I've never done one of these in the rain no I haven't yeah this is awesome it's kind of special right doing it like this yeah we're gonna celebrate this yeah this is a gift it's not lost to me that we're gonna have a crazy horse tear right now and
we're back to back within a year we're here we were here a year ago that's right what can I say I can say thank you that's what I say thank you I say it every day thank you Neil thank you for a lifetime of incredible songs that have
traveled with millions of us throughout our lives the ups and the downs from country to Country for me from Auckland New Zealand to Shangri-La studios in Malibu California thank you Neil and thank you Rick Rubin this is awesome I just want to take a
second to um and I always do to acknowledge our surroundings whenever I'm here how it makes me feel driving here how I just um I lighten up I smile I choose my music before I arrive as I'm driving and do you know what I mean so I
have a memory of it I listen to Chevrolet oh good driving in here which is one of my favorites on the record so thanks Rick for letting us come and sit in your beautiful yard on a lovely rainy day it's great to see you again Neil great
to be here was the last time if ever we've done an interview in the rain is it trying to think it's hard to get a rainy day anyway that's the subject on the album part of it yeah yeah it's all part of this beautiful and emotional and sometimes
angry and often for me sad new album but these are all really valid emotions and I want to talk about those but um first of all archives I I just I always want to acknowledge what you're doing there and uh congratulations I'm a
subscriber and a patron oh thank you man Neil Young archives that's cool and uh I was really happy to see that you're now also um financially yeah we broke even like a couple of weeks ago yeah and you could we're not now though we were just we peaked we
came above them and then we went down again we hit it you broke even an increase to spin yeah for the I don't know how many years it's been but we finally got to the point where the new ideas and things we were developing yeah were they didn't
outspend you know the uh income yeah but you were doing it anyway and um and I I realized now being a part of it what it means to me is probably why you did it which was the connection feeling like you can make a meaningful
connection without it being interrupted or changed or morphed yeah and also the connection that you get in return because it feels accessible to me very accessible it's all there everything that I ever did you know that I wanted people to hear is there and uh you know
and there's more things but I haven't found them yet and I haven't you know been able to prepare them but uh they're all there and I I love the I love the archives for me it's like been my my friend for years now yeah place where I
can go and and take care of my stuff and organize everything and make sure it's you know I got really good archivists and and uh engineers and uh record Keepers and like you said in a way it's it's actually helping you ReDiscover and
find things for the first time that are sitting somewhere and and we all have those yeah places and things like that I saw recently that somebody at a record store I think in a small town found in 1973 concert you know about this
obviously not about this yes we have it already we got it from them yeah and uh we're copying it and doing a plans and copy which will take the wow and flutter out of a cassette it's apparently a cassette of a cassette so but there just were no recordings of
those shows yeah and uh we had one at the Roxy but no other ones on the whole tour um that I can remember awesome or maybe there's two but we did about eight or nine shows and every time we get one this is one we've never heard so
it's going to be a rescue job to make it sound okay but it is it's all for fun it's so fun right in the end of the day that whatever's left over in terms of the quality of that from the recording of it is is honest um
Rick I I don't know if I've ever asked you about archives the idea of how this place extends into archival work and what you hold on to what you feel you can hold on to from sessions and albums and how it all sort of how you relate to to that
really important storage side of things like how do you how do you approach that here at Shangri-La not well I've never taken it seriously and um at some point it'll be an issue if we ever decide to love back uh it's gonna be a a challenge
is it is it stored in analog and on tapes as well as in digital or is it kind of or just it's hard to say so much of the things because I work with so many different artists most of whom are signed to labels it's all over it's in the different
archives of the different record companies all over the place so it's hard hard to know but we would record when when we were recording mostly on tape which we did on this album as well but in the old days of recording on tape sometimes we would use
150 reels of two inch tape for one album if we were doing a lot of takes and those still exist somewhere yeah with all of those takes and you know I've never looked back at them but I know that they exist I can't imagine someone
would have would have erased him at a record company for but you never know it was lovely to know that you'd recorded this on two inch tape I've actually worked on an album personally myself and we made it digitally because we that we
needed the access and the immediacy of using computers and stuff but we transferred everything to tape and we mixed it on tape I I don't know it felt like it made a difference to me I could hear it even though it was done digitally it just brought things alive
in a different way so I'm a fan of of that process but you've never been someone I've always felt has kind of been attached to an old way of doing things like you're always looking forward always looking for new ways to try to bring things to
life so why do this one on tape well this one does is a hybrid uh This was done uh to tape and immediately to digital like on the off the playlist right so it was only on tape for a split second and then it was digital but we still have the original
tape yeah so then after that we're working with the digital copy of it so you've already taken that dark step yeah yeah yeah and you're now in the realm yeah where nothing is the real but it was real for a split second it was before you got here yeah
and that's and that's where we made the record and then we went back to the place and whatever we used that was acoustic getting back to the place that through the board if there was ever any acoustic echo or anything that got used or
anything that was added from the board the sound of the board all of that that all went to analog but we are original tones came from an analog tone to a digital tone where we worked with the digital tone blended it to an analog by Design because you
wanted the digital influence as well as we want the digital control yeah and we mix to analog again after after it went into the digital realm yeah we mixed two analog tape yes so it's interesting you talk about digital control because that makes
total sense but but both of you have come come from a time when like you know what you're doing with tape like you and Crazy Horse know what you're doing you've prepared these songs you've come together you're trying to capture a
moment so in a way you've relinquished control by that point in my head as a fan and then you grew up editing tape I mean you made the Beastie Boys records and these and these allocation records and stuff like cutting tape that's how you looped so
I guess my question is like what what was the benefits of digital control there's a there's a lot you can do with digital that's really convenient that you can't you can't do with analog or if you the I don't want to say you can't do
it with analog but if you did it with analog the downside of do you wouldn't get the same benefit that you get if you do it digitally because you have to make copies yeah and they're going down Generations whereas if you can get into
the digital realm immediately from the analog highest quality if you're playing in that world it's not degrading it's not getting there were even times in the past where you'd put up a two inch tape where we'd put up two
inch tape something we were working on in the past and you listen to it and it didn't sound like it did when you recorded it because it it starts degrading things happen it can happen fast it can happen if you if you mixed it a year later it wouldn't sound
anything like the original right you got a rough mix is the good mix that's why you got to do a mix the the night of it's always changing multi-track and you get it all multi-track wow if you mix it right there then you got that that's
what you got and you got to figure out how do I preserve it exactly and that's it but if you get it yeah then then the analog doesn't the big Master doesn't have a chance to start to disintegrate they can go and live its life you want to get it all at once yeah yeah
everything you get the faster the better yeah it's like it's not so it's changing it really is it's unbelievable it's like the only days are sampling it's like but like in real time like take this beautiful original analog recording and
then just quickly like just get it in there and it starts to manipulate and do what we need to do with it well you know you're already taking the step yeah yeah once you've taken this step it doesn't matter what you do like Rick says we
preserve it all at that level but you already stepped down into it yeah so preserving it all at that level is not the same as preserving all you had before you went to that level that's different yeah and if you you
know there's many ways to try to do that using parts of digital things that you made and cutting them back in to the analog and putting them back different ways but uh it's so complicated to do that we don't do that it's we it it's not part of the music
so we get you know we're music freaks we love to be in the vibe of the song yeah it's not actually a natural habitat the digital landscape is not a natural habitat for for the sound of this record because it is there's so much in there
that just feels like leave it alone digital when we were messing with it right It's All Digital it was but yeah I remember when we originally started tracking we recorded both analog and digital simultaneously yeah and they sounded completely different and the
analog sounded much better yeah and then when you compared the digital version of the analog to the digital only version The Analog first digital version sounded much better so it's and by I I imagine there's some music you could probably
record maybe symphonic music where it's really quiet where maybe the digital version sounds better because there's no noise at all and so I could imagine in a dynamic situation where you're only recording very quiet things there could be an
argument for digital because it it does some things well when you go over the analog head recording something analog and then you capture it right away is not the same as going over the analog head capturing it and then going back and playing it again
you got to be watching and but at the same time you couldn't give a because you're more interested in the song this is another beautiful album full of really amazing Neil Young and Crazy Horse songs first time we spoke here and you'll laugh at this because
you've been down this road with me before I get so obsessed with the process and you would let me down very easy and I can almost cut this bit of the interviewing because we left it and we were like I get again you wanna you wanna know how
I do it but I I could give you a different version of the same four months as I just gave you but the bottom line is man like we should just dance around something else right now because it just is what it is you know and and
you you describe it as a strangeness and um and I love that you did that and so so I gave one more crack at it because I think I found a way in can you describe what the strangeness felt like this time what it felt like when you realized this
album was kind of presenting itself to you because that's the way you describe it is it's just here come these songs yeah well that was uh uh that was I guess we were talking about barn back then yeah well that was cool that was a really cool album but it
wasn't like this album because this album was came from a whole other place it's not even it's like it's like zebras and horses and it's like they're not the same yeah they they seem to occupy the same space and do the same thing and sit in the
same pen or whatever you know but they're not so it's I think what this one is is that this one had the flow in a way the other one had never heard of having flow it came from another place so the writer of this is me one step removed it must
be like that because I'm walking along and in the forest whistling tunes that I've never whistled before for the first time and recording them at the same time and then that's happened day after day every day a new song a new a new Melody
no words no instrument just whistling a little walking along and I love to walk so I get in this groove I'm walking and I'm doing these Melodies and then you know so I collected them all on my flip phone and put them on my made up made
little movies of me walking playing them is that what's in the in the uh in the video is that some of that footage in the video that's the one that I yeah I was working on it this morning and it's funny because I didn't realize at the
time I found out afterwards and I would love to have talked to you about it then but you walked you know I was at three miles to the barn on the last record you would walk each day yeah with the dogs yeah I was walking every day there and
uh at in the winter time after we made that record I was still walking and that's when I wrote all these songs wow so but I only wrote The Melodies and it was like I didn't even know I was just you know how you could be walking along whistling you're thinking about
something else yeah you just have to record what is that you're whistling where did it come from did you make it up yourself as a fun little Happy song or is that a something you heard on the television yesterday or is it something
from your grandmother's record collection you know where is a Melody coming from so I don't know so I realized they were a different Melody every day so every day I started recording them on my flip phone a little make a little movie of it as I'm walking along you
know with the dog so it's how part of it's my thumb and the other part of it is you know like snowy stuff with feet on it and but you hear the whistling so all these songs started like that eight out of ten of them started with the
melody with no instrument no words no instrument no chord changes that is significantly completely in another Zone and and not thought of or sitting down to feel anything it's just walking so so then I started thinking maybe four
or five months later it might be nice to go to do some stuff I'd written a couple of other songs and one of them was Chevrolet I just finished that and I was back here and I said God it'd be nice to get in the studio and do some stuff
checked out no horse was ready to go and and uh so I called and I booked the studio and I said God that was easy usually you can't get in this place I mean I'm going I bought I I got it like a woman three days later because there's
one single Post-It note beside the bookings phone that Rick's had there for however long 25 years is if Neil calls the answer is yes well whatever it was I was very very lucky to get this place again yeah so here I am and then I said well I'm gonna
I'm gonna call Rick now and see if because I thought of Rick right away I'm like who's going to help me do this you know and uh so I thought of Rick because he's here he's got his place this is Gaff yeah so there we did you know so we
we've we've done things before and uh but we've never completed a record before yeah which is which doesn't mean anything because the things we did we remembered yeah and we remember what they felt like so that's our history it's not about what records came out so
musically we were very similar so we had we it just seemed like the right thing so I told him the story of whistling and doing this stuff and uh and then and and then writing the songs in like two days all of the songs were finished in
two days no correctionality to yeah no Corrections on the lyrics not a change other than spelling which was a terrible position I did it on the computer which I never do right and I never looked at the screen I just kept thinking the words and typing and typing
so it was a mess but I could still figure out what it was so I did eight songs like that in two days yo I love this song Live Earth yeah live birth is great yeah yeah Live Earth I like it live live life yeah so boom um
Rick one of the well I called you actually a while ago I texted you a while ago during quarantine I was feeling uninspired so often I turn to my mentor and say what are you what should I read what should I read what should I listen to what are
you doing help me out and you you send me back a list of books and one of them was Neil's book and I I thought of that on the way here I just I sort of wondered like does that help that you've read this story about this
this man's life before you get into a room and work with him does it apply so I don't think so it's just it's because it's all just stories you know it's it's a different thing yeah um but it's fun it's fun to I like stories about people that I'm interested
in you know if someone makes something I like I want to hear a story about them whether it's true or not doesn't even matter it's like they're characters in some story you know you know if anyone's ever written anything about you there's probably I
don't know 30 or 40 of it might be right and 60 or 70 is made up yeah and that's what everything is it's all stories so I don't take any of the stories too seriously but I like hearing them because I like stories that's what memories are right they're
um designed to deceive and uh that's that can be cool they can make for a great story it is what it is it's how we survive or not as this record May imply um and that's a really fascinating part of this album I talked about the emotions that I felt
when I listened to it and still listen to it I can't tell and maybe it's not something that needs to be told whether or not it's a timely reminder of what is around us and what is amazing and what we take for granted
or whether it's just kind of almost a document of what we're going to leave behind when we wipe ourselves out and that's when I get sad is I can't tell the two does that make sense kind of yeah I mean those those those those that information
is is living in there uh and it's interesting because the points of view of all the different guys thinking about all this are all different because it's a different day and the melody came from an unknown place with no cords or P or instrument
associated with it so I had to go through that whole translation of that and then doing that I realized that well you can say about one guy one song and it says one thing and another song says something else is that is that not you know hypocritical or
what do you how come you how can you talk about driving an old car when you know the fossil fuels are you know how can you do that you know somebody asked me that night though no that song is pretty clear about yeah yeah
you're surprised though it takes you can tell what you can't hear the whole song the first time so some people hear other things and and you know and that's cool that song's also about two hours long you have to keep yeah yeah that's right
lifetime you have a lifetime yeah it's a long road it's a long trip there's a lot of really great sort of um sort of uh muscle car metaphors that have been that have turned into sort of more of a kind of uh acknowledgment and acceptance that
um maybe we should have let go of those muscle car metaphors a while a while ago yeah you know it's it's great for that and I'm glad you talked about that song Because first of all when we walked in before I saw you for the first time
you're playing on piano yeah which was beautiful until I ruined it yeah but that's okay yeah unless people are going to say thank you at some point I was just warming you up um but then it became a real crazy horse moment like I would consider to be the
closest thing to like that Timeless creating a Crazy Horse yeah take something beautiful and destroy it yeah yeah right play it yeah play it what was that day like Rick when you got when you when you fired up and you heard that coming through
uh super exciting had no idea what to expect because it's Neil does different things at different times so yeah excited and curious and then um we sat in the living room here and Neil played me the whistling um versions and then read to me the words I don't
think you sang these words I played you the whistling and read the words to you that's what I think you did so it was like the idea of I still had no idea what the songs were like you know I had an idea of a Melody yeah none of it
sounded like Neil yeah historically it sounded foreign um but it sounded really good and it was interesting because like I haven't heard this before that's interesting and had no idea what it would be like when Crazy Horse played on it and I remember I
maybe even said it's like you sure you want to do this with them because like based on what we were listening to it was like it was not clear that this was gonna play The Crazy Horse's strong I'm glad you said that because it does it it
pulls out size of Crazy Horse we've heard before but it really it does you know you push each other on this record in really interesting and unique ways and so to get back to Rick's observation like I guess I can ask the question why
did you decide to to bring horse the horse with you on this one because uh just uh I think I I think it just seemed to me the the only group that could do this I I you know I could and they are it turns out they are the only group who can do this yeah
and we thought when we recorded it we were pretty sure during the first week that they went might not have been right right why well it wasn't we weren't getting anything right we were going we have to go back and listen and see what
we did because we never got you know we we need to get to these and every time we play them it's like uh Ralph would say uh we played this a couple of weeks ago didn't we right right and we yeah we didn't think that we and so we had to go back and we
listened to everything and we found several songs that we did that were we can't understand why we didn't use them right away we can't understand what was wrong with when it was happening it seemed like we were not close to even
getting started making records most of what you hear on the record were things that at the time that they were recorded we're like boy I hope someday they're going to learn the song oh wow that's crazy but when you listen back to them
there's nothing wrong with them no they're beautiful and in fact all of those things that you were probably worried about it's so weird it was the weirdest it was the weirdest project I was reading a note from you on the archives right that this almost sounds
identical to a decision you made back in 2001. when you chose not to release an album called toast right and I know there were other reasons for that and that's seen the light of day but you would refer to the recordings you did with Crazy Horse
almost in the same way in that note like I don't know what I was thinking they sounded great yeah that's true and that and that was a different time but I and I had many reasons for not putting it out because the songs are so
personal and I was in a relationship and the whole thing it was just like uh I'm not sure that's the right thing to do or that I should even do that but this is different because the guy in one song is not the guy in the other song and
they're both very convinced about what the song is about and they're singing it and I and it's me but I have to those they're separated because they came from different places and uh and I can't put my finger on what it was and like we
found with all these songs that we'd listen to them first time we say well we'll go back and we'll fix that both of us okay you know we've got second verse you know we come back a week later to fix all of it and we can't find anything
wrong yeah and we're looking at each other like this is nuts we we know what we heard we know we have a list of things to do it's not though because Beck said this to me once he was like time and the Arts have a relationship that we will never truly understand in
the sense that music ultimately changes and lives a life and changes shape even if you were just listening to it not even what people tell you about it yeah it will just alter and move and shift it altered oh we saw it off what are you
telling me this is a great unspoken humor going on here what's going on no it was because you honestly during the process it made no sense we were just laughing every day it's like what is happening you listen to it one day you know what's wrong we're gonna fix it
tomorrow you come in tomorrow you listen it's completely different Gremlins are at it man they're fixing it for you they're figuring it all out right that's the tape when you see it the film of of making it you still are going
is this to take is this what they're doing yeah are they because we have no interest in anything everybody's mindless and uh but we're having a good time everybody's grooving and then and then it's over and you and then that was the record I mean we were
we just played the sound of the record and you saw what we were doing to make that sound and it's like when you see us it's like it's not happening it's funny speaking of funny there's um a moment in the beginning of the break the chain
video where there's a little bit of off-camera banter going on between uh you and a couple of people in the studio and someone says what's the name of the record and you pause and you say world record and then there's this kind of
pause and then you will crack up laughing so the first thing I thought about asking you when I knew you were going to come back here and I saw the video a while back was that was the first thing I thought I'm off to the races now I
know what the angle is what was so funny about the album title like why did it make you laugh I mean I get the double entender but like for you what's so funny I don't know I really I don't know this you know it's just like a normal cover a normal title
for this then I went no one's used that title right right I mean I'm sure somebody used that title I don't Know full disclosure and I'll get killed if I don't mention this I actually had a radio feature when I started at Apple on my radio show which
was one song a day like a song of the day yeah because we were broadcasting around the world record fabulous yeah that's good but they didn't laugh at you you didn't tell yourself laughing at it when you thought of it no like we could
wait I took it way too seriously that's what I did no it's crazy but the um there is kind of some humor on the record it sort of levels you in like I I don't know maybe this is the wrong thing to find funny I found the album cover
really funny I've not seen it hmm we'll have to get you one what is it it's a picture of my dad oh nice then he's walking down the street and he's looking very cool what are you saying oh it might be a great picture I remember you said I have
a great picture there's pictures of my whole family my mom and I are looking at each other having a big conversation yeah just eye to eye yeah and then my brother with a golf club in the middle of the Swing you know and my sister and
she's just sitting there in the house she's about eight or six or something and everybody has their birthdays their birthdays the numbers of the birthday are in the lower left in their relationship and and then you know you can tell this
oh this is part of a document of some kind and that's all it is so I shouldn't have found it funny no it's hilarious I think it is I think it's good I like the fact that my dad's on the cover yeah it's cool and he's like and you're right
there's a real purpose there um but again it just it I don't know I I always look too deeply into artwork I don't even know where that came from this is the first album that I've done that I did it I didn't use an art director my art director who I love so much is no
longer on the planet and I thought wow what the hell you know this this record everything else has happened this way why don't we just still just you know with this we'll use my family I know I know some great photos of my family that I would like to put on
this so that's what we did and just approached it that way love Earth which is the way that the album starts um which is just a beautiful really like lilting comforting Arrangement it just it really is a very welcoming sound but
again you know the subject is like take a look around stop wasting your time looking at other it's all right there in front of you and um I just I sort of wonder what that experience was like for you making that song you know coming out of nowhere from
the whistle to the completion of it like how it sort of came to be well I can't remember much of it but I I think I wrote I I know I wrote all the words you know that day when I sat down with the computer and did all of that and
listened to the tapes but there's parts of it that I may have been singing uh during the morning when I heard the melody for the first time it's pretty well just a straight ahead it just is just the person who wrote that was like it's it's me but it's not I I
can't really speak for that person it's like a you can't speak I can't the song says what that person's thinking it's not so much that it's me that's thinking it even though it is me but that doesn't matter what matters is all
these different points of view that's that's the way I see the record and then it's like a it's a record of of all these different things coming together and I hope it's a positive reflection you can always see hope and positive memories of the beauty of the planet yeah when you've seen the seasons change or that's the lyric though Neil that's the one that stopped me in my tracks immediately which was we can bring the seasons back now that is hey
wait a minute they are gone you're right yeah because I suddenly realized like wow okay I never actually put into the context of an existence without discernible and definable Seasons that's where we're headed yeah so we you know
we got a lot of work to do I think it's a great situation for the world it's probably the only time in the world that you could ever see where all the people of all the countries all around the world could all have the same idea yeah
wait a minute we got to do something because this is no good we are all feeling it and the Russians and the Chinese and Americans the Canadians and French people the Italians you know they're all feeling it the Australians new zealanders they're all feeling the
same thing definitely so you just take that and just go what if everybody focused on just loving Earth and you know looking at life like a hippie for a minute yeah and just doing that and just don't do anything to hurt what you love
Rick you're somebody who I am I feel it has been close to the Earth for a long time that you like you told me wants to take my shoes off and stop wearing shoes outside now that kind of as a classic group of memory for me
because it's like I did because I did I took my shoes off and I moved to walk outside without my shoes and I couldn't remember the last time I'd done that um it was grass by the way so I wasn't like I was in New York or anything like that but
um you know you hear a nail mate this come together and I know that that you strive to be as acutely connected to the to what's going on around you as possible outside of the thrash of things um did this ever make you feel optimistic or sad or how did you feel
when it was being recorded and you were listening to what was being written by these people AKA Neil in many forms I was I wasn't really listening to it in that way I was listening to it more in a melodic it gave me a feeling more than
listening to the stories of the song Sometimes I would I would because sometimes we would talk about it if there was a question about something it's like what do you mean by this I may have said that one or two times um but I'm not listening so much for the
content more for the way it makes me feel how did it make you feel um I like the songs and I like the contrast between like the beauty of something like love Earth and the um the drama of some of the there's a what's the name of the third
song there's one that's like it's really loud oh um I walk with you yeah which it's it's a loud song but it's not like a rocker it's something else yeah it's a it's a different kind of song yeah and I and it that relationship between something
really beautiful and something really heavy like that and I really feel the words but I feel it more from a less what he's talking about and more the energy and the voice and how it makes me feel it's it's not so uh
it's like the language is not what it's about for me it inspired me and it inspired me to to do even just a little bit more than than I am doing it is an album that it's less preachy as it is kind of again it's it's inclusive it's
like you know we need to figure this all out together um how do you from just from a purely practical level if if if there was such a thing how do you apply this this discipline to your life if you're writing about this and and you care
about the Earth and you clearly do what are some of the things that that you do that you think others can do that ultimately will will help people take a little more responsibility that when we're not at the behest of these governments and corporations and
companies like what's the what's on the personal to-do list well anything you can do if you got enough money you should be able to do a lot of stuff you should be able to only eat food that is clean food that's not coming from factory farms
factory farms were where we got climate change so if you go right to the factory farm and then go back in time on the factory farm that's the beginning yeah that's it that's when the earth started to go in the sky that's when everything
got screwed up and we started growing things for money instead of for health and for natural goodness so that's what I think of I I think of of those kind of things when I you know that's where my mind first went when you asked me what's on 99 diesel r99 is uh
is a com combination of animal vegetable and uh mostly animals and vegetable uh uh bats and waste is it a um a viable alternative to fuel when it comes to tourism it's absolutely viable for for our tour I looked into it for touring
all of the vehicles and for two for for for powering all of the vehicles and for powering the shows the lights the sound the menu everything we could do with this Renewable Fuel and we could take the generators with us yeah set them up maybe have two sets of
them and have them hop hop skip over one or another but do that kind of a thing to have a tour that wouldn't have an impact where we wouldn't be impacting and then I came up against the food so all the venues have got arrangements with different people
contracts that's all factory farm food that everybody eats when they come to see one of our shows yeah that's exactly the opposite of what we believe in that's the part I'm having trouble with and I'm trying to figure it out you know
there's um the touring thing is such a shortcut for um the decryers of climate change and the people who want to cry hypocrisy on artists who decide that they want to do something about it and uh it drives me crazy because you know I don't even
think about that exactly don't even think about that it's a waste of our time it is our time should be focused on moving forward into the direction of of uniting and fixing problems so with that in mind using that as the incentive
is there a place for yourself Coldplay who I know you'll care deeply about this and searching for Solutions and a group of other artists to come together and create I don't know for lack of a better I could call it World Tour call it World touring Party tour
yeah or the world yeah the library of touring party a group a collective artists just like you did in the 70s and the 80s and the 90s to try to solve some of these issues and once again Inspire from inside the the community the
artistic Community because that's so much changes come from there that is that is what should happen it's what we've been working on making happen for maybe seven eight months now amazing with uh you know a group of people that
I'm working with sponsors and all kinds of people and we put together a tour that fits with what we're describing yeah if we do Farm Aid homegrown Village and bring that to every city so you're only eating local food or food that's grown in a clean way you're not
supporting pigs on top of each other in metal buildings with fans blowing an antibiotics they injected that's not what we want because why because they they all right there and then we take all that and we put it in a lagoon
okay so they never leave the building and all her goes in a lagoon that is like foul and what used to happen is they used to walk around outside making holes in the ground with their feet and on the ground and eating the grass and eating what was there
and then we're not doing any of those things and that's what happened to the earth the earth is now dying inside it's inside you don't see worms you don't see the roots you don't see all the things that used to be there 50 60 70 years ago
and and the reason yeah that's a huge thing and it's around the planet yeah okay so that's that's what gets me when I think about factory farms and people coming to our shows if they only knew where the food really came from and they
knew that it was so against nature and being against nature is like being against Earth so I say you know love Earth don't do that so it's really a reach for a lot of people to think of that but it's not even like uh it's nothing that I'm telling them they
should do I'm saying I'm doing that yeah that's what I mean you know team that leads by yeah example if we do that together with other people yeah and other people find it to be an attractive way to approach life in these days
suddenly there'll be a lot of people like this and then things will start to change and people start going in the same direction and succeeding there's more power in that than any of this we're so terrified today don't you think people look at
people they're they're striking out at each other worried about the other side everybody's worried about is the other side going to win or we're going to win if they cheated if we won we the whole thing and I you know I don't like all of
that stuff but that's all fear-based it's all because we're scared shitless because at the bottom of everything there's another thing going on saying you know they say the world might not be the same like in 15 years you might be
really screwed yeah it's creating psychological control right and all we got to keep doing is what we're doing now we don't have to change anything this is what we're doing yeah we're not going to do it we have to undo it so that's that's
that's where I'm coming from and that's where I think a lot of the people who wrote This Album are coming from and you know every time I talk to them that's what they say I guess that's that that rounds it up I guess I don't know that sounds right
yeah one of those people at the beginning of the break the chain video when asked like how are people going to feel about this album or something and you win him [Applause] about me yes and every other fan and anyone else who's ever going to listen
to this record and have an opinion that's beyond your purpose yeah if it doesn't happen you know I don't care that's I figured that's why they like it because I don't get I don't care it's what I have to do I want to do this you know that's why there's 5152 albums
because I want to do this and I can still feel it so I'd be crazy to stop oh don't do that but you know well you never know it could you know that's that's that's what the world is like you know things happen okay so let me ask
you this then um from from an audiophile point of view as a fan of music as a fan of your music shifting and the music well no really actually there's a connection here um last time the last time I saw you here before I got my car and scooted off up
the road I got you to sign a copy of everybody knows original Japanese pressing second hand pulls it out it's like ah I'm gonna sign this so this isn't the real deal yeah yeah there's a photo of me standing over your shoulder while
you're analyzing it and analyzing my pants I'm like if I've got a bootleg here I'm in real trouble that's the most priceless out of my own but I have a lot of vinyl and I love vinyl yeah great but you know that's that's
also a heavy footprint on the planet as well yeah yeah yeah but that makes a point okay okay but look at the footprint yeah it's a it's a dainty little peck on the earth right okay compared to what we're doing is not that old fossil fuel and
everything is like we gotta stop it completely it's just we have to know what we're doing right right that's all I'm saying and yeah there's a lot of vinyl out there yeah I guess we could melt it all down I'd rather than good
gas going no no no no no I don't want to do that Jesus that's great but I say leave it in the package yeah it's already happened it's history yeah That's History yeah and we're making vinyl now why because it sounds great and you can't hear it anywhere else
except in my dreams of the new AM radio station with the analog transmitter you gonna give me a call yeah hey if you want to get involved in our radio stations oh yeah that's what I do I put an antenna up on the bridge Series yeah yeah it's a good idea an
analog AM radio station broadcasting vinyl quality to the world all you need is the right kind of radio okay yeah you just get the radio then you can have any music I love that you talked recently about the magic Cadet about the quality of
radio because it's funny it has been edged out over time radio is the future right it really is well you know when you look at what the comparison is taking the dark step you know in the digital broadcasting that way put on that vinyl record on
there as well and there are benefits of course yes but I'm saying that because we all live there yeah it's not like I don't live there I'm right here with you I'm put out digital records all the time my record company that was a funny thing
that happened they saw the movie yeah and they said you know uh world record the making of world record is is uh I don't think we can get past the the quality the quality of it is just not good I mean it's so pixelated and and it's and as it is it really is
yeah and I and my answer is that's exactly what you guys are giving Spotify yeah only now you can see it yeah that's what I'm talking about you know just so you can see when things are pixelated and you go wow this is screwed
up that's what the MP3 is nicely played sir so it's a it's a thing you know yeah nicely played um you know you used to you used to take those uh those test pressings down to the DJs as well I remember and and you told a story again on the archives about
that about about getting songs played and knowing whether it was resonating and connecting and yeah there's something special about Dad something special about having a place that you can trust well doing interviews you've got to be
surprised at what happens when you do interviews you listen to the record yeah you have some feelings about the record and I can tell you listen to it one of the one of the interviews I did in the very beginning and it was a big
interview it's a big thing you know and uh supposed to be you know it's a good one to do you know I'm getting started I'm going to try it out we'll see how it is sure so the guy's talking to me and about the music and he starts off talking about
love Earth and then he talks about uh Shaboom by the uh by the crew cuts that the words are similar and the melody is the same very similar you know it's it's a chord pattern that all of those songs from the 50s like 80 percent of them are the same
chords so and it's not the 12 Bar Blues it's the other one there was only two yeah so so it's so weird it's it's just uh I don't think the guy listened to the record at all all he had was this one comment right and then he didn't follow it up with wow
I don't actually listened to it and you know it's got all these things about this and that and everything made me think about this about you know love Earth and that's a this sounds simple but it's not as simple as it sounds especially where we are now there was
none nothing like that was said or or conveyed or anything and it was the only song that he mentioned and then when I was looking back on the interview and I'm thinking about this I hope I never have another interview with that
kind of thing because I like talking to people who who are into you know I don't care about you know the fact that I've been doing this for 55 years or whatever and Rick has made hundreds of records that I've made a really a lot of records
and here we are and I know I care about what we just did yeah and that's what I care about well the thing is that whoever's talking to you whether it's their job or not is entitled to an opinion and sometimes even entitled to
just like gloss over that's just life right yep the issue and you talk about this on the song the long day before about the newscasts and all that what you're saying in some respects is you're addressing that because it's not the opinion that ultimately is
destructive it's the fact that it suddenly goes everywhere yeah yes and then people decide that that's really all they need yeah it's just that opinion yeah it's a conspiracy yeah it is yeah yeah we talked a little bit about this on the
phone off the Record and I won't betray any trust there but you know I know that you were in the in the throes of that conversation for why they're about what we do with opinion versus fact yeah yeah I'm uh it scares the out of me I
don't like I don't like I don't like to go to social media I don't like to get involved in that and the back and forth of One Celebrity against another celebrity had to do as a certain kind of people I mean who cares there's so many more
important things than that to think about today if you really want to look at what's happening yeah so but again even as I'm saying that I can feel like oh you've said that so many times already and people know that and you
know but people don't really know it well enough to act on it so I keep going back to the same old thing and and it's going to be the death of me pretty soon you know I probably have to stop doing that them yeah them if they can't take a joke
you mix the album for vinyl which I love you did a mix for vinyl and there'll be another mix for digital how was that Rick can we talk a lot about that process and how you approach that differently to how you mix other records just with a vinyl on mine
um we always try to make everything sound as good as it can basically and uh the only reason I think the only reason that there was a second one for digital was because we had more time and we didn't have as much time for the vinyl
one so we put all of our energy into making the vinyl one as good as we can and then anything that we heard after that we were still able to do for the digital so we did do you collect records not anymore I I still have all of my you
know my deep when I was a DJ still have all of those somewhere I think uh but I don't uh it's too it's too depressing why it's a the rabbit hole of having to have the vinyl of the thing that I want to listen to I like living with no stuff yeah and I
don't want to have I don't want to have a lot of Records I just don't want to have them I love the way they sound and it depresses me when I listen to them because when I listen to that record I want to listen to all the records but I
don't have all the records and it's it's just it's a it's a and I live in different places in the world and I don't want to have you know duplicates of every record everywhere I go it's too much it's too much so I do do high-res digital everywhere I go and
I have Hi-Fi systems with high-res digital which is the best I can do and still have everything have the benefit of what's good about the the digital is that it's all available so I have my I make that choice yeah and sites that he
listens to he got sites that he listens to for certain kinds of music that's true such a music junkie that he who says I'm really I want to listen to psychedelic music right now so he'll listen to psychedelic music for two hours and and then you know trip around
in psychedelic music and then you know so instead of having a record collection yeah I think I like hearing new things that's another part of it is I really like hearing things I don't know and I like hearing things that I don't know
that remind me of things that I already like you know like from and it could be old things yeah all the time I don't know why I fell into the collector trap and it really happened in the last few years and maybe it's been partly because
of that because I've spent my whole life chasing new all the time that it had been 40 years since I'd actually looked at it yeah and held it right in my hands right I used to really be into collecting things I just felt like at some point I think when I moved to
Malibu just the idea of not having Stuff felt really good and then my house as well you don't collect no I'm a huge collector yeah I was more like I was like that before and then somehow uh it changed and it feels really uh I feel free like I feel
like I'm I put down the bags and I don't have to carry them anymore okay but let me ask you this then uh you I don't know let me try is there one record that's in a storage unit somewhere just one that means more than any other like what like
one album or one song I knew the answer you'd have to see find it in the storage unit by accident yeah and then see it and go oh I love that record oh man you know that sounds like a way to get back to it it's got to be an accident
it's not like it's always an accident yeah you know I wonder if you'll ever do that I wonder if you'll ever actually go you know what maybe I'll just unlock unlock everything now and take a look can't imagine it I can't I can't imagine
it I think you probably would be you know what I think we'll make another record or you know do something musical something new that's expressive yeah I mean I it's just it's so much fun to make new stuff I don't feel like a need
to look back is that part of partly why you agreed to or you wanted to sell your songs or or let somebody else do it I want to sell my songs because I don't have to worry about a thing now I don't have to do anything I don't want
to do I've got the end of my life to go out doing exactly what it is I want to do and not doing what I don't want to do unless it hurts somebody that I love then I really have to think about but when it comes to expressing who you are and what you can do if you're
constricted by money and a lot of people are relying on you it's it's you know you don't have to do that if you spend 75 years getting to the spot you don't have to pay for what you did you you just sell what you want and you use the money to be able to go
forward living life the way you want to live it and to to make the examples and that's the way I feel about it you bought your freedom yeah yeah I don't have to do uh I don't have to go on a tour if I don't want to go on a tour so
it's not like oh my God what am I going to do we can't get it together to have a clean tour uh because now it's like well can't get a clean to her and tell the people in Cincinnati yeah sorry we can't do that because you know and Cincinnati's not a
real town I just pulled that out of the map say Roanoke any City Cincinnati is a real town isn't it yeah it is but I don't want to be giving it a stigma by mentioning it okay that's the problem with making quick
examples while you're talking on the radio dancing you know that's not what I want to do all right well the good Folks at Cincinnati are off the hook um that makes total sense but then you hear somebody use your song in a different way do you still have control
over that or you just let go the whole thing no you don't have control over somebody doing something with a song unless they're doing a commercial so how do you feel when someone when you hear your songs in the context of a different
context now you okay with that I know no I didn't I I don't like that I like the songs to be the songs I don't want the songs to become associated with the product or with a movement or with a politician or with a sport or with anything which it just was yeah
this one was yeah yeah that's right big song you'll have to ask uh Frank about them it's such a try today at the end of the day it totally makes sense like why would I need to hold on to these things when I can actually free
myself to go and right live my life actually live my life what are they going to be worth to me when I'm gone and just to be clear the fact that I sold my publishing had nothing to do with anything that's being used now in a
commercial way that was an accident that happened through a bad decision right that someone in the business world made on my behalf so that was these things happen and life goes on but it's an example a singular example it's a singular example you
won't see it again and it has nothing to do with my Publishing Company who I chose because they would take care of my art and I I didn't try to milk them to death because I put so many restrictions on them that they couldn't do this or
couldn't do that did you sell it like music not not to sell you know a politician I uh you know I don't want to do I don't want to I don't want my music to be associated with uh liberal or uh whatever the other word is right and it left you know you've got all these slang
words for any of these people and any side I don't want that the music is for everyone as for people you've worked with people before closely Neil but I wouldn't say you're a promiscuous collaborator I've taken advantage of a lot of people
I would say you've been very uh loyal to the people that you trust and vice versa but I always felt like your fingerprints are all over every record in a major major Way Beyond even just the song that's just the feeling I've always
gotten from listening to your music well I love to make records so I'm involved in almost every stage of it so working with Rick what what did you learn and what was unique about this experience because everybody's different every experiences
it was the closest I've been to working with David Briggs who was my first producer yeah and uh and and Rick loves music I love music Rick loved music Rick knows how to make records I know how to make records we have fun hanging out together what's
the problem that's what we do it is fun to do it with someone you like yeah instead of yourself and someone would say hey what do you think of this which one do you like yeah I like this one what do you think it's nice to have
someone to mount saw also I imagine if you if you wrote the songs having someone who didn't write the songs is helpful to just like bounce off of because all the other people listening to it didn't write the songs yeah so it's more of a real world when
there's multiple views writing the songs and how do you even make a decision about well you know I have to get them all together in one room that's a problem though it doesn't work let's lock the door it doesn't I'll give you an hour you can
never get them all together in one place it's like cats so um will you tour this if you can if I can let's go a few things to figure out a lot of things to figure out I'm excited to hear what it sounds like live because it's I have no idea what it's
going to sound like you kind of do though right well it was recorded live but it was such a strange the way it happened is so weird that I don't know that it's uh if you listen to it and then watch the movie of it it's like
what what you're saying is it basically what you captured in the moment and then you came back to it's like it had changed shape behind your back yes it never was what we thought it was no and it keeps changing still I I still last time I listened to it it sounded
different than the last time yeah and the time before it's yes has this life to it yeah the only thing I can get to that I try to understand that or at least try to figure out what might be at play here is that I'm beyond the the
magic and the strangeness is that um when you when you go into something without the idea of it without an overly analytical approach and the desire for perfection you give them so many different variables of solutions at any given time
even though it exists in One Singular motion it's totally wide open to change in front of you because you haven't refined it to a point where there's just there's no space for change it's been a long time since we've done anything like that right oh it's true
it's true and I feel it's awesome I hear it too also Neil didn't really know the songs in the studio I had to learn them I didn't know what instrument they were on no it's like it really was that when the recordings that you hear yeah might
be the first time Neil ever heard it when it was happening seriously yeah and I even said that at the end of one song I sent it to the horse I said congratulations we made it through it it's amazing we've got all the way through it yeah
you know because we never I had never heard it yeah yeah that sucks right you know it was nuts so we so this is not a funny experience it's the closest thing you probably get to actually being a fan of who of yourself or not well you're in
the room anyway right physically it was fun and uh surprising on a daily basis yeah I hope people get out of what we got if they did it's a home run before we go there's a big anniversary coming up you're not want to look back up we've
established that and a few times we've spoken I respect it um but Harvest is about to to have a pretty big birthday well you know and retrospect which I'd have to say yeah harvest's birthday was last year right was it yeah
it's all old news now student has to talk about it happened last year we didn't talk about it uh I've really tempted to leave it there but I sort of feel like somebody would be pissed if I don't if I don't no no they will be
um Harvest is a good one yeah it is it came out good we made a movie about it yeah we have a whole movie of making Harvest that no one's seen so okay will people ever see it yeah it's gonna actually it's gonna be in theaters amazing for yeah one night only of
course you know people blink it's over that's good yeah that's the way it should be and then then it becomes available in all of the regular formats I'll wear it that's great it's our world man I'll wear it um I'm glad I have one foot in each yeah
you got to come looking for me if you put an antenna on top of that roof I'll come to like a I'll do an overnight shift yeah that'd be great nice do a late night show yeah that'd be good let's do it it'd be good we you know you even we're
partly serious oh I know you're always partly serious we're exploring this why not I'm excited for um I'm excited for the vinyl I can't wait to see the itching yeah I'm excited for that yeah and um for the Harvest film yeah the Harvest film and then it's
weird because you don't want to talk about it I don't know why you don't want to talk about it but you don't mind going inside it right no it's great you look at it you'll see it it's all it says 50 years ago making this record and
everybody's having a great time I think we played seven songs that are on the record not those versions different versions cool that that exists I've had it for a long time and that's not the archives it's all about you just
have to go back to the right year and then look and there it is the beautiful thing about making great uh right you're always 10 20 30 days away from some anniversary there's a release coming up somewhere exactly there's always something you're just
living life in a loop meal it keeps me busy keeps you going yeah if we can just find a way to extend our lives by another 100 years and the planet by another thousand then we might just be able to keep reliving Our Lives over and
over and over and over again that's a good thought let's hold on to the thought of keeping the planet alive for our children nice let me know how I can help ma'am all right I will appreciate you thanks for sticking around for this thanks for having us