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[music] [music] So, you know this place, I mean, you would have known this place before it was this place, [music] right?
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0:19
You would have been here before Rick got got a hold of it and restored it.
0:22
And yeah, from what I've heard from people who have been here [music] before, he did a great job of restoring it and he kept the true essence of Oh, he did a great job.
0:29
Yeah, he knows what he's doing.
0:33
What is it about um environment?
0:33
Cuz that's one of the things I've always loved about your music, Neil, is that you like to [music] record and create and you you're inspired by environment, right?
0:42
It's not just like you can't just go into any old brick room.
0:45
Like you like to be surrounded by things that inspire you. I always been like that.
0:47
I geography is important.
0:52
uh not just the room but where is the where is the room where am I really care about that because every time you move to a new place everything changes so I can feel uh you know in the music you you feel some places are good for some things have you turn your back on some places
1:09
cuz they're not good for some things have you w if it's not happening I just leave because there's no it's nobody's fault but I don't want to be part of it yeah are you good at leaving you got that down to a fine eye pretty good at it [laughter] Nobody, you know, people don't even notice when it happens. I mean, I just
1:23
I mean, I just I'm just uh there's some places I just don't want to be after a while with me with regards to music. Yeah.
1:31
It just doesn't feel right.
1:31
And some places that uh that are great. This is a good place. It's a good place.
1:36
I mean, the location is interesting, right?
1:38
Malibu, it's it's sort of widely regarded for people who've read about it, heard about it, seen it as being this magical paradise, and it definitely has that energy.
1:44
in and there it's a beautiful part of the world but it's also you know in between the fire and the flood and it's uh you there's a lot of children of the fire and the flood living around here.
1:53
It's a interesting dichotomy this place isn't it?
1:56
It's like paradise but it could also very easily be paradise lost. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
2:00
I was here in uh what 1976 and I played Cortez for for Bob here and uh and I and I played it for him and then I played something else for him that was a song about all the drugs I'd taken in my life [snorts] and he uh in a chronological drug epic, you know, like what was I doing?
2:22
It was a drug confession and he he told me he said, "Man, that's a very honest song and a lot of drugs." Yeah.
2:28
How does Bob Dylan react to music when you play it to him? Just like anybody else. He's just a regular guy.
2:34
Do you like listening to music with artists when they're in the process of playing it?
2:38
Super deliberate question cuz I get exposed to that sometimes and it's tough, you know, when you're listening to music and you feel an artist is so invested in it.
2:45
Like do you enjoy that experience or enjoy sharing it with other people when it's in process? Not really. Yeah.
2:52
Usually nobody else is around.
2:52
So yeah, cuz we're not doing anything like that. Yeah. We work in solitary. You sure do. Yeah.
3:00
I mean, you look like you're on top of the world and we where you record really.
3:03
It's really good to be with the people that are doing it, that want to do it, that understand what it is, and and just them.
3:09
I mean, you said this might I can't remember the exact quote, and I don't want to paraphrase you wrong, but on um you know, on my you said that this was the your best record or or maybe your best record that you made with Crazy Horse.
3:21
It may be one of you know, it's hard to say.
3:23
Yeah, I know that I'm very thankful for having made it and I think it was a gift and everything in it works and it's not often that happens and I mean it works for me.
3:32
I don't know if it works for anybody else but for me it it works. Everything felt right.
3:36
So I feel great about it.
3:40
Aside from the music which we get as a gift and you also get as a gift in terms of creating it and making it and being inspired and getting that that experience, what other gifts did you get from this?
3:48
I mean, when you say it was a gift, it feels like it's there's some kind of holistic goodness that came from.
3:54
Well, it's just the fact that we are all got together and played and and uh we were in a new place that we hadn't been in before that we just you know it was there and and uh you know the logs all are shaped round and they're big huge logs and they have a sound.
4:09
I mean, there's no square.
4:11
There's no edges on anything.
4:14
So, it gives you a different sound.
4:17
If everything's round, every surface is on an on a curve.
4:22
Things bounce in different ways.
4:22
So, it makes a lot of a lot of rooms you go into and you'll play and one instrument will stick out because it's resonating against the walls or something.
4:33
In the in the barn, nothing sticks out.
4:37
[snorts] Everything is there.
4:37
There's not even a soft instrument is heard when a loud instrument is playing and a loud instrument just does doesn't seem to be as loud unless you go right over to it.
4:46
Yeah, it's it's No, I mean I I know how dedicated you are to sound and and beyond just the sound of your records and we'll cover that cuz I'm fascinated by that part of your life as well and and the work you've done there to improve our experience.
4:56
But normally when you go in a recorded studio, to your point, a lot is done to deaden the sound or to create an even space.
5:02
And what I loved about the idea of you recording in this barn was you could see the cracks in between the wood.
5:07
It's like you were letting nature in.
5:08
You were letting it play a role in the way things came out.
5:12
Yeah, it looked like a magical space. I mean, it's great. What's the story?
5:17
Blowing right through those cracks and all the we were playing and you know, you could see the air moving in the room and it's pretty amazing.
5:26
Can you tell us the story about the barn?
5:27
Like I just believe that structures like that don't just pop up.
5:30
It's not some monument to Mammon.
5:30
It's got a living breathing story.
5:32
So, what's the story behind it?
5:34
Well, it's a barn from the 1870s and uh it was falling down and gone and going back into the ground. It had a broken back.
5:44
All the logs in the middle were broken and going into the ground and was much less height to it than it used to have cuz it was actually disintegrating.
5:54
So, we took it and uh got a real uh master barn builder from a local guy and uh we we rebuilt it, made it just like it was in the old drawings of it and old photographs cuz it used to be a uh stage stop.
6:12
So you'd see these pictures with the carriages and the horses and the ladies with their big dresses with the metal ring and everything, you know, I don't know what that's called, but the old style, you know, uh people stopping there to stay the night and then get back in the carriage and keep on going. Old school truck stop. Yeah. Really? Yeah.
6:34
You know, when you got the the band together and decided to make this record, what was the kind of original impetus for it?
6:39
Like how do you know when it's time to to to call up Ralph and Niels and Billy and say, "Look, you know, let's make a crazy horse record."
6:46
Like what gets inside you makes you want to do that?
6:48
Well, I told them about 10 months before that I thought that by June and I and I looked at the calendar and I could see what part of the month that I wanted to be there and uh where the full moon was and and so we just chose that time.
7:06
So we'd be there setting up as the moon was coming and then when we got set up we started to play and then it got bigger and bigger and bigger until we recorded everything.
7:18
So that was that was cool. It was really cool.
7:21
What's a lifestyle like there?
7:21
Because there's some really cool images.
7:22
I mean by the way the film's beautiful.
7:23
Um beautifully directed and beautiful story told uh by your better half.
7:28
Um yeah, she did a great job. Great job. She's such an artist. Really is.
7:33
I mean, just to be able to take those moments where we're um given such this kind of unbridled access to nature, you know, everything moves so fast now.
7:43
It's like cut cut cut, save time, save time that just to actually be able to sit down, watch something that took time was a real privilege. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's it's it's fun.
7:55
Well, she hit a real groove with it.
7:55
She just really uh the film is uh is harmonic with the music. It is perfect union.
8:01
Was she showing you footage while you were recording?
8:03
Were they kind of inspiring each other?
8:06
She told me about it a little bit now and then, but yeah. No, I trust her.
8:09
She knows what she's doing.
8:11
I don't want to think about it. I got it.
8:13
The music I see her grooving and I know everything's okay, but I I I I'm making sure that we that we get all the songs done. Yeah.
8:23
And that uh if there are any more to write that they happen at that time.
8:27
There's a great moment where you and Niels get into a playful, friendly argument about how many songs have actually been worked on.
8:31
actually been worked on. unrecorded was real insight into your friendship because it's like neither of you [laughter] would show each other any quarter at all and you literally was just like two 10year-old kids fighting over who's you know who scored that touchdown in the in that game you know it was exactly the same
8:48
well we're all buddies you know we've been around around the block a few times you sure have I mean he showed up at a really important time for you I feel um in the history of your recordings and and and was a real friend to you during a tough time right I mean it was there There was a moment when you were probably processing some pretty deep feelings and Niels came along. Well, when I met Mills, it was I think '
9:05
Well, when I met Mills, it was I think ' 68 or ' 69.
9:09
We were on the road then uh playing in Washington and he came to the seller door and saw a crazy horse uh in Washington there and we met him and then couple of months later he came out to LA and and uh found my house in Tanga and there he was and I and I said, "Well, here you are. This is great.
9:29
How do you like to play piano and accordion on this?
9:35
You know, he usually plays guitar obviously.
9:38
So, but I know he's an excellent, unbelievable keyboard player. Yeah.
9:43
And very musical and very sensitive.
9:45
This chemistry that you have with the with the band, most of which have remained in Crazy Horse throughout.
9:50
And so do you sort of remember what that feeling was like when you first amped up and you first heard what the noise was that you made together?
9:59
What it felt like and where you were and what that vibe was just to take you right back.
10:05
Well, when I first played with Crazy Horse in my house in Tanga, uh that's where we got together and practiced. Uh it sounded great.
10:13
I remember we did uh some of the songs from Everybody Knows Is Nowhere just in the living room. Yeah.
10:19
And you know, it's it just was fun.
10:22
But I knew the Rockets from Buffalo Springfield, so we all lived in Laurel Canyon.
10:27
And I would hang out with the Rockets more than I hung out with Buffalo Springfield.
10:32
And uh eventually uh Crazy Horse came out of the Rockets.
10:37
And the Rockets were a great band, though. Yeah.
10:40
And so did you have in your mind like that's my band? No. No.
10:43
I I just knew that I like these people.
10:47
There were too many of them, but I liked them.
10:49
[laughter] The first song on the album is called Song for the Seasons and um it's the oldest song on the record. Is that right?
10:56
It's been around for a while.
10:57
It's been around for a year.
10:59
Where were you when you wrote that?
10:59
Such a beautiful the imagery of it and the idea of using the seasons in order to affect the physicality of somebody and watching them change through the seasons and it's just beautiful.
11:07
Can you tell us where you were when you wrote that?
11:09
I was in Canada on a lake up there.
11:12
Daryl and I have a have a uh old fishing lodge made in the early 1900s.
11:15
the very early 1900s and it's an old wooden building and uh we were just fixing it up and having a good time.
11:25
So I was I wrote that at that time.
11:28
How do you know that you had something that you needed to write?
11:30
I guess that's my question is that someone who's given us so many incredible songs not to try to demystify the process but what turns in you that makes you realize that this is a moment that you should apply yourself to writing something. I don't even know. It just happens. Huh. I just never not do it.
11:50
If it's happening, it's happening. Everything else stops.
11:52
That's the most important thing.
11:54
So, if you want to do that, if you want to write songs, when the song comes to you, you got to stop everything else.
11:59
No matter what you're doing, you just leave.
12:02
You just go somewhere and and pick up on what it was you got.
12:06
Is that hard for some people throughout your life to understand that application? They hardly even notice. How?
12:12
Well, because I just disappear. I don't know. I'm not there.
12:14
[laughter] that this ability to play ghost is really coming in.
12:20
It's just it's just a natural thing, you know. It's no big deal.
12:22
It's just, you know, if you got something to do and you got to do it, you just do it, you know. I just blend away.
12:29
In a in a a letter that you wrote, you talked about a change of process lately in the last year and a half or so.
12:33
The way you're writing, you felt had been changing.
12:36
Can you talk a little bit about that and and how you what you noticed and and that had changed? Yeah.
12:40
Well, you know, I was living in this fishing lodge on the lake and uh had a piano that I got there and and the house is kind of a house you walk around in a lot cuz it has a a ballastrate on the second floor and a fireplace.
12:53
It goes from the ground floor all the way through the ceiling of the place. Yeah.
12:59
And you can see the fireplace from all the bedrooms on the second floor.
13:01
You look down and see the bottom and but it's a funky great old building.
13:05
And so, but with my point is walking around the building, you go buy things all the time on your way to other things.
13:14
And as I would walk by, I'd see the piano, I'd play a couple of notes, and I' and I'd sometimes sit down and play.
13:21
And then I just keep on going. But I wasn't in a hurry.
13:26
The thing was there was I had so many things that I could do uh that were fun and good musical things that I was working on for my archives.
13:35
There wasn't a pressing thing to uh make a record or write songs.
13:38
So, they just happened as they happened and I just took my time.
13:44
Some of them took a couple of months, but just because of little things, you know, I just keep playing until I found that thing, you know.
13:50
I spend a lot of time, you know, I mean, most of the songs only have three or four chords.
13:57
So, how how much time can you spend on that?
13:59
But there are little things in there that you can learn that I that I figured that I that I felt and then started going, "Yeah, well, this does this. This is good."
14:09
That's really interesting about Barn is that um it's a really reflective record at times like Heading West.
14:13
I mean, you couldn't go further back than that.
14:16
It's like the start of the whole journey.
14:17
You know, Mumbai bought your first guitar.
14:21
It's like this sort of day one, [laughter] you know.
14:23
So, it's got this sense of being at peace with all of that.
14:26
that. And there's a few moments in there like um change ain't never going to which is the most punk rock throw in the towel moment I've ever heard in my entire [laughter] it cracks me up cuz it's just like it's nothing's ever going to change but you on the way out you [laughter] know which
14:44
I absolutely love and I I sort of just wonder like you know what your thoughts are about a song like that cuz you've been kicking doors down your whole career through music and and trying to shake everybody and rattle the cage but that one you're just like what's the point, right? It's it's just a glimmer of
14:58
It's it's just a glimmer of something. I don't really know.
15:00
It's kind of like a hallucination of the future.
15:04
Kind of a blending of the uh nations reacting to the corona virus and the and the masks and the vaccinations and everything and just saying, well, okay, it changed their life.
15:17
And some people were really unhappy and Yeah.
15:19
And then just to look down the road for a while, you know, like I I could see like three or four years it's going to be so bad they're going to outlaw fossil fuel cars. Yeah.
15:29
We don't have that much time to screw around and and really we probably already blown it.
15:33
It's interesting though, isn't it?
15:35
You know, because when I hear a song like that, I think about the contradiction of being a libertarian and the idea of fighting for your freedom and having the freedom to to to to exercise your rights and what you think is right for you.
15:43
But then there's also this prevailing sense of doom that if we don't find union as a species, we're so like how many how many freedoms are you willing to relinquish in order to ensure survival for our children?
15:55
And I sort of wonder where that sits with you as somebody who absolutely every freedom.
16:03
Everyone I'm willing to let go of if I could make it better for my grandchildren. Yeah.
16:07
That's the way we should be looking at this. That's why I like Biden.
16:09
That's why I like what he's doing. He's addressing it.
16:14
and he's not distracted by, you know, all of the petty little things that are happening daytoday that people get hung up on so that the newsies can all talk to each other and go bantering back and forth between the channels. All of that's useless.
16:26
It means nothing compared to the big picture.
16:28
They just ignore the big picture, which is it's [clears throat] too bad.
16:32
But I I wouldn't have I wouldn't hold on to anything to There's nothing more important than making sure that the earth is as good as it can be for our grandchildren.
16:43
That's got to be the first thing.
16:45
That's got to be the most important thing for everybody for so obvious and so basic it doesn't make any sense for us to think any other way.
16:51
And yet we still get distracted.
16:51
I love hearing you talk about um having faith in a leader because I think what we're experiencing now is this kind of real doubt about the system in general.
16:59
I think kids are growing up going, I don't even know what this system represents to me right now.
17:04
It just seems like a lot of old people yelling and screaming for their own purpose.
17:07
And so you've sort of experienced this on and off through varying states of democracy and idiocracy.
17:13
And I sort of wonder like what your prevailing feeling is now with someone like Biden who you actually support in charge.
17:18
What your feeling is about the idea of government and leadership in general because what does it mean like if if if we're putting all our faith in one individual who's ultimately being led by other divisive forces?
17:29
Well, if you want to look at it like that that the one individual that we put our faith in is being led by other divisive forces, then it's a loser situation.
17:39
But I don't look at it that way.
17:39
I have faith in this human being.
17:41
Everything that the human being has done shows that the human being basically feels like I do that.
17:48
Like we're up against the wall. We got to do things.
17:50
They may be unpopular in the short term.
17:52
They may seem to be fiscally irresponsible because how much debt can you handle and then a thing like rising inflation comes along which is you know it's just it's just something to talk about.
18:04
Yeah, things are getting more expensive but they would have gotten more expensive anyway. We just had a pandemic.
18:09
Yeah, we just had all this stuff. The shipping is stopped.
18:13
I mean this has nothing to do with Joe Biden.
18:15
It's not his fault that that there was a pandemic and that and everything has come to a grinding halt around the planet.
18:24
his his thing is, you know, a little more focused, which is what's causing the problem that's that that is a threat to us. Yeah.
18:35
And he's taking that on and he's not bothered with the other stuff.
18:37
I I think he's doing a great job. I support him 100%.
18:41
Because you got to get behind something people are are and and I like what he's doing.
18:47
So, I I feel good about that.
18:49
Uh people are dwelling on what's wrong.
18:53
They should dwell on what do we need to do, not whose fault is it. Yeah, I agree. It's probably solutions. Yeah. Yeah, it is.
19:01
Man, raising kids though, it's a challenging situation right now cuz the whole way the information is distributed is just so out of control and trying to just narrow media is a villain. Yeah.
19:14
The whole thing is is MSNBC and Fox fighting each other.
19:18
They just, you know, you go on and you go on there and you see these these people and all they're doing is is is jabbing. Yeah.
19:26
It's World Wrestling Federation. Yeah.
19:28
They're jab, they're they're they're saying bad things about the other party.
19:32
Everything is angled one way or the other.
19:34
Then you go to the other channel, it's the ex exact opposite.
19:35
I mean, what good is that?
19:38
And said this to me once and it resonated, which is that um it's one of the purest forms of communication when you get it right because there is no media that can get in between you and the song.
19:46
There is no social media. There is no critic.
19:48
It all happens after it's done. Yeah.
19:52
You have a clean slate to say what you got to say.
19:54
And if you have the courage to release it, everyone can critique it, but no one can alter it. No.
19:59
And it has a feeling with it. It has the music.
20:01
Has the melody and the beat and the feeling of the of the time when it was recorded. Yeah.
20:07
I think that's very important.
20:07
The moment when it was done, how you felt when you did it, cuz that's what spreads. Yeah. It's like magic.
20:15
That's the [laughter] smell like co It's the bright side of co.
20:22
[laughter] It's the silver lining. Yeah.
20:25
So, it's like uh it's magic. It's It's real me. It's music. Yeah.
20:31
We It's always been there. Yeah.
20:33
We're just, you know, vessels. We had Guy Lombardo.
20:36
We had uh you know, like Frank Sinatra.
20:38
We had all those people that back there.
20:41
All those great artists in the past, they they they channeled and they got on it.
20:49
You did as well on a song called Welcome Back.
20:50
It's one of my favorite things you've ever done. Full stop.
20:51
And that's what Daryl says, too.
20:55
I really think it's like up there with the best things you've ever done with with Crazy Horse.
21:00
It's a moving song and it's the lyrics and the way you deliver them are unbelievable.
21:05
The idea of a window into the soul, but you'll take it slow and it's just like this brooding tension's going on. It's crazy.
21:11
So, I just want to know what that meant to you when you were recording that cuz I know it was in one take. I've watched it. Yeah.
21:17
I wrote it one morning just sitting there having some coffee.
21:20
It has very few chord changes in it. That's I remember.
21:26
I think there's only three.
21:28
So, it's like a 9-minute thing.
21:28
And the words I just wrote them all down.
21:31
And the first time I did them was when we played them, you know.
21:35
Now, we did there was another take we did the day before, but it wasn't anywhere near as good.
21:39
But it was like that was us playing it.
21:41
You get a feel for it and then it didn't happen that time.
21:44
But the next day it did happen and bang and then we did it again just to see and we thought, "Oh, this is great."
21:51
And we listen back to it. That wasn't any good.
21:52
It was the one before it.
21:55
So it was just like unconscious.
21:55
That's the time when you get it is when you're not thinking, you're not trying to be great.
22:01
You don't really give a You just got I got all the words. They're all written.
22:05
if I forget them, which is probably going to happen, I can look over there and get a clue to what I'm doing and and keep on going and tell the story.
22:13
So, I make the melody up, make the arrangement up, make all of that up right on the spot cuz I have the words and I have the chord changes and I have the band.
22:24
So, what else is there to do?
22:24
We just go ahead and that's that's how I do it. And that's I enjoy it. It's a gift. I love it. I'm so happy to have it. Yeah.
22:32
And I'm glad that you like the song. It's great.
22:34
I I I love that song myself and so does Daryl as I said that's her favorite one.
22:39
So when you and the band are listening back to that for the first time knowing that there wasn't any pre-production really there wasn't any analysis or overdubbing or the painting of the picture that often goes into recording records.
22:52
It's like three weeks trying to get the guitar parts right and all this analysis and stuff. Yeah. Right.
22:56
That's going to drive you crazy.
22:57
So when you get a chance to listen back to that music for the first time, you're a fan, right?
23:01
That's the closest you'll ever be to being a fan of your own band.
23:05
The experience that we get. Yeah.
23:07
Well, the time we do it when it's happening and it's happening right there and it's not in the future. It's not there.
23:14
In the past, it just happened and right now it's happening. Yeah. That's what I like.
23:21
So, when we get to the end of a take, like nine and a half minutes like that one is, and we finish it, it's like Ralph says something.
23:29
And you said that was a No, you said Neil did just did some heavy. Yeah, right. That's Ralph. Ralph is so great.
23:40
It was so great cuz it's just this really long silence and everyone's just kind of clearly in a bit of shock trying to figure out what just happened and then Neil just goes and then Ralph goes, Neil just did some real heavy on that one, man.
23:50
[laughter] Yeah, we're uh yeah, we're we're we're we're lucky. We're lucky.
23:55
We we feel it together and we do it together and he he knows he was there.
24:03
He knows what tonight's the night was about. He knows other things.
24:06
He knows when we get something we if we really get it, it's a special thing.
24:10
And you know that's all we live for. Yeah.
24:13
You know the moments when you're when you're sort of walking around the barn and and there's nothing around and it's just you and the dogs or it's just you. Yeah.
24:21
And I'm just reminded about you this really really special relationship you have with nature and how and we spoke about it before in regards to protecting the earth.
24:29
But it's for you I get the sense that like you're really at peace in an environment like that.
24:34
Like I'm just like it is. I'm I'm part of it. So I feel good there.
24:41
Some places I don't want to be.
24:41
I like to get out of there. That's basic.
24:48
Places are cool for a while then they aren't.
24:49
You got to remember nothing's cool forever.
24:52
You could could be cool, but you could be wearing it out.
24:54
It's time to get out of there before it's not cool or anymore. As a parent, I concur.
24:58
I can I can confirm that you can't be cool forever.
25:02
No, you got to get the hell out of there.
25:04
Get the hell out of there. Go somewhere else. So, let me ask you this.
25:06
Like, I remember really significant moments in my life where my relationship with my environment, nature, wherever I was really resonated.
25:17
Like, I've collected those.
25:17
I refer to them when I need them.
25:19
You know, when I'm compressed, I go back there and remind myself that exists. Do you do that?
25:25
Do you Well, you have a place that you like to visit in your mind that you Yeah.
25:29
Or just memories and places I went to, experiences I had on the beach, whatever.
25:32
Like, like I wanted to ask you if it's not too personal, like if there's one or two sort of significant moments when you felt the most at peace or it's really resonated and changed the course of your life because you found yourself in a place of absolute peace in nature.
25:45
Like, were there moments like that? Yeah, there still are.
25:47
and they happen regularly.
25:49
But I I uh one of the things that I like to do uh that helped me make this record is I I walked a couple of miles to get there. Wow.
26:00
So me and the dogs would get there.
26:03
You walk from base camp up to the barn? Yeah.
26:05
Just over to the barn, across the meadow, whatever through the the valley, you know, the Rockies are everywhere.
26:12
This is a majestic scene, but a huge meadow.
26:17
Goes for miles, rocks and, you know, mountainies, the the the mountains all around it and the trees and it's just beautiful. But I like that.
26:25
So, I would walk to the studio every day.
26:27
Sometimes I knew what I was going to do.
26:30
You know, when I did Welcome Back, the night before I played with Welcome Back a little bit, tried it, you know, didn't never sing at all.
26:38
Just mumbled a couple of words and went, "Wow, that's okay."
26:42
And I then I wrote it all down and maybe in the morning I wrote a little more. I don't know.
26:46
But then walking there, I'd be thinking a little bit about it and then other things.
26:50
And then I get to the studio, the barn, and start playing.
26:56
And it's just all uh you know, I had a good time walking there every day. That was a great thing. I like that part of it. I wrote uh Human Race.
27:06
Um, when I was playing my guitar one night, I I I was uh I played the changes to Human Race and the next morning I had the words to the first verse and then I wrote the whole thing on the way to the to the barn and then we only played it once cuz I had such simple changes and I just told the guys just, you know, wait for me uh when I get to the end of a verse if I just sit there, just stay on that chord.
27:34
Then when I start singing, we start again.
27:38
And so that's the way it worked.
27:38
And there's nothing to remember.
27:43
So that was cool because it was the full moon that day.
27:45
I wrote the words on the way to the studio.
27:47
And then when we were there, like 2 or 3 hours after the actual full moon had peaked, we recorded it and was take one and that was it.
27:57
So human races are like that.
28:00
Like I said, there's emotion on this record and and you were open as well in in a letter where you talked about there was some emotional moments making this record and I sort of wonder like what what are the circumstances that bring you to a place where it goes beyond the creative or the inspiration and it actually it actually becomes primal. You know what I mean?
28:17
It draws emotion, tears and gets like that.
28:20
I don't know what the circumstances are. It just happens.
28:23
So I don't know what it is and I really don't care. I just want to be there. Yeah.
28:29
Um, that's why I try to keep the environment happening and be where I am and find a place where I can relax and where there's no distractions and wait for it to happen and then play. It's just all a feeling.
28:45
It's a feeling that happens and and uh it's not like something I practice or anything.
28:49
I'm just wait for that moment and then then we play and usually that's it.
28:57
Were you always like that?
28:57
Were you always like that? Like even as a kid like I have someone in my life who I I know feels really deeply and and every human being has the capacity to do it but he really feels deeply like there's a real emotional intelligence center that's just stirring all the time
29:10
and searching for an outlet and and were you like that even as a kid even before you you had the outlet of music did you feel things that felt out of control at times you couldn't really translate well you know I was confused as a kid I I know that a lot of things happened you My life was changed a lot. You know, the
29:27
You know, the family broke up and all these things.
29:30
It happens to most people. Yeah.
29:34
Uh of this generation, you know, I tried to be natural with it. I don't know.
29:37
I I don't really have a solution. I don't have a story.
29:41
It's just I want to be there.
29:44
I want to be there when it's happening. Yeah.
29:47
And I have a feeling that I get when I think it's going to happen and then I then I really try to be there. Okay.
29:54
No more analysis in a process cuz I love that. I love that answer.
29:55
And it makes sense when you hear the music.
29:57
But I do want to talk about the archive.
29:58
I love what you've created.
30:00
I love the fact that you so lovingly apply yourself to bringing things that most artists either forget about or afraid to dredge up.
30:09
You bring them back to life and you apply yourself to it.
30:11
It's kind of contradictory to how most people think of you.
30:13
I think most people think of you as this like hardcore future forward moving don't look back kind of person, but you've been building working on this for years.
30:21
Even before we got it over 10 years ago, you were building up to this moment, weren't you? Yeah.
30:25
Well, we've been doing it since the beginning.
30:27
I keep track of everything and I'm a I'm a packrat. I save things. I'm very organized.
30:34
I like to I like to uh I like toh collect.
30:40
So, my music is like that. Yeah.
30:41
I made sure that everything I did that I that I finished in a way in a manner of speaking. Yeah.
30:47
Uh, for instance, just last week, we discovered a session that I knew had been there for a while, but I it was called Summer Songs, and it was done in in 1987, and something was going on, and I I played six songs. They were all new.
31:05
I'd never played them before.
31:08
And I just did them by myself to get them down because there were so many of them.
31:12
I didn't want to forget the key parts of them.
31:16
So, I put down these little things that just me and uh Tim Mulligan at my studio.
31:21
I don't know even what was happening, but I can't remember the sessions.
31:26
I can't remember who it was.
31:29
We discovered that it was Tim Mulligan through process of elimination.
31:34
I talked to all the engineers that I work with and two of them seemed to know something about this, but Mulligan seemed to know the most about it.
31:41
And there's things that even my piano sounds like it's not my piano.
31:47
Uh I don't remember singing or sitting down or playing these songs at all.
31:53
[laughter] They're the only ones in the archive that I have no memory of.
31:58
And there's seven of them.
32:03
You don't even remember writing them. You don't even remember.
32:05
I literally couldn't have much.
32:05
I can't remember much about it.
32:08
I did them all after that.
32:10
But in the archives in the we have this concept called a fresh track.
32:16
And a fresh track is something that uh that happened on the search for perfection. It got left behind. Right?
32:27
So the first time the song's played, there's things about it and you might want to try it again or I'm gonna try it with this band or I'm going to do that.
32:36
But that first time, you know, it comes and goes pretty fast.
32:38
So, it turns out that all of these songs, and many of them are on some of my biggest albums, all have a really a lot of different words from what came out on the albums.
32:51
The melodies are slightly different.
32:54
They're like they're from outer space or something, but they're and they're all very soft acoustic.
32:58
It's just me and an acoustic guitar, but I put a lot into it. Yeah.
33:04
And I can tell by listening to it that I was really focused and even though it's not perfect and there are mistakes in it and I was not trying to fix the mistakes, I could tell, well, that's a mistake. Why didn't I fix it?
33:15
Well, cuz I was doing a sketch.
33:17
I was sketching this so that I wouldn't forget it and then I moved on cuz at that time in my life and for several years, maybe 20 years, I was going faster than what I could handle.
33:28
So, I recorded everything and I put it all down and I put it away.
33:30
And the last since the pandemic started, all I've been doing is finding them, organizing them, and putting them in.
33:38
And I'm still just in the middle of it.
33:42
Were you finding things you had no recollection of recording or even who was involved? None.
33:46
But the songs showed up on Freedom.
33:48
They showed up on Raged Glory.
33:51
They show up on different records, but they're not the versions that these are that are from three years ahead of that or two years ahead of it or something with different words.
33:59
There's one song called uh Someday where I'm talking about the TV preacher can't be bothered with the petty things, but in this version it's God can't be bothered.
34:11
It's not the TV preacher.
34:11
So, I changed the lyrics from the original was God can't be bothered with this or that. Too petty. Yeah.
34:20
And uh you know maybe we'll see him someday.
34:22
If we go to outer space, we might see God's face.
34:24
You know that kind of thing.
34:27
So you I just wrote, you know, just kept on going and then and then I perfected it in my way.
34:32
But before I perfected it, we had the original and the original is what these are, which is crazy because now the way you've described the making of Barn, you're just committing to the fresh tracks. Yeah, that's right.
34:48
No more screwing around with making records. Yeah.
34:52
We're just getting and then it's evolved to that.
34:54
I mean, oh my god, it's the man on the It's literally the human being on the edge of the pier fishing [laughter] because you've just gone back to what you did when you first picked up a guitar, which was just demo the out of everything and hope one day you could finish it. Yeah.
35:07
It's like you've gone full circle, but with all this experience and, you know, so see, you know, I feel good to be to be where I am in the world and uh doing what I'm doing.
35:15
I'm very thankful to be still making music. So am I.
35:19
And to be alive and still moving.
35:21
Um and I feel great about it.
35:21
And a reason why I think when people get to be my age or threequarters of a century, you get to this point and people if they don't have anything to do, they get kind of depressed. Yeah. Yeah. It's checkout time.
35:34
But with me, I just got so much to do.
35:34
I have all these things that I need to organize and still keeps happening. Yeah. I love it.
35:41
And and and we get the benefit of it.
35:43
Like I said, we there's this sort of weird unspoken uh detachment from one's past when you're an artist.
35:50
And as fans, it's hard to make peace with that cuz we want access to all of the creative.
35:53
We want to see the process. We want to see it all.
35:56
So when you go in the archive, and I'm literally you have to go to this archive and and and do whatever you can because if you're a Neil Young fan and you're not, it's unbelievable.
36:02
It's just so lovingly put together and it just it's like diving into a warm pool.
36:08
[snorts] It's it's a great feeling.
36:09
It's a great feeling having it and organizing it and having the structure so that when I locate things, they have a place to go. A place to go. Yeah.
36:18
And everything's organized.
36:18
You can see how this happened from that.
36:22
You can see the history of things and you get a place to also like chuck your notes up, you know, your letters up and it's a bulletin board for like Yeah. Yeah.
36:29
This is This is This is righteous. Yeah.
36:32
This guy, support this guy, you know, this cause.
36:35
Um, does it get and I'm so sorry if I keep using the same word, but I'm, you know, like I said, I get a huge amount of emotion from your music.
36:44
So when you're going through and listening to old archives, even if it just takes you back to a time in a place where someone special in your life is no longer around, these are they mean like all my songs. Yeah.
36:53
Basically, almost all the musicians are gone. I know.
36:55
And it's like a window into these wonderful, beautiful ghosts from the past that continue to be around spiritually.
37:00
And I wonder how that experience is for you because this is something you're applying yourself to daily.
37:04
Well, I'm so glad that I was there and that I knew these people and I miss them, but there's nothing I can do about it.
37:11
I I'm still here and I'm I'm picking up the pieces of the things that we did and trying to make them and put them on the shelf in the place so that somebody walks in is not just a pile of crap that they can't figure out what it is cuz the worst thing would be to have other people trying to do this and figure out what it was if I wasn't around you're gone. Yeah. So, I don't want that.
37:35
So, that's why it's it's important for me to do this.
37:37
And it's only for the music and for the it's not so much for me as it is for the music and for all the people who made the music because all the credits for everybody who did everything is all there and people's families in the future.
37:48
You know, I look at it and I go, "Well, maybe the grandchildren will hear this and they'll go, this is what daddy was doing with Neil and and listen to this and uh you know, my son is helping me with the archives.
38:01
Zeke is is working on the team now for three, four years." That's cool.
38:07
And uh you know, it's all cool. It's it's a lot of fun.
38:10
The archives is is a real lifesaver for me.
38:12
It gives me something to do that's rewarding and puts a smile on my face and I find these things. I found some stuff.
38:18
I mean uh here we are in Rick Rubin's uh Shanganger right now.
38:24
And it's a great studio that Rick has restored.
38:27
And I remember when I was here with Robbie and with the band and and Bob and and all of when when this was being made for them and uh and then that moved on from 76 moved on to somewhere else and and uh now we're here and and Rick and I remember Rick and what year was I think it was I think it was 97 not 87 but 97 I did I did Crazy Horse with Rick and we only did three songs in the studio.
38:58
studio, but they're great.
38:58
And I found them kind of by accident.
39:02
It happens because people write letters.
39:04
They write letters to me about songs and about shows.
39:09
Somebody wrote about a show I did at a place called the Trokadero in San Francisco where I was rehearsing for the Hippie Dream Tour or something.
39:16
And that's what they said.
39:17
And then they started talking about this one song, Hard Luck Stories, that was so cool that they really loved.
39:23
And I'm going, I never played hard stories with Crazy Horse.
39:28
And then I can't remember it and I'm going what's that about?
39:31
So I start looking around and and uh because we've got this show and we put it on the timeline which is this place where you can locate things over the period of time if we feel there's something that people could be interested in or if other people want them they request them and we find them and put them up. It's not our decision.
39:49
So that that way has opened a new door for me.
39:53
The archives through the view of other people, gets you to places that I wouldn't go. Yeah.
40:02
But I go there on their guidance because Yeah.
40:04
It's a beautiful trade where you've given us so many incredible experiences. You keep moving on. We preserve them.
40:10
That person will never forget that Trokadero show. You've long gone. Yeah.
40:15
I've forgotten it completely. Next show. Yeah.
40:17
And then somebody else writes a letter and says, "You know, just as Neil was doing this show, I remember hearing that he was in the studio in LA with Crazy Horses.
40:29
So crazy with Rick Rubin."
40:31
And that's going, "Wait a minute. Wow.
40:34
Let's find that session." Wow. So I find that session. I find three songs.
40:39
One of them is Hard Luck Stories.
40:43
That's based on the thing that I did in 1984 uh where I did some demos with Sinc Clevier and and Simmons drums and Lind drum and all kinds of computer stuff where I created a track and programmed it and then sang on top of it cuz I it was just me. I was just there.
41:00
So I made these songs up and I and I did them like this and I recorded them and put them away and they were just me and all these machines.
41:08
So it was like uh pretty good but not too good or whatever, you know.
41:12
And uh so what happened is here we are 13 years later with Rick in one of these songs and we put the song on and I take some of the drums off and and I just say to the horse, let's uh just play along with this. Just listen to it. I'm already singing it. So the singing's there. I'll play electric. Nobody plays electric.
41:32
There's no real instruments on it. It's all computers.
41:36
And just, you know, beat the out of the computer, you know. Beat it, you know.
41:39
just beat it like be a real musician beating the out of a out of a wrestle with it.
41:46
So we did and we played it and and Rick recorded it.
41:50
So, I went back looking at all this stuff and I found this one song, Hard Luck Stories, and another song, Horseshoe Man, that didn't come out for a long time after this, but I did it with Crazy Horse then.
42:05
And uh and then I did uh another one called Modern Modern World, which no one has ever heard, which was the only real new one that I did at that session.
42:14
And and uh I mean it was when I listen to them now, I love them. They're amazing. They're fantastic. It's crazy horse.
42:22
And I never heard it before.
42:25
I can't remember ever listening to it.
42:27
Cuz you're your own worst critic in moments like that.
42:29
Probably most artists are, right?
42:30
Like you get swept up in in something that just I thought something was wrong.
42:33
So I I said, "Okay, we'll finish everything. Get everything done.
42:38
Let's go and we move on." Yeah.
42:41
So we The thing is rather than give up when something's wrong, I'll try to finish it.
42:45
and then go, "Okay, that's something was wrong with that one, but it's there." Yeah.
42:50
Then you come back 20 years later and you listen to it and you go, "There's nothing wrong with it." Yeah. And And it's amazing. So, it's a lot of fun.
42:59
It's a lot of fun for us. I mean, it's incredible.
43:00
And I love the fact the fans are feeding this process in such a real way. They're so important.
43:03
They they they're the ones who said there was a session and someone else said maybe it was the Rick Rubin session. Yeah.
43:11
It's like And they're just other people talking and it led me to this. Yeah.
43:15
So people are taking me to places where I never would have gone and I'm finding things and I I call them fresh tracks.
43:23
That's what we call them because usually they're they're like the original version.
43:26
They don't have the same words yet they're truly the song but it's more more the song than probably what came out. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.
43:40
Sound starting with you and what your guitar sounds like.
43:42
Always wanted to ask you this.
43:44
So, just indulge me if you would.
43:46
Um, the idea of this concept of rust, of deterioration, this image that you've sort of fostered through your art and music to me is so clearly connected to the sound of your guitar when you're amplified.
43:57
And I just wonder like where that original sound came from because it's so identifiable and it's so deconstructed and disgusting and filthy and amazing. I don't know.
44:07
There's a sense of just this this this love of distortion that you have that others flirt with, you give yourself to completely. Yeah.
44:12
Well, it's the sound, you know, it's it's what's happening.
44:14
I have, you know, the sound when I when I play my sound, it's just me with an instrument that was set up by Larry Craig, who's a genius, uh, through amplifiers that were set up by Larry Craig and Sal Trentino, who is another genius who is not with us anymore, but truly a genius.
44:38
He was a tube uh guru, you know, and between Larry and S, we would have like we get the deluxe out and we have a a pile of tubes that are contenders for the deluxe and be like 600 tubes and we just go through try a couple of 6L6s, try another couple.
44:56
Okay, these are pretty good.
44:58
Mark, put them in the higher one.
44:59
Put categorize all the tubes.
45:01
Go through all the tubes.
45:01
Which ones do sound the best? Yeah.
45:04
pretty soon you got like three sets of tubes that sound like God out of like 80 tubes.
45:10
So Larry and and S were great at that.
45:14
And when I did Barn, Larry was back with me. Yeah.
45:18
It just there's so much involved and so many people uh that make the sound that the sound is really the life of all the music and all the people that I've known.
45:29
I I want to try and find a way to kind of finish this with some sort of impact.
45:33
And I guess for me it's someone who has written songs that continue to not just provide us with escape and emotion and even just background noise, but have really really spoken of the times and um speak the truth from your perspective and affected the way people you've affected the way people move.
45:53
You've actually moved the energy of society through your songs.
45:55
I don't know if you recognize that, but yeah, I really, you know, I I try not to think about that too much.
46:00
I bet you do cuz it's like uh it's it's it doesn't help me.
46:04
What helps me is immersing myself in what I'm doing. Yeah.
46:10
And what happens with what I'm doing is ancillary.
46:14
What happens to what I created and how people react to it and everything is so what's your relationship with these songs that go on to live a life irrespective of you? Yeah.
46:26
What's your relationship to them? Very little. Hm.
46:29
My relationship to them is how am I doing the next one.
46:37
That's what's important to me.
46:37
That's what I can really do or I can affect it.
46:42
Nothing else affects anything.
46:42
It's just a reflection of what happened.
46:44
My opinion, your opinion, the world's opinion. What did it do? It made this happen. It made that happen. All this stuff.
46:52
It doesn't mean anything.
46:52
What means something to me is what's what are we working on now? What's what's next?
46:58
How how are we going to find what are we going to find and and restore and bring back to the point where it's vivid uh instead of just murky and you know because it's in the past and we captured it so we can go in there with our stuff and get it and bring it back.
47:13
So my last question then is someone who doesn't really like to sort of focus on what your songs mean to me and wants focus on what's next. What's next?
47:22
Not to be greedy because Barn's awesome, but it's done and you've moved on. So, let's move on. What's next?
47:30
I have three songs now that I have and they're all in their creative history, whatever that is.
47:38
One of them is vague and it uh seems to relate to different Chevrolets over the history of life, things that have happened in nomads, Corvettes. It's a car song.
47:55
Yeah, it's, you know, it's a car song, but but it's but yeah, it's it's a car song. It is. Give a great car song. So, Chevrolet. Yeah.
48:02
So, that's what it's called.
48:06
Each verse is about a minute and 20 seconds.
48:08
So that's as long as you know that's usually like two or three verses. So the verses are long.
48:13
There's instrumentals between them that has that going on with other songs that I've done.
48:20
But the song is unfinished and it should stay unfinished until I until I even talking about it is actually almost sinful. So you just let it go. It isn't finished. We haven't done it yet.
48:33
Thank God we haven't committed to it. Yeah.
48:37
And so it's still available.
48:41
And I have two other ones that are like that.
48:44
Let's not commit the sin.
48:44
Let's not commit the sin of talking about those.
48:47
Well, we don't want to do go too deep into it because talking about it is, you know, maybe they're really good, maybe they're not.
48:57
Maybe the moment I catch them will be great. Hopefully, it will be.
48:59
And that's what I'm looking forward to.
49:02
So, I have a lot to look forward to. [music] [music]