seafoam Wrote:
I always thought a Young with Lanois album made sense. Have they worked together previously?
nope. Could be interesting, considering what Lanois did with Willie on
Teatro. Neil has desperately needed to work with an experienced producer (other than Niko Bolas) since David Briggs passed away.
RS: What's it like recording without David Briggs? Has that been a big change? [Young's longtime producer, David Briggs, died in 1995.]
Poncho:Andy, man, you're pulling stuff out of me! I was holding this back. I don't know if I should say this, but the new record – not Americana – whatever they're calling this new record … I think that David will be proud of it. It's really more along the lines of something we would have done with David.
Once David was gone, I felt like we kind of lost our compass a little bit. We had the sound and we had the big machine, and we could play anything and play pretty good, but we weren't putting any great records together. I mean, Broken Arrow was okay. It wasn't like Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere or Rust Never Sleeps or Ragged Glory.
RS: Do you think that was because Neil and David were so close, and David wasn't afraid to challenge Neil and really push him?
Poncho:Definitely. I can remember nights where we'd be playing and thinking, "We're playing our asses off," and then David would come in and go, "Gee, that's pretty good if you want to have people hear you noodling." [Laughs] Or he'd say to Neil, "I guess you're tired tonight. Maybe you should try to sing the vocals some other time."
RS: Are there people in Neil's life now that can do that?
Poncho:When I'm playing and everything, I don't really have it together to make comments like that because I'm so lost in what we're doing. It's hard being a producer. All of us tried to take on a little bit of David's job. But we sucked at it. We're musicians. We're not producers. We can't hear the overall picture like he could. He had a deep-seated rock & roll heart, and he never let us get away with anything.
Read more:
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/ ... z23esU2WYW 
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