Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - Neil Young

Episode Date: November 4, 2019

Music legend Neil Young feels good about being Conan’s friend.Neil and Conan sit down to talk about Neil’s 1957 Eldorado Biarritz, why he won’t allow his songs in commercials, the importance of preserving musical sound quality, recording his new album Colorado with Crazy Horse at 9,200 ft elevation, and what Neil loves about his Gretsch White Falcon guitar. Plus, Conan and his staff conduct a Gerber taste test.Got a question for Conan? Call our voicemail: [phone].

Hi, I am Neil Young, and I feel good about being Conan's friend. Fall is here, hear the yell, back to school, ring the bell, brandy shoes, walking blues, climb the fence, books and pills, I can tell that we are gonna be friends. Well, hello, Conan O'Brien here with another episode of my podcast, Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend, and I'm joined by my loyal team, my assistant of how many years, Sona, how many years have you been with me? Oh my God, it's gonna be almost 11. Is it almost 11 years? I know.

It seems longer. Yeah, it does. You know, you've been a good and trusted ally. That's nice. Yeah, let's just leave it at that. When you guys first hired me, you said, you know, he'd love a five-year commitment, and I was like, five years. Oh my God. That's exactly what my wife said.

I said I'd like a five-year commitment. She said, what? With you, with that body? Oh no. And I was like, she was like, well, would you be working out and would there be certain surgical enhancements? So those were all handled, and I got a five-year commitment. Okay. Yeah.

She's still with you. Well, there have been major payouts at certain points across the way. She got a very good lawyer. Anyway, yes, we've been together contractually 17 years. And I'm also joined by our, he says he's the producer, Matt Gorley. And I do prize you, Matt. You're very good at what you do. Thank you.

And once I determine what that is, I'll be even more impressed. Same here. I'm not sure what I do. No, you're a calm, cool presence. I don't quite know what it is you do. I know you make little tweaks here and there. Oh, I do more than little tweaks. I piece this whole thing together.

Piece it together. What are you talking about? We just bibble babble. Right. And then you press record, and then you press stop when we're done. I don't. Will does that. Oh, Will.

I have no buttons near me anywhere. Let's give, that's true. Let's give a shout out to our master DJ, Funk, Funk Genius. DJ. Will Backton. Will is back there, and Will is always sitting behind. You've got a console that looks like you're piloting the Starship Enterprise. When again, I think there's a play button.

Will, do you have to do things really? Are there adjustments you have to make? I know that you lower my voice so that it sounds a little more masculine. What do you do? Ride levels, mainly. Ride levels. Will's the engineer. Yeah.

So he makes sure this thing is running smoothly, technically. Yes. I take all those pieces, put it together, configure and edit the content of the segments in the interview. How dare you edit me? Oh, boy. You don't edit me. You need some editing.

Please. The occasional diatribe against the Ottoman Empire aside. Oh, nice. Well, I really like to go back and go after empires that collapsed long ago. I have no problem with that. I'll take it down. I hear you talking about this in the second season. I do not know that yet.

Because I'm a guy. Listen, this is my analogy, and if I've used this before, I apologize. I am the pharaoh that commissioned the pyramid. Oh, God. Okay? And I'm occasionally brought out to look at the massive, beautiful structure that's been built. No, you're the weird ancient alien that came down and said, build me a triangle. Build me a triangle.

Why? I'm not sure. But do it. And then I'll middle freak everyone out. Also you, some crop circles. Yeah. Where the planet they prank? Yeah.

You think about it, aliens come to Earth to prank it once in a while. They build a pyramid, they do something inexplicable that just has us scratching our heads. Stonehenge. Stonehenge. And then they blast away a couple of thousand light years and they just laugh their asses off. That's the best explanation I've ever heard for any of those things. Yeah. Well, thank you, and you're welcome.

This planet is a big joke. Exactly. That's right. They're just cackling. They're hiding behind another planet crouched over, cackling. But we're going, huh, so maybe these were built by pharaohs to... We got them good, glorp, gleep. Good one, ring gorp.

What'll we do tomorrow, shlorb, glip? I don't know. How many of us are there in this saucer? Gling, gling. The best part is... You'd think there only need to be two of us, lorb, glip. I can't see this. Why are we improvising so many different names?

Glom, cloup. Not sure, gling, blang. There's 65 aliens in this. I didn't get to all of them. Pretty good one, a slorb, a glark, gling, a glook. Do you think they'll get mad? Grr, brrr, brrr, brrr, brrr, brrr. And so you don't need any editing.

Wow. You waited to fire the torpedo. I like it. You made sure that the ship was carrying plenty of women and children. Before you let go that torpedo that sent us to the briny deep. The alien speak English. Yes, except they... Well, as an author, there's license there.

So what we have is a loose translation, but their names are not translated, because it's not funny to go, Good one, Dave. You're right, Chris. Hey, Matt, what do you think, Rick? There's no laughs there. So you have to go glurp, glee. All right, we really have to get down to business.

I've been saying it. I am... It's hard to build up guests sometimes, because we've had so many great guests, not just last season, but this season, so many amazing guests already. But my guest today is a legend. He is a music legend, and how often do you get to say that? He's got over 40 albums. Jesus.

I don't even own 40 albums. But you should own all of these, because this is the man. He has twice been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and on October 25th, he will release a new album titled Colorado with his band Crazy Horse. I hope you're getting a pretty good idea of who this is now. He's also spent the past few years archiving his impressive body work, which can be accessed at NeilYoungArchives.com. If you're still confused, you've been sniffing glue.

I am so excited to talk to him today. The legendary Neil Young is with us. Neil, so great to have you here. You and I have crossed paths. At monumental moments. Yes, at monumental moments. When I was going through some emotional times, you were there for me. You've just always been a terrific...

You're a muse, and you've been a really decent human being to me. I'm gulping over here. Yeah, gulping. I didn't know what that was. I thought that was acid reflux. A little of it. A little of it. Hiding it back.

I have a memory. I have a couple of memories. I was a writer at Starnout Live for a couple of years there, and people have always asked me, what's the greatest performance you ever saw, live performance? And without missing a beat, I have the answer. It was you keep on rocking the free world. And I've always thought, you can disagree with me,

but the experiencing music on television, it's always one of the worst ways to experience it. It's scary. It's scary. But you did something, and I encourage anyone who's listening to this right now, go and look up Neil doing Keep On Rockin' in the Free World on Starnout Live. It is the best live television performance I've ever seen or ever will see because you didn't give a shit somehow.

Or you did, but you just went for it. And everybody in the room felt it, and it actually came through the television. Good. How do you do that? We were on anti-TV. Yeah. We were in the room waiting. When we did the night before, the day before,

they have to go through your song. Yep, for rehearsal. For rehearsal, for blocking. Yeah. So all the cameramen, the experts, with the cameras, all know where you're going to be before you get there. Right. Which is counter to shaky pictures mode of operation.

Yes. I like to see cameras reacting to things and that. So anyway, I was looking at it. So we did Rockin' for Blockin'. You could have heard that one. That's a great recording. Yeah. And Steve Jordan was singing with me, and we came up with that.

And we went out and we did it. And then they wanted us to do it again after we sang Rockin' for Blockin'. And then so we did Fuckin' Up after that. Yeah. And that was really a good Fuckin' Up. And I think somewhere there's a tape of that. There is something you do. You're famously antsy about things being too controlled,

being too set up, a camera in your face. Make sure you hit this mark at this time. That's not what I was put here for. Right. I see a lot of people doing it so well that I just don't want to. I just, number one, I feel if you did that, then the music would be in a box. Yeah. You'd be having to be somewhere while you were playing music.

Yeah. Wait a minute. How can that be? That doesn't work. To me, the music decides where you are. I remembered in that performance, you were all over the place when you were doing Keep on Rockin' the Free World. You were roaming around and you were completely enveloped and consumed by what you were doing.

And you didn't give a shit about where the cameras were, how it looked. You were in it and you guys just tore the roof off the place and I thought that's one of the main things I wanted to talk to you about today is there's something in you that I wish I had myself. I try to have it. I would love to not give a shit. I would love to. I think you're coming off like you don't give a shit.

Well, you're coming off like a guy who cares. I do care. A lot. Yeah. I do. But the end result is that you don't give a shit because you're still doing your thing. You're doing your thing and you're doing it the way you want to do it. Wherever you are able to do it the way you want to do it.

That's what it looks like to me. Well, that is true. I see you and I could be completely wrong. This is a guy who, it doesn't sting if someone doesn't like it. Do you know what I mean? No, it doesn't. It doesn't hurt at all. That's a good thing.

God bless you. I need to work on that because I'm a, you know, I'm a people, I'm a people pleaser. And I do, I need to do it my way. But at the same time, the conflict is if someone's not happy, it gets to me a little bit. And I wish it didn't. And you famously said it doesn't mean that much to me. It's like, yeah. And I'm like that.

I wish that was my, I wish that was, I'd get that tattooed on my forehead if I could. You know, just would look bad. And I probably have to do it backwards so I could read it in the mirror. You know? That was just always you, right? That's you as a kid in Canada? I don't know. Is that, you just didn't, I don't, I really, if somebody doesn't like something, that's

just as exciting as them liking it. It's like. Oh, my head just came off. It's like the Democrats. My head just came off. It's like the Democrats and the Republicans. They have these areas where they feel completely different about everything. Yeah.

And it's pissing both of them off. Yes. And so that's alive, you know. Right. It's not the greatest thing to be around all the time, but it's alive. So I think the other thing is alive too, where people don't like what you're doing. Because you, especially if you're not doing it for them. Yes.

You're not trying to be who they want you to be. Right. You're doing what you want to do. Then if they don't like it, you know, that's pretty clear communication. But there's a lot of people who do like it. And they may like it even more if you didn't guard the edges. Yes. And you've done that time and time again where you'll have a massive hit.

I think they couldn't like it more to tell you the truth. I think they like it. Right now, the people who are watching what you're doing and seeing what you've done and your life, it's a good thing. I'll tell you this. And I don't know. For me, creatively, I've been happier in the last 10 years. And I never used to think about being happy.

I used to think, well, that's raised Catholic. I'm not supposed to be happy. It's actually, it's supposed to be quite painful. I'm supposed to experience pain. A lot of guilt. Yeah. A lot of guilt. And then in the next life.

Blaming. And blaming. Yes. Yeah. Okay, good. So we got that out of the way. And then the last couple. Practically melting down over here now.

Yeah. Yeah. Now you see, as long as you can feel my pain, that's the important thing. I'm with you. I had an experience I have to share, which is when I was 10 years ago and I was doing a tour, I was in San Francisco at the Masonic temple and music was part of my show. And music has always been a, I'm passionate about music. I'm a hack musician, but I love to do it.

So I did mostly comedy, but some music. And at the end of the show, I would close with a sped up version of 40 days, like Ronnie Hawking version of 40 days. And at the end of the show, I'm playing that and I'm really feeling my oats and I walk into the crowd and the crowds go going crazy. And I step up, I think on the edge of a chair in the audience and I grab a solo and I am punching above my weight. I'm not that good.

I'm in a minor and I'm trying to pull off this solo and it's barely hanging on when I look down at the guy who's in the audience and you're looking up at me and liquid shit just, I think filled the aisles because, and I thought of all the people to look up at me when I'm pretending to be a rock and roll musician, to have Neil Young with those coal, those eyes like burning coals looking up at me like, I see right through you, man. You can see me here, I don't have those kind of eyes. I really don't. You don't?

I don't have that. That's a total bullshit from someone spreading these rumors. That you have demonic eyes? Yes. I can tell you is that you didn't even open the door. You stared at it and burned a hole through it and then walked through the smoldering hole. I had to have some water after that.

You feel better now? Almost. I don't like this plastic bottle. Oh, okay. That's glass. That's Perrier. Okay, bubbles or glass and bubbles. No plastic.

I complimented you on your car on the way in. That was a bottle being opened, by the way. That was not Neil turning his neck. Oh my God. Yeah. Everyone's going to have to pee listening to this. Oh my God. That was the sound of Neil Young pouring sparkling water into a glass.

It's available in high resolution. You can get it. You can feel it. You can feel it. You can feel that. Yeah. If you listen to that in an inferior medium, you would not feel that as much as much. Beautiful car.

Thank you. Beautiful car out there. Gorgeous car. A giant El Dorado. 57. 57 Barretts. It is. I told you it's a massive, massive trunk.

It's a beautiful thing. The whole thing is shapely and sculpted. It's like somebody cared about every little part of it. Somebody was really involved in making that car. Everything inside is, everything is harmonic with the rest of the design and the materials. Everything's, and it functions really well. Now, here's the thing that surprised me. If you told me Neil Young's got this classic El Dorado, I would think he has probably buffed

and repainted and powder coated to perfection. Your car looks like it hasn't had a paint job since it was in the factory and it's driven a lot of miles, and I love that. I love the fact that your car, it's a beautiful car, paint job's a little shitty. Yeah. But it's there. It's there. It's still there.

It's still there. Yeah. And if you look at it, you go, well, this has been with this car for a long time. So where has this car been? This is all part of something. So I don't like to change it because it shows its age, and it's not a bad thing. So I kind of like it. Yeah.

And that's the car that you tool around in? A fair amount. It was on the cover of Trans in 1982. I know that cover. And that's the car. That's the car. Yeah. That's a special treat to you while we've been talking.

I've had the car taken out, buffed and repainted. Oh, thank you so much. That's fantastic. Yeah. So what I love, and this is so many people have let their music be used by commercials. And you have said, I don't want to do that. I don't want my music playing in a commercial. It's just something that happened.

I don't know why. I just, I didn't want to do that. Everybody else. I mean, I'm always shocked at the songs that I hear while someone's putting Nivea face cream on their face. And then I hear blowing in the wind. And I think what the hell happened, you know, it's unbelievable. I don't know what happened.

I just think that I think everybody has their own way of dealing with what they've created. Some people really care a lot about it. And others are, they're moving on to the next thing and just moving on. Yeah. And combinations of those. So I don't, I don't know what other people want to do because that's okay. I'm not again it. Well, I bring this up for a reason.

I've been authorized by the gold bond medicated powder company to license the song heart of gold. You would get $8,500. As part of the deal, you need to sing it and you need to sing it with the new lyrics. This is a fine idea for somebody. Really? Yeah. Well, I'm just, I'm putting that on and I get a 6% finder's fee.

Man, that is bargain. So I will talk to your, you seem very interested. I am. Yeah. This is a very. It's just, I've been a minor. Surprised you broke this out. You know, like.

Listen, I like to, I think this is a deal we could get done today and we could get you in the studio. You recut it. It's just means talking about gold bond medicated creams and powders. I'm going with it, man. It sounds like a great idea. Okay. It's with, it's like in keeping with the weight thing.

It really is actually. You know what I love? I had the joy of listening to your new record last night. Let me tell you something. Yeah. Thank you very much for listening to it. I spoke with another guy on the phone about who had listened to my record. Yeah.

Now this is a record. It took, we were in the studio for 11 straight days and nights and I'd written everything and we went in and we did the whole record and we made a documentary about making the record with this whole thing and created it all right there and that amount of time. Really, really special record with old friends. And then this guy says, I listened to your record and I could only listen to it on speakers on my computer. So I'm envisioning what the record sounds like to the speakers.

And this is the guy who's writing for like hundreds of thousands of Europeans. And he listened to the record through these little things. So I'm going, well, music has really, you know, gone to a new place. It's like this down place where it's just part of the background and where a reviewer of an album can say anything about the album after just having time to listen to it on a computer if it's a real music thing. So that, let's jump back to where you were when you said that. Okay.

Well, you know, we can cut that all out. No, no, no. Because I can do it better. I'll do another one. No, no. That's something you're... We'll do that after we do the gold bond medicated song, which by the way, I get 6%. We talked about that.

Yeah. That's good. I was in the bookstore. I went to a bookstore a week ago. I walk in prominently displayed Neil Young and Phil Baker to feel the music and I bought this book and I knew a lot about this because I've know that this is something you're really passionate about. A lot of people are very passionate about.

Your attempt to get music to be preserved and recorded correctly so that people hear everything that was there in the studio when it was made. I read this and you actually talk about this crusade as being the most important thing you feel you've ever done, which is quite a statement coming from you because you've done a lot of important shit. I don't mean to make it seem like anything bigger than it is. On the other hand, it's huge, it's gigantic for earth, for people to be able to hear music like much closer to live when you hear it coming out of your speakers in your house

or out of your earphones or anything, just to be able to hear all of it and then because you're hearing it all, you start to feel it. It's like we're being starved and it's hard to get the feelings, even though music always will give you feelings and music is great, no matter what it comes through. You're only getting 5% of it, so that's what this book is about. The book is really explaining, I understood this to some degree, but when iPods came out at the time to get all of the music that people wanted onto their iPods, people were getting, everything was being compressed down to 5% of what was originally there.

There's a bunch of people who were just so happy to get their shiny iPod and to have all of their music in one place. 5000 songs. Yeah, that they didn't realize they've made this sort of Faustian deal where you're getting this music, but you're just seeing a tiny tip of the iceberg, you're not really seeing the 95% that's underneath. I understood that, what I didn't understand until I read your book was that the technologies changed so much since then that there's no reason for us to be compressing music anymore.

There's no need for it in the real world, it's just existing and it's given people different levels of quality to sell the product at. Really this should be one level, it should be great, it doesn't cost anymore, there's no storage problem anymore, streaming is happening. Coming up to this point, it sounded really bad, I don't like streaming because it doesn't make me feel good to listen to it, but that's about to change. That's coming really soon in a giant way, it's going to be a beautiful thing. But what's interesting is that the technology has changed so that now we can get all this

music and we can hear, I mean it's something I love, I love it when I can hear a musician's hand change chord positions because their hand squeaks up against the back of the neck of the guitar. Yeah, and it's an acoustic thing in the air that comes from movement and you can pick that air up and everything in a fine recording, you get everything, it doesn't have to be limited to the little window and people accepted that when they took on the iPhones and that whole generation of thing, they accepted it, they bought into it, but it's not necessary anymore.

Everybody can have 100% of what was or 95% of what was recorded in the room, they can have that, they're not used to getting it. There's a little bit of an urgency in having this stuff recorded because the original tapes of these amazing recordings, and we're talking about pre-rock and roll, we're talking about jazz greats, we're talking about orchestral greats, you talk about Nelson Riddle, you talk about Frank Sinatra, you talk about these great recordings, that stuff is degrading. It's coming apart, it's falling apart, and if we don't get it, I don't care what happens to the technology, it's gone.

That's it. Yeah, we have a moment, so that's it. We got to try to figure that out and do that. There are ways of doing it, but it has to start happening. So I'm hoping that by people actually being able to hear everything very soon, not just with me, but in a giant way around the world and actually hear high res, that they're going to be able to understand the difference, it's a feeling. People have to, they have to want it and love it because they've heard it, not because

they've heard about it. There's been a big resurgence in vinyl in the last 10, 15 years, you know, Jack White, Third Man Records, doing recordings on vinyl. He made a vinyl record for me, and it's one of my prized possessions because I've had some cool things happening in my life, but when he handed me my vinyl record, I got a chill to this day, I feel. And there's something about that. I don't know what it is, but it does, I don't know why, it's counterintuitive that a technology

that existed in the 1920s would be superior and warmer and somehow richer and deeper than something, than stuff we've come up with in the 1980s and 90s. It is counterintuitive. And I think it's just, it's just the way it happened, but we can get out of it and we're on our way out. Back then it was all a reflection, it's like if you're looking at a perfect day, there's no wind, there's nothing, no distractions, and you're looking at Lake Shasta and Mount Shasta, and you can see the exact duplication of both reflecting and all the detail, a universe

of detail. You can't go in and make a pixelate. That's what analog recording is. There's a quality you have that I think has stood you in very good stead. I think more than any of your contemporaries, you've been able to retain your indignation about things and your anger about things in a way that has really helped you. I was listening to your latest record and I was listening to it on proper speakers and Thank you.

That's great. I did it for you. But I can, I can, I can see you doing that and loud and I, I was listening to it and I was thinking, there's a lot of beautiful and really great powerful songs on the record on Colorado, but you can still feel that you're angry, you're angry about the environment. There's a track green is blue and I can hear that you're mad that you're, that you're, and I don't mean that in a negative way. I mean that I think it's very hard for to use a cliched term, but a rock star, someone

who's achieved a very 1% of 1% of 1% of 1% kind of success that you've had to still be able to channel that. And I think you have as much of that now as you probably did in 1966. Is that true? I hope, I hope to, you know, improve ways of getting it out there with, you know, just develop that. So I'm glad that you feel that you still have, that you're getting that feeling because physically I'm 50 years or more older than I was when I started doing this.

So there's some kind of thing going on there that I'm dealing with and I'm very happy that you could feel the emotion coming out of these, out of these songs. It feels like, that's crazy horse. People say, what is it about crazy horse? Why do you like, that's it. I mean, these guys that you get together with, make it so that happens. They make the envelope that contains that, all of us together. So you guys get together and it's an alchemy that just, it, you, and it doesn't matter

how long it's been, how many years since before that, was it seven years or something? Seven years since we played and Nils was back in the band after being gone for like 40 years. Yeah. Yeah. Took a little break. Yeah. Took a break. And, you know, he's really, he plays with Bruce, but he used to play with me.

He's an amazing player. Yeah. Yeah. He used to play with me on, after the gold rush and tonight's the night and a few other things that we've done. He's a great musician and a wonderful friend and it's really a brother. You recorded this album in a studio at a very high altitude in Colorado. How high up were you?

9,200 feet, I think. Yeah. And when the members of Crazy Horse got to their rooms to check into the hotel, you would put oxygen tanks in their rooms. Is that true? Yeah, we did. Yeah. It's tough, you know, when you first get up there, you have to acclimate.

Yeah. And, you know, when you get involved in things, you use a lot of energy and you don't realize how much energy you're using until you stop using it and then you go, I have zero energy. Yeah. I can't even breathe. Right. You know, so you got to have this thing around in the beginning to, in case that should happen. So in between solos, people would take hits of oxygen, you can see it.

You can see it happening. You know, it does happen between songs, you know, maybe, you know, there'll be a time in the day when you might get tired and you just try some of the oxygen out of this thing and it makes you feel, you can feel the difference. It's like you feel straight. I should be taking it now. It's a weird thing. I'm not getting in.

I haven't had, I don't think I've been getting a proper amount of oxygen since the Gerald Ford administration. I need a lot of help. There's a really, there's a song at the end of the album, I Do, which I listened to a couple of times and then my wife came in from upstairs, she was listening in this, in this music room we have and she came in and she was like, I love this song. She didn't even know, she didn't know I was listening to your song, but that's a very powerful song and very simple.

Some of your songs, some of my favorite songs of yours are deceptively simple, but they haunt you. Helpless is a good example of just, that's three chords. I don't know why that song, it's like a hook that got into my lung when I first heard it, when I was a kid and it's still with me and I think you're able to do that better than anyone I know. You know, I like those kind of things. I find them in the music where the chords all lead to each other, but there's only three

of them and you don't want to break out of it and it's a circle, but it's a threesome. It's not four, it's not two, it's three, but you're playing in a four time. So it does something to the beat all the time, it comes back from another place and it turns it around and just when you think it should be starting, it's already started and it's into itself, you know, it's like, it's a great thing. So I like finding those and when you can find them, it's, they're accidental and then you just try to hold on to it and not get distracted and forget it. I always think of Buddy Holly as someone who early on, most of it's three chords.

Yeah, he's great. But man, what he could do with three chords and there's something about, and I put you in this category too of people who can, okay, it's in A, they go to D, they go to A, they go to D and they go to A and you know that you got to go to E at some point, but when you do go to E, it's a revelation, it's a religious moment and it's kind of like an Agatha Christie like who done it where the baller, the E is cut, well, no, anyone could tell you the E is coming, but it's this thing that I'll never understand. It's magical.

You can have three chords, show me two of them. And then when you give me that third one, I really do feel like I just saw the face of God. You know, that's the musical potion. That's what makes it all happen from the classics to every area of music has got that in it. If you put on something that you did with Buffalo Springfield or you put on something that you did in early solo career, can you relate to that guy? Can you, do you listen to that music and feel like this is, yes, that's my journey and I

relate to him or does it feel like that's someone else now? Really enough, there are some songs that I'm still right with, but there are not songs that I did in the same way as the Springfield ones. These are the Jack Nietzsche. I did expecting to fly with Jack. And if I listen to that today, I'm still right there. Other songs, I hear myself and I mean it's more of a performance, a live performance thing like with the Springfield in the studio doing that, even though we overdubbed and

we're terrified, the whole experience is different. I can't, when I listen to that, I go, that's me as a very young guy trying to figure out what I was doing. I remember how excited and scared I was. Because you're so young. Yeah. And I don't even know. I was like 20 or something.

Well, I was always aware that you, to be that young and come down from Canada and suddenly you're in the deep end of the pool. Yeah. Yeah, Stephen and I, we were just a couple of months apart and when you were, Stephen still the same age. Yeah. Yeah. And we just went through that whole thing together, it was amazing.

The guys in the group, I remember the drummer, Dewey, he was an old guy, he was like 28 or something. People went that long. He went around. You're still doing it. You know? I mean. Isn't it time for you to go sell insurance?

Yeah. That's. The rest of us were all about 20. So, you know, that was, it was exciting times that we really wasn't to be doing that. But when I listen to that guy today, I don't, I'm going, that was, that's another guy. That's a young, scared guy who hasn't quite figured it out yet. Yeah. Especially that first record.

Okay. I'm going to go real deep on an incredible nerdy question that's just for me. And it's not too deep for me, man. No, you're going to know what I'm talking about. This is a question that's just for Conan and they're probably going to forbid me this from going on the air, but you were one of the people that really got me interested in the Gretch guitar because you played the giant white falcon Gretch guitar. And I thought it was the coolest looking guitar in the world.

And I always dreamed about having a Gretch guitar and when I could first started teaching myself to play the guitar, I bought myself a 1964 Gretch Tennessean. Oh, wow. Yeah. Nice. And I have it to this day. But for you, was the Gretch about the sound or was it about the look? Because it is a, the Gretch, the white falcon is a big, crazy looking, I always think it's

sort of like, and this is like, it's like a prostitute, like it's, from a distance it looks amazing. Oh yeah. And you get up close and it's all glittery and white has these gaudy knobs and you're like, oh my God. It's a showbiz, it's a showbiz statement. It really is. It is made for a time that has passed, but it's just so proud of itself.

My God. Yes. It's great. So you can't, you know, mine's almost yellow now, it's got so, you know, from, from me playing it and from being around and everything. But the first one I got, I gave to Stephen, Stephen and I traded, I think we traded white falcons in the Springfield. Oh, okay.

The one I started off with was a mono one, that's the one he plays and that he played on Ohio and I switched to this stereo one, which he had. So we switched, you know, I love the stereo because that's the three bass strings come out of one amp and the three high strings come out of a completely different amp. I mean, it's like, and then they swing back and forth when you're going back and forth. It flies through the air behind you. It's fantastic. You know, see, everything you've just said sounds right, but to me, and I'll just admit

it, it was about the look. It was about, it was about, it's this big, I didn't care if it sounded like shit. When I was in my twenties and even when I was a writer on the Simpsons and stuff, I had my hair piled up, I had the long sideburns and I had a grudge and there are other writers are like, what the fuck is this guy? What is his problem? He looks, he looks like, looks like a, he looks great. He looks like a rooster on street.

What is this? Why is he, why is he our comedy writer? He should be in a 1950s movie, getting his shit kicked out of him. But I loved having this, it was all about the look of that guitar. And so I just thought, okay, I'm asking Neil about the, the grudge and now I got my. Look at the El Dorado. What's the difference? You're right.

Beautiful. America at the height of its artistic show business car. Yeah. Whoa. This is not a normal car. Right away. You look at it and you go, God. I spent, some artists couldn't sleep because of the, the, the angles and the, the, the curves.

They kept them up at night. They were up 24 seven working on the chrome, working on all this stuff. And then all the functions and it started really working. They really did it. You know, they, there's the great saying that's been a mantra in my life. God is in the details. That's a lot what you've written about and to feel the music. It's a lot in your career, which is, I don't care if you care or not.

But here's the weird dichotomy with you. You're, you've got a lot of power and you don't give a shit, but you also care very deeply about what you do care about. And so you care very much about, I'm going to put the details in there. I'm going to appreciate the work that goes into the El Dorado. I'm going to appreciate the beauty that goes into the Gretch. I'm going to appreciate the work that goes into this great analog track. And if that leads me nowhere, I don't care.

It doesn't matter. It really doesn't. I mean, I'm really, I really like what I do and I'm enjoying it. So you know, I'm going to keep doing it as long as I can. That's why I'm here right now working on this documentary for this, for the record when we made it. So we were ingesting the oxygen between the takes and everything, everything that happened. It's like so in your face.

And you guys recorded around the clock. I mean, pretty much around the clock. I mean, pretty much around the clock. Yeah. We're a bunch of dickheads. Please put that on the poster. Please put that on the poster. You can see, we're a bunch of dickheads in theaters.

Speaking for myself, I'm telling you, man, I would never work with me. I'm crazy. I would never work with me. I'm crazy. Yes. I'm going to get the word out. We're putting that on your resume. You may never work again after you've left this.

It's in your hands. You know, you have the show. I set it on the show. I'm going to have to live with it. That and the, the ad for gold bond medicated powder. Yes. That's over $8,000. It comes to you.

They're moving my equipment in right now. One last thing I had to mention is a bunch of years ago you played on my show and it was a huge deal for me and I hadn't met you before. I didn't see you right after the show. I thought you had left. I come into my dressing room. I had a guitar there. I always pick up the guitar and mess around with it a little bit much to everyone's annoyance

after the show to talk it down and I go to strum it and someone has completely detuned it. And I was pissed. I was really pissed. And I was like, who, I was like, who fucked with my guitar? Who fucked with my guitar? And just then you peaked around the corner and you were like, gotcha. Neil Young came into my room.

I didn't tune it correctly again for a long time. No, demodal. You were in demodal. You just didn't know it. I was in demodal and didn't know it and still don't know it. And it was one of the great, again, one of those moments where I thought, all right, I can die now. Neil Young just played a prank on me and detuned my guitar.

And then stuck around to watch me react. You probably could have written some great songs if you'd known you were in demodal. You're right. Great songs could have been written, but they're not. This, I know you're a very busy guy and I love that you're a very busy guy. And I want to say it is one of the great honors in my life that you would sit down with me and talk about everything. Frankly, you know, it's really fun.

It's good to see you. You look great. How do I look? Do I look okay? You look fine. I mean, I look fine too, right? We're fine. Well, actually, no.

Kind of not. Okay, so I was going to say, let's be honest, let's be honest. We both know. I think we both look great. I really do. Yeah. I'm very attracted to both of us right now. It's a great feeling.

Yeah. And, you know, please keep doing what you're doing. I intend to, and you too, and I'd like to come and do your TV show. Yeah. Well, guess what? No. Okay. We're busy at night.

I was prepared for that. Yeah. You know what I like? I have a whole new act. If you have any music I could listen to, we can't just book you until we hear some stuff. Okay, Neil? Yeah.

So, have someone get in touch with us, and I want to see some tape, and I want to hear some music. Okay. It can be anything. Well, bring it out. I'll be along right after it gets there. Thanks, man. Thank you, Neil.

A few weeks ago, you mentioned something about specific Gerber's baby food, so I thought we'd try some of it out. It's actually something we have in common, one of the rare things, but I thought we might celebrate. We have a lot of things in common. We do? Yeah. Too many things.

Oh, wait. I didn't have my glasses on. Who is this? Oh, Gourly. Oh, no, no, no. We have very little, yeah, a few things. I just put my glasses on. That's the stuff.

No, no, no. I'm sorry. Yeah. I thought Michael Jordan was sitting next to you, one of the greatest basketball players of all time, and a world-class competitor, and I thought, yes, we have a lot in common, but then I put my glasses on, oh, and it's just Gourly, but no, yes, you're right. We have nothing in common. Yeah, so I'm currently divvying out some spoons.

He's handing out some wooden spoons. Can I have some vanilla custard pudding from Gerber's? Oh, my God. This is great stuff. I know. I love this. I don't know how I feel about eating baby food. Let's recap.

Okay. Eyes admitted. My brother Neil and I used to steal my baby brother Justin's Gerber's baby food. We would steal it, and for years, my brother Justin was malnourished. How old were you and how old was your brother Justin? I'm 10 years older than Justin, so at the time he was a baby, I was 10, and my brother Neil was probably in his late 40s. He fought heroically at Evo Jima in World War II.

Anyway, we used to steal it, total assholes. We would steal food from a baby's mouth. And I did the same to my brother. And you did the same thing to your brother. And now here we are reliving this great memory because you went out and bought this Gerber baby food, which is mint. There's a little depiction on the side of a toddler, and I'm thinking about the baby that's not going to get this food.

You know what's depressing, too, is they don't come in those little glass jars anymore. Oh, I love the glass jars. I know. There is some food that does, but this doesn't. Can I tell you something? You would unscrew the top of the glass jar and it would go, yeah, do that so it would make that sound. The seal pop.

This is the sound of a child being robbed of its vital nutrients. And I want to say right now, I'm just giving you the statistics. I am six feet four inches tall, about 194 pounds. I am, if anything, probably overnourished. And here I am eating this baby food. This isn't right. This is weird. You don't like it?

This is weird. I don't know. I haven't tried it. Because I didn't have a younger sibling, so eating baby food is just, you guys went right in for it. Yeah. It smells weird. No, it's not like.

I don't know how I feel about it. Yeah. It just has that. You guys. That little vanilla kick that you don't get in anything else. There's some. Actually, you get it with most things. They put vanilla in almost everything.

But no, this is something special. Yeah. I'm out. No? Here, wait. I don't. You know what? Can I just say one thing?

It says right here, made with. Hold it. Oh, God. Captain Crunch. We got it all. You didn't let me finish. It says right here. You know what adds to the strange taste, Sona?

It says made with real breast milk. Oh, God. And then there's a picture of the woman whose breast milk it is. Oh, really? Hey, look. It's Andy Richter. Andy. Yay.

Do you want some baby food? No. No? It's really not good. It is not. Can I say something? My daughter used to eat it even like into like when she was nine or 10 and stuff and it's nasty.

That's what we were talking about. You know what? This is not what I wanted. I may have mislabeled it and this tastes awful. When you were like, you mean like. I was podcasting. Before you ordered your people, get made baby food. No, no.

I didn't order them. I didn't order them. I talked about it on the air. On the air. I brought you the head of Donage Bucket. This is not the flavor I remember, Sona. And it doesn't taste good. It does not taste good.

Is this your regular podcast or is this the offshoot podcast? I don't know what this is. No, no, no. This is the regular podcast. I don't know what this is. You know what this is? This is gold. Daisy's never had Captain Crunch.

Oh, you're giving Captain Crunch to your dog. And he's having a seizure now. Everybody wins today. She gets lots of sugar. She gets, yeah. She doesn't drink water. She drinks Pepsi. Come on.

We're leaving for real. Bye dog. All right, Andrew. Bye. What a pleasure. See you later. See ya. Hi, Andy.

I also think that the recipe probably changed in the last 40 years. They probably had things in it that were okay in the 70s that you can't put in food anymore. You know, like asbestos and Agent Orange and little pieces of chainsaw, chain. You don't think our pallets could have changed? Yes. Maybe it's us and not the baby food, you know? Well, I guess there's innocence was lost. Yeah.

Those were more innocent time when stealing food from a baby seemed funny to me. Wait a minute. It feels funny to me now. It still feels funny. Think of how tall, my brother Justin is tall, but think how he'd be a little taller. If I hadn't stolen a baby food. And you'd probably be a little shorter. Yeah.

Oh my God. Who does that? Anyway, I just want to. I owe him an apology. What's that? I said you owe him an apology. I owe Justin, my brother Justin, an apology for many, many, many things. Yeah.

Stealing his food, maybe the least of it. But that's between my brother Justin and I. I do love the guy. A very talented young man. I will publicly apologize to my brother Kerry for doing that. I'm sorry. I want to apologize to your brother for having you for a brother. Well, he may be the one person that that's that's merited.

Yeah. I can just see you wearing your spats and your pork pie hat. No way. Because you came here to work today wearing a crocodile Dundee hat. Who did? Yeah, I sure did. It's a hat that I got in Australia. It's a great crocodile Dundee cowboy hat that's got little teeth in it.

And I got it sort of as a joke in Australia. And I look badass in this thing. I look fantastic. And when I walk around, I feel good. It won't go on because I have headphones on. Anyway, let's make some evergreen comedy that doesn't depend on a prop that's in the room. Let's do real stuff. All right.

Well, let's wrap this up. You know, I have higher standards than you guys. You guys are, what is this? You know, hey, look, look at, so you were ahead. Hey, I just saw you burp. Hi, he, he, he, ho, ho, ho. You know, let's make something real. Let's make something good.

What? You don't even listen. You don't even know how this turns out. People were complimenting you on your Michelangelo accent. Yeah. It was very accurate. No, it was not. Yes, it was.

That's how Michelangelo spoke. Let's hear it again. I thought, you know what happens to me? I forget what it is I talked about because I just blither and blather. It's a nice thing. People liked the episode with David Letterman. And I swear to God, I don't remember it. It's just as simple as you are basically doing a derogatory accent of another ethnic group.

Yeah. It's like derogatory. Well, I said that Michelangelo was a dick and then you went with that. But here's the thing though. I confused Michelangelo with Beethoven. So, because someone was just talking to me like a week before we recorded that Beethoven was a dick. So when you said Michelangelo, I was like, oh yeah, I heard he was a dick.

Oh my God, I got them confused. No, no. Listen. You offensive German accent. Yeah. Beethoven had reason to be a little cranky, very hearing impaired, geniuses, trust me. Not an easy road to hoe when surrounded by so many mediocrities. So my point is this.

My point is that it's difficult for these people and it was probably difficult for Michelangelo. So I think dick is a strong term. No, I think you can probably be really good at something you do and then be nice to people. That's a good joke. He's unironically laughing right now. I think you can. What? I think it's okay to be nice to people around you.

Yeah, I agree. I agree. Yeah. That's the sound of me having remorse. It's also the sound of pervert makes me peering in a window. That's my remorse sound. Let's wrap this up. Wrap this up.

It's finally getting good. And then the minute I find true gold, which is the sound of my repentance sounding a little bit like a perv's orgasm, who took the last slice of pie. Conan, was it you? What are you doing there, Son? I'm folding a paper. I'm thinking about what you said. Here's the thing that's weird about it is that when they're actually dicks, they don't

realize what genius is that they're going to be perceived to be eventually. So they're just dicks. You don't think Michelangelo and Beethoven? No, I think he was just a guy painting a ceiling. And then nobody knew how it was going to turn out. No, it was not a guy painting a ceiling. I don't think anybody knew how it was going to turn out until it was done, but until then he was just kind of a dick, honestly.

No, no, no. Okay. First of all, welcome to history from people who've never read history. Michelangelo was a master sculptor and had proved that he was a master painter. By the time the Sistine Chapel gig came along, they weren't taking a flyer and some guy who had a giant roller brush and a bunch of blue paint. He had proven himself to be one of the foremost masters both of sculpture and painting. I mean, he was a genius also at architecture.

I'm sorry. If you want to know more, read The Agony and the Ecstasy. No. Wonderful novel. I don't think I will. You said it was 800 pages. So pass. Do you want to read that?

No. Oh, Wikipedia. I could probably know just as much as you know just by reading his Wikipedia page. So who's the stupid one here? I guess you win that round. Conan O'Brien needs a friend with Sonamov Sessian and Conan O'Brien as himself. Produced by me, Matt Gorely. Executive produced by Adam Sax and Jeff Ross at Team Coco and Colin Anderson and Chris

Bannon at Earwolf. Theme song by the White Stripes. Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino. Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair and our associate talent producer is Jennifer Samples. The show is engineered by Will Bekton. You can rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts and you might find your review featured on a future episode.

Got a question for Conan? Call the Team Coco hotline at 323-451-2821 and leave a message. It too could be featured on a future episode. And if you haven't already, please subscribe to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever fine podcasts are downloaded. This has been a Team Coco production in association with Earwolf.