Het Nieuws volgens Neil Young...

Neil Young nam even samen met rolling Stone het nieuws door en had toch best leuke dingen te vertellen. Behalve dat hij van japanse horror films en Sci fi films houdt, vindt hij dat hij als Canadees een hoop kritiek mag hebben omdat hij ook maar een amerikaanse familie heeft. En hij heeft zo zijn mening over de muziekindustrie. En over "ons"...

Many people your age see a generation lined up to buy Justin Timberlake albums.

That's not what I see. You can't fool youth. There's a lot of kids who do not like what's going on. They don't like the country the way it's being run. They don't like the corporations getting off scot-free.

Will those kids relate to Greendale?

I don't think they'll ever get to hear it. The whole system of getting music around has passed me by. I don't fit into that anymore. I'm more concerned with making records I believe in. I try to create a place where my art can live -- writing and singing songs, filming things myself, going my own way.

The Dinosaurus weet in ieder geval zijn plaats, want ook:

Is there any current pop music that you like? What was the last record you bought?

A Jimmy Reed record. What I like to listen to is not pop music. I'm interested in the roots of the blues and folk music. I'm out of touch, a lost cause. You can write me off.

En mocht je wat nummers van Neil willen downloaden, het mag, alleen niet van Sheryl Crow en Don Henley...

But how do you feel about the future of rock & roll -- as music, as a weapon of expression and change -- in an era of fierce conservatism and falling record sales?

Rock & roll has still got a lot of legs. But I consider rock & roll and rap to be the same. It's popular music with an edge. If the edge doesn't have a guitar, that doesn't mean it's not rock & roll.

I do know it's a huge business, and it's lost its idealism in the face of Internet downloading and the RIAA suing people for listening to music -- people who get a couple of songs from my new album, or the whole album, because they never would have heard it on the radio.

The issue of not getting paid doesn't bother you?

I'm a very wealthy person. I've been managed very well. I'm not greedy to the point that I need to get paid for every little thing I do. I'm an artist. I should be fucking doing art, not standing up for artists' rights. We got Sheryl Crow and Don Henley -- it's covered. I don't have to do it. When the copyright law is all over and I'm dead and gone, I'll have more songs. I'll have three or four more albums.

That's what I know how to do, and I do that OK. Sometimes I do it, and people really like it. Sometimes I do it, and they get pissed off at me [smiles]. Whatever.

In de Rolling Stone het hele artikel...