Young

For over 35 years, Neil Young has been at the forefront of rock, beginning with his days in Canada with the Mynah Birds (which also featured a young and already fucked up Rick James), followed by the legendary Buffalo Springfield, then a spectacularly successful stint as one-quarter of the supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (he was Young), a prolific and acclaimed solo career, and finally, as the anointed "Godfather of Grunge," sage and mentor to a whole new generation of rockers, cowpunks and such like. The ApeSheet was honored to interview this living legend recently at his ranch in Northern California.

APESHEET: It's an honor to meet you Mr. Young, and may I say that this cappuccino is exquisite.

NEIL: Thanks, that's nice of you to say. Not too sweet is it? I traded an autographed Les Paul to a Starbuck's employee for the recipe. I love Starbuck's. All the really cool people go there.

APESHEET: Uh, yeah, about that. Didn't you once say you met more interesting people in the ditch than in the middle of the road? I also seem to remember a lyric along the lines of "See the losers in the best bars, meet the winners in the dives?"

NEIL: It's just lyrics, man. You don't have to live them. You don't think Dylan actually sat around listening to some dipshit banging on a tambourine, do you? Or that John Lennon believed in that "no possessions" bullshit? The guy had more houses than freaking ReMax! It's called targeting your audience. I can't very well get up there and sing "I'm rich and famous and you're not, I used to walk right past the rope at Studio 54 while you froze your asses off, ha-ha-ha, la, la, la," can I? I'd be in the cutout bins along with all of Stephen Stills' shit solo albums. Fucking loser.

APESHEET: I remember being very moved by Tonight's The Night. It was a very intense album, very dark. Was it just ahead of its time as so many musicologists maintain?

NEIL: I don't even remember making the damned thing. Somebody put it on at a party once and I jumped back and said, "What the hell is that?" Then they told me that it was me and I was like, "Jeez, what kind of shit was I on?" Christ. You liked that album?

APESHEET: I thought it made a very powerful statement about . . .

NEIL: Yeah, it made a powerful statement to me too. It said that I could turn out any piece of shit music I could slap together and those ass-kissers from Rolling Stone would hail it as a work of genius. That's when I realized I had the golden touch. It was also a great way to get revenge on fat-ass Crosby, limey bastard Nash, and especially that balding no-talent Stills for keeping my mike unplugged during all those shows I did with them.

APESHEET: You're kidding. They unplugged your microphone?

NEIL: Well, they let me turn it on when I sang lead, but the rest of the time it was switched off. They had it put in the contract, said I couldn't harmonize with a fart if I was taking a crap. Showed their asses, didn't I?

APESHEET: My favorite song of yours has always been "Like a Hurricane." Do you ever get tired of playing that?

NEIL: Considering how bad we fucked that song up originally, I'm surprised it's done as well as it has. Chalk another one up for those great guys and gals at Rolling Stone!

APESHEET: What do you mean, fucked it up? How?

NEIL: It was supposed to be a polka. But when we drove over to [Crazy Horse guitarist] Frank Sampedro's mom's house to pick up his old accordion it turned out that she had sold it at a garage sale some years back. So we went out and got totally freaking wasted on Maui Wowie and Moosehead and I suddenly go "Let's cut the track anyway, we can overdub the accordion later." Then after we heard what we'd done to it, well, there was no way we could put an accordion on that. So we just left it there until we were finishing up the album and we'd run out of songs. It was either "Hurricane" or a cover of Gary Puckett's "Young Girl" that I just hadn't been able to quite catch his vibe on, so it kind of landed on there by default. Funny how things work out, isn't it?

APESHEET: Yeah. Hilarious. Anyway, how do you feel about the idolization heaped on you by the grunge-punk-rap crowd? Do you like, hang out with them, give them any advice?

NEIL: It's kind of tough to hang out with them, they're all so angst-ridden and negative about things. I mean, Kurt Cobain killed himself at the height of his fame. If he'd stuck it out, there's no doubt in my mind he'd have sold out Vegas easy. He could have had his own theater in Branson and he threw it all away! What is it with young people today? And don't even get me started on Eddie Vedder. . .

APESHEET: What about him?

NEIL: He needs to lighten up. Chill out. Put on an Anne Murray CD. You know, look at the bright side of life.

APESHEET: Anne Murray?

NEIL: Hey, "Snowbird" rocks, man.

Originally published at The Apesheet.