The two guitar “geniuses” Neil Young just didn’t like: “Nobody gives a shit”
Musicians paying each other compliments is always somewhat tricky. There’s a lot of ego-kissing and sometimes ulterior motives at play. The way Neil Young handles navigating through that social tsunami is by simply not entering the storm.
It’s certainly an interesting tactic: praise the people you love by largely throwing insults at them, albeit with a pretty ribbon wrapped around it. Certainly, with his own style mostly rooted in the foundations of folk and grunge, there has never been much left to the imagination in terms of Young suddenly branching off in different directions. Can you picture him donning the makeup and gladrags to become a glam rock star, for example?
It doesn’t really bear thinking about, does it? The point is in all of is that Young has never been overwhelmingly complimentary about anyone in the business, at least in an overt sense. That’s why, when it came to talking about the other guitar gods on the scene, there were two that he called “geniuses” – but in the same breath also said that “nobody gives a shit” about them. Just to give things that little bit of light and shade.
The main subject of Young’s ire within this was on the basis of technicality, of which he basically admitted that he didn’t have any in a previous interview. “Nobody gives a shit if you have good technique or not. It’s whether you have feelings that you want to express with music, that’s what counts, really,” he mused. “When you are able to express yourself and feel good, then you know why you’re playing. The technical aspect is absolute hogwash as far as I’m concerned. It bores me to tears.”
So, who exactly could he be praising in this less-than-glowing analogy?
“I don’t care about that sort of shit,” he continued. “On the other hand, I appreciate really great guitarists, and I’m very impressed by those metal groups with their scale guitarists. When I see that, I go ‘Holy shit, that’s really something’. [Joe] Satriani and Eddie Van Halen are guitar geniuses. They are incredible musicians, at an amazing level. But it doesn’t really grab me. One note will do.”
In a roundabout sense, Young was simply saying that he appreciated the virtuosity of both Satriani and Van Halen, but that their music didn’t really float his boat – fair enough, we’re all different. But his approach to expressing that, of flinging backhanded insults rather than just saying it’s not his jam, is genuinely quite entertaining to behold, so we’ll let it slide.
Of course, you would be quick to find a whole flurry of musicians anywhere who would happily fall at the feet of Young and utterly shower him in a flood of compliments. It’s just that he won’t necessarily be all that forthcoming in returning them. Sometimes that’s just the way the cookie crumbles in music, but clearly, in the eyes of Young, it’s just part of his outlook on life and getting the job done.
