Neil Young appeared as a guest on Howard Stern’s SiriusXM radio show on October 14.
During the 75 minute interview – which you can hear below – Young reiterated his recent proclamation that CSNY would never play live again, as well as his Pono digital music service, views on the Woodstock Festival and his upcoming new album, Storeytone. He also addressed his ongoing environmental concerns.
When asked about his recent announcement that Crosby Stills Nash & Young would never tour again, Rolling Stone reports that Young confirmed a reunion will “never happen.”
“Playing with Stills and Nash was really great,” he said, “I wish [Crosby] the best with his life. There’s love there, there’s just nothing else there. [A reunion] will never happen. Never happen, no, not in a million years….You have to think about things before you do them. If you make a mistake, you have to fix it right away. [A reunion] will never happen. You don’t have to worry about it. It’s easy to say ‘no.'”
Young continued, “We’ve been together for a long time. We did a lot of great work. Why should we get back together and celebrate how great we were? What difference does it make? It’s not for the audience, it’s not for money either.”
Discussing the Woodstock movie, Young complained that the cameras on stage interfered with CSNY’s performance. “They didn’t have to be right there on the stage,” he said. “They’re cameras, hello! Use zoom, dickhead. We were playing music and there’s some jerk standing there in black clothes. We’re playing music, get out of there.”
Speaking about Storeytone, which is due for release in November, Young said, “It was a great experience. I was in a room with all these musicians. We did it all at once. There’s no overdubs. Be great or be gone. That’s what my producer David Briggs always said. You only have one shot at a time and you can’t go fix it. I knew where I wanted to go with the songs, and the orchestra had charts and an arranger and everything…It was done with up to a 90-piece orchestra. We did it live in the room like Sinatra.”
On the subject of his environmental issues, Young reportedly said, “We can do little things to fight climate change but our armed forces are the biggest carbon dioxide providers in the world, and yet we are fighting, what, ISIS?”
“Since 1950 we’ve lost 90% of the fish in the ocean (and) we’ve doubled our own population,” he continued. “Since 1970, we’ve lost half the wildlife on the planet and again we’ve doubled our population.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIwWAX6bHwI