Since landing in America during the 1960s in pursuit of establishing a musical career, Neil Young has been fortunate enough to work with many greats. Everyone from David Crosby to Pearl Jam and Jim Jarmusch are listed as former collaborators, and still to this day, being in the studio with a talented mind never fails to ignite Young’s creativity.
While Young is capable of working alone in front of the booth, the Canadian has also proved he’s just as talented when enhancing his sound after the fact as any other producer. However, while Young has earned the right to control the mixing desk for every one of his projects, the notion of collaboration still excites him, and he enjoys working with like-minded individuals.
In 1997, Young first teamed up with super producer Rick Rubin, and although the tracks didn’t see the light of day, it was an experience he enjoyed. Therefore, a quarter of a century later, Young headed to Malibu to work once again with Rubin on the album World Record, which he described as “so easy” due to his collaborator’s seamless methods.
As a producer, Rubin splits opinion within the music industry with Slipknot’s Corey Taylor, famously labelling him as “overpaid” and “overrated” after he worked with the metal band on Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses).
Yet, Rubin’s unorthodox methods work, hence why he’s worked with everyone from Johnny Cash to Lana Del Rey. During an interview with Anderson Cooper, Rubin claimed to “have no technical ability” and said, “I know nothing about music”. When probed about his talent, the producer replied: “Well, I know what I like and what I don’t like. And I’m decisive about what I like and what I don’t like.”
Young makes up for Rubin’s lack of technical ability, and the energy transmitted from the producer was all he needed to create. Looking back on the process of making World Record alongside Rubin with The New Yorker, the singer-songwriter said: “We make chronicles of things. Or I do—I make chronicles of an experience. I play the songs, and we’re doing it live, and everything happens, and then we capture it like that. Rick is a genius. It’s so easy, because he loves music. You’re not gonna find a person who loves music more than Rick.”
“He’s dedicated to preserving it. If you talk about an environmentalist trying to save the Earth, then he’s a music-mentalist,” he continued. “That’s the way he looks at music. That’s a great thing. He’s just living it. He’s made some really cool records in other genres, but they’re all the same thing to him. It’s all music”.
Young added: “We worked on it together every day, sitting on the couch, listening, making changes. As soon as we start getting tired, we leave. We don’t work hard—we work until we’ve done something, and when we feel good about how far we’ve gotten we leave and come back. He’s into the flow of things. That’s how he likes to live his life, no matter what he’s doing. We have a lot in common in that respect.”
Although Young and Rubin have opposite skill sets, this is precisely why they make such a compelling team. If they both specialised in the same areas, there’d be a creative clash. Instead, the duo’s differences proved to be a recipe for success.
