Listen to Neil Young crash Rick Rubin’s podcast with Jack White
Rick Rubin has a delightfully middle-of-the-road podcast called Broken Record because, hey, it’s 2022, and everyone has a podcast. It’s not technically his sole project, though – Rubin shares interview duties with journalist Malcolm Gladwell and former New York Times editor Bruce Headlam along with host Justin Richmond, but when it comes to the topic of music, Rubin is generally in charge.
This week, Jack White appeared as the podcast’s guest. During their conversation, Rubin and White discuss everything from proto-punk bands in White’s native Detroit to the early days of The White Stripes to White’s two new albums released this year, Fear of the Dawn and Entering Heaven Alive. Everything seems to be going well until their party gets crashed by the one and only Neil Young.
Young is hyper-casual, apparently having been sitting outside the door of Rubin’s Shangri-La studio waiting for the pair to end their discussion. Instead, Rubin invites Young in to join the talk. As they chat away, Young reveals that he’s been recording some new music at Shangri-La, although he doesn’t extrapolate on it much. Is it a new solo album? Another Crazy Horse record? Young wasn’t telling, preferring to just josh around a bit with White and Rubin.
White, clearly seizing an opportunity, played Rubin and Young a solo acoustic version of the Entering Heaven Alive track ‘A Tip From Me to You’. Young compliments White on the song, which is probably the highest honour any songwriter can get. White is clearly giddy throughout Young’s entire visit, so bonus points to him for keeping his composure enough to perform a song in front of Young.
All told, it’s a charmingly impromptu meeting between three people who seem to be acquainted with each other. Young mentions that he came over specifically because Rubin mentioned White would be there, and White, in turn, greets Young like an old pal. Young recorded the entirety of his 2014 studio album in White’s 1947 voice-o-graph recording booth housed at Third Man Records in Nashville, so there’s at least a little bit of prior history between the two.
Listen to the episode with White and a guest appearance by Neil Young down below. Young makes an appearance around the 55-minute mark.
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