The Best 'Joe Rogan Experience' Podcast Episodes

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The widely-held belief that Joe Rogan’s move to Spotify would spark an influx of A-list celebrity guests hasn’t really come to fruition (up until May of this year, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Elon Musk, Dave Chappelle and Action Bronson were the biggest names to turn up at the Texas studio) but Rogan performed a real coup with this one. For nearly three hours, Quentin Tarantino delves into his beginnings as a director and his plans for a future outside of filmmaking – specifically, one last movie followed by books, plays and parenthood. “You all know actors, bands, singers, sports dudes that you loved and when they were doing something new it was exciting and special. And then at a certain point, it’s not exciting or special anymore. It doesn’t mean they’re without worth, but it’s just not the excitement of when blah-blah-blah had a new movie or album coming out,’” he tells Rogan. “I want to retire before I lose to Leon Spinks and leave you wanting more. I don’t want it to be like, ‘Forget about the shit he’s doing now, back in the day …'” Rogan urges him to reconsider, but to no avail.

It’s all very enjoyable listening; Tarantino goes off on wild, film trivia tangents, but Rogan is no cineaste, and always manages to bring the conversation back on course. The most controversial element of the interview comes when Tarantino addresses backlash around his depiction of Bruce Lee in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. “I can understand his daughter having a problem with it, it’s her fucking father, I get that. But anybody else [can] go suck a dick,” he says, going on to take aim at the late martial artist’s reputation in Hollywood as well as his wife, Linda Lee. Throughout Tarantino’s rant, Joe Rogan seems uncharacteristically taken aback – uncomfortable, even. There’s a first time for everything.

If you’ve read Mike Tyson’s autobiography, or watched the captivating Tyson documentary, or consumed just about any Mike Tyson media that’s emerged over the past twenty or so years, then you’ll know that Iron Mike has lived quite a life. All of his interviews with Joe Rogan are worth your time, but the September 2020 video is particularly enlightening, especially on the subject of drugs. He opens up about taking acid at the age of 11, and talks about his current cannabis-growing operation at the Tyson Ranch weed resort, which is said to be raking in over $500,000 a month. As ever, Rogan is more than happy to share his thoughts on the matter. The conversation gets stranger from there, with Tyson revealing that he used to get erections when he fought. The interview preceded the 54-year-old’s charity fight with former four-weight world champion Roy Jones Jr in November, which ended in a draw.

While he always promised that the show wouldn’t change, Joe Rogan’s controversial £77 million deal with Spotify has coincided with a sudden influx of A-list interviewees – including Miley Cyrus, Matthew McConaughey and, towards the end of October, Kanye West. In fairness this one’s been in the works for a while, ever since Joe tweeted out an invite to the show at the end of 2018. A lot has happened since then – to the world, and to Kanye – and there was hope that the 'Jesus Is King' artist would go into details on his personal battles, and update us on his attitude towards Trump in the build-up to the American election. (Kanye, if you don’t remember, was an adamant supporter of Trump but has since taken “the red hat off” and launched his own presidential bid.)

But anyone who’s watched a Kanye West interview knows that things don’t stay on track for long. Even for a Joe Rogan episode, in which meandering conversations are the norm, this was different. There was the self-aggrandising talk that everyone expects from Kanye (he refers to his mind as a “symphony of ideas” and said that God called on him to be “the leader of the free world”), but he also provides some genuine insights. He speaks about his religious path and the fact he feels “bad” about some of the music he has put out into the world, and drilled into his attempts to rectify a broken music system through radical transparency. He also reveals that he contracted COVID-19, and that it stopped him from launching his political party (currently polling at 2% nationally) earlier. “I’ve travelled more than any President already, and I bring people together,” he added. “I put rivals on songs together to create masterpieces.”

The biggest revelation, though? Kanye believes the George Lucas-directed Star Wars prequels are better than the Disney follow-ups. He wasn’t about to back down, either. “This is about to make me mad, right here,” West said on the podcast. “The first time you’ve seen me get mad in an interview.”

Over the course of lockdown, Michael Imperioli and Steve Schirripa have proven themselves to be one of the greatest podcast double-acts ever. Their ‘Talking Sopranos’ show, in which the former cast members (Imperioli played Christopher Moltisanti and Schirripa played Bobby Bacala) re-watch old episodes for the first time in over a decade, is a fascinating insight into the Greatest Show Ever Made™ – but it’s their odd couple relationship that makes it essential watching. Your typical conversation goes like this:

Imperioli: *Talks calmly and thoughtfully about the craft for 30 seconds*

Schirripa: “ROBERT DE NIRO IS AN ASSHOLE”

It’s an unexpectedly brilliant dynamic, and they’re just as engaging in their appearance on Joe Rogan’s show (Steve has been on previously and is a friend of Rogan’s). It’s an incredibly wide-ranging, fast-moving conversation which touches on the resurgence of The Sopranos amongst younger crowds during lockdown, their memories of shooting the legendary show, the legacy of James Gandolfini, the differences between actors and comedians (Imperioli and Rogan don’t necessarily see eye to eye on this particular subject), the downfall of Harvey Weinstein, as well as the political strife in New York City (which Schirripa is typically opinionated about). It’s a great episode, and the perfect amuse-bouche for the 'Talking Sopranos' podcast, which is still going strong and features guest appearances from the likes of Lorraine Bracco, Edie Falco and Jamie-Lynn Sigler. It was originally planned as a touring show, but we’re glad Sopranos fans across the world got to experience it together.

Whether you’re a fan of Trevor Noah’s take on the Daily Show or not, we can all admit: it’s not the must-watch it was in the Jon Stewart days. Times have changed. Almost every late night show on air takes jabs at Trump in an attempt to hold the President to account, but politics in general has become harder and harder to satirise. The Daily Show’s mission was to bring attention to the ludicrosity and dishonesty of Washington. But the veneer of integrity and respectability in American politics has crumbled to dust. What's a double-act without its straight man?

Jon Stewart lost the appetite for TV takedowns a long time ago. (He says one of his greatest regrets about The Daily Show was the “evisceration expectation” – the feeling that he had to tear his opponents apart in a bombastic manner that could potentially go viral). But he’s still one of the most thoughtful and scathing political commentators in the country, and it was refreshing to hear him speak his mind with Joe Rogan via video link earlier this year. He discusses the shifting sands of late night TV, the possibility of socialism in the US (“The only thing standing between American socialism is an inability to meaningfully reform capitalism… and if we can’t do that, then the people take to the streets”) and being taken out of context by the masses (“The internet has democratised outrage”). He also delves into how the US government should help its populations through the trials and hardships of COVID-19 (“Suspend and extend” is his succinct opinion).

A prime example of how the JRE podcast is fast becoming one of the most effective platforms available to campaigning politicians. Joe Rogan’s interview with 2020 Democrat nominee Andrew Yang, in which the 45-year-old Taiwanese-American entrepreneur put forward the case for $12,000 universal basic income and economic protections against artificial intelligence, ultimately placed his message in front of over eight million people across a broad spectrum of political persuasions and catapulted him into the mainstream conversation.

Donations started to pour in (helping to clear the threshold allowing him to take part in the Democratic Party debates), news outlets paid more attention to his campaign, and his growing set of online supporters earned the nickname ‘The Yang Gang’. While Yang ultimately failed to make it to the final rounds of the debate, the JRE certainly helped to spread his key economic theories and establish him as a popular figure within the party. The campaign team behind Bernie Sanders were clearly paying attention, as he too made an appearance a few months later.

The image of Elon Musk reluctantly puffing on a big fat bifta (two hours and ten minutes in, FYI) became one of 2018’s most iconic memes, and the fact that it somehow ended up costing the US taxpayer $5 million only made it funnier. But wade through the smirks and smoke clouds, and you’ll discover a very revealing interview with one of the world’s most enigmatic, impulsive and baffling public figures. Highlights include Musk calling his own company’s flamethrowers “dangerous” and “wrong”, as well as pontifications over the future of AI combat and the possibility that we’re all living in a simulation. Occasionally he gets personal, at one point telling Rogan: “I don’t think you’d necessarily want to be me. I don’t think people would like it that much.”

He recently made another appearance, shortly after the birth of his son with Grimes, to talk about his SpaceX missions and the future of space exploration. He also dips into the topics of fatherhood, his insistence on Twitter that he will be selling most of his possessions, the impact of COVID-19 on society, the release of the TESLA Roadster and CyberTruck, and, er… cyborgs

NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden is currently exiled in an unknown location, and has been on the run from the US government since 2013. He released a memoir last year, and needless to say, an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel wasn’t on the cards. So he decided to link up with Joe Rogan for a just shy of 3-hour video chat, to discuss how our online privacy has changed since his conviction – the main takeaway being that we are now inextricably linked to our mobile devices. “The movements of your phone are the movements of you as a person,” he tells Rogan, before launching into a lecture on Big Data, how it pilfers and controls our daily lives, and the myriad ways in which we all now carry a permanent record. Zero biftas in this one, though.

Seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong became a pariah in the cycling world when he was found guilty of doping in 2012. The United States Anti-Doping Agency referred to him as the figurehead of "the most sophisticated, professionalised and successful doping program that sport has ever seen". Five years later he delved into the subject with Rogan, admitting that, "If we were doing this 10 years ago, I would have lied right to your face.” It's a pretty candid interview from a man with near-on nothing to lose, and one that opens up some shades of grey in the shameful episode. Rogan does a good job of forming a rapport without letting him wriggle free of blame, too.

Joe Rogan invited Michael Osterholm, an internationally recognised expert in infectious disease epidemiology, to discuss the current pandemic on 10 March, just a day after Donald Trump dismissed it as less impactful than the common flu. Osterholm, conversely, told Rogan the impact of the virus will be "10-15 times worse than the worst seasonal flu season", and assured his viewers that, "We're gonna be in some hurt for the next few months.'" His straight-talking appearance came at a time when governments across the world seemed to be underplaying the threat of the virus, and his words continue to be a prescient as they are scary. If you want an unvarnished analysis of what the world could look like in a few months time, have a watch.

Dutch extreme athlete Wim Hof – widely known as The Ice Man – was originally dismissed as a scam artist when he claimed that he could alter his own biochemistry with pure breathwork. But then scientists put him through the ringer and found that he was actually able to control his internal body temperature and immune responses. It’s what allows him to sit in ice baths for hours at a time, hold the record for a bare-foot half-marathon on ice and snow, and even rid himself of viruses. But he’s still a controversial figure, with many accusing him of overstating the health benefits of his method. Whatever your opinion, his two appearances on JRE provide an interesting insight into a truly unique human being, and Rogan provides a fair amount of scrutiny to proceedings.

The late, great Anthony Bourdain made an early appearance on the show, before things became (marginally) more polished. That's because the pair were firm friends for a long time ("I'll do anything with him; shoot animals in the brain, canoe trip, hot tubbing, whatever," he once told a Reddit AMA, before ruling out a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu fight. "He's a neck cranker [...] and he's got bowling balls for arms, no visible neck.") We don't really need to tell you why this episode is great. It's Anthony Bourdain, shooting the shit over a few beers. It's funny, informative and calming. Give it a watch, and remember a master.

Following the death of Anthony Bourdain, Joe Rogan has paid tribute to his friends a number of times, including in this clip. Have a read of our dedication to the late chef here, and have a look at our favourite episodes of his many shows.