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

Robert Margouleff is one of the most quietly consequential figures in modern music — a sonic architect who helped build some of the most innovative and enduring sounds of the last half century. Together with his partner Malcolm Cecil, Robert created TONTO, the world's largest analog synthesizer, and used it to co-produce a string of era-defining Stevie Wonder classics including Music Of My Mind, Talking Book, Innervisions, and Fulfillingness' First Finale. He went on to work with Jeff Beck, The Isley Brothers, and a scrappy art-punk band from Akron, Ohio called DEVO — helping shape their early sound into something that felt like it arrived from another dimension entirely.
You might remember Robert from his Broken Record interview a few years back. Now he's releasing an audiobook, Shaping Sounds: Stevie Wonder, DEVO, the Synth Revolution and My Life Behind the Music. It's a memoir about creativity, collaboration, and artistic courage, told by someone who was in the room when the future was being invented.
On today's episode Justin Richmond sits down with Robert and Mark Mothersbaugh, the frontman of DEVO, composer, visual artist, and one of the most original creative minds of his generation. They recall working together to make DEVO's Freedom of Choice, and the glory days of recording at the Record Plant studios in Los Angeles in the '80s.
You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite songs from Robert Margouleff and Mark Mothersbaugh HERE.
You can use the code SOUNDS25 at pushkin.fm/shapingsounds to save 25% on the audiobook.
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Maya Hawke first became known to wide audiences as an actress — especially through her work in Stranger Things — but she's been quietly building a parallel life as a songwriter of genuine depth. Since her debut album Blush in 2020, she's released four records.
Her latest, Maitreya Corso, arrives at a pivotal moment: the album follows her marriage to longtime musical collaborator Christian Lee Hutson, and centers on a fictional persona through who Hawke explores ego, ambition, and the strange labor of making something. Recorded in Woodstock and New York City late last year, it's co-produced by Hutson and Jonathan Low, with cover art drawn from watercolors Maya painted herself.
On today's episode Justin Richmond sat down with Maya Hawke and her husband and co-producer Christian Lee Hutson live at SXSW to talk about the making of Maitreya Corso, and what it means to finally come together as partners in both life and work.
You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite songs from Maya Hawke and Christian Lee Hutson HERE.
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In the latest season of Revisionist History, Malcolm Gladwell is looking at the origins and consequences of mistakes—why we make them, the context in which we make them, and what happens after we make them. Years ago a music producer named Irv Gotti—a hitmaker for Jay-Z, Ja Rule, and Ashanti—was tapped by Sony Music to make a record with Jennifer Lopez. They wanted a big hit. And Irv delivered. But then he made the biggest mistake of his career.
Find more episodes of Revisionist History wherever you get podcasts.
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The magic of Bruce Hornsby isn't just that he's one of American music's great piano stylists — or that he wrote one of the most unlikely pop hits of the 1980s, a song about racism with two improvised solos that nobody at his label thought should be the single. It's how relentlessly he's kept moving, long after he had any commercial reason to.
Hornsby grew up in Williamsburg, Virginia, and got discovered playing a steak and ale joint across from the Hampton Coliseum by Mike McDonald. He scored his first big hit in 1986 with "The Way It Is. What followed was a long, restless second act: teaching himself two-handed independence by scheduling benefit concerts just to give himself a hard deadline, making jazz records with Jack DeJohnette and Christian McBride, bluegrass records with Ricky Skaggs, and going deep into Shostakovich fugues that now shape everything he writes.
On today’s episode Bruce Headlam sat down with Bruce Hornsby at the piano to talk about all of it. But they started somewhere unexpected: a steak and ale restaurant in Hampton, Virginia, in the fall of 1978.
You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite songs from Bruce Hornsby HERE.
Time-coded chapters:
(01:26) Discovering Musical Influences
(09:24) Success of “The Way It Is”
(15:51) Crafting Unique Sounds and Styles
(20:30) Collaborations and Songwriting Process
(26:40) Exploring New Directions in Music
(33:20) The Challenge of Musical Growth
(39:10) Jazz and Bluegrass Fusion
(44:47) The Art of Improvisation and Composition
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The magic of Dave Grohl isn't just that he's one of rock music's great raconteurs, or one of its greatest drummers and frontmen of the last thirty-plus years. It's the sheer number of lives he's gotten to live within rock and roll.
Dave started out drumming for Scream, one of DC's great, underrated hardcore bands, running in the same circles as Ian MacKaye and the Dischord crowd. Then he joined Nirvana and more than made his mark in one of the most consequential bands since the Beatles, and an indelible piece of Seattle's music story dates all the way back to Jimi Hendrix and Quincy Jones.
And then, as if that weren't enough: Foo Fighters. Which Dave Grohl essentially built by himself — Prince and Stevie Wonder-style — writing and recording nearly every note on the debut alone, save for some guitar from Greg Dulli of the Afghan Whigs.
On today's episode Justin Richmond sits down with Dave at the Foo Fighters' studio to talk about their twelfth album, Your Favorite Toy. But they start somewhere unexpected talking about a song from a cassette-only solo record in 1992 he made under the pseudonym "Late!"
You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite songs from Dave Grohl HERE.
Time-coded chapters:
(02:20) Recording first album, Pocketwatch
(05:58) Formation & collaborative spirit of Scream and the DC hardcore scene
(09:53) The Power of Live Recording
(20:07) Community in Music Today
(28:04) The Creative Process Behind Foo Fighters' New Album
(34:04) The Enduring Passion for Music
(36:15) Writing Through Life's Challenges
(37:48) Cooking as a Parallel to Music
(43:39) The Surprising Influences of Musicians
(48:42) Exploring Themes in New Music
(53:22) The Evolution of Musical Style
(57:21) Reflecting on Musical Journeys
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