>> rose: welcome to the program. we begin tonight with a second look at the new musical "hamilton" that everybody is talking about. >> the story of our country's founding is an extraordinary onement and to tell it from the perspective of the guy without wasn't born here i think is-- is-- was my way in, you know, my parents were both born in the caribbean, in puerto rico and came here. pay dad came at the same age as hamilton speaking not a word of english. you experience the country differently when you come here at a different age. that is our way not story. >> rose: and we conclude this evening with two influential stars of electronic dance music, diplo and skrillex. >> you have to be able to have one foot in the creative music and the creation of the media around the musk and the way your m not a musician but i have always been obsessed with music and i create music now and i've learned how to play music on my own. i think it's bigger than

just getting a guitar and putting something together am you have to create an atmosphere am when you create the electronic, it's little more complex. >> when are you playing a show, the energy you get from the stage is undescribable. and it's just like this constant feedback, you know am like a cycle. an when you're in the studio with people, when you have good energy, people are having fun and feeling the music it inspires you to continue to go down the right place, lin-manuel miranda, thomas kail, skrillex and diplo. >> funding for charlie rose is provided by american express. >> rose: additional funding provided by: >> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide. captioning sponsored by rose communications

from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: alexander hamilton is the unlikely founding father who wrote his way into the pages of early american history. theodore roosevelt called him the most brilliant american statesman whoever lived. he is the subject of a musical "hamilton" which opened this week on broadway to rave reviews. writer and composer lin-manuel miranda takes the legacy to new heights using hip-hop, r&b and rap music. he calls the play the story of american then told by america now. and here's a look ♪ i'm past patiently waiting ♪ ♪ i'm passing every expectation ♪ ♪ every action. i'm laughing in the face of casualties ♪ ♪ the first time i'm thinking past tomorrow ♪ ♪ you're not throwing away my stuff ♪ ♪ i'm not throwing away my stuff ♪ ♪ i'm to the throwing away

my stuff ♪ ♪ we got to rise up ♪ we going to rise up ♪ we going to rise up ♪ rise up ♪ time to take a shot ♪ rise up rise up ♪ time to take a shot ♪ time to take a shot ♪ time to take a shot ♪ we're not throwing away my stuff. >> not throwing away my shot. >> i spoke to acker lesley -- leslie odom, jr. who played aaron burr last night on this program. >> what brought you to hamilton? >> i was invited into "hamilton" sometimes you find that the best jobs you get in this career, in this business, you didn't audition for, you have no idea how you got there. so i just asked tomie last week, because i have this superstition, sometimes if i get a straight offer, i don't want to kind of ask how it came about. >> rose: tomie kail the

director. >> the director, yeah, i don't want to ask how it came about because i think they might realize, why did we ask this guy. so i got invited about two years ago to do a reading of the show. and i had seen it at vasser. i had seen them do about a half an hour of the show at music stands, maybe 45 minutes. and was blown a what. so when i was invited to do the reading, i prepared like i've never prepared before. i mean i came in. i knew all my music. because i knew what they were working on. >> you know it had powerful potential. >> i mean yeah, i knew how it affected me. you know, and you know, lin is only a-year-older than i am. so this is our music. you know, i recognized the rhythms and the sink passion and the-- the circumstances yncopation, the pulse of the piece, it has been in my ears when i was born. >> rose: people wondered when hip-hop would come to

broadway because rock had come to broadway. >> yeah. and lin was so influential with that too, you know "in the heights" happening and being such a watershed moment for hip-hop music and for also latin american ackers. i remember listening to "in the heights" on-- i listened to it before i saw it. and there was something about-- i have chills thinking about it. i told him and lak at one of my first rehearsals,s there was something about-- from the first moments of that album. i mean the need to communicate is something that has always moved me greatly. i remember i saw a show when i was a teenager called def poetry jam. the way those people came out and just, they needed you to get it. you know, they put something, there's blood in the pen. you know, they put something down on paper and they have-- there's an urgency an a fire in their belly for you to get it. it came full circle when i was listening to a rehearsal

of us in "hamilton" listening back, and my part. we sound like that. i can hear that need in what we're doing. >> rose: i hear all that you-- all of the need, all of the desire, all the energy, all the-- preparation to do justice to the text that you were given. how much of it was important to know aaron burr? >> very. >> because you not only play a character, you play the narrator. >> yeah. >> you are there at every moment. hamilton has a larger role but burr is also the continuity. >> yeah. one of my favorite gifts that people give sometimes, fans will bring us books that they will find on arts, they will find on ebay. i will say the name steve

and ronda hawthorne have given me more than anybody. they come by with these articles that they order and books that they order. and those have helped me a lot because i would not call myself a historian by any means, lin at this point is lin has read enough about all of the different people and the events surrounding it that he's been able to come up with his own opinion on the events, right. cuz i think that's what makes a historian. you read ron chernow's book and that is the only opinion you have if you haven't read anything else. i have read enough on burr now to come up with my own theories. >> rose: because there are different opinions of burr, some good, some bad. >> and then i also, at the end of the day, the text in the show was my bible, right? i have to play what lin wrote. and lin has-- . >> rose: but you have to pour into what he has written, what you know. >> right. >> rose: and what you've experienced and what you feel. >> and what i believe, you know, as far as what my job is as a performer.

you know, that's another one of those things that this is intersected. it has come at the right point. that i'm ready to-- there's a certain amount of vulnerability that this show requires of me that i was not ready to embrace at any other moment in my life. there's a certain amount of honesty that if i'm doing my job right, i bring to the stage every night. and that is, you know, that comes with time. >> rose: tell me who aaron burr was. >> i think quite simply aaron burr was a soldier. he was a father, a husband. a lover, a friend. a murderer. a politician. you know. i think he was all of those things. i think like-- like all of us, you know, when people say, you know, who is the person you want to have dinner with living or dead.

besides charlie rose, you know, i would say aaron burr. >> i would like to be there. >> right? >> the room, to have him at this table just to ask, especially, our show with him looking back. so our show is after all of that stuff has happened. what do you-- what have you learned. >> rose: cuz he had an interesting life after killing hamilton. >> it ruined his life. >> rose: it ruined his life, first of all. it ruined his political life. >> yeah. >> rose: but he had been vice president. and then he fled the east coast. >> yup. >> he lost-- . >> rose: was indicted for treason. >> yup. his daughter, he only had one child who he loved very much. she died. after the death of his only grand child. his grandson died. and he invited theodosia to come with him, she was in mourning. and he invited her to get on a ship, come stay with me for a while and she died on

the ship. so he died completely alone. you know, he did have friends, though. cuz he didn't have much money. there were people that supported him because of what he had shown of himself, the man he had shown himself ten throughout his life to his friends. he had friends. in the war, people saw acts of, you know, heroics that, you know, endeared them to him all the days of his life. >> rose: moments of herorism. >> yeah, yeah. >> rose: he's intertwined with hamilton. we see that in the play. they're connected. >> yeah. >> rose: what was the relationship? >> they came up together. and they ran in the same circles together. they tried cases as lawyers together. they fought in the war together. and so i think of them as friends. i think of them as if you would have told them when they were 19 years old, if you would have shown them a picture, this is going to be you in your early 40s.

you're going to do this to this guy, they never would have believed it. >> rose: this play "hamilton" this musical, people are talking about it as changing the american musical theater-- theatre. as a-- a significant evolution in the american musical theatre. i mean this is seen more than simply a successful musical it's being given the heavyweight of cultural moment. >> you know, i'm a spiritual guy too. this work is, you know, its emotional, physical, there is a spiritual component. and i just-- cuz i have seen it from the inside, charlie. and i will tell you, there is a great deal of it that those guys andy, lak, tommy, lin have planned within an inch of its life. i mean those guys are

meticulous and you know, we're so happy we opened because it forced them to put their pencils down. they will keep perfecting it until somebody forces them. there is the part that they had nothing to do with. there is something else. >> rose: and what is that? >> it's whatever happens, it's the space in between you and i. it's whatever happens between me saying it on stage and how it affects you. and what it does to you. that is the part that none of us have any control over. none. you couldn't pay jimmy fallon to go see-- to go see our show and talk about our show the way he did the next night. you can't pay for that. i hope that the audience comes and feels like their presence is vital. >> rose: earlier we had talked to the writer, composer and star of hamilton lin-manuel mir ana and also its director thomas kail. she joined me in april. and here's a look at that conversation.

>> you sit in a room for six years making something. and you have the wildest dream version of how you think a show will be received. and we're experiencing that. so we're just trying to hang on while we can. i started writing this in 2008 while i was still in my show "in the heights" i was on my vacation, my first vacation from the show and i picked up ron cherno's book at random at borders. just knowing that-- . >> rose: just wented and said i will take this one. >> it had great reyou haves in the back, i know he died in a dual so i knew it would be a bang ending. and fell in love with the story, really, the dekensian nature of hamilton's life, almost from the kpirs and second chapper. >> the point when you say dicens, dicens, dicens, what was the dicensian aspect of his life. >> hamilton was born in neves, possibly out of wed lock. his father split by the time he was ten years old. his mother died in bed with

him a few short years later. his brother was apprenticed to a black smith so he was by himself. he got sent to live with a cousin after his mother's death. the cousin killed himself. and then he got put in charge of a trading charter. he was a clerk for a trading company that traded sugar cane and rum and slaves. the key point of the triangle trade down there in st-croix. and he wrote his way off the island. there was a hurricane that had ravaged st-croix and he wrote a poem about it describing the carnage saying that he saw sights that would strike astonishment into angels. this poem was used for relief efforts for the island. and people took up a fund to get him an education in new york. >> rose: so here we have a character. >> yes. >> rose: who, a great american. we know there's drama, that he dies at the end of a dual. and which he may not have, in fact, fired his gun. >> lots of differing opinions. >> rose: speculation about that. so here we have that story. but you have translated into so much more.

i mean tell me about the ideas that you wanted to pour into this to make it a new look at the founding fathers, the american experience, and a different way of presenting-- presenting it that would appeal to young people because you're peopled by young actors. >> well, you know. >> from diversity. >> you speak to what we were really conscious of which is how do we eliminate any distance between our story and now. we know that the story was going to be set then. but we knew it was going to sound like now. and we knew that fundamentally thises with a country that was founded and created by immigrants. somebody, somebody in all of our lines stepped off a boat or some form of transportation, put their foot down on this soil and went to work. and so as we started thinking about taking the inspiration from ron's book, we thought, okay, here are a lot of events. but we have to tell a story. so we had all of the evented late out. we both read the book and made our own time lines and

then compare. this really spoke to me, this moment feels like it's essential. then you have those things to build around. but it became so apparent early on as we were really designing how the show could function, that this idea of doubling characters, for instance, felt really right on. the character who played lafayette also plays jefferson, of course they both have this connection to france. they both have this relationship, one antagonistic one supportive. so how can we make the audience feel like who they are and what they understand is actually not so different from what these people were struggling with. >> rose: hip-hop seems like a genius stroke now. but that's what you knew. >> that's the first thing i checked, by the way. so i lead two chapters of this book and i go someone has already done a hip-hop version of this. because it felt to me the quintessential hip-hop narrative. this is someone who grew up in hard times and wrote his way out of his circumstances. wrote his way to a better life. and that is the hip-hop narrative from the south

bronx in the '70s to today. and so i googled hamilton hip-hop musical. >> rose: and it was not there. >> and it was in the there and so thank god, now you google it, you will see my show. but that was the first thing that jumped out at me. was this is-- this is a fundamental hip-hop story. >> rose: the lyrics go, i am just like my country, i'm young, scrappy and hungry. and i'm not throwing away my shot. >> charlie rose is rapping. (laughter) >> i hope we're lolling. >> rose: we're rolling on everything. but you performed that at the white house. >> yeah. i performed the opening number at the white house, actually, the alexander hamilton, the opening number of the show, yeah. >> rose: before we see that, did -- is that what the president responded to when he said geithner should see this. >> yeah, i told the a essentialed audience, this is my first time performing the song in public. they had asked me to perform something from "in the heights" and i said i have

16 bars about the first treasury secretary. and they allowed me to close out the show with that. and his response was, somebody got to get geithner in here bauz, you know-- . >> rose: he thought-of-geithner as a hamilton or what? >> he had a quote at that time, because the economic crisis had just-- everything had just blown up. and he said geithner's got the hardest job as treasury secretary since alexander hamilton. i think that was his quote on the record about what geithner had ahead of him. and this was very early in obama's administration, we performed in may of 2009. so you know, they were just figuring out how to do this thing. how to get us out of the hole we were in. so i think he was tickled by the fact that i had made a treasury secretary sing and he wanted to show the treasury secretary. >> rose: and. >> and that song was from burr's perspective. so he also performed it from burr's point of view. so it got a laugh about halfway through. >> rose: and where did that idea come, burr, aaron

burr's perspective? >> well, honestly, i look to musical theatre history. we have a great tradition thanks to andrew lloyd webber of the antagonist narrating the story, juddas narrates jesus christ superstar. cane narrates evita. that was immediately where i went. that set up very difficult task for me of figuring out who aaron burr is. who is, as we say in the show, a villain in our history. he is known as the guy who shot-- . >> rose: but you think more of him. >> i do after learning a lot about his life. and i have to find my waive in because there are a lot of biographies of burr. >> rose: gore wrote a historical fiction novel. his-- his burr is a lot craftier than mine. but one of the things i learned about burr was he is an early feminist. i mean his daughter received an education greater than any man of that era. he was very close with his wife and with his daughter. he was as-- he was on the-- mission society with alexander hamilton for the abolition of slaves in new

york city. in new york state. and so there are redeeming characteristics to this guy. i had to find my way into that because every biography either is insane-- insanely defensive of him orville find him. >> rose: but they would differ in the following way, which would you know better than anybody, on the one hand aaron burr was amazing. he was cautious, careful, laid back, alex aner hamilton wanted to charge forward at every moment. >> yes. hamilton left behind 27 volumes of written work. burr left behind less than two. and i think that sort of tells you everything about how much burr reserves the right to change his mind about any position he had at any particular point. and the tragedy of the show is at the moment when burr is finally reckless and lets go, and hamilton is cautious and throws away his shot, one kills the other. and that's how they are remembered forever. >> one of the things --

>> and i think hamilton knew they would be bound forever, and whether that would-- whether that would insurance his legacy of someone who then had to be spoken about. >> he had become slightly obsolete at that point thment is someone that thought about death so off then his life and here he was towards the end, not empowered, not able to affect change in that way. and we talked very early on, and again to the credit of the writing and leslie odom who plays burr, we said we have seen a lot of stories about two enemies who shoot at each other. let's make a story about two people who were very dear and complex friends and one of them kills his friend. >> poor soldiers, lawyers, statesman together, you know, they-- . >> rose: admiring of each other. >> yes. >> rose: you thought about playing burr. >> yeah, every time i wrote a burr song i said man, i should play this guy, i mean, you know. >> rose: because he was the narrator or because -- >> because he gets all the best songs in the show.

and as you will see, leslie is-- now you watch the show you can't imagine me playing the role because it really fits leslie like a glove. but he gets these wonderful vorites being the room of my where it happens, where he is talking about not being in power. and seeing hamilton trade away the capitol in exchange for a financial plan. and being like how am i not in this room. how am i not in the room where it happens. >> rose: take a look at this, this is you at the white house in 2009 performing the first rap song you wrote for hamilton, here it is. >> ♪ ♪s are force, son of a whore ♪ ♪ and a scotsman drops in the middle of the forgotten spot ♪ ♪ in the caribbean ♪ the private is impoverished ♪ ♪? squalor, grow up to are a hebbor ♪ ♪ the ten dollar founding father without a father ♪ ♪ got a lot farther by working a lot harder ♪ ♪ by being a lot smarter ♪ by being a self-starter ♪ by 14 they had placed him in charge of the trade and charter ♪ ♪ and then carted away, across the waves ♪ ♪ hamilton kept his guard

up ♪ ♪ he was longing for something to be a part of ♪ ♪ the brother, the-- then a hurricane came ♪ ♪ and it rained ♪ and a man saw his future dripping down the drain ♪ ♪ the temp el connected to his brain ♪ ♪ and he wrote his first refrain ♪ ♪ to his pain ♪ the word got around ♪ they said this kid is insane, man ♪ ♪ took up a collection to send him to the mainland ♪ ♪ get your education ♪ don't forget from where you came ♪ ♪ and the world is going to know your name ♪ ♪ what's your name man. >> alexander hamilton ♪ ♪ his name is alexander hamilton ♪ ♪ there's a million things he hasn't done ♪ ♪ but just you wait, just you wait ♪ ♪ he was 10 his father split ♪ ♪ full of it, debt riden ♪ two years later alexander's mother bedridden, half dead ♪ ♪ sitting in the room ♪ six percent, and alex got

-- his mother went quit ♪ ♪ moved in with the cousin, he committed suicide, left him with fog but ruined pride ♪ ♪ alex, you got to fend for yourself ♪ ♪ he started refeet retreating and treating ♪ ♪ there would be nothing left to do for someone et less astute ♪ ♪ we have be dead and destitute ♪ ♪ without essential restitution ♪ ♪ working, clerking for his late moth's landlord ♪ ♪ trading sugar cane, all the things he can't afford ♪ ♪ every book he can get his hands on ♪ ♪ planning for the future ♪ see him now ♪ he stands on the bow of a ship ♪ ♪ headed for a new land ♪ to new york ♪ you can be a new man ♪ the ship is in the harbour now ♪ ♪ see if you can start it ♪ another immigrant coming from the bottom ♪ ♪ his enemies destroyed ♪ america ♪ i'm the damn fool that shot him. >> rose: there you go. it's unbelievable. could this ever have been done, i mean, it's almost like if they didn't have hip-hop it had to be

invented. and created for this. >> wow. >> thank you, that means a lot. there is a lot of-- i think the score is both a love letter to both hip-hop and musical theatre, there are a lot of references to both embedded throughout. but you are right, it is this heightened language and we learned really early on in the process of making it this any time we dipped into ode speech, into proceeds, energy just kind of went out. like we kind of had this ball that we throw in the air so high at the top with this opening number that we kind of have to keep it at that level, a lot of the show. and there is a lot of times when we take musical breaks and slow it down and speed it back up again. but this heightened language seemed to be the only way to sort of convey hamilton's worldview. >> rose: did you once say that hamilton reminded you of tupac. >> yeah, yeah, i think he-- in that he embodied so many contradictions. he is both thoughtful and boisterous. he's both brilliant and self-destructive in certain ways.

you know, he would get into fights that in retrospect, why are you fighting with that guy? and that is what i think when i think about tupac's life who was so brilliant and embodied so many different things to so many different people. i think hamilton carries that many contradictions with him. >> rose: wesley pentz and sony moore is here, better known as diplo and skrillex. "the new york times" has called them purveyors of a very american strain of electronic dance music. they recently combined creative forces to form the supergroup jack u. here is a look at their single take you there from their new album. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ baby take me there ♪ ♪ baby ♪ ♪. >> rose: i'm pleased to have diplo and skrillex at this table for the very first time, welcome. here's why i'm really happy about this. is because i didn't know that much about either of you. and then the more i read, the more i learned, the more i was excited to have you here. so let me just begin with this. do you think of yourself as musicians or something else? >> i think it's a combination of being musicians. i came there singing in bands and playing guitar and

even piano an other instruments. but it is a combination of being a musician, an artist, someone without creates things and brings people together and produces. >> in 2015, you have to be able to have one foot in creating the music, also in the creation of the media around the music and the way your show is putting to. i'm not a musician per se but i have always been obsessed with music. i create music now and i have learned how to play music on my own. and i think it's bigger than just getting a guitar and putting something together. you have to create an atmosphere, when you create the electronics, the music we make say little more complex than just laying down some chords. >> rose: absolutely is. what has made it so popular? >> it's huge, 6.9 billion a year. >> yeah. >> well, i think it was, you know, the timing. the fact that, you know, the internet and being able to share media happened at the same time, computers and music programs are so accessible to people like us that are younger coming into music. and me coming through a band,

i found it easier to express myself fully through a computer it say one-stop shop because you can upload your stuff, obviously like music videos are all made by us, and pictures. >> i think what happened is the distribution chain is broken. it used to be when you had a band, you would have to get your band together, find some friends that like to make music. write some songs together, find a garage, rehearse for weeks and weeks, find someone to borrow money, use a studio, record the record, shop your demo to a label. maybe find a label. maybe do another year to create a record that they want to promote. that is like a two year process. now it's diy. i can go on my laptop, make a song, put it on youtube or soundcloud, reach you, reach somebody n a couple of hours and that record could be catapulted to something on the radio. so the distribution chain is lost. the labels have-- they still do the same thing like creating bands and -- but we are in a different world very grass roots, making it ourselves and distributing it ourselves. >> and the sort of

renaissance of all art has become really digitized with computer shalls and cell phones. people that edit on instagram t gives people, normal people an outlet to be creative. and then that can go deeper into music and editing and just people, young people that are prick making art in general. >> but it also has huge energy. >> yeah. >> yeah. i think it comes from being such a youthful movement. you know, like every year goes by, the producers that are getting-- not even getting signed but becoming popular and making a living are becoming younger and younger. >> yeah. i mean as producers, like we don't have bands. our job is inside the computer, inside the speakers, to make the most, loudest and craziest, the next, the biggest. something that you haven't heard before. it's like our goal to always be progressive and always make something brand-new and speak fresh. >> and also to bring people together too. like you know, especially with what we do with jack u,

it's all about, you know, taking things that normally shouldn't make sense and make them make sense, you know. whether it's like getting justin bieber on the record when traditionally dance music you wouldn't have something like that. >> rose: let's talk about forming jack u, whose idea? >> i think we, we're peers. i moved to l.a. about five, six years ago and he was one of the only producers that i knew of. he was just starting out as well, about five years ago. and we became really good friends. i think that we have always been outsiders in this dance world. and in the producer world that we decided to create stuff together. and it was real special because we have a really strong quality control. it's not good enough until it's good enough for both of us. and that takes a lot of work. >> rose: is it a long time or does it happen over -- >> i will give you an example. the record you played the video of, we recorded that record in three hours one night in a hotel room with great singer and it took us

another month after the two hours recording the whole vocal to make the sound sound the way it did. but for me, it might take a year to mix the record and produce it properly even if it takes a night to write the record. >> rose: but it is rather extraordinary for two people who are really, really good to come together. >> yeah. >> rose: you would think, often what you have is two people become really good and then they split. >> right. >> rose: and you guys came together, as competitors, almost. >> you know, it's like what he said. when you have two people and at least whether good, bad, we respect each other so ch and have that quality. >> rose: do you compliment each other? >> in what way, like-- hey, you're good, you look nice today or in like we complement each other's sound. >> rose: sound. >> yeah, if you listen to our individual projects, they are so forward thinking, at least what we both try to do is push the envelope of sound. with jack u it takes it to the next level and also we have no rules other than we make good music. >> electronic music is collaborative.

with me and him i'm always mixing my music with things you wouldn't expect like a rapper, a rock singer, country artist, something that is pop, we are always working with different people, different voices because we are not singers per se, even though he sang on the new album, we're always looking to collaborate and make things that you haven't heard before. things that are unexpected. and that sometimes the justin bieber record is kind of-- . >> rose: how did that collaboration take place? >> we just met, we met bieber at a club. hi become friends with him for years in l.a. and we met him at a club and said hey, we have this project. give us a vocal. we'll make it crazy, i promise you. gave us the record where you are now, we spent about two months at his house. on head phones, on a table just like this, playing around with it, until we had some ideas and we just had a spark and then we took it to the finish line. >> yeah. >> rose: roll tape, take a look at this, here it is. >> where are you now ♪ ♪.

>> where are you know ♪ ♪ where are you now that i need you ♪ ♪ where are you now that i need you ♪ ♪. >> it was a cool concept because what we did was we just shot justin bieber dancing and performing in a very simple background. but then took all of the

stills from the video and opened an art gallery in l.a. and invited fans, haters, and artists to draw whatever they wanted to on justin bieber. and if you go on youtube and hit the stills you can see a lot of stuff, everything from like compliments to jack u art to like false god, illuminati, anything anybody wanted to say. >> political messages. >> but there are a thousand still t was fan made, the video. we had an idea to create something that shall did -- because our album was so collaborative, we wanted the video in the way that we used justin bieber's voice into something that person find what it is to be like justin bieber, as a piece of art himself, you know, where you doing graffiti on him, the way we pore troy him, we created something out of that. out of that idea of creating a pedestal for artists and how you can paint them yourselves. we wanted to make the video collaborative by our fans and people without know jus tin bieber. >> rose: what makes jus tin bieber tick?

>> man, i don't know. >> you know what, i think when you are that young and you grow up that famous. >> rose: and you got that much money. >> yeah, i mean, i done even know if money, i mean, i don't know. i had money at a young age and i lost it and then like, cuz i was in a bandment but didn't really feel different. i can't say what it is like to be-- i don't even know it if it was money. pain at a certain point when you are surrounding yourself with people that aren't conducive to what you should be doing, it can throw you into an area where you are just very reactive. and i think that now he's in such a good place, he's really focused. i see him around really good people. >> rose: creative people. >> yeah, creative people, and guys like us that believe in him. no matter what anybody says, he's one of the most talented people, maybe the most talented person i have been in the studio with. >> rose: one of the most talented people you have ever been in the studio with. >> not even music, he's good a ping-pong, better at basketball. >> you two are what, 300 shows a year. >> about that, yeah, play about 300.

this weekend we did, me and him both collectively probably did 15 shows between thursday and sunday. >> rose: all in new york. >> we did-- i did four in new york. i did two-- no, three in new york, three in phillie, he did las vegas, new york, phillie, van cover-- vancouver, somewhere else. >> rose: sometimes the audiences are as big as 100,000 people. >> yeah. >> rose: 100,000. >> about 100,000 people a couple of times. quebec city we played once for a 100,000 people. >> in belgium. >> 100,000 on the main stage in europe. i mean at heartfest we played for about 60,000 people on our stage in. will amount of. >> rose: how are you changing? how is the-- what you do growing? other than the size of it, so to speak? what is the driving force behind change. >> you know what, i think like back when we first started, like he was saying, like there was kind of a dj scene but i didn't come into

dq as a dj. i wasn't an outsider. we were outsiders from this thing doing it our own way and weren't trying to go with how things were going. so i think like in the beginning, you know, no one considers us musicians, not that we cared or anything. i think we gained a lot of respect and rapport from different artists and easier to collaborate. a lot of the people, even four, five years ago when we really first started breaking into the scene, you know, a lot of these credible people that are musicians considered musicians but liked media and the outside world didn't. so now i think people trust us a little bit more. even with the radio, you know, we never set out in the beginning to make radio records. but naturally it's, our sound is starting to cross over. >> i think it's important that shall did --. >> rose: your sound is starting to cross over. >> yeah. we never aim for radio. a lot of producers in our-- in the place that we are, their main goal is just to get on the radio, sell records. for us, our fan bases are going to be there regardless. we're making music for our fans, we perform live, we think about how the kids that come to our shows are

going to like this. we never think about is radio going to plug this, is will it be easy to accept. >> how do you measure success, is it just in your head or some other way. >> for me it's personal. i just want to make great music. i don't care. >> rose: music that you like. >> that i love. i want music to give me goosebumps when i listen to the record that i made. >> rose: does that happen often? >> it happened with the bieber record. we finished this, we were like whoa, this is really special. >> you know, it's like when you-- make a record and then you play it for the first time in front of an audience and you feel a connect, a special feeling. and going back to the radio things, like you know, i think where we really shine and what this thing is all about, you know, djing what we do, we sit up there. and we are kur rating the soundtrack to an amazing live experience for people. and even at these festivals that are mixedment we play a lot of festivals like rock bands, like rap artists, like whatever it is. and you know, what we do is

so max mall, so that's that peak moment where you know, it's all about the live energy of everyone together. you know, and we're cure rating at that moment. so that's more important than a song being on the radio, you know, if i have a song on the radio but it doesn't connect live, would i rather have it connect live. >> that's like where it comes from in the beginning. >> i think in the taste of america has changed so much in the last couple of years where you used to have a machine po to put records on the record to where now, what we are doing, we have a record with jack u but i have a record with major laser called lean on, also on the radio. it's been released independently. it's like, we have no help from any major labels so it's possible nowadays to put a great song on the radio, with the right team, you know. >> take me through the process of creating something. >> i willive go you an example. we were recently on tour together in canada. we want to montreal. we had a day off with ak5, have you remembered of them. >> sure. >> a friend was there and said let's go meet up with you guys, we lent to-- went

to his garage and played 20 minutes, everybody on an instrument. i got the files from them and edited down these loops in little pieces and i will probably go back to montreal with the:-- and maybe sony and record vocals on it. so it is just, i texted him one day, hey, are you in town. >> a lot of times you say how does the process go, like with rk5, we just jammed on live instruments 45 minutes and probably made an album worth of teeferl and cut it down to projects we will later finish. but sometimes we will start with three chords and a vocal and then take you there, like he was saying, with kaiser, that first record, we recorded the song, when i say song, i mean the vocal and the melody in a hotel room but it took about a month to figure out what the song, the track was going toing about. that was a whole other side of the process. >> rose: wes said of sony there is no precedent for what he is doing and what he could do. >> for me sony was a real game changer in the dj world because while his production in mixing was really another level above what i am hearing on radio, he's got a

high standard to the way he makes music sound. but he also-- he also has like-- he's the first guy i met in this dj world that has a rock star presence, you foe what i am saying. he is from a band so he can handle himself on stage, a lot of djs, they're pretty boring, you know. you kind of need to have that rock star. >> rose: is that natural or come from being a musician on stage so you understand movement, you understand presence, you understand how to relate to an audience. >> i guess like relating to an audience is not about relating to an audience or trying to relate to an audience. it is about putting yourself in the moment and not thinking. >> you feel like you are socially stronger maybe in front of a big audience than you are one-on-one with people. >> sometimes, at least like, if it's 30 people, i'm djing in front of, the more people it's actually easier. >> i have even him work in the studio and he's better when 30 people are watching him on a laptop than by himself. the ideas don't flow as much. >> rose: you are better with people around. >> yeah, at times. >> rose: the more people, the better you are.

>> yeah, i mean, especially when the energy is awesome. when you are playing a show, the energy you get from the stage is like undescribable. and it's just like this constant feedback, you know. like a cycle. and when you're in the studio with people, when you have good energy and people are having fun and feeling the music, it inspires you to continue to go down the right path. people stop moving and you are not making the right sound. >> rose: what was it like taking over the garden? >> madison square garden. >> it was a big, it was a good bucket list check. >> rose: yeah, check it. >> check that thing. >> rose: what else is on the bucket list? >> do charlie rose. >> do charlie rose show, of course. >> rose: musically. >> musically, i think, you know. >> rose: it's strange that we have people paying attention to this project out of nowhere. if you want to the radio today, people are expecting another single from us, to know that everything that is happening to these records has happened organically. so i would love to get back in with him. we have a really strange leverage now over artists to give us some of the best rohrs they have done. they respect us, i think for a long time, five years we

struggled for people to kind of respect what we do in a way way. >> rose: when you say leverage, how are you using it. >> when you are a producer you have shall did -- when you are working with the artist it is a sense of negotiating, you know, if you saw madonna or a pop star, you find out where the comfort level is or how far you can take them on one direction or the other. and a lot of times, a big star will take up most of the space and you have only a little say in the work. but with him and me, with the record we did like 95% of it, like the direction it went. i think that a lot of people are like wow. >> that had to do with bieber trusting you. >> exactly. >> and once an artist does that and gives us that trust and we take the record to another level, i think it gives other people confidence in us to do that again. >> yeah, and like you know, i think a lot of times people do music for long time and they get to a certain age. and you know, they have families and kids and all this stuff. but like, you know, we're just so inspired and hungry to like he said, to like make great songs, make great tracks that sound like nothing else and push the boundaries.

i mean even the justin bieber single, top ten record, you know, isn't a pop format the way it's written, you know. it's not a traditional pop song. it is sort of changing verse chore use, verse chorus, bridge, we are changing the sort of pop format. >> rose: you also have a reputation of being able to spot trends. >> yeah. >> what does that mean? >> that means, you know, like i think we're both kids inside. mean we know i'm in my late 20s. >> mid --. >> so it's like-- i mean like we're like kids. we listen to music, all the time just like kids do. and we are just into that. and you know, i think it is weird because i thought for a lot of people that are a couple of years younger than me, an they're talking about like i'm old, i'm getting old. en moving all over thehaveg place.

it's a kind of-- it's inspiring to me. but i think that when i say we spot trends, we're part, it is strange that we are here on your show and on the radio because we're still, we're at the party like two nights ago. we're still hanging out with kids that are making music that we make. underground stuff. we come from an underground facility. between 20 and 30 so you know. >> kids are getting younger too. >> 18. >> we sign record deals with, sids 16, 17, some of the young kids are so great. some kids, we did a party for people in their 30s. dianne ward played with us. a lot of kids in our scene, it is not limited to just dance music. i feel like a lot of rap music, a lot of underground rock music is all part of our scene right now. >> young kids even like in him hop or-- hip-hop, or music that you can't really put agen re on, we make it in our rooms with our friends. nothing is fancy. we don't need all this, like,

you know, these zoot people around to check up on us-- suit people around. >> what about drugs this is what the guardian wrote, molly and ecstasy. >> it has roughly coincideed with the skrillex and the crumbsly named electronic dance mugsic edm to the top of the u.s. dance music charts. >> yeah, i think every generation with music -- >> yeah. >> you are responsible for the ascent of molly? >> well, no, i'm not because i make music and don't sell drugs. but you know, i don't condone drugs, the thing is if you look at the patterns of any era that had music that exploded in youth culture, just because the ratio of how big it is, that creates a bigger ratio of

drugs. drugs have always been used, you know, from like disco, like cocaine and obviously, you know, lsd and marijuana during-- there's always been drugs. an this year it happened to be molly. and i don't know that was-- before there was skrillex, no matter what the guardian wanted to say, mdma an ecstasy has been in rave and underground club music since the beginning. so it got bigger out here. so inevitably, that culture came along with it. but you know, like the sort of event that we play, the audiences that we reach out to, are so much more vast than what this article, you know, talked about. >> rose: so where do you think you and the music will be in five years. >> everything we are doing is growing. and i think that we are both real humble. we're so lucky to be doing this. i never had a job that i was able to keep until i started making music. so i'm just happy people are

paying attention. as long as that, i want to make as much as i can. >> rose: of all the good things they say about you, what do you appreciate the most. >> about what? >> rose: about the music, about the fame, about the attention, about the fans. >> at the end of the day, like, there are so many shows and when you talk about something like, you know, like drug use and the negative side of things, it's still, the minority. and the fact is that we are-- we are, i believe we are truly, you know, artists, artists like us in our peer groups are at a renaissance of how you can create art and music through technology, what is happening right now. and that is awesome. and that can lead to anything. that can lead to anything. >> it can change the way people think, a lot of young kids, they used to be barriers and genres about what you should listen to, what you shouldn't, where the limits are. if we can change people's ideas of the limits in music and whatting chaed people's ideas in music, that would be really important. >> we are doing is enabling a lot of people, you know, like i said when we first started out, we weren't

considered musiciansment and i think there's a lot of people. >> you think that's changed. >> that's changed. there have been people, there has been electronic music obviously since brian eno doing different things. >> rose: and when was that. >> in the 70s. >> like music concrete and french music from the '60s but electronic music got it's not ryeity vocal records only over electronic music. that was like a big breakthroughment and then it evolved into hip-hop and dancers, disco, pop, into new wave, into industrial music, all the way up to us. and we are like a culmination of everything that happened before us. we're just like another filter that comes out. >> rose: look at this clip, here it is. >> what i hope is that we can take this technological shift and move it from not just being about listening to music, to being about even how we create music. when you think about the internet, the internet is

not just audio. it's audio, it's visual and it's interactive, what is the future of music going to be if in that format that isn't just about the actual sound itself any more t is about the sound that is the visual and perhaps it might even be the interactive part. >> that guy is cool. >> rose: would you agree with him, his point. >> in essence. >> for sure, i think inevitably it is coming together. >> for us, the one thing that i think me and him which helps made us to be successful this year is that a lot of artists that are before us us, a lot of the other guys that are older, that battle streaming services, that battle description dfer services, we embrace it 100 percent. we would rather people listen than to make every cent we can make off of it. it important to get our music heard than to grab every penney we can get. >> the way i looked at it is you have to divide, you have different aisles and certain you have the girl section, the song section, maybe some person is going to buy socks, if you are going to take

your music away from one area, there is a whole demographic of people that only go to that aisle, you know. and so there is a whole other demographic of people that buy cds. so you know it's like those people that, some people-- this is my philosophy, i'm not telling anyone else they need to do it that way. people go to spotify and sub -- subscribe, that is how they get their music t is a group of people f you take it away you are alienating a group of people that will never see your music. doesn't mean they will change. a lot of times they are not going to go buy a cd because you took your stuff off spotify. >> but people that may not have a chance of getting a record may have an access to getting their music heard. >> the technology never benefitted the artist but the audience. >> rose: as true today. >> yeah, when i first had a cassette tape i was recording stuff illegally off the radio. it has always been in the favor of the audience to make it easier for them t is to the going to get easier for the artist. the more you fight t the more you waste your time because audiences will find

an easier and easier way to get the musesic. you can't stop it. >> rose: the easier you can make it for the audience to find it, the better you will be. >> that is the-- that is why we are doing it. >> rose: sensibility is the key word. >> that is why we are doing it here today. we always have road that waive, you know, if we had fought it, we would be still in our studios complaining. >> the one thing that i am kind of bummed about is recently all the major labels and we distribute through majors because we-- they all took, made it to all the full songs on-- had to be taken down and limited to clips, shorter previews. and man, those kids on sound cloud, they are actually, because we're some of the biggest people on sound cloud with the most followers. that is a huge asset to our overall business of how people listen to music. there are kids that only go to sound cloud that will not ever buy an itunes, or even spotify and that is how they listen to musicment it eliminates a big asset and

is cutting off your music to an audience that will potentially come to your shows and be fans. so you know, it's, did -- there is definitely a lot of controversy in all of these things but i almost wish it was up to the person that owns the art at the end of the day, you know. like the way they want it to be heard. i think both large andnd small we're happiest and just connecting with people. like you said, you make a song and it gives you the chills. and then you get to experience it being heard in a different way in front of people and see how it creates energy in the room, it's a special feeling. i think for the audience almost just as much as us. >> i am just lucky that i make a living creating, you know, i'm happy i can do that and share with people. i feel like my family has never had-- they never could believe that i would be able to make a living off creating something, you know? >> my father wouldn't believe i could make a living sitting at a table talking either. it's not a bad living.

>> no. >> rose: thank you. >> thank you. >> rose: great to have you. >> pleasure. >> appreciate it. d earlier episodes visitm, us on-line at pbs.org and charlie rose.com. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

>> funding for charl yee rose is provided by american express. additiona funding provided by: and by broomberg, a provider of multimedia information services world wide you're watching pbs.

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