There have been two Neil Youngs for me since 1994. The one sat on my record shelf, a weathered monument in worn jeans, “After The Gold Rush,” “Zuma,” “Comes A Time,” “Live Rust,” “Freedom,” you name it.
At the end of the 80s the wind had changed, Young was cool again, you could count on him, and he had just released “Sleeps With Angels”, the best thing after manna from heaven, Kurt Cobain was dead and the old guy already had a song for it.
His statement “It’s better to burn out than to fade away” was Cobain’s farewell greeting to the world.
Neil Young and the interviews
The other Neil Young had a record company, Warner, with a German branch in Hamburg. Once the press department sent Heinz Rudolf Kunze, who was under contract with the same company, to an interview – he did it on behalf of all the journalists who weren’t allowed to do one.
We were able to print a conversation between Young and Eddie Vedder about “Mirror Ball,” the album with Pearl Jam. Then there was a live record of Jim Jarmusch’s documentary “Year Of The Horse”, so you could talk to Jim Jarmusch. At “Silver And Gold” the American editorial team provided an interview.
Then, in 2002, Neil Young released “Are You Passionate?” out, it was also a comment on 9/11: The song “Let’s Roll” quoted the battle cry that supposedly came from the passengers of the plane who brought down a hijacked plane on that fateful day by overpowering the terrorists. Young liked this moral courage; it fits with his concept of freedom.
Young also used to like nuclear power and Ronald Reagan, and he may even have sympathy for German General Erwin Rommel, whose ring appears in one of his songs. Like a cheeseburger and the ROLLING STONE: “Bring me a cheeseburger and a new ROLLING STONE.”
In any case, Wolfgang Doebeling traveled to America and discussed vinyl with the artist, and afterwards Young was angry, scolded his manager Elliott Landy and canceled interviews with two Frenchmen.
Neil Young releases one record after the next (and often stays silent about it)
Since then, Neil Young has been releasing new records incessantly: there was the “Performance Series” with recordings of historic concerts, there was the “Archives,” and there were fresh albums. There were even albums that were never released (“Chrome Dreams”) but spawned a sequel (“Chrome Dreams II”), and albums that Young didn’t release in the ’80s, even though he released almost everything, which is why he was sued by David Geffen for producing uncommercial music.
In the Hamburg branch of Warner, Ms. Antje (name changed by the editors) managed this push: About six weeks before an album a message arrived, three weeks before that a review copy from Burbank with copy protection and an FBI warning. Ms. Antje was otherwise responsible for Linkin Park and the Beatsteaks, and that was probably easier than representing Neil Young’s media affairs in Germany.
There was always something
Because “Uncle Neil,” as we called him in our rich correspondence, sometimes wanted to grant an interview to two or three German journalists, sometimes the offer narrowed down to two or three international journalists, sometimes to one and then to none or a Frenchman.
Uncle Neil once wanted to receive people in Vancouver, in New York, perhaps in Los Angeles, in San Francisco, near his ranch, in London, Paris or Amsterdam, but actually he preferred not to. The battery motor in his old car imploded, his model train burned down, he became very ill and recovered, he talked to Jonathan Demme, he made a film and another, he went on tour, announced two records at the same time and released them within a year.
Every time, Ms. Antje and I were sure: He would speak. He has to speak. He won’t escape us. We wanted to send Maik and Joachim, Birgit and Torsten, everyone was looking forward to the magician, the legend, the veteran, packed their bags, listened to the old records, wrote down questions.
Flights and hotels were booked and emergency plans were made. The rejection always came from Ms. Antje. It was a running gag, but it was also bitterly serious, Neil Young really existed, there were the places, the planes and the albums, Neil Young came to Germany, we saw him in the flesh on stage, and the musician Wolfgang Michels was allowed to play with his band in the opening act for Young’s concert and reported that they were allowed to do a sound check and got something to eat. I cried with emotion. We were very close.
No one is as familiar to us as Uncle Neil.
The archive text comes from the series “ROLLING STONE: Our Heroes”.