It's hard to believe Andrew Wat is only 30 years old.

Just consider the artist he's worked with over the last five years.

Ozzy Osborne, Miley Cyrus, Sam Smith, Justin Bieber.

He's quietly become one of the biggest producers in the industry, leading to a nomination

at the upcoming Grammys for producer of the year.

But before Wat started his production journey five years ago, he was a songwriter and guitar

player.

This song, Ghost in My Head, is from a 2015 EP he released.

And it perfectly captures why he's been able to straddle the usually firm line between

hard rock and pop music.

It's something he's helped post Malone Do over the last few years, and also did for Miley

Cyrus on her new album, Plastik Hearts.

In this episode, Andrew Wat talks to Rick Rubin about getting to start music, interning

with the roots, his journey to becoming a top tier music producer, and about a frightening

experience with COVID he had in the early days of the pandemic.

This is Broken Record, liner notes for the digital age.

I'm Justin Richmond.

Here's Rick Rubin's conversation with Andrew Wat.

Let's start with COVID.

When did you realize you had it?

I was working with an artist and literally cancelling is not something that I do ever because

people's time, as you know, right, that's the most important thing, showing up somewhere

...