The 200,000 broken albums Neil Youngshot at with a rifle and used for his roof
There is a certain style of songwriter who can feel introspective and guarded. The very nature of being an artist encourages such a way of being. However, there are some artists who find themselves on the edge of the spotlight, ready to jump in with both feet. There are few artists as wildly bold as Neil Young.
The singer-songwriter has made a strong case for being one of the most genuine articles of rock ‘n’ roll spirit over the six decades of his bustling career. A man who has refused to bow to the pressure of record labels, MTV and even the president of the United States, Young’s refusal to conform is why he became a cult icon for grunge artists everywhere. He was routinely referred to as the ‘Godfather of Grunge’ in the 1990s.
More specifically, it is Young’s 1979 record, Rust Never Sleeps, which helped craft this nickname thanks to the heavily distorted nature of his guitar on the album. He played a pivotal role in influencing the generation coming through at the end of the following decade who were raised on a diet which heavily consisted of the former Buffalo Springfield man’s work.
While that album would be rightly lauded for its genius creativity and brash production, Young’s eccentricities flow back far further than that. Before the release of his widely adored Harvest album, Young famously turned one of his outhouses into a successful speaker to play his Crosby Stills Nash and Young bandmate, Graham Nash, the album for the first time.
The story goes that Neil Young asked Nash if he wanted to listen to his solo record, an album which included the wonderful track ‘Heart of Gold’, and Nash dutifully got up ready to go into the studio, like the good friend he was. Young hadn’t something a little different in mind. Graham Nash picked up the story on NPR’s Fresh Air in 2013: “He said, ‘Get into the rowboat. I said, ‘Get into the rowboat?’ He said, ‘Yeah, we’re going to go out into the middle of the lake‘.” Casually, the pair row out into the middle of the lake with Nash expecting Young to pull out a walkman or cassette player to play the album and perhaps kick back in a more relaxed setting.
“Oh, no,” confirms Nash on NPR. “He has his entire house as the left speaker and his entire barn as the right speaker. And I heard Harvest coming out of these two incredibly large loud speakers—louder than hell. It was unbelievable.” The real kicker of the story was yet to come.
Not doing things by halves, Young had roped in some professional help too, “Elliot Mazer, who produced Neil, produced Harvest, came down to the shore of the lake and he shouted out to Neil, ‘How was that, Neil?‘” His response has become the stuff of legend. “I swear to God” Nash continues, “Neil Young shouted back, ‘More barn!‘”
It serves to say that Young has never been one to give in to societal pressure on how his creations are supposed to be received. The 1978 album Comes A Time would see the epitome of this desire reach its fruition. The record was meant to see Young return to his folk-driven roots, having spent some years in the rock wilderness. The vinyl was pressed, and the world was about to hear ‘Neil Young: the folkie’ again. But there was one big problem.
A flaw had been detected, likely by Young himself, in the pressings. It’s unclear whether the releases could have hit the shelves as intended without customers noticing. But what isn’t up for debate is that it was noticed by Young, who paid out of his own pocket to have 200,000 LPs withdrawn from sale. His father, Scott Young, noted the thousands of stored records in his memoir Neil and Me: ”Each case of albums had been fired at with a rifle, piercing each record and making it unusable.”
But, ever resourceful, Young did use the albums again, commenting in a 2014 interview with Rolling Stone that the vinyl had been used as shingles for one of his barns. Using something you hated with a passion to become a genuinely useful item is an archetype of Young’s resourcefulness.
So, if you ever make a mistake on a Neil Young record, don’t be too disheartened. There’s a great chance he will pull the plug on production, but at least a nearby outhouse will be dry come winter.
