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Jimmy Iovine

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2025-06-13

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2025-06-13

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1. “What's tomorrow? That's what I was always about. So I made a lot of mistakes. Who doesn't? But I don't care about the mistakes. I don't look at life like that. I took the rear view mirror out of my car a long time ago. And for me, that parting of advice is just like what he said earlier. When you're running after something, you should not look left and right. What does this person think? What is that person think? No. Go”

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2. “Dre did. He's like, Yeah, I'm obviously upset. But again, loyalty and long-term relationships, Jimmy said, but this is the horse I rode in with. I ride or die with Dre. And so after fears he decides to pivot again, and this time he pivots into retirement. This is what he says. I was very driven to the day that I retired. And that is why I retired. I didn't want to be driven anymore and it was a conscious thing. Bruce Springsteen asked me, how come you're going to retire? I said, look, man, I just left Italy with you. Eighty thousand people yelling Bruce, Bruce, Bruce. Yeah, if they were yelling Jimmy, I wouldn't retire either. But I talk to scumbags all day and I don't want to do that anymore. And so then finally looking back on his life, he's asked, do you have any regrets and he gives excellent, excellent advice? So do you have any regrets? I don't have a rear view mirror. With the rearview mirror, you're taking victory laps, and those are a waste of time. I'm more like, let's go. What's new?”

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3. “I was frustrated with the music business. I was frustrated with getting divorced. And whenever I get sad or scared, I wish I knew some other therapeutic ways of doing things. But the only thing I know how to do is completely bury myself to the point of absurdity in my work. Going back to what he said earlier in his career, all I knew is that if I went to the studio my life got better. And so he continues, I wanted to build businesses with our artists. I like to pivot. I get complacent and bored. I got bored of producing records. I got bored of running a record company and I wanted to move on. That is how beats got started. And so Jimmy actually goes to Dr. Dre's house in Malibu. And Dre is telling him, hey, I have this offer to endorse a pair of sneakers. And Dre wasn't sure it made any sense. He's like, I don't know anything about fashion. I wear the same thing every day. And Dre was just very selective with anything he'd put his name on. By this point, he turned down dozens of endorsements. And Jimmy's hearing him talk and he interrupts him. He goes, fuck sneakers. You should do speakers.”

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4. “Course. The reason they put blinders on these things is because if you look at the horse on the left or the horse on the right, you're going to miss a step. That's why those horses have fucking blinders on. And that's what people should have. When you're running after something, you should not look left and right. What does this person think? What does that person think? No, go. I clipped that from the documentary. It's been on my phone for years. I just sit there and listen that over and over and over again. It's one of the best ideas that I've ever heard. And the way he says it and the intensity and the passion is just perfect. And so now he's going to pivot again. He sees that the music industry is, there's this unstoppable technological phenomenon. It's going to go from selling CDs to iTunes to eventually streaming. He says something like, you know, I don't want to be the guy that sells the last CD. And so his next pivot is, hey, I want to build businesses with my artists. But at the same time, this happens, he gets divorced. And I think this is actually one of the most important parts for founding.”

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5. “We were looking for great again. Jimmy is very consistent. Great, go for great, great talent, great products, great marketing. And so Dre starts producing Eminem. Eminem's first three albums are some of the best-selling, I think the best-selling albums of all time. And he's getting all kinds of attention. And he's saying a lot of controversial things. And so he's getting boycotted. There's pressure on Jimmy to like police the lyrics. And yet, even though throughout all this controversy, the Eminem was getting at the beginning of his career. Jimmy was consistent. He said, let him be him. And it is during this time that Jimmy describes why he said that, that he says my second favorite idea of his. So when I say that I've watched certain parts of this over a hundred times, the pushing through fear and using it as a tailwind instead of a headwind was the first one. This is the second one. I feel like I should make a poster with this quote and hang it on the wall. And this is what Jimmy said. I don't give a fuck what anyone thinks. When you're a race,”

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6. “Jimmy was trying to help Dre find an artist to work with. Go back to Jimmy's niche. I'm going to produce the producers. So Jimmy throws in a tape. Jimmy plays the tape, and Dre says what the fuck and who the fuck is that? The answer to that is Eminem. It is a demo of Eminem that Eminem handed out at the Rap Olympics to someone that worked for Jimmy. Think about this. People are telling Jimmy to ditch doctor Dre because he had two projects fail. Ditch him right before Dre is going to help develop the artist that will go on to be the best-selling rap artist of all time, top ten best selling of all musicians of all time. And so then Jimmy says one of the greatest things about this. Great can come from anywhere. Great can come from anywhere. Eminem was growing up poor in a trailer park in Michigan. And so Jimmy says, we weren't looking for a white controversial rapper.”

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7. “Another brilliant idea that Jimmy IVEN had. The fact that you should be optimizing for long-term relationships. There were so many people trying to screw over Dr. Dre. Jimmy could have been just another guy in the long line of people trying to screw him over. Hey, I'm going to, you know, put him into a bad deal. I'm going to make all this money on the chronic, you know, which is going to be obviously, if you listen to it, it's going to be a great album. But what? You make a couple million dollars more by screwing over a guy and then you lose out on that relationship. The relationship that one, you're close friends and will make you billions and billions and billions of dollars 30 years into the future. Loyalty and long-term relationships, loyalty and long-term relationships. Jimmy finds his people and they just covers their back no matter what. So when Dr. Dre has a falling out with Sugnight over Death Row Record, he's like, I got to get out of here, man. Like, I want to start my own record label. Jimmy immediately goes, cool. Let's do it. What do you want to name it? Aftermath records. Okay, done. And so Dre is going to own 50% and Interscope is going to own 50%. Now talk.”

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8. “to play his album the chronic the chronic has not been released yet it would go down to be one of the greatest hip hop albums of all time and this is how Jimmy described it it was one of the greatest recordings that ever heard Dre's music is not like anybody else's Dre's sonics were far superior to any rock or hip hop record being made. It sounded better than anything else on my speakers, so I asked Dre, who produced this? He said me. I said, yeah, but who engineered this? He said me. I'll never forget it. I said, this guy will define interscope. And I said to Shug, he's Dre's in this meeting with Jimmy with Shugnight and Dr. Dre. And so I said to Sugnight and Dr. Dre, give me three weeks. They had all these lawsuits that were getting in the way of them releasing the music. So he said, so I said to Sug and Dre, give me three weeks and I can clear up all these lawsuits. If you guys fuck around and go to a bunch of different labels, I'm going to hear about it and I'm going to bounce.”

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9. “20 years earlier. He's like, hey, what I wanted to do is I wanted a record company in the spirit of Atlantic Records in the 1970s. Back then, they had Ray Charles, Led Zeppelin, Aretha Franklin, and the Rolling Stones. Those were the greatest artists of their time. That is what we're trying to do. What is he doing? We need the best. We're going to bet on talent. And Bruce Freen talks about this time in Jimmy's life. People become successful and they get locked into the behaviors that led them to be a success. Jimmy was very, very good at letting go of what might have made him a success to this point. Remember, he could have just been a record producer for the rest of his life. He's willing to shed that and to go for something else. He is not afraid to partner with other visionary people. Jimmy's career is based on a tremendous lack of fear of moving forward. And then Jimmy has a meeting that changes his entire life. Jimmy's going to describe for us the first time that he met doctor Dre. Dr. Dre comes into Jimmy's office.”

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10. “And so from another interview, Jimmy talks about this. He goes, listen, I come from a place where the artists get to do exactly what they want and no compromise. I'm not going to sit down there until Tupac or Trent Rezner, why don't you change the lyrics or change this or change that? That is a bunch of bullshit. When you have great artists, when you have great talent, what you do is you give them the keys and you say drive. And so at this point in Jimmy's life, he is now pivoted. He does not want to produce records anymore. He wants to make a successful record company. And this is what I mean. He just always keeps the main thing, the main thing. This is how they describe him at this time. Jimmy had this mad, obsessed focus on the big picture. Remember the advice he got 15 years ago when he almost quit on spring scene. Focus on the big picture. The big picture is we're going to make the best record label in the world. And he had an actual, like almost everybody you and I talk about, he had inspiration from somebody that did what he was doing but did it in the past.”

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11. “So I went to see David, Geffen to seek his advice. So I said to David, hey, I want to start a record company. And Geffen told me, you should do it. There are a lot of record people a lot dumber than you are, which I thought was hilarious. But Jimmy's response, I was like, that was actually inspiring for him to tell me that. And he says, I've always been a fan of David. We became friends. And he just constantly stayed in my life and it helped me. David Geffen taught me the art of business in music. I was going in not knowing anything about business. And again, this is what Geffin says about Jimmy. If people think you're serious, right, and you're easy to understand, they will help you. John Lennon understood that Jimmy was serious. Bruce Springsteen understood. Geffen sees the same exact thing. He says, my first impression of Jimmy was that he was a sponge. He picked up everything he heard or saw. That sounds exactly like what Bruce Springsteen realized about Jimmy when he first met.”

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12. “Later my father's mother died. Two days after that my father died. My father, his mother, and his father all died within six weeks. The day that my father died was the worst day of my life. It is still the worst day of my life. We were very, very close, and I had no idea he was going to die. He was my best friend in the whole world. He is still my best friend in the whole world.”

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13. “And adamantly refuses another word on the subject, they are in the process of saying yes and don't know it. And so Jimmy starts working with Bono and you just realize this oh, they have a lot, there's a lot that Bono and Springsteen have in common. They have this extreme work ethic. And he said, Bono and you two work like Springsteen. They just go. And on Bono's part, he describes one of the benefits of working with Jimmy. A great idea has a lot in common with a great melody. And Jimmy's gift is the clear thought. He hears the clear melody and applies that wherever he is. So he starts out as an eighteen nineteen year old kid sweeping the floor in a recording studio, we are now thirty-one years old, so we're twelve, thirteen years into his life. He's had massive success. And then the single worst day of his life occurs. He says in 1984, I went with my father to his father's funeral. The next morning I flew back to LA. I get a phone call from my sister saying that my dad had a heart attack. I rush back to New York.”

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14. “ninety nine percent of what's going on in the studio is the artist. And so at first Bona was a little resistant to Jimmy, so their styles were just so vastly different. And then Bono has this great description of them. Jimmy happens to you. He's like a virus and that takes over your organs and your brains. He just knows this is going to work out well for both of you. He chased us all around the world until we agreed to come to the studio with him. He would not take no for an answer. Does this sound familiar? This is the way he signs talent, works on deals. This is the way he dates. It's the exact same thing. There's a hilarious for some reason this pops my mind. It's like, hey, this guy would not take no for an answer. This guy's chasing us all over the world until we signed with him. We just decided to work with him. The founder of Visa Dhawk actually described his sales technique one time in this autobiography he wrote. And he said, I held fast to the notion that until someone has repeatedly said no.”

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15. “Going to wind up being his first wife. And his first wife, this is actually a really important part of the documentary, and I'm going to bring this up several times, of like, how do you have personal relationships with, you know, people like Jimmy Evan or Dr. Dre or really any super driven workaholic? Somebody just like is chasing after somebody on something that's so important to them is on a mission that they have a hard time taking time away from that. And we see this from the very first time. Jimmy's going to wind up being married to his wife for 25 years. They have four kids. Unfortunately, he sends a divorce and there's a lot of lessons that I'll go over about that later. But there's kind of an indication here. And so his first wife says, I met Jimmy at a party. This is a paragraph. This paragraph is a great summary of his personality. I met Jimmy at a party. He said, if you give me your phone number and I remember it, can I call you? He called me ten times the next day. For our first date he sent a limousine to pick me up. Inside were napkins with my name.”

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16. “Same kind of ideas that resonate with them. We see, oh, that resonates with me too. And this is one of them. He says, I only knew one thing, that every time I went back to the studio, I felt better and my life would get better. It was that simple. This idea really resonates with me. And I think just think about what we're saying. Just focus on making a great product and that product should make somebody else's life better. That's step one. Then you find a way to keep making a greater number of other people's lives better and your own life will get better automatically. Jimmy Ivan was fundamentally uncomfortable with anything else but being in the studio. And part of this is because he's one of the most relentlessly competitive people you ever come across. He's insanely driven. In fact, they said, this is Doug Morris on Jimmy says, after everything is said and done, Jimmy wants a win. So he's super focused, only wants to be in the studio. How does a super focused workaholic date? So he winds up meeting, which is”

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17. “Her records, her new solo album, and he's also dating her at the same time. And he realizes that Stevie has great songs, but she doesn't have a single. And he found a song that Tom Petty had that he wasn't using. And this is going to be the song called Stop Dragging My Heart. He convinces Petty to give Stevie Nix the song and perform on the record. And Tom Petty has a hilarious description of Jimmy IV's sales pitch to him. He's like, give her the song and this is going to buy you a house, which again, Tom thought was just like a weird thing to say about a song. So that song stopped dragging my heart around becomes a massive hit. It goes to number one on the charts. And I love what Jimmy says here, but this time in his life, and this is how I feel, I resonate.”

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18. “Extraordinary people. And so one of the main things I take away from studying Jimmy Avan is like, you, Jimmy work with the best. You always bet on talent. He worked with John Lennon and Springsteen, Tom Petty, Dr. Dre, Eminem, Tren Rezner. He's going to talk about this over and over again. He's just to find the best people, and then he just empowers them. He talks about this like producing the producers is, I think, the way he puts us. I'll get to this in a little bit. But he's also, you can see he's a learning machine. Remember what Bruce Sing says? Guys got the goddamn fastest like learning curve anybody I've ever seen. So he's like, okay, well, what did I do last time? build a relationship with Bruce Springsteen. This guy's prolific. He's writing all these songs he's not using. I said, hey, this is a good song. You're not using it. Can I give it to Patty Smith? Tom Petty, same thing. Very prolific. Writes all these songs. Doesn't use, you know, not even half of them. So he takes the idea that work with Patty Smith and he where he convinces, you know, Bruce Springsteen to give one of the songs and he says he's starting to work with Stevie Nicks, who was super famous. I think she was in this band called Fleetwood Mac, but now she went on her own. And so Jimmy starts producing her.”

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19. “Course, it doesn't sound like the last record. It's not supposed to sound like the last record. The whole concept is to not sound like anybody else. Jimmy just didn't want to make a song like everybody else. In fact, he has a great line. He says great is success. That is the North Star. Make something great. If you can do that, then after that, you can figure out how to get how to get exposed to more people. But the first thing is great is success. And that applies to not only the products and the songs that Jimmy wanted to work on and to make, but it's who he wanted to work with. Tom Petty just nails what is one of Jimmy's superpowers. He says one thing about Jimmy Avine is he's always known which people to hang around with. That is spooky because Steve Jobs said literally the same thing about himself. Steve Jobs said, I think I've consistently figured out who the really smart people were to hang around with. You must find.”

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20. “It takes. I think we should do more, Jimmy would repeat. Let's do more. And so two of the songs they make are the songs called Here Comes My Girl and Refugee. And this was hilarious. Since this is Jimmy talking now, Tom played me the songs Here Come My Girl in Refugee. I looked at Tom and said, get another eight songs quick because we're done. We're going to be millionaires. Tom thought Tom thought that was such a strange thing to say about a song. And then one thing they noticed is it's not just creating the work. Jimmy was also really good at marketing, one of the best marketers I've ever come across. They call him a tornado of promotion. He wanted to have influence. He wanted to have control on marketing because he says the problem is you'd come to these record executives and you'd play them like the new Tom Petty song or the new Bruce Springsteen song. And they would just say the dumbest shit. They're like, yeah, that doesn't really sound like your last record. And hearing that in the documentary, this induces Jimmy into a state of rage. He goes, and Jimmy would say.”

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21. “It doesn't matter. There's no ego involved. I'll do whatever it takes to win. So Patty Smith on working with Jamie Ivan, it wasn't that Jimmy wanted to be the number one guy. He was ambitious for you. He was ambitious for me. You always felt that his whole goal was for the world to see what he was seeing. There's another great interview and talks about just the sheer amount of time that Jimmy would invest into his artist. He says, you're notorious for phone calls and long phone conversations with your artists. What was the significance of that? And so they would record all day, usually until the night, and then they talk for hours. And Jimmy says, as a producer, you have a responsibility to understand the person's record you're making, to understand what they're trying to get out. I would spend a lot of time on the phone after the sessions. I would spend a lot of time just talking to them. Again, that's another piece of just very simple and profound wisdom.”

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22. “Just master music, he let it consume him. That's what made him immortal. And so Bruce Springsteen was like that too. Bruce talks about Jimmy Ivan convincing him to give one of his songs to Paddy Smith. This is what Bruce said. There is the talent of Jimmy IVen. He eases in and he greases the wheels so things happen at a certain moment and Jimmy Ivan works his magic. Bruce gives the song to Jimmy. Jimmy gives the song to Patti Smith. Patty Smith writes some more lyrics to it. It's called Because a night actually went through. I also went back and every time they mentioned some of these songs they made, I went and listened to them. Song's like 50 years old. Still sounds great. And it becomes this massive hit. And then I loved Patty talking about what it was like working with Jimmy. Again, going back to it's an act of service. I am there to make your project better. I'm there to do whatever I can to help you. You know, if that means being stuck in the studio for three weeks, hearing Bruce Finks say, stick, stick, stick. It means making John.”

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23. “Jimmy worked all the time. He would stay for hours. He'd study. This is such a genius idea. He would, this is his form of professional research and practice. Jimmy would find old tapes and see if he could improve them. I'm going to take a song from 10 or 20 years ago and see if I can actually reproduce and make it even better. And this is what Jimmy said at this point in sight. I said to myself, no fun, no life, no nothing. You are giving up everything. You will put a hundred percent into this. Jimmy's like this, by the way, with whatever he does. This is another reason why I find him so fascinating and why he's one of the people I most admire. And keep in mind, he likes to pivot. He'll talk about this. Starting a record company, then launching businesses with his artist. Like he does not want to do the same thing forever. But whatever he's into, he's into it 100%. And so this is the result of him recommitting. He winds up having this massive tough.”

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24. “Starts living the lifestyle, not realizing that that's not what it is. It's the work, it's the routine. And so he winds up getting fired off that project. And then he has this great line about this, which is also another great idea. Just a lot of like, you know, he's a college dropout kind of from the streets of Brooklyn, but he's got so much wisdom about he just has a fundamental understanding of, you know, human nature and how to add value to other people and how to be successful. And he says, you know, he got fired. He was on like the top of the mountain, right? He's like, we just did board a run. Now my next project, I got fired. Now I'm down in the valley. And he says I was embarrassed. You think everyone else is paying attention to your life and they aren't. It's complete bullshit. And it was one of the most important things that happened to him because what does he do? He recommits. He's like, I'm not going to go sleep on a win and wake up a loss. I'm not going to breathe my own exhaust. I'm going to get back to what made me successful. And so he starts working with this artist named Patty Smith. And she's describing working with him at this point.”

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25. “Win you'll wake up with a loss. Stick to the routine. Stick to what got you there. What was great was that they locked themselves in a studio and didn't leave until it was perfect. And so Jimmy talks about making mistakes at this point in his life. He's like, oh, like I got hired by this band called Fog Hat. And, you know, he goes, I wasn't good at my job yet. I didn't understand. He goes, I brought my girlfriend to some of the sessions.”

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26. “Do. I just said if these people are allowing me in this room, I'm going to do as much as I can to be of service to them. That is what it is built on. And so Jimmy doesn't quit. Jimmy goes back in that room. He helps Bruce do whatever he can to make the best album he possibly can. And the result, the album they were working on is Bruce's album Born to Run, which goes on to be a massive success. And to this day, which I think the album's been out probably for 50 years, if you go and look at any list of the top 100, top 500 greatest albums ever made born to run is on those lists. And so Jimmy's life changes. Now he's like, oh, I want to work with the same guy that worked on Board to Run. And Jimmy talks about the fact that this success can be one of the most dangerous things that can help happen to you. He says you have success and you start feeling yourself. He says, I call this breathing your own exhaust, the maxim I have for this, breathing your own exhaust is a great one. But if you go to sleep on”

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27. “For the rest of your life, and you'll have learned a lesson. That is the big picture. The idea always stay focused on the big picture is the piece of advice that Jimmy would repeat when he apply for the rest of his career. This is Jimmy's key takeaway from that advice in this experience. He said, you are there to help make their project better. And part of that is caring as much about their music as they do. I just said if these people are allowing me in this room, I'm going to do as much as I can to be of service to them. That's what it was built on. It's funny, some of the best investors I know actually speak exactly like this and how they view the founders they work with. In fact, I was talking to Josh Kushner at Thrive. And he said almost this exact same thing to me. I'm going to read this back. And it's really his view or my interpretation of his view of the founders that he works for. You're there to help make their project better. And part of that is caring as much about their music as they.”

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28. “With the fastest learning curve I've ever seen. So Bruce is applying relentless pressure on top of a young Jamie Avine. He says Jimmy would fall asleep at the soundboard. He was under so much pressure and so sleep deprived he almost quit. And then Bruce's manager gave Jimmy some of the most important advice. This is when Jimmy thought he couldn't take it anymore and he tried to quit and Jimmy said this is one of the most important things that anybody ever told him. He said, Jimmy, stay in the fucking saddle. You are missing the big picture. What are we here for? We are here to help Bruce make the best record he can. That's the job. We're not here to make you happy. We're not here to make me happy. Bruce's project. And it is Bruce's project. If you go back in there and you say to Bruce, I am here to support you. This is not about me. It's about the album. You will have a friend.”

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29. “And this quote is the most important quote for me. It's the reason why next to me is this giant book that I'm going to read, which is Springsteen's autobiography called Born to Run. I heard Jimmy say this quote that he heard from Springsteen and then I immediately ordered the book. This is what Jimmy said. Bruce said something brilliant. He said, I didn't want to be rich. I didn't want to be famous. I didn't even want to be happy. I wanted to be great. Do you have any idea how many of the founders that you and I have studied on those podcasts that that applies to? And so I went through Bruce Springsteen's autobiography and I wanted to see all the mentions of Jimmy IVE in Springsteen's autobiography. And I found this excellent quote on what Jimmy IVEN was like at this time in their life. And Bruce writes this line almost like he's writing a song. Jimmy IVen, brilliant imposter, young studio dog.”

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30. “And so, all these people are talking about what it was like working with Bruce back then. And he says that Bruce would simply lose track of time. Bruce said, we spent three weeks trying to get drum sounds right, which is indulgent, but sometimes you need to be indulged. Jamie talks about this, that Bruce would stand over him and say one word over and over again. Dick Stick Stick and what Springsteen meant by that is like hit it again. The drum was not producing what he called size and power. It is producing the wrong sound. It is not good enough, so do it again for three straight weeks. And then Jimmy has this great quote from Bruce Springsteen. There's quotes sometimes where a person reveals their inner belief and they can do it in a sentence or a handful of sentences. Immediately understand who that person is.”

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31. “That is such a good point and a great quote. If you're trying to do something new, if you're trying to push the boundaries, I would say if you're trying to live up to your potential to fulfill your potential, you need to be surrounded by people who believe in what you're doing. He continues. We were just very, very determined if you were new to our club, the relentless pursuit of our idea would have exhausted you. It was simply understood that you were there because you believed what we were doing was worth it.”

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32. “This time, or some of my favorite ones. There's a bunch of quotes I want to read to you. He says, if you want to accomplish what hasn't been accomplished before, you have to be relentlessly and unapologetically determined. You had two kinds of guys that we ran into at that time. They're the kind of guys that wanted to go home at five o'clock, and their interest in what you were doing didn't exceed the normal day for them. And those guys never lasted. Because when you're trying to push the boundaries on things and when you're trying to move into different types of frontiers, you need to be surrounded by people who really believe in what you're doing.”

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33. “Had a lot of insecurities and a lot of fear. I was one of those guys, like, oh man, I hope they don't hit the ball to me. And so he gets to work with Bruce Springsteen. There are so many great ideas that he learns from Bruce, but I think the two most important ones is the fact that for the first time in his life, he sees what a real work ethic looks like. He says over and over again, I learned my work ethic from Bruce. And then the second most important thing that comes out of this is the fact that they become lifelong friends. This is like 1975 or something like this. I think Bruce is like 80 now. Jimmy's in his 70s and they're still friends. And so the way I think about what Jimmy is about to witness here is I can summarize this in one of my favorite maxims. Mediocrity is always invisible until passion shows up and exposes it. Jimmy says, Bruce Springsteen taught me a work ethic. Bruce taught me that you don't stop until you get it right. Bruce's parts in the documentary about”

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34. “Behind, rather to stand in front of you, that's very powerful. I always felt that I had to work harder than the next guy just to do as well as the next guy, and to do better than the next guy, I had to just kill it. That is still with me in how I work. I just go in. And he would say over and over again, you have to train yourself that anytime you feel fear, you have to take a step forward. And I think one of the most important things, definitely, you know, Jimmy talks about this over and over again. It's like one of the most important and influential relationships he has in his life is with his father. And I absolutely love what Jimmy's father did for him. His father gave Jimmy confidence. And this is what he said about his father. My father was a real cheerleader. He always told me, whatever room you go into is better because you are there. So I never felt no one wants me here or I don't belong. I think that's really important because Jimmy said another interview that when he was younger.”

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35. “This induces Phil into a state of rage, and Phil decides to try to attack him physically, says Phil jumps into a karate stance, which made me laugh. And what also made me laugh is Jimmy's interpretation of this. Remember, Jimmy's from Brooklyn. He grew up on a rough neighborhood, and now he's around all these famous and really successful people. And he goes, oh, these people do this too. This is stuff I see back in Brooklyn. And so the main point here and what I really thought about is as he's telling these stories, and I was watching a documentary and listening to these interviews, like, imagine being this young kid that you have to work through this, you have to work through all this. You're in a very turbulent environment and you know if you fuck this up, it's not like you're going to get another chance. And so that leads me to one of the two favorite ideas of Jamie Evian that I mentioned earlier in the fact that you need to use fear as a tailwind. This is what Jimmy says. Fears a powerful thing. It's got a lot of firepower. If you can figure out a way to wrestle that fear to push you from being...”

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36. “Find yourself in a tiny, tiny room. And he's got David Geffen behind him and Phil Spector next to him. And Phil is drunk and chaotic and yelling. And so he tries to start yelling at David Geffen. And this is the way Jimmy tells the story. Phil is yelling at David. So David says something very David. David says, I don't know about you, but right now I have the number three, four, five, seven, and eight top songs in the country.”

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37. “Been there for hours and hours and hours. And Phil Spectre walks into the studio. He's wearing a white butcher coat and he's got two guns strapped to his chest. Remember, this is a guy who four decades later is going to murder a woman at his house and die in prison. And so Jimmy is telling the story. Remember, he's 20 years old, has no experience, has a lot of fear, has a lot of insecurity. He said it was complete chaos. Phil was yelling at people. He was calling Cher a whore. Sher was in there singing backup. There was alcohol, gallons of alcohol. They're drinking the whole time. Phil Spector is yelling at everybody and is crazy. We have to record for three weeks like that. One day Phil comes in, goes to the bathroom in the recording studio, and starts shooting the bathroom up. Another day David Geffen shows up at the studio. At this point, David Geffen is dating Cher. So 20-year-old Jimmy Ivino has no experience, a lot of fear, a lot of insecurity.”

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38. “Named Phil Specter. There's a bunch of crazy stories that are about to happen here four decades later after I tell you these stories, four decades later, Phil Specter is going to actually murder somebody and he's going to die in jail. But one of the things I have to point out to you is one of the things that Jimmy talks about, and it's one of my favorite ideas, and I'll go over this with you, is just like everybody feels fear. If you're trying to do anything new, if you're trying to be successful, if you're trying to change the trajectory of your life, you are going to feel fear. You've got to be able to step forward when you feel that. And I want to give you some background here. John Lennon puts Jimmy IV up at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Jimmy IVEN is 20 years old. He had never been on a plane before. He had never stayed at a hotel before. And now he's going to find himself in a room and have to figure out a way to help two of the most well-known people in the music business. And this is where he just tells crazy stories. So he sets everything up. It's very difficult to get the sound exactly right. Phil Specter shows up at the studio.”

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39. “Out of this room because I've been thrown out of a few rooms. I was sweaty. He's talking about being very, very nervous. How could you not be nervous? John's a beetle for God's sake. I'm sweaty. How can I just overdo it? How do I just serve? How can I be of service? I learned, and he talks about, you know, not only running the board, setting up the mics, making sure the sounds good. He's like, I learned how to make John Lennon's tea. I got so good at making John Lennon's tea he wouldn't let anybody else make it. I timed it exactly right. The way I am about everything, I was about that fucking tea. And so this is another example of somebody further down the line, more successful, trying to help Jimmy. He says John Lennon would just give me a shot on anything and everything. It wasn't because I was talented. It's because he liked me and he felt he could trust me. And so John is the person that's going to send Jimmy for the first time to California because John's going to fly to California and work with this legendary producer.”

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40. “Jimmy's living at home with his family. He comes from a very traditional New York Italian family. And his mom's like, you're crazy. You can't go. It's Easter Sunday. But Jimmy said, I'll do anything. I will do anything to make this work. He shows up to the studio and Roy tells him, I just wanted to see if you'd come in. It was a test in the studio with Roy Saquel on Easter Sunday was John Lennon. And so almost overnight Jimmy goes from sweeping the floors to working the board with John Lennon. And so on all these other interviews and all these other podcasts, Jimmy tells these incredible John Lennon stories. The interview that Jimmy IV did with Rick Rubin a few years ago was the best podcast single podcast episode I heard all year. And a lot of the stories that Jimmy tells about this period is just like taking this extremely serious, doing whatever was ever necessary not to get thrown out of this room. Remember, he had already been fired two times before and he says, listen, I was just like, how do I not get thrown?”

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41. “Didn't know. And one of the best things that Roy Sicala did, or he's a legendary engineer and producer, he would teach you by working through you. And so what working through you means he would literally sit Jimmy down at the board and say, hey, hit that button, push down that lever. See how the sound changes when you do that? Now do this. Now when you do that, do this at the same time. By working through Jimmy, it gave Jimmy a feel on how to actually make a record. He says, Roy, Roy gave me my skills. And so Jimmy's first big break comes from answering the phone. He's going to describe what's about to happen here later on as the first day of his life. So he got a big break because Roy Sakala called.”

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42. “And his point was like, hey, when you're in a position to help somebody, you should help them. If you feel they deserve help and they deserve a break, you should do whatever you can to help them because he was really talking about Ellie. What would have his life have been if the second time he got fired from a recording studio, she decided not to try to help him get another job? That one act by her changed the entire trajectory of Jimmy's life, and it winds up being his first big break because at the record plant is where he meets Roy Sicala. Roy Sicala is a legendary engineer and producer, winds up becoming Jimmy's mentor. Jimmy talks about this. He says when I was younger, I was scared to death. I didn't know where my life was going to go. And then I met Roy Sakala and John Lennon, and they gave me a shot. And then I worked with Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith, and that was my college education. I felt freedom, freedom from what I did.”

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43. “Through a family member, he winds up meeting this young, talented singer-songwriter named Ellie Greenwich. And it was Ellie Greenwich who got him his first two jobs in the music business. And really that's a stretch to say he was in a music business because his first job in the music business was sweeping up in the recording studio. Somehow he managed to get fired from that job. She gets him another job in a recording studio. This job comes with a 90 day trial period. Jimmy gets fired on the 89th day. And so he's walking home after getting fired. He calls Ellie and he's crying. And Ellie gets him another job. This one, she got him a job at what will become a famous recording studio called the record plant. What I love about Jimmy's ability to tell stories, he will talk about what happened, you know, outline his career and what happened to when he was younger, and then he'll tell you what the important lesson from that.”

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44. “Would always say invert always invert. And so Jimmy says, I was thinking not what I was going to do. I was thinking what I wasn't going to do. I wanted to do something that was special. He did not want to have a normal life, just having a normal job. He admired his dad. His dad was his best friend. We'll talk a lot about that. But he didn't want to be a longshoreman. And he didn't have a lot of interest. But one thing that he was interested in from a very young age is the fact that he would sit in his room and listen to music for hours. He wouldn't just listen. He would study it. He says in the documentary that he would read the back of album covers. And so his family at the time says that Jimmy has a skill that would actually come in really handy later on in his life and career is that he was able to make you a super fan of whatever he was a fan of. And at this time it was just the people, the music that he was listening to.”

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