Neil Young

Neil Young

Young’s ‘Earth’ album revolutionary

  • By Sandy Cohen Associated Press
  • Thursday, June 16, 2016 2:52pm
  • LifeGo-See-Do

CALABASAS, Calif. — When Neil Young turned his 1959 Lincoln Continental into an electric car, developed a high-tech digital music system and mixed animal sounds into his latest album, he didn’t think it was revolutionary. They were just cool ideas he wanted to try.

“I just consider myself as a person who wants to do things, you know,” Young said from beneath a floppy black hat as he sat in the living room of his manager’s “office house” in the tony hills of Calabasas, California.

As when he wrote the protest song “Ohio” days after the 1970 shooting at Kent State, Young lets inspiration guide him. He trusts the moment so much that he says he never makes a set list before live shows and embarked on his latest album without knowing what it would be.

“Earth ,” available June 24, is a collection of 13 live songs interspersed with the sounds of crickets, frogs, crows, bees and other animals Young recorded in his backyard.

The 70-year-old singer-songwriter said he didn’t set out to make an album about the planet. The theme just emerged as he chose the best performances from his past year on tour.

“Those songs rose to the top,” he said. “They said who they were and we made the record.”

He added the animals’ voices as an experiment.

“The animals give off a great vibe. There’s nothing about them that’s — they’re not lying to you and they’re not selling you something,” he said.

Young has been on the road with Promise of the Real, a band that features Willie Nelson’s sons Lukas Nelson and Micah Nelson on vocals and guitar. Playing with them has energized his performances, Young said, which gave life to the album.

“(They) know over 100 of my songs,” he said. “So I can choose all these songs anywhere at any time. That’s very freeing.”

It also eliminates the need for set lists. They go with the flow.

“Everything’s in real time. The people are there. We’re there. … It’ll be all of us together creating the moment,” he said.

He’ll take the same approach at California’s Desert Trip concert festival in the fall, where Young shares the bill with the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Roger Waters and the Who.

“The audience is going to be really stoked,” Young said. “They’re going to feel real special about being able to see all this at once. … It’s a celebration of music and history.”

Still, he said, “I’m going to play whatever I feel like playing that day.”

He tries to stay open to the whims of creative energy and “not be unavailable because I’ve made my mind up.”

“A made-up mind is like a jail,” he said. “You can’t get out of it.”

So when he got the notion to turn his beloved classic Lincoln into an electric vehicle, he just went for it instead of considering it unnecessary or impossible.

“I don’t think it’s revolutionary to want to build an electric car when there’s so much pollution on the planet,” he said.

When reminded that most people don’t actually go through with such ideas, he said not everyone has the wherewithal.

“I’m not trying to make it so that I can sell it to anybody. I just want to say, ‘Here it is. Look, this thing exists,”’ Young said. “I just crossed 55,000 miles in it.”

He drove the finned white sedan to this interview.

The same passion inspired Young to develop Pono , a high-resolution digital music system that began with a Kickstarter page. Young wanted today’s listeners, many of whom are accustomed to the compressed sounds of MP3s, to experience the full breadth of sound that vinyl record albums bring. So he took his music off iTunes and streaming sites and created a playback system that delivers all the aural intricacies lost in compression.

Even Young’s longtime manager, Elliot Roberts, is still regularly surprised by his client’s endless stream of “against-the-grain” ideas.

“There’s never a day that there’s not something new, whether it’s on Pono, or on his music or playing live and what we should do, or on LincVolt, his electric car which he is just editing a film about, or the book he’s writing,” Roberts said. “He’s just a creative animal. He just can’t control himself. He just keeps getting ideas.”

“It’s just the way it is,” Young said. I like to do things where I see a hole and I want to say something.”

Talk to us

> Give us your news tips.

> Send us a letter to the editor.

> More Herald contact information.

More in Life

Brandon Hailey of Cytrus, center, plays the saxophone during a headlining show at Madam Lou’s on Friday, Dec. 29, 2023 in Seattle, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Lynnwood-based funk octet Cytrus has the juice

Resilience and brotherhood take center stage with ‘friends-first’ band.

FILE - In this April 11, 2014 file photo, Neko Case performs at the Coachella Music and Arts Festival in Indio, Calif. Fire investigators are looking for the cause of a fire on Monday, Sept. 18, 2017, that heavily damaged Case’s 225-year-old Vermont home. There were no injuries, though a barn was destroyed. It took firefighters two hours to extinguish the blaze. (Photo by Scott Roth/Invision/AP, File)
Music, theater and more: What’s happening in Snohomish County

Singer-songwriter Neko Case, an indie music icon from Tacoma, performs Sunday in Edmonds.

Dominic Arizona Bonuccelli
Tangier’s market boasts piles of fruits, veggies, and olives, countless varieties of bread, and nonperishables, like clothing and electronics.
Rick Steves on the cultural kaleidoscope of Tangier in Morocco

Walking through the city, I think to myself, “How could anyone be in southern Spain — so close — and not hop over to experience this wonderland?”

chris elliott.
Vrbo promised to cover her rental bill in Hawaii, so why won’t it?

When Cheryl Mander’s Vrbo rental in Hawaii is uninhabitable, the rental platform agrees to cover her new accommodations. But then it backs out. What happened?

The Moonlight Swing Orchestra will play classic sounds of the Big Band Era on April 21 in Everett. (submitted photo)
Music, theater and more: What’s happening in Snohomish County

Relive the Big Band Era at the Port Gardner Music Society’s final concert of the season in Everett.

2024 Honda Ridgeline TrailSport AWD (Honda)
2024 Honda Ridgeline TrailSport AWD

Honda cedes big boy pickup trucks to the likes of Ford, Dodge… Continue reading

Would you want to give something as elaborate as this a name as mundane as “bread box”? A French Provincial piece practically demands the French name panetiere.
A panetiere isn’t your modern bread box. It’s a treasure of French culture

This elaborately carved French antique may be old, but it’s still capable of keeping its leavened contents perfectly fresh.

(Judy Newton / Great Plant Picks)
Great Plant Pick: Mouse plant

What: Arisarum proboscideum, also known as mouse plant, is an herbaceous woodland… Continue reading

Bright green Japanese maple leaves are illuminated by spring sunlight. (Getty Images)
Confessions of a ‘plantophile’: I’m a bit of a junky for Japanese maples

In fact, my addiction to these glorious, all-season specimens seems to be contagious. Fortunately, there’s no known cure.

2024 Hyundai IONIQ 6 Limited (Hyundai)
2024 Hyundai IONIQ 6 Limited

The 2024 Hyundai IONIQ 6 Limited is a sporty, all-electric, all-wheel drive sedan that will quickly win your heart.

The 2024 Dodge Hornet R/T hybrid’s face has the twin red lines signifying the brand’s focus on performance. (Dodge)
2024 Hornet R/T is first electrified performance vehicle from Dodge

The all-new compact SUV travels 32 miles on pure electric power, and up to 360 miles in hybrid mode.

Don’t blow a bundle on glass supposedly made by the Henry William Stiegel

Why? Faked signatures, reused molds and imitated styles can make it unclear who actually made any given piece of glass.

Support local journalism

If you value local news, make a gift now to support the trusted journalism you get in The Daily Herald. Donations processed in this system are not tax deductible.