there for the increasing of technical proficiency. That's what the spirit of an etude is. So in the same spirit, being a technician, he said, okay, well, I can take what's already there and use that as a foundation. Music I love, music that I worship and then create my own versions of it. So you have one etude, instead of two hands,

he turns it into a left hand. He does another one where he takes two etudes and merges it into one. We're talking brutal. I mean, we are talking so difficult. It's so difficult that Vladimir Horowitz once said that to play Godovsky means you need to have six singers on a hand and therefore I don't play it.

But what's fascinating is that right after the turn of the century, a lot of people immediately saw that, this remixing of Chopin, who's one of the most worshiped turn of the century, a lot of people immediately saw that, this remixing of Chopin, who's one of the most worshiped composers of all time, to say it is sacrilege what you are doing to modify or remix this material that we must all put on a pedestal and we must all worship, right?

So he was kind of like, no, like you're misunderstanding the spirit of what I'm doing. There's a reason for this. There's a reason for this. There's a reason for why I wanted out in the world and why I believe the world can gain from its existence. So there's interesting case studies all throughout history of not only remix, but people just kind of being their individual self against massive amounts of snooty criticism to say, look, I don't need to prove myself to anyone.

Look who I am. Look at the artist I am. And I think it's really inspiring to see where people... It is. It also keeps the form alive. It's like if it was only the old version forever, we've heard it. And sometimes by hearing the remix, you can go back and hear the old version in a new way.

And discover the differences. It gives you new insight. And you almost are able to A-B test something and then learn from the difference and find to your point, find new revelations in the old. Yeah. You know, I mean, you showed me how you were a fan of Glenn Gould playing the Goldbergs at a young age and an old age, which.

Yeah, I prefer the old. Yeah. Most people prefer the young, actually. Well, you said because it was a little bit more slower, more measure reflective. That's why I like the later. Right. Most people like the energy of the earlier one. I'd be curious if you took most people

and then divided it along age range if younger people... Yeah, no wonder. ...like the younger more. My understanding is that in the later one, Glenn Gould, instead of treating each piece as its own piece, he treated it all as one. And I'm very rhythmically conscious as a listener, and maybe treating it all as one

is more satisfying to the way I listen to music, or what speaks to me in music. And it's probably a preference. If you were to go back to a previous version of yourself, you may be craving something, or identifying something different in the music that you're listening to. Just taste. Taste evolves, right?

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And I also think a lot too about there's this amazing guy who I became friends with right before I passed, Joe Patrick, who's an amazing sound engineer, who my friend Ben Lottie introduced me to, he basically moonlit as pirating thousands of recordings at Carnegie Hall. And he would bring in briefcases in the 70s and he'd secretly record it.

And then as technology evolved, the briefcases became tape decks. And then when video was introduced, he brought in the mini DV tapes. And he would basically do this with a cadre of other individuals secretly. And he was ready to tell a story about how he did this, thousands of different piratings.

So what's so interesting about what he gets into is that he was doing pirating, of course, not for money, just for the preservation of art. And he believes it so much in the way that he speaks to it. But he really believes that the artist is more likely to create a conception of the music in a recording studio in a way in which the audience expects that music to be played. So they say, all right, it's Chopin. Well, I must abide by the rules.

It must sound like Chopin. It must, it can't be too avant-garde. People are going to have this forever. They're going to listen back and say, well, the choices I made back then are going to be a little bit too edgy. So I must conform. There's a conformity to this idea of perfection in the studio, which I'm sure you've seen your fair share of people really freaking out about that,

knowing that I'm about to do something forever. That's never going to go away. I'm 22 years old right now, and freaking out about that, knowing that I'm about to do something forever. That's never gonna go away. I'm 22 years old right now, people are gonna judge me when I'm 40 with the thing I made at 22. But playing live, you are unencumbered. And back then, no one even thought it was recorded. So you are free to deviate on a path

that is more you as artist and less as a projection of what the audience expects of you to be. And because of that, you end up getting better interpretations, better music playing. I love that. Those videos all exist? A few of the recordings were dumped on YouTube, but for the most part, his archive is not for public.

What's amazing is that the artists would go to him and develop friendships. I would imagine. And say, hey, were you there for that concert I played last Thursday? Yep, got it right here. Thank God, the labels wouldn't let me do this. The hall wouldn't let me record it. Thank God you were there.

And a lot of other artists were like, excuse me? I'm not here to play with a recording of me playing. This is meant to be an ephemeral thing. Yeah. A sacred ephemeral thing. Yeah. A sacred ephemeral thing. And I don't want my experimentation or my strange quirks that I would only do in front of an audience to be there for posterity forever.

So it's a deeply divisive issue. Interesting. Yeah. Take the Grateful Dead. You know, they believe in every recording booths to illegally pirate Neil Young, Carnegie Hall. That was all bootleg. So artists celebrate who they are on stage.

I don't know if you, in your experiences, if artists would tend to agree that live is just better for recording. I don't know that it's better for recording, but to have it documented seems like a good thing because it's the nature of every time you play anything, it's going to be different than another time. And it's why we do multiple takes in the studio. You do multiple takes to either find the best take or to compile the best take. So if you happen to play at your best Carnegie Hall one night,

it'd be nice if there was a recording. What about the opposite though? You don't get to have the good one unless you also can get the bad one. Yes, yeah, that makes sense. But that's also human reality, like they're not all the best one. In some ways you need the not good one

to show that the good one is the good one. It's like, that's how you know. It's perspective. Yeah. And if you go down this rabbit hole, there's amazing examples of where artists were doing some edgy stuff and so divisive that people didn't know what to do with it. I think of Ivo Pogorelic at the Chopin competition. Competitions are there.

Bartok, I think once said, the competitions are for horses. Like a lot of people hate the idea of competitions, but it's such a path towards not only preserving the tradition of the competition itself, but also a path for a career for so many artists. But to go back to then, if you watch on YouTube, you will see recordings of this interpreter who showed up wearing button-down shirts when everyone else is in suits,

fancy suits and tuxedos and whatnot. His hair's all shaggy, completely himself, unapologetically himself, playing some of the most unique interpretations of Chopin. And it stood out like a pink rock on a beach. If you listen, it is unbelievably jagged, different and strange. Interesting?

Yeah. I think a lot of it is because it's interesting because it's compared to so many different interpretations that are all much more identifiably homogenous. So Martha Argrich, one of the best living pianists of all time, was one of the jurors, and she saw how the tendency to be unique, to stand out, to be heterogeneous was contrary

to what the convention was when you have a bunch of jurors that flatten and smooth all performances out and reward first place for things that are somewhat homogenous. So she basically just resigned in a protest. She's like, you are looking at a genius right here. or someone homogenous. So she basically just resigned in a protest. She's like, you are looking at a genius right here. How dare you not recognize him

for who he is in this competition. If you go down the rabbit hole, you'll see all these people who hate competitions for the same reason. But Joe is really special because he opened my eyes to the fact that it's not about an interpretation being bad or good for him. It's about it being distinct. And I think a lot about Arthur Rubinstein, the pianist, who said, it's not about art being bad, it's just different. But I wonder, like, without all of this

groundbreaking, distinct music and different music and jagged music, music that you've spent your whole career right alongside with your hands in it, where would art go without it? Just be stuck with a flat mess of same sounding music. Yeah, what is an internet video artist? I guess it's just anyone who's willing to make something that no one else needs to give notes on. To me, that's the definition of an internet artist,

is it's probably cheap, probably do it myself, maybe with some friends, and no one is going to tell us how we're going to do it. L-M-N-T. Element Electrolytes. Have you ever felt dehydrated after an intense workout or a long day in the sun? You want to maximize your endurance and feel your best? Add Element Electrolytes to your daily routine. Perform better and sleep deeper. Improve your cognitive function.

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Tell me your early memories of your online experiences. Before online it was all just making home movies and skits with friends. When the internet comes around. 8mm or video, what was the format? Mini-DV. If you were a high school kid during my era, you were stocking up on mini-DVs and shooting things.

I didn't know how to edit back then. I mean, like, that was before iMovie. So would you edit live in the camera? Yeah, there's a lot of that. Me and my friend Paul, there was a life-changing moment there because we would take the movie GoldenEye and with Pierce Brosnan and the two of us

would just dub our own voices over the characters to come up with a new plot. And it was the first remixing that I had ever done. And the amount of freedom, the amount of authorship over devising a completely inane plot line over something that was meant to be some more, you know, somewhat serious, dramatic action film to me was a revelation.

Who would you show them to? No one else cared. Just me and him made ourselves love. You did this for years and years? No, I just did. I did this for a couple of years back in 1999. But this idea of, I guess remix, this idea of something else,

something is out in the world. And we, these two suburban kids, these nobodies are able to kind of put our own fingerprint over something that means something differently in the world. That's hip hop though. That's the same thing. It's sampling. Yeah.

There's a real freedom in that. Absolutely. You're breaking the rules. Yeah, it's fun. Yeah. I never even thought of it as a rule. It's just fun if there's something that you like and are inspired by that you get to participate along with it, feels good.

I guess it feels like a rule because back then so many movies began with this big FBI notice. Oh yeah. I said like $10,000 fine if you redistribute this, but not apples to apples there, but. But I mean, but you were doing that too. You were doing something because it wasn't about anyone else seeing it except for you and your friends.

Yeah. That was it. Yeah. It's always been that way. Yeah. Where did that start in remixing take you? What are later iterations of remixing that you've done? In college, I created this web show where I took the TV show, The O.C.,

and I remixed that into something called The B.C. because I went to Boston College, and I changed the entire plot line so that a Catholic priest was the star of the show, Father Don McMillan. So the whole premise of this token that meant one thing turned into another that meant something for this university that I went to.

What started out as a joke had this serendipitous effect of turning into a, for that time, like a well-known national soap opera that connected alums, that connected the community faculty students. That opened my eyes to, wow, this thing started as a joke, it could completely change your life. Yeah, South Park started as a joke. Absolutely, it started as like cards. Yeah, a Christmas card.

But the purity to that is that when it unfolds and gets bigger, you love that it's big because it was so accidental. I think a lot about that type of art today. But I got a job at HBO, and here I am. How did you get a job at HBO? At that time, YouTube was just around the corner. It existed halfway through my senior year of college

when I'm spending all my time on this web show, learning how to edit, producing it, directing it, writing it. Was it shooting involved or only taking OC footage and using that footage and making new audio? Shooting it. Shooting it? Yeah.

How would you shoot it? Well, we weren't in film school, so we just had to use whatever camera we had. I used my dad's camera at first, and then we got upgraded. But were there scenes actually from the OC or you reenacted everything? No, just the characters were inspired by the show and then we developed and wrote our own plot lines. So my partner, Woody would write all of them. So it was like a satire of the OC?

Yeah, yeah, it began as a satire of the OC but a satire of the college I went to for being a preppy school with kids in pop collars but a satire of Boston University, the rival school, because the whole premise was that the kid got in trouble with the law by trying to break into a car, so a priest from Boston College took him in, right? It was a critique on Boston University as well.

It was silly, and the whole thing was completely silly. So then how do you end up at HBO? At that time, this woman Fran Shea, who is now my mentor and one of the most important people in my career, she basically was looking for young talent to start a digital lab at HBO. Now, HBO at that time is known for Entourage, and The Wire, and Sex and the City,

Band of Brothers, and Sopranos, right? What would a digital lab look like for HBO? Well, it didn't use the name HBO. It was so under the radar, it used a different name. But I think Fran was able to convince HBO to start a lab to just say, okay, this thing called YouTube is here, let's experiment on it, extract insights

and see if we can bring it to the mothership, see if HBO can learn. A lot of networks back then were learning that way. They're like, let's just do internet stuff and figure it to the mothership, see if HBO can learn. Lot of networks back then were learning that way. They're like, let's just do internet stuff and figure it out. But I got there and I immediately realized I didn't like it. I didn't like being in a corporate structure.

I didn't really like being told what to do. There was an arrogance to that. I was only 22 years old, but I became so much more interested in going back to my bedroom, going on a computer, and just taking clips I didn't own from the internet and just chopping them up and creating different types of videos to go out on YouTube. And you were doing that simultaneously as your HBO job? Yeah, I was like moonlighting as this remix guy spending hundreds of hours on all sorts of crazy things that I put out in the world and they would kind of like get attention and they would go viral.

Like for example, like Good Will Hunting was one of my favorite movies. I took the trailer and recut the entire movie and put out a new trailer to make it seem like it was a horror thriller where Robin Williams was a murderer going after and trying to kill Matt Damon. Does it still exist online? Yeah, it's called. Can you pull it up? horror thriller where Robin Williams was a murderer going after and trying to kill Matt Damon. Does it still exist online? Yeah, it's called. Can you pull it up?

Yeah, if you look up Good Will Hunted. Will Hunting was a man who had it all. A beautiful girlfriend. I'm Will. Skylar. Skylar. A big loving family. She's got lots of brothers and sisters.

I have 12 big brothers. You do not. A promising new job with the government. So why do you think I should work for the National Security Agency? The question is, why shouldn't you? His life was off to a clean start. But things were about to get dirty. If you ever consider...

I'm pretty sure it's right. It would be very embarrassing. That's right. When Will uncovers a conspiracy that can topple the government. He came across this old math mix. And from this simple text, he was able to extrapolate theorists. A government agent puts out a $12 million

reward for his murder. The person to do so will not only be in my good graces, but also go on to fame and fortune. The gauntlet has been thrown down. But he knows there's only one assassin for the job. How long has it been since we've seen each other? Before Nancy died, it was nice. I think I've got something interesting for you. I need someone who can get through that.

Like me? Yeah, like you. Sean, please. Please. As the saying goes, a will that that hides What's the jackpot? 12 million Becomes a will to survive I'll fucking kill you

That's not a threat, that's a fact I'll fucking kill you This summer, two very different worlds will collide I brought you in here because I wanted you to help me I know what I'm doing What are you so scared of? This is too important, Sean Take care

In the ultimate battle for survival. Get out of my way! Motherfucker, stab me! Well, tell me what you really think. What is your obsession with this money? Time's up. I didn't fuck up. I'm not sure you understand.

Don't bullshit me! I love you! Don't bullshit me! Why is he hiding, you arrogant fucking prick? What do you want to know? What? What do you want to know? I'm not sure you understand.

I love you! Don't bullshit me. I love you. Don't bullshit me. Don't bullshit me. Why is he hiding, you arrogant fucking prick? What do you want to know? What? What about your 12 brothers? They're all dead.

You don't want to hear that shit, Skyler. I know who I am and I'm proud of what I do. It was a conscious choice. Where is she? She's dead. Don't fuck with me, alright? I will end you. I will fucking end you. Oh, my God.

How do you write it? I guess it begins with just watching it a lot. So you're taking actual dialogue from the movie, and you're changing the context of what's already being said, is that correct? Yeah, and I hired a professional voice actor to kind of make it all make sense by him coming in and explaining some of the premise, but then filling the gaps with dialogue that's misplaced

in a way that recontextualizes its meaning. So the narrator is telling the story, but the clips you're using from the movie are actual clips from the movie, but it means something different based on what the narrator is telling the story, but the clips you're using from the movie are actual clips from the movie, but it means something different based on what the narrator's telling you. Yeah, and I was really inspired by this remix called Shining,

where they remixed the movie The Shining into a comedy. And you watch this trailer, it's hilarious. It's a wholesome, feel-good family movie where Jack Nicholson's like this offbeat dad who's like struggling with his work and his kid's this cute little kid. And I watched that and said, that is magic. That is the most amazing thing I've ever seen.

I want to do that myself. So I just ran the computer and said, what movie do I love? Oh my God, Go Well Haunting. And there's a pylon effect back then on the internet. Like everyone was so inspired to just like riff and join the conversation. It was really pure, it was really special. So how many remixes did you make in those years?

I mean that was like the first real one where I just took a movie and just remixed it myself because I was getting better and better at editing. The better I got, the faster it was. But I mean the thing that really had a deep impact on me was I took every episode of The Sopranos and reduced it to a seven minute recap. The final season was coming out in April 2007.

And even though I worked at HBO, I didn't tell anyone at HBO that I was secretly working on a recap that would basically spoil everything that happened. With me narrating really fast and showing over 2,000 different shots in chronological order from seasons one to six. My roommate was the most obsessed Sopranos fan, Paul, the same guy who I did the GoldenEye stuff with eight years before. And I said, write everything that ever happened and I'll narrate and edit all the clips to it. And I didn't tell anyone at HBO I was doing this. I was just this like, this like snot-nosed 22 year old

who's like checked out at work going home from HBO to basically spoil everything that happened in the full show of The Sopranos. So I got through like four of the six seasons and I had a four minute edit where I've never seen anything like this before. And I remember going to my boss Fran and I said to her, hey, check this out. I think the world needs to see this. This needs to go on YouTube. But back at that time, like, are you crazy? TV shows just spoiling everything

in the show? Unheard of. They did not market their shows that way. That was like piracy, copyright infringement. So Graham looks at this and says, wow, okay, we need to show the head of marketing. So the head of marketing is like, who is this 22 year old? What does this 22 year old do with our content? Looks at this clip where I'm just spoiling everything in a really fast paced narration and goes, this is amazing, too bad we can't do anything with it.

And then Fran's like, well, let's take you to the head of HBO in Los Angeles, biggest office I've ever seen, the nicest suit that this guy was wearing, right? And he looks at it and he's like, yeah, I mean, this is one of the most creative things I've ever seen, too bad we can't do anything with this. And I'll never forget what my boss, Fran, said.

She says, I'm not gonna tell you not to upload it, but if you do put your roommate's name on it, and you leave your name off of them, and they put it out that way. And to me, that was just, I finished the video seven minutes, and I'm like, yes, this thing can see the light of day.

I was so excited to share this with the world. And it went out, it got like a million views in a day. And we potentially put Paul's email at the end of it just to see what would happen. And he basically got an email from Matthew Weiner, who created Mad Men, was the lead writer of The Sopranos. And he wrote to Paul's email address and said, thank you for this amazing recap.

It brought back a lot of memories. Amazing. And we're like, what, the lead writer. So cool. He just basically saw this strange thing that we put out to the world, but then all of a sudden the lawyers found out about this video.

And friends like Joe, this is creating some heat. A lot of people are wondering what this is all about. You gotta kinda lay low. Don't tell anyone that you did this. Gotta make sure it's Paul, your roommate. So then Paul gets an email from the New York Times. And New York Times wants to do a story on it. Like check out this viral video of the recap

that spoils everything in The Sopranos that's there to promote the last season of The Sopranos. So Paul gets on the phone and Paul intentionally reduces me to the role of I'm just an editor supporting Paul because I couldn't reveal my involvement with HBO. And this article comes out. And the article says that David Chase, the creator of the show, loved it.

And I went to 7-Eleven to buy a print of the New York Times because that's what everyone wants to do when it's like, in the New York Times is to have a printed version of it. And you see this half page article that's there. And what do you see right before it? You see a two page ad for the final season of The Sopranos that HBO probably paid like $100,000 for. But then after that you get this like free attention.

Something that people would actually read. Yeah, and be super engaged and also to to kind of revisit everything they may have forgotten so that they're ready for the final season, which I knew was going to be a thing. And when this article came out, the fact that the creator of the show said that he loved it, all of a sudden HBO was like,

okay, we're completely okay with this. We're completely cool with this. Yep, this is great. This is great for the show. But it took all of that to happen to kind of do like a paradigm shift for HBO to realize, wait, this stuff is not dangerous. This can actually help promote.

It's like having your song on the radio. Yes. And just because some kids ended up putting it on this gritty place called YouTube doesn't mean that it cheapens your prestigious brand. It cannot really support it, add value to your IP. What were some of the things that you were doing at HBO, at your day job at HBO at that time?

We would go to comedy festivals and we would be like cameramen for people like Daniel Tosh, who would go around and we'd do red carpets with people like back then, like Louis CK and, you know, Bill Burr. But basically, you have all of these amazing comedians in 2006 who had not yet blown up in this era where they have, and here I am as a cameraman,

like filming all these different comedians. That was actually really cool. I actually really enjoyed that. But it all felt like I was just doing tasks that other people were asking me to do. And there's something about that that, it wasn't that I rebelled against that out of spite, it was more that I was just so much more interested

to create things on my own terms. And I felt validated making videos that a lot of people watch, because it made me say, I'm quitting. I'm just going to be a freelancer. I'm just going to go on my own. Welcome to the house of macadamias. Macadamias are a delicious superfood,

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Thigh roasted with Namibian sea salt, cracked black pepper, and chocolate dips. Snack bars come in chocolate. Coconut white chocolate and blueberry white chocolate. Visit houseofmacadamias.com slash tetra. After the Sopranos did well, what was the next thing that really moved the needle? I drove from England to Mongolia in a tiny car, 10,000 miles. And I said, when I go to Kazakhstan, I'm going to try to get everyone to sing one line from two Pakhshakhor's changes.

How did you pick the song? It was really, it's an inspiring song. If you really listen to the lyrics, there's something really beautiful about the message. So I think I also just saw the juxtaposition of, okay, you have these people in Kazakhstan who are so far away singing a song that's so popular in America that there's something just so off beat about it.

So I think I captured like 45 people. It also brings the world together. It shows we're all one. It's beautiful. Yeah. And I put that video out in Interscope Records. It's like, hey, what if you do that for Weezer in Japan for one of their songs?

And I went to Japan. It was another example. Just create art for fun and see what happens. Yeah. How did you end up at Conde Nast? I was spending a few years just developing somewhat of a very niche reputation for just kind of doing these remixes.

And I had been in a music group, too. I got one of the early YouTube grants to create this channel where I had all these musicians doing musical experiments. And that was really great. And I was really honing my sense of live action using cameras because before that it was all rip stuff from the internet and chop it up

and now I'm in a studio filming musicians with amazing sound recording, with amazing talent and filming it and then putting it out to the world. Was music always a important part of it for you? Yeah, very much so. Because I got to spend all my time with Virtuoso, classical musicians, and having them do crazy pop culture medleys all in one take.

Yeah. So 2013 comes around, and I got an email from a guy at a company, a guy, Dan Rosen, at a company called Fullscreenscreen and they said Hey, we're aware of the work that you do. Would you want to put your hat in the ring to be one of ten featured directors in This Amex sponsored Vanity Fair series called the Decade series where to celebrate a hundred years of Vanity Fair They have ten directors representing ten decades where they can do whatever they want.

Any short film that depicts the decade. And people like Judd Apatow, Don Cheadle, Britt Ratner, it's amazingly documentarians. So I said, yeah, of course. And they said, well, we like you because you're a digital creator, because you're not like all these other guys. And we told Vanity Fair it's really important

maybe to have one of the 10 directors be so digitally native, not from the Hollywood scene. So I said, cool, can I pick the decade? And he goes, no, the only one left is the 1950s. Everyone else picked their decades. So I said, okay, cool. Yeah, let's do it. So I ended up creating this one take music video

that depicts all of the events that happened in the 1950s through this one take song and visual theatrics. You'll notice a theme, like this obsessive- One takes. Yes. What got you into one takes? One takes, the magnetism of being able to shoot something in one take, this sense of an audience looking at a one take video

saying, where does it go? I need to keep watching, I need to see what's going to unfold because there's no cuts. It's not illusory. It's all what you see is what you get. And the plot line is super linear in one direction. And OK GO is doing music videos back in 2006

that kind of really inspired me because you see the effort, you see the preparation. It goes back to your love of classical music. It's like, it's virtuoso when you're doing it all in one take. I've never thought about that. And uninterrupted too, you don't have multiple cuts in a live stage performance.

I understand, everything has to be perfect. Yeah, wow, I didn't really make that connection before. Tell me the story of the 73 Questions. Well, that decade series is connected to 73 Questions because when that video that I made, this music video that recaps everything in the 1950s went out, it was alongside a lot of other films

that were not as offbeat as that, that were not as, I guess, conceptually out there. And to me, it was just the internet. It's like, oh, the internet audience is gonna like this. This is gonna be strange and different. But because of that, six months later, I got a phone call from Condé Nast saying, we remembered you from that thing

that you did with Vanity Fair. And for Vogue, we wanted to see what you would do with Sarah Jessica Parker, who is just so Vogue, and Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue, loves her. We wanted to see what you would do with her if there was four hours. I think she was promoting a shoe line back then, and the opportunity was there to say,

okay, let's take someone like Joe and say, what would you do with her? And basically, my immediate reaction to this was I really have never had the opportunity to, A, know what Kanye and Ast was, which is the parent company of Vogue. B, I never really read Vogue. I knew Sarah Jessica Parker was the woman

from Sex and the City, but I've never seen that before. So for me, if I had the opportunity to be with someone who's only known as being Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City, the show I've never seen before, then I just want to do something that's about her. I want to do something where I'm unabashedly going and not knowing a lot about her, just so I can learn about her.

And of course, everything has to be that perfection that you said. Everything needs to be this one take that I'm currently obsessed with. So I said, what if I just go in and in one take, this kind of theatrical, quasi-staged, quasi-real rendition where I'm just barraging her with one question after another and she's just seamlessly answering it, like slaying every question effortlessly. And it was just so weird, it was just a weird idea.

I was with my friend Vince Pione at the time who would DP so much of the project, he DP'd the Vanity Fair project, and he said, you know what would be cool? What if she looked at the camera while would DP so much of the project, he DP'd the Vanity Fair project. And he said, you know what'd be cool? What if she looked at the camera while you were doing it? So you hear my voice, but she's looking at the camera, so it feels like the camera is the audience. The camera is the interviewer and therefore the audience.

So I said, that's amazing, let's try that. So she read the pitch, she said, okay, cool. Come by, we'll have it in my house. No one's ever been in my house before. You can see between Federer and Sarah Jessica Parker, there's a theme of just going in people's homes for the first time with cameras. But yeah, she said, okay, let's do it.

So we show up with a crew and we kind of just try to implement how to do something like asking 73 questions all rapid fire, uninterrupted. It's really hard. Absolutely. You need a team of people. It's not just the camera, it's me reading the questions. It's a sound guy with Fursound. There's an AC doing focus.

There's a small herd of people all having to do a pre-rehearsed choreography mapped to a room, knowing that you're trying to stagger it all out so the audience doesn't lose attention. all having to do a pre-rehearsed choreography mapped to a room, knowing that you're trying to stagger it all out so the audience doesn't lose attention, so it feels like it's moving, it's moving, and you can't make any edits. Sarah Jessica Parker needs to be on,

she needs to be remembering her answers, and we need to be on because if you step into the shot, you ruin the shot, right? So what I realized quickly is you need to rehearse. You need to do this once. Okay,arse. You need to do this once. Okay, great. You need to do this twice. Okay, great.

The production guy forgot to move the ottoman and we almost tripped. All right, great, fix that. We'll iron that out, great. Third take happens. Okay, that feels a little bit smoother. What people don't realize is that Sarah Jessica Parker, in that first time ever doing this,

refused to give her real answers as I was asking every question. She would just say, blah, after every question because she wanted to keep it real, she wanted to keep it authentic. Which says so much to her abilities as an actor to want to give herself in a real nature but to perform it in a way that feels like it's elevated,

it's heightened. So eventually by the seventh take, she says, I'm ready to get my real answers. We were all smoothed up with the choreography and boom, in five and a half minutes, we had our final take, we had all of our answers and it worked. I remember looking at playback on the monitor. I'm like, oh my God, I've never seen anything like this before. This is really, it's funny. It's a really funny video when you watch it with her.

And how well received was that first one? It was big. It was big, yeah. I think a lot of people, first and foremost in fashion, saw it. This goes up under the Vogue banner. Like what a weird video this is. This isn't- Yeah, for Vogue, it's weird.

This isn't some glossy photo shoot where they're having like wind in the hair as B-roll and like talking about like what fashion means to them. This is Sarah Jessica Parker like talking about what she wants on her pizza. How many have you done thus far of the 73s? It's been 10 years over 90 episodes, 91 or something. Can you remember which one took the most amount of takes to get it? Sarah Jessica Parker's up there with seven.

I forgot who, there were some people with 10. I think for that person with 10, I think they just really wanted to nail it. And maybe there's a little bit of an insecurity. If anything, they were more of a perfectionist than I was because they felt like they were within reach of a version of this that felt even more seamless. And I was actually really inspired

by that level of dedication. These people are really busy. Why is this person asking for it? Eighth, ninth, and tenth take. I was pretty inspired. I like it whenever anybody wants to better their performance. I think it's a good sign. It is.

Even if it's great, if they think they could do it better, I really want to see that. Yeah, yeah. And there are also the opposite where one time there was just one take and that was with Liam Gallagher. One take only.

The rehearsal is the one take. There's no walkthrough, nothing. Can we watch that one? Yeah, of course. Let's watch that. Take it easy, play it cool. He's just a rock star, no big no big deal. Liam Gallagher! I'm so happy to be asking you 73 questions. I've waited for this for a long time. Let's get into this.

So, how are you these days? I'm good, very good. Alright, what's currently on your mind? Ooh, Manchester City. Yeah, you're a city supporter. I'm glad we're doing this in Hempstead Heath. It's a change of scenery for the series. You run here a lot, right?

Yeah, I haven't run on here for a bit though, because I've been touring. Well, yeah, I like to run on here when I can. Do you run for distance or for speed? Distance. If you couldn't be Liam Gallagher, who would you want to be? John Lennon. Out of every film that you've ever seen in your entire life, what's your favourite? Quaterfino.

Do you have any irrational fears like snakes, airplanes, clowns, that type of thing? Mice. What's the best present anyone ever gave you? My brother bought me a John Lennon necklace that he wore when he met the Maharishi. And that was the last nicest thing he ever done for me. Do you have any kind of motto or mantra that you live by? Er, live in the now. Forget, you know, don't worry about tomorrow. Okay, what's a topic you could spend hours upon hours talking to me about?

Ooh, the Beatles. If I found you at a pub, what would you be drinking? All of them. I like them all. Lager, Guinness. And how do you prepare your tea? I like it with milk, no sugar. What would you say is your spirit animal?

Dolphin. Now you weren't always into music, but how did it bloom for you? I got into music when I was about 18 and all there's a lot of people like getting it when the two in that but I I was in a football and so I was about 18 so that's I was a late I was a late for more now what are your favorite lyrics of any song ever I need to be myself I can't be no one else feeling supersonic give me gin and tonic hmm and can you rank your favorite Beatles records from least to most favorite?

No I can't, I love them all. What are your top five favorite Oasis songs? The forever, Super Sonic, Cast No Shadow. Good one so far. My sister. I need one more though. One more. I won the wall.

Alright, there you go. My old sister. You need one more, don't you? One more is fine. I won the wall. A couple years back you said you owned 2000 tambourines. Did I say that? Yeah, you did. No, no, no. I don't own 2000 tambourines. Not anymore.

I sent it to give them away and that to the beautiful people. Where did that rumour come from? I don't know. If you could form a supergroup with anybody from the history of music and you're the singer, who else is in the band? Right. Keith Boone on drums, Jimi Hendrix on guitar, and Paul McCartney on bass. What audience do you want to play? Pardon?

What audience would you play? What audience would I play? What audience would I play? Yeah, what venue? Ooh, I'd like Main Road. No, not Main Road, because it's not right there. Anywhere, anywhere that'll have us. Liam, what would you say is the single hardest part of the rock and roll lifestyle? The hardest part is staying true to yourself and keeping it real.

Right. Um, is there anyone today you say is a true living rock star? Me. Wasn't expecting anything less. Exactly. And of these living rock stars, who got old and stayed cool? Neil Young. How do you think you've changed rock and roll? How do I think I've changed rock and roll? I just do exactly what it says on the tin. Yeah, but would you say that rock and roll still exists? Yeah, it does while I'm still here. What do you like and dislike about music today?

What do I dislike about it? No, I like music, man. I don't dislike it. What's your favorite part of performing on stage? Favorite part of performing on stage is seeing the people and making them bounce. And when you're standing on stage, you have such an iconic stance.

How did that come about? Well, I never wanted to be Mick Jagger and I'm not into dancing. It's not my scene and that, so I just think, you know, you just stand like that and you get a bit more power behind the kind of vocals what's most underrated band of the 90s Oasis how about the most overrated band blur What was your favorite thing about the 90s oh

The favorite thing about a night is I reckon there was no camera phones and people were just living in the moment. Do you miss that? Yeah. What was your least favorite thing about the 90s? The least favorite thing about the 90s? I don't have a least favorite thing about the 90s. The 90s were beautiful. Alright, can't have this interview without asking, what's the best party you've ever been to in your life?

Best party I've ever been to? Oh, you've seen some parties. I can't really think of the best one really, there have been quite a few in that. There's gotta be one, right? There is I guess, but I can't think of one on top of it. That's okay. But do you have any hangover remedies? Oh, straight back to the pub.

No messing about, lager. Yeah, hair of the dog. Don't sit and dwell about on hangovers, just go straight back again. And it'll work itself out. It's been a few years since the 90s. Things are different. What's a wild night out for you these days? Oh, I don't have wild nights out these days, I have wild nights in. If you were forced to sing one song for the rest of your life,

what song would it be? Live Forever. What would you say is the best lesson that your mother taught you? To be myself and not give a f*** what people think. What's the biggest lesson that you've learned from being a father? Being a father, erm... Ooh. I don't know, I don't know. from being a father? Being a father? Erm...

I don't know. I don't know. Sure, yeah. Can you tell me something that your kids do better than you? Digest their food better than me. Now, there's been a resurgence in Oasis fans over the past few years. What's it been like to see a new generation discovering your music? Yeah, it's amazing. We're very lucky to be alive and still witnessing the youth at our gigs.

There's a lot of people that pass away and you never get to experience that. In the 18 years that Oasis were together, what specific moment makes you the most emotional? I just think getting a record deal. As boring as that kind of can sound. We've done like NebW with and Main Road and all that. I think getting a record deal and going into the studio and developing the songs and that was, that was, that was the most important thing for me. Yeah, for sure. What's your guilty pleasure?

Ooh, guilty pleasure. Blur. Has anyone ever left you feeling completely starstruck? Yeah, Ringo Starr. Ringo? I can see that. He seems like a pretty good guy to hang out with, right? Yeah, he's a dude. He's my favorite. When you're getting ready for a show, what's your pre-stage ritual? Pre-stage ritual? Pre-stage ritual?

I drink a lot of honey and lemon and apple cider vinegar. That actually sounds pleasant. Liam, heads up! Obvious fan placement? Oh lord. What wonderful display of footwork. Nice. Who's the most rock and roll player

at Manchester City and why? Well, it used to be Mike Summerby. In the 60s and the 70s because he used to, he never wore shin pads and that, he rolled his socks down and he got stuck in. But these days, who would have said he is now? Maybe Sergio Aguero. Alright, who would you like to see relegated from the Premier League? United, Manchester United.

Okay, who would you rather be stuck on a desert island with, Muhammad Salah or Alexis Sanchez? Who? Muhammad Salah or Alexis Sanchez? Who? Muhammad Salaah or Alexis Sanchez? Er, oh god. Erm, Alexis Sanchez. Now I heard that Danny Boyle just found someone to play you in a movie. Who's someone that you would have not minded to play you? Who would have not mind playing me?

Erm, I'm easy man. I've only got the haircut right and the chat and that. I'm easy, man. I only got the haircut, right, and the, you know, the chat and that. I'm down, I'm cool with anyone. Bigger question, who do you think should play Noel in the movie? Oh, the little fella out of Ant and Dec. Is it Dec? Yeah, that's Dec. Is there a topic you wish people would stop asking you about?

Er... Yeah, are you hot in that parka? I am hot in it, shit hot. Oh, we got some dogs. Liam, would you consider yourself a dog person? I am, yeah. What rules do you try to follow the best you can to keep everything in check? Just my voice, when it tells me to go to bed, it's very loud and that, like years ago it used to be very quiet. I know when I go to bed these days.

Right. How would you describe your personal style? Erm, big and baggy. And authentic. How do you think it's evolved over the past few decades? It hasn't evolved, it's still the same, keeping it real. Who was or is your style icon? Er, George Harrison was cool, Paul Weller's cool. Stone Rose is always dressed cool.

And the Happy Mondays. What's a wardrobe staple every man should own? A parka. Without a doubt. If you had a lot of experiences in your life, what would you say is the most incredible thing that you've ever seen? Manchester City winning the league. What's the last show that you binge watched? The last what? The last show that you binge watched.

I binge watched, I watched some, I don't know the name of it, I watched? The last what? Last show that you binge watched. I binge watched, I watched some, I don't know the name of it, I watched it on Netflix the other day I think about it. There's some lady who had an affair with two inmates, can't remember the name. Find out for you. Get back to me on that one. What's your most overused phrase? Ooh, overused phrase. Mad for it. If you could resurrect one person from history and put them in the world today, who would it be? John Lennon.

Why? Because he's... he's the main man. Liam, can I ask you, what makes you happy? Makes me happy. Early mornings make me happy, and my children, and being alive. When was the last time that you cried? Oh, the other day. What made you cry?

I stubbed me toe on a coffee table. Mm. Looking back on your life, is there anything that you would have done differently? No, never. Everything happens for a reason. Is there anything you regret saying? Uh, mad for it probably about nine million times. How do you handle regret in general? Uh, mad for it probably about nine million times.

How do you handle regret in general? Um, I don't regret, I don't regret much. What would you say is your greatest talent? Singing. And where do you see yourself precisely ten years from now? Oh, that's a tough one. Now? I don't know. Liam, that's question number 72, and now for the final question, question number 73. How do you feel about ending this interview with some word associations?

Yeah, why not? Here we go. Number one, Keanu Reeves. Ooh. It's all dark answer handsome. SpongeBob. Legend. Farmer's markets. Good for the soul.

Skinny jeans. Terrible. And this interview. Half decent. That's a wrap. Is that it? That's it. Good job, man.

Dude, we did it. We did it. Incredible. How did you not laugh? It's hard because I'm so focused with getting this done and not ruining it that it was really hard for me to pay attention to the answers as it's happening. There's a lot going on with this.

It's been so many years of doing this series that I'm more and more aware of how kind of insane my character is to just show up, just asking all these questions, completely unconcerned with any follow ups, just one after another. It's an insane premise. Yeah.

But with Liam Gallagher, I mean to do this with Liam Gallagher. How was he chosen to do this? Sally Singer, when she was at Vogue, really believed that Liam was so Vogue and so perfect. It's a great idea. And she really has great taste. And it was an offbeat choice, but he really,

I mean, he is a fashion icon, without a doubt. So we flew out to London, and small crew, you know, seven people, we said, okay, let's pitch the premise of going to Hempstead Heath. It just happened to be 99 degrees that day, really hot. And he hadn't shown up yet. So before the celebrity shows up, we always try to do a tech walkthrough.

And the path for this was very much, go down this dirt path. We'll have them stop under the tree because they're shade. Then we'll go around and then there's like a dog walk and we'll end over there. It's about like maybe a half mile walk. So when it's 99 degrees, it's like this is not gonna be pleasant for anyone.

Liam's maybe not gonna like this. So we do the tech run with a stamp in there doing the whole thing, which is really helpful. What may fall within the sphere of tetragrammaton? Counterculture? Tetragrammaton. Sacred geometry? Tetragrammaton. Counterculture? Tetragrammaton. Sacred geometry? Tetragrammaton. The Avant-Garde? Tetragrammaton. Generative art? Tetragrammaton.

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Tetragramatin. Muscle cars. Tetragramatin. Ancient wisdom for a new age. Upon entering, experience the artwork of the day. The art of the day. The art of the day. The art of the day.

The art of the day. The art of the day. The art of the day. The art of the day. The art of the day. The art of the day. forecast Tetragrammaton, ancient wisdom for a new age. Upon entering, experience the artwork of the day. Take a breath, and see where you are drawn. You always do a tech run through with a stand-in? Yeah, mostly. One or several until you get it? Just one. Just one. One's enough to kind of know the flow where we're going, especially for a camera just

on lap. It's really helpful for him to just kind of have a sense because he's going, especially for camera, you know, just on lap. You know, it's really helpful for him to just kind of have a sense because he's walking with a big camera, right? So we come back and we hear that Liam's there and I see him and the manager's like, all right, you know, go up to him and just kind of explain what you need to do. And he's wearing like a parka, like a black parka with sunglasses and I'm like this guy's got to be hot right now. It's like 99 degrees. How is he wearing this parka? So I go up to him and you know at that point still today I'm not really nervous when I

go up to people especially like Liam Gallagher. I'm just like look my job is here just to communicate what we need to do and let's get it done. So I say, all right, so I'm gonna ask you 73 questions and why don't we start with a rehearsal, like walkthrough. So you have a sense of where we need to go and where we need to land. Because this thing's gonna be multiple takes. I just wanna make sure you're comfortable, but I wanna make sure the crew's comfortable

so we have something that seems like it's seamless because we always do more than one. So he goes, no, no man, I'm cool, let's just do this. I'm like, are you sure you don't want to rehearsal? Sure you don't want to just walk through and see where you're going? And he's like, no, let's just press record and do it now. So I held up the crew, and I'm like,

guys, I think there's no second try at this. I really think we only have one take. And there's a moment where we're just like, no one's grew up. It's a team effort. Like, Liam may be able to pull it off, but can we? Am I gonna screw up? Is the camera gonna trip?

And the camera falls, I'm like, we may only have one shot at this, right? So we just get going. We just do it. I'm just throwing questions at him. What do you have a fear of?, right? So we just get going. We just do it. I'm just throwing questions at him. What do you have a fear of? Mice. The spirit animal question.

It's such a stupid question to ask people back then. Stupid. But for him to say dolphin to that. And as we're walking, it's a surreal experience because I'm basically standing behind the camera just waving and saying, go this way, go this way. Now this series, I always do ADR myself to kind of clean myself up.

So if I give stage directions, I know I can always go on post and just clean it up. So I had this surreal experience where I'm with Liam Gallagher, asking him a question like, hey, rank all of your favorite way albums. And right after I'm just like, get under the tree, get under the tree.

There's shade. So you're talking in between the questions. I'm just like basically, just like, this surreal experience of having to order, and I have to yell it because I'm 15 feet away. I have to like vocalize because I'm behind the camera. I see. So I just want him to go where the camera looks good

so the sun's not on him and he's in the shade. I'm like, take a left, take a left. I'm like, it's crazy and he has to, and he's doing it. He's a real cool guy because he's listening to his instructions I'm throwing at him. It's a surreal experience. Then at the end we stack the questions so they get a little bit serious, you know,

like regrets and like where do you see yourself in 10 years? And you can tell he's like visibly uncomfortable at the end, we stack the questions so they get a little bit serious, like regrets and like, where do you see yourself in 10 years? And you can tell he's like visibly uncomfortable at the end. He's just kind of like, you can tell he's over this thing. So we cut the celebratory moment. We actually pulled it off. And I go, Liam, that was great, but let's go back and do it again. Like I know that we can do a better job capturing you. If you want a safety take, let's do it. And he goes, oh man, we've got to do it again. I know that we can do a better job capturing you. If you want a safety take, let's do it.

And he goes, oh man, we gotta do this again. It's fucking hot. It's fucking hot right now. So then he kinda walks back a half mile to the starting point. And after a couple minutes, my producer, Marina, who's my now wife, she comes up and goes, Joe, I can hear his audio in my headphones.

Like, it's not good. I go, what's he saying? And Marina's like, he's saying over and over again, this ain't for me, this ain't for me, this ain't for me. So I'm like, oh my God, everyone get back to the starting line. Everyone go back, the whole crew, we started running. We get back, and he's completely gone. He just disappeared. Not even in the car.

He just left. That was the last time I ever saw him. And I look back and it's like, what is more Liam Gallagher than a one take, just go with an interview, where he ends up hating the experience? Yeah, and leaving. And just leaving.

Walking out. Without saying goodbye. Yeah, perfect. Look how beautiful is that? Yeah. How authentic is that? You got the full Liam Gallagher. And just leaving. Walking out. Without saying goodbye. Yeah, perfect. Look how beautiful is that? How authentic is that? You got the Fulian McGallagher. That's it? If we did a second, it wouldn't be him.

Yeah. It's flashing back so many memories to having done this for so many years. And I think, I think it's drawing such a comparison to this film with Roger Federer for me, because I'm noticing just how different it all is. And I spent many years of my life in this kind of mode

of just having to make and make and create. And there's always one person right around the corner that you just have to like pump out a video with. And I've been thinking a lot these days about this difference between have and want. And what I mean by that is that 73 questions and all the other videos that I made during my time at Conde Nast, so much of it is under the conditions

of a very famous person coming in and having to do this video because other people told them that it's one stop along the tour of something that they're promoting. Liam wasn't promoting something, Roger wasn't. These are specific asks from the editors, but for the most part, there's an album, TV show, movie coming out. And I think that when you get in the mindset of that you're doing something for someone else,

it can be something that, first and foremost, you want it to be good. For many of these people, it is for themselves. But it's also there to please other people, to say, look, I'm doing it. I'm doing it because I was asked. And it can be more of a performance than a moment. Yeah. Yeah.

Like it's not like we're, it's not like I'm probing beyond the surface to really capture a deeper sense of what they feel about things. It's very much intentionally kept to be light. Now there are times Nicole Kimmins is gonna say she's feeling raw because someone died or Taylor Swift is gonna say, yeah,

like I hate being slut shamed. And there's glimpses of those moments, but by all means, it doesn't really go much deeper than that. But the experience that I had making a movie with Roger around one of the most intimate moments of his life, most vulnerable moments around his life, revealed for me the dichotomy of people wanting to do something because it means something to them and not having to do it for anyone else but themselves.

And creating in that mode where you're capturing someone because they truly want to be there, because the weight of the circumstances are so personal, the level of trust in that mode is a very different thing. And I'm at this point where it's like, yeah, I want more of that. That's great. Yeah. So I feel really grateful to have had that with Raj,

but now I'm kind of hooked on it. What's next? You'll find it. We'll find it. Tell me about some of the other formats besides 73 questions that you've done multiple. Some of the things that are really popular are getting celebrities to answer questions

that are most searched about them. So we took Google Autocomplete and then turned it into an interview series. That's kind of this really trippy and amazing way for someone to kind of see how their name and brand is reflected through the eyes of an audience. I've never seen that. Tell me about the format.

So if you did this. Give me an example. Well, if you did this interview and you typed in what does Rick Rubin, and you just type it, even before pressing search, you're going to get a list of popular predictive searches that the world has been making about you. Maybe it's think about philosophy, think about meditation.

Make what does Rick Rubin make? And we realize that if you take a screenshot of the top five predictive searches that come after a query like what does or how does or where can with the celebrity's name, you can end up having those interview questions that the celebrity can answer. That's really interesting. Yeah.

And it's surprising. Like what is Jennifer Lawrence's, and then we see the predictive searches, height, age, star sign, favorite role, right? This is what the world is searching about her, so then she answers it. And that's become the most popular series we've ever made. It's like over a billion views on that.

Wow. With 200 views. And such a simple idea, but it really makes sense. Yeah, I mean, I give that credit to my friend Ian Edgar. He's an amazing remix DJ himself. And then we do other things too. Other things with experts is not just celebrities. If anything, I would hope that the world sees our output, our creative output of different shows under all of these brands like Vogue, GQ, Wired, New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and sees what we did with experts. And some of the things that I'm most proud of there are formats like five levels where

we get an expert who's amazing at maybe a new brain technology or someone who studies string theory for a living. And their job is to explain the premise of what they do in five levels of increasing difficulty with five people of increasing age. So level one is a five-year-old. Can you explain your string theory to a five-year-old? And that begins the video. Level two, a 13-year-old.

Explain string theory to a 13-year-old. And then you have a college kid, and then you have a post-grad who studies string theory, and then the last level is a peer, someone who spends their whole life studying it. Great idea. Yeah, yeah. That's an example of something where it's like you're getting real education in a way

that's sticky, it's memorable, and it just feeds it in a very relatable internet friendly way. Is it a series? Yeah, it's a series. There's like tons of episodes of it. What do you call it? Five levels. Five levels.

Yeah. There's also this series where I've been interviewing Billie Eilish every year since she was 15 years old. Before fame. How did you know to start before she was famous? You know, it's just, it's this way to say, all right, well, if we've filmed something, hold on to the footage, then let's see what happens

with their career, and maybe we can bring it back to them when they become a different, somewhat a very different version of themselves when fame reaches them. Have you done it with anyone else or just her? I mean, we've banked a few first episodes of People, but we never released it, because the goal is to wait a long amount of time until you see enough transformation, so that when they see the footage, they look at it and they go,

I can't believe I'm that person. But with Billie, one year later, there was already enough transformation. She went from 200,000 followers on Instagram to six million. She went from sweet, bubbly, and innocent to goth and dispassionate goth. Like, completely. And then we did it, like 50 million views.

It resonated for people who didn't even know who Billie Eilish was. Resonated with all of us to imagine previous versions of ourselves and how much growth and development we've all taken on. But it just became a really surprising thing when she asked to do that every single year afterwards. Do you make any things that are not series-based?

They're just one-offs? That was very much the model working in a company like Conde is when any one thing is a hit, figure out how to force a series behind it. I see. Yeah. How would you say the work has changed since leaving Conde? I'm no longer in a company that expects

a certain amount of volume of videos to go out the door attached to a certain budget with expectations of just keep on going, keep on going, keep pumping them out. We did our best with our resources to try to create things that had the highest quality we can under those constraints. And it's almost like, I think so much about music, about how someone can spend 20 years on their first album,

and then they have one year for their sophomore album. You spend your whole career seeing how this works for people. Do you ever read the comments on the videos that you post? Yeah. Tell me what they're like. I think a lot of people are there because they chose to click on it. And I think that's the one thing we all need to realize about algorithms, especially on YouTube,

is that there's a choice to click. With TikTok and Instagram, it's in the feed. Like you have no choice to click. It's just like right in front of you. So what I think about a lot with YouTube is that if you're there, you got enticed enough to kind of click on a thumbnail on an image, but comments do tend to be very polarized.

It's like a 10 star rating on a restaurant. You either get a bunch of ones or a bunch of tens and not much in the middle. So I think with comments, like people either love it or they hate it. And I tend to look at the ones that love it just because they're probably offering a reason about why they love it.

I'm not interested in a reason why someone hates something. You know, if I'm an admirer of the work that I've made and I love the thing that I put in, I'm gonna identify more with people who also loved it. I'm gonna identify less with people who didn't like it. How do you think the internet has changed since you first started engaging with it? No, it was a lot more fun back then.

Just a bunch of hobbyists. Why do you think? Because it was all rooted in hobbyists? Just a bunch of people not doing it for a career They're doing because they loved it someone had a bunch of Legos sitting around their house So they will just make something with that when I get back from my full-time job I'm gonna go back and set up stop-motion animation on a bunch of Legos Like that was the culture back then yeah, can it still be though? Yeah. I think it still exists.

Of course it still exists. Back then, humans would curate that so the main page would show a bunch of that art because humans curated it. And I do think algorithms today can serve a bunch of videos to you if it's about Legos. It's just that all the time around it on screens is filled with a different incentive structure for people who are there. It's there for money, they're there for audience,

they're there for hate, a lot of hate. So I feel that the context of a session on the internet, when you watch one thing that's beautiful, it's just surrounded by so many other things that kind of make you disappointed and make you feel not happy or healthy. And maybe I'm projecting my own experience, but that is the major reason why I'm trying to-

I think most people feel that way. You think? Yeah. Yeah. Would you say this is a theme that runs through your work? Well, I think that there's work that has people in front of the camera and work that doesn't.

And I look back at a previous era where it was less about people on camera and it was more about what clips I can take. And I feel kind of lucky to have desired to pour countless hours of fixated attention into my project until it's the thing that I want it to be. Maybe there's a little bit of ADHD in that. If you Google too much, you realize that people with ADHD

get super fixated on one thing and they have a hard time focusing on other things. I think that's what it takes to make something great though. More often than not. I don't know, it's a rule, but it seems to be often the case. What person's not fixated on the thing they're obsessed with or the thing that they find joy in? Yeah, if you don't care, it'll show.

Right. But my friend, Paul Trillo, gave me a compliment. I'll never, he's an amazing digital artist who's doing the most groundbreaking work in AI. You have to see his work, it's just unbelievable. But he said something along the lines of, for the projects I do with people on camera, and Joe, you're really good at getting people to do

things they don't normally do. And I really, I think about that a lot. Because to me, I'm just, I'm so curious to just try to get to the truth of something or to try to get someone to feel safe to maybe do something that's out of their comfort zone. For me, it's just curiosity, but then it also becomes a challenge.

It's like, well, can this happen? And then when it does, I think it's just, I think we've both gone somewhere to a place we haven't gone before. I think it's just an interesting creative challenge. Since the Federer movie came about before. I think it's just an interesting creative challenge. Since the federal movie came about sort of accidentally, will it be different if the next movie is started intentionally?

Of course it's going to be different. And can it be? Maybe the next one also will just happen in the course of things that you're making and you realize, oh, this actually might be a film. Yeah. What do you think? Possibly. I think it just depends on the entry point. You know, if a streamer identifies me as a potential candidate to do this thing

that they're already working on, of course, it's never going to be like the Roger Dock. If I have a passion project that starts really pure and it grows to be this great thing and then maybe there's some financing after that can help with the marketing and the distribution ends up in a film festival, then that's a little bit more in the vein of Roger.

But to go from home videos, biggest streamer, one of the biggest streamers on the planet, biggest Doc of the year, is all odds are against that happening twice. I'm not seeing that ever again probably. And that's fine. It is fine. It wasn't your intention in the first place.

It wasn't. No. No, it was happening. It's really helpful to remember why we make the things we make. We're not making them with this idea that they're gonna perform in this way. We're making a thing that we like.

We're excited to show to people, that's it. That's right. Whatever happens after that is bonus. That's right. It's kind of like this need, it's not different than eating. Like when you're drawn to an idea and you dedicate yourself so much to it,

needing to be created and shared with the world. I mean, it's life or death, it really is. Like you are living to get this thing done. And until it is done, you haven't fully lived. I know it sounds maybe highfalutin, but it really is an urge you have to get done. You have to complete. And I think about a lot of artists too,

maybe afraid of what this art means in the world and therefore they're kind of afraid, all right, is this thing gonna be good? Is this thing gonna be bad? I think about a lot of artists too, may be afraid of what this art means in the world and therefore they're kind of afraid, all right, is this thing gonna be good, is this thing gonna be bad? I think about that a lot because all you're doing is just nothing's being made if you're thinking about all that. Nothing's getting done.

You're just not being yourself if you're afraid of it. It's also not unusual to put something out thinking little of it and it connecting in a way that you would never believe. And sometimes the thing that you're most precious about might not. Yeah. It's like we don't know. We don't know. Yeah. But if you've seen so many artists that probably all started like that but they get to a point where the expectations weigh down on them. Yeah. Where people expect a certain type of output. Yeah. I

mean my entire career is based on things that are small and go big. What was CDZA? CDZA was this music group that I had for two years. I received a music grant to create. This was just over 100 conservatory trained musicians that I had access to, to be able to try really crazy experiments. For years I had access to, to be able to try really crazy experiments. For years I had this idea, what if we took every song that had lyrics that aren't lyrics?

Think about that. Do-wa-diddy-diddy-dum-diddy-doo, sha-na-na-na-na-na-na, na-na-na-na-na-na-na. So I took 45 of those bits, and I imagine musicians doing that in a one take, medley, with instruments and a singer. So John Baptiste, who I imagine musicians doing that in a one take medley with instruments and a singer. So John Baptiste who I just met on that cruise, he plays the piano, Mike Thurber who became a partner

in the venture was playing bass, Jane Louie, this girl I found on the internet, sang it. Matt McCorkle is there doing the audio engineering, he became a partner and we just had this thing where we're all just messing around in the studio and just like sopranos and just like Sopranos and just like 73 Questions, the video just gets a million views.

I think for these musicians who spent their whole lives in practice rooms, gigging, they look at that, they're like, what black magic is this? What is this idea? We thought this was goofy, but for me it's like, oh yeah, this is another concept that tends to carry itself on the internet in a way that a lot of people share. So we created a whole channel on types of one-take music

video experiments like that, where these musicians could demonstrate their skills. A lot of it was classical adjacent, but we weren't shoving classical down people's throats. If they didn't like classical, they were at least exposed to elements that were very classical in form. And yeah, it was just probably one of the most fruitful

creative endeavors of my life, is making 35 videos, getting an audience of 300,000 subscribers, and being Google's house band, playing YouTube Music Awards right after Arcade Fire, right before Lady Gaga. CDZ has its own set. I got to work with Spike Jonze, my hero. I look back and it's just like, how did that happen? How did that unfold in a way that it did? And I'm really grateful for it.

Who were the video artists that inspired you to make things besides the ones you mentioned who remixed the trailers? I mean, I mentioned Spike Jonze. He's probably the biggest creative influence on me, for sure. What he did with certain one-take videos and what he did with this kind of like levity,

this playfulness, his whole existence is playfulness and conceptual ideas, concepts that feel like they really haven't been done before. That was imbued inside of me at a very young age where I strove to say this idea needs to be something I've never seen before. And Spike is probably the number one influence for me on that.

How do you see YouTube's place in the world? Not going away. It's the second biggest search engine in the world. People put up their entire lives there. People put up their entire agendas there. It rewards long videos, so it's a lot of minutes of watching. It's not like TikTok and Instagram. People sit back and they just let it go for hours and hours. So, you know, people debate whether it's good or bad. It's not like TikTok and Instagram. People sit back and they just let it go for hours and hours.

So, you know, people debate whether it's good or bad. It's probably both, but it's not going anywhere. How do you think of YouTube versus Netflix or HBO or Apple TV? Unfiltered, without notes. Just make something, put it out there. The rest has this filtration. You can feel the notes, you can feel the development executives, you can feel the rules of engagement.

Yeah. Your voice has been in many of your videos. Have you physically been in many of the videos? Not really. Don't have much of an interest in that. Don't have much of an interest in my own channel or my own audience. You know, now that the Roger Doc is there,

I was talking to an agency and a member of these agents got on and they're like, all right, so, we're talking about getting a rep here. All right, well, this is what we can do for you. Get you a podcast, get you an audience. Get a bigger following around you. And I'm like, I could not be any less interested in that.

If anything, me going to my next career is more about being connected to other artists. Being connected to you was such a great thing for my creativity. If anything, I want more of that. I'm not looking to get my own audience out of this. I'm very much behind the scenes. I just want good conversations

that can maybe turn into collaborative pursuits. That's really where I'm at right now. ["The Last Supper"] Music you