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

Broken Record re-wind: Today we’re throwing it back to a conversation Malcolm Gladwell had with the one and only Patti Smith. Patti is the consummate downtown NYC artist. Her 1975 debut album Horses is credited as one of the masterpieces of its time. It also cemented her as one of rock n roll’s great lyricists. But her writing extends far beyond music. Her 2010 memoir, Just Kids, won the National Book Award for its brilliant portrayal of the ‘70s bohemian art scene in New York, and Patti’s experience living in the Chelsea Hotel with the famed photographer, Robert Mapplethorpe. Today Patti publishes near-daily offerings of poems, songs and serialized fiction on her Substack newsletter. It’s a journal of sorts that she started during the solitary days of the pandemic.

On today’s episode, Malcolm Gladwell talks to Patti about her writing in the studio Jimi Hendrix built, Electric Lady. It was there, she tells Malcolm, that she met Hendrix in 1970—just weeks before he passed away. Patti also talks about hanging out with and writing lyrics for Janis Joplin, and she recalls the fun she had during a failed attempt to cover Adele in concert.

Hear a playlist of all of our favorite Patti Smith songs HERE.

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Susanna Hoffs rose to fame in the 1980s as the lead singer and guitarist of the Bangles, the Los Angeles band behind hits like “Manic Monday,” “Walk Like an Egyptian” and “Eternal Flame.” Inspired by the Beatles, the Byrds and the melodic pop of the 1960s, the Bangles brought jangling guitars and rich vocal harmonies to a decade dominated by synthesizers. Hoffs' distinctive voice and gift for melody helped give the band its signature sound.

Since the Bangles' heyday, Hoffs has continued to explore her musical influences through solo records and collaborations, while also branching out into fiction with her bestselling debut novel, This Bird Has Flown. Now she's returning with The List, a deeply personal collection of original songs that grew out of informal writing sessions with producer and multi-instrumentalist C.J. Camerieri and a group of collaborators. Drawing on stories from her own life, the album explores love, loneliness, memory and the passage of time, pairing Hoffs' unmistakable voice with the kind of timeless melodies that first made her famous.

On today's episode, Bruce Headlam talks with Susanna Hoffs and C.J. Camerieri about the making of The List, the musical influences that shaped her, and the stories behind the album's songs, including a chance encounter with the Grateful Dead's Bob Weir. They also discuss her approach to songwriting, what writing a novel taught her about storytelling, and how she's finding new ways to express herself more than four decades into her career.

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The United States has far more homicides than any of its peers around the world. Why? 

In his new audiobook book, The American Way of Killing: The Invention of an Epidemic, Malcolm Gladwell explores the American “peculiarity” — how the world’s wealthiest country came to suffer from a problem typically only seen in the world’s poorest countries. 

Drawing on original interviews, archival and social science research, and his trademark insight, Gladwell approaches the American paradox through a series of stories. What can we learn from the miracle of a young gunshot victim in Washington, D.C.? How have the legal troubles of a seventeenth-century English knight influenced American attempts at gun control? Why would a European police chief be baffled by the graduation ceremony at any American police academy? 

In a sweeping narrative, Gladwell travels from a shooting range in North Carolina, to the South Side of Chicago, to an old plantation house in Alabama, painting a picture of a country that does not understand its most pressing social problem, and as result, does not understand how to fix it. 

Here's a preview. Get the full audiobook at pushkin.fm/audiobooks or wherever you get audiobooks.

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Elvis Costello seemed to arrive fully formed with his 1977 debut, My Aim Is True. The look, the voice, the wordplay and the attitude were already there, along with songs like “Alison,” “Watching the Detectives” and “(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes” that helped establish him as one of the most distinctive songwriters of his generation. But behind that seemingly sudden arrival were years spent absorbing everything from Motown and country to Joni Mitchell, Randy Newman and the California folk-rock of the late ’60s and early ’70s, as Costello worked to find a musical language of his own.

Now, nearly 50 years later, Costello is revisiting that evolution with an expansive new anniversary edition of My Aim Is True. The collection reaches back to songs and demos he recorded before the album, tracing his early experiments as a songwriter through the sessions with producer Nick Lowe and the American band Clover, and eventually to the formation of the Attractions.

On today’s episode, Bruce Headlam talks with Elvis Costello about how he found his voice as a songwriter, the music that shaped him, and the stories behind some of the songs on My Aim Is True. They also talk about the “angry young man” persona that followed Costello through his early career, what he learned about music from his parents, and what he hears now when he looks back at the young songwriter he was nearly half a century ago.

You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite songs from Elvis Costello HERE.

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Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo helped transform the possibilities of the electric guitar at a time when its role in rock music could seem well established. He came of age in New York City’s downtown No Wave art scene in the late 1970s before co-founding Sonic Youth with Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon in 1981. Over the next three decades, the band became an artistically and critically important act in American rock, serving as a conduit between the underground and the mainstream.

Since Sonic Youth’s dissolution in 2011, Ranaldo has continued to work prolifically as a solo artist and collaborator, moving freely between noise, folk, drone, and spoken word. His work reflects a restless curiosity that has made him a genuine musical polymath.

On today’s episode, Justin Richmond talks with Lee Ranaldo about his life and work, including the recent release of The System, a soundtrack he composed for Dutch filmmaker Joris Postema’s documentary about three climate activists working to imagine a different world.

You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite songs from Lee Ranaldo HERE.

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Brandon Flowers’ new album, Thrasher, is a beautifully written ode to the Southwest where he grew up. It’s a deeply personal record, shining a light on the people close to him, the lives they’ve lived, and the difficulties they’ve navigated between his childhood in Henderson, Nevada, and Payson, Utah. It also explores some of the dead ends Brandon himself might have easily gone down had he not found another path.

Of course, that path led to extraordinary success with the Killers and a sound Brandon describes as a mix of Britpop and British post-punk. But the music that surrounded him growing up was country. His dad and his neighbors played Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, and other country greats. It was a sound Brandon never quite left behind, and one he developed a deeper connection to over the years.

So for Thrasher, he went to Nashville’s legendary RCA Studio A, where he recorded with some of the great musicians in the genre: Charlie McCoy, who played on Bob Dylan’s legendary Nashville sessions; Bruce Bouton, who has played pedal steel with Garth Brooks from the very beginning of his career; and David Rawlings, Gillian Welch’s longtime collaborator.

On today’s episode, Brandon Flowers talks about making Thrasher, what it felt like to finally unlock the door that country music had been holding open for him his whole life, and the stories the album carries with it: the family members, the memories, and the particular texture of growing up Mormon and working-class in the American West.

You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite songs from Brandon Flowers HERE.

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Tom Morello arrived in Los Angeles from Libertyville, Illinois, in the mid-1980s with a Harvard political science degree in his pocket and a guitar slung across his back, determined to become the next great guitarist on the scene.

Instead, he found himself locked out of the glam-rock world that had taken over the Sunset Strip. By day, he worked as a secretary to a state senator; by night, he played clubs, searching for a way in.

Then, in 1991, Morello co-founded Rage Against the Machine with Zack de la Rocha—and everything changed. The band fused hip-hop, punk, metal, and politics into something entirely new, becoming one of the biggest rock bands of the 1990s.

Rage has been on and off over the past 25 years, but Morello has rarely stood still. He formed Audioslave, recorded folk protest songs as The Nightwatchman, toured as a member of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, and collaborated with artists ranging from Chuck D and B-Real to Johnny Cash.

Now, for the first time in his decades-long career, Morello has made a true solo album. Everyone Gets Everything They Want combines high-energy rock with social consciousness—and features his 15-year-old son, Roman, as a collaborator throughout.

On today’s episode, Justin Richmond talks with Tom Morello about making Everyone Gets Everything They Want and the long road that led him there. Morello tells the story of his early years in Los Angeles, the divide between the Eastside and the Sunset Strip, his time with the E Street Band, and much more.

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David Porter's story goes well beyond writing songs and releasing albums for Stax Records. His recent memoir, The Soul Man, tells how he and his partner Isaac Hayes helped invent a sound rich and enduring enough to define American music from the 1960s to today. Together they wrote and produced hits for Sam & Dave, Johnnie Taylor, and dozens of other artists, and in the process built what became known as the Stax sound, a sound Porter still describes as the pursuit of pure emotional connection.

Porter grew up on a dead-end street in Memphis that also produced Maurice White of Earth, Wind & Fire and members of the Bar-Kays. He started out singing in church before eventually singing and producing music for Stax. He never learned to read music. None of the great names at Stax did. Instead, they built songs by ear, in the room, together, a process Porter calls “head arrangements,” and it became the foundation for some of the greatest songs in the history of R&B.

Today, Bruce Headlam sits down with David Porter to talk about how he and Isaac Hayes built a signature sound to set themselves apart from Motown, Burt Bacharach and Hal David. He also recalls the writing session that turned a bathroom joke into Sam & Dave's "Hold On, I'm Coming," and the incredible story of how Otis Redding went from an artist's personal driver to a Stax superstar.

You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite songs from David Porter HERE.

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Travis Barker grew up in Fontana, California, and was gifted his first drum kit at the age of four from his mother, who made him promise before she died that he would never stop playing. This was just before he started high school and though he spent his early years dabbling with skateboarding and other interests, he always came back to the drums. After graduating, he moved to Laguna Beach and spent his mornings collecting garbage and his nights playing gigs with punk bands until a touring slot with the Aquabats put him on the same bill as Blink-182, and through happenstance, in the band.

What followed was one of the great runs in pop-punk history. Enema of the State and Take Off Your Pants and Jacket sold over 35 million copies worldwide, and Barker’s drumming redefined what a punk or alternative drummer could sound like in the mainstream.

On today’s episode, Justin Richmond sits down with Travis Barker to discuss his dedication to his craft, his love of the Misfits and Ramones; and how nightly jams with Billie Joe Armstrong and Mike Dirnt of Green Day led to the Blink side project Box Car Racer.

Travis Barker’s documentary “Love Louder Than Fear” is streaming now on Hulu/Disney+

You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite songs from Travis Barker HERE.

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Daniel Kessler grew up between London, Paris, and Washington, D.C., listening to his older brother’s early UK rock records. He picked up guitar as a teenager, the same day he quit skateboarding, and after moving to New York in the late ’90s, he set out to find musicians serious enough to start a band. In 1997, that band became Interpol and when their debut Turn on the Bright Lights came out in 2002, it helped define a new wave of New York indie bands, alongside the Strokes and Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and topped Pitchfork’s year-end list.

More than two decades later, Kessler remains the musical architect of Interpol, writing the foundation of the band’s songs, often alone on a classical guitar before bringing them to his bandmates. The band has now made eight albums together, and their latest, This Mirror Weighs a Ton, is their first record made in New York in more than a decade. Produced by Andrew Wyatt, it expands Interpol’s familiar sound with more experimental textures—and features Kessler singing for the first time since Turn on the Bright Lights.

On today’s episode, Leah Rose talks with Daniel Kessler about making the new album, the early days when Interpol played to almost nobody, a chance encounter with David Bowie before a show at Hammerstein Ballroom, and the creative routines—guitar, coffee, and films—that have kept him writing for nearly three decades.

You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite songs from Daniel Kessler & Interpol HERE.

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