Neil Young and the Chrome Hearts have finished recording their debut album.
The 79-year-old singer-songwriter and his band have have been working on their first collection together with producers Lou Adler and John Hanlon at Rick Rubin’s Shangri-La studio, and he’s given fans a promising update.
Writing on his own ‘Neil Young Archives’ blog, he said: “It is in mastering now to make the vinyl, CD and digital copies.
“I am very happy and relieved to have [this] done in the short time it took.
“The album art has been completed and handed in with Jenice Heo. I am working on the lyric sheets now, hoping to hand-write the words and get them in, in time…”
The ‘Heart of Gold’ musician is hoping to drop the record in April, even if he admitted that could be an ambitious timeline.
He continued: “It is a happy feeling I have today, knowing I have made an album I think people will enjoy.
“I hope it’s out in April. That would be pretty fast.”
He described playing with the Chrome Hearts as “a joy” as they worked on the music in Malibu a couple of months after writing the tunes.
He said: “I wrote these songs in November and December. They feel free to me and I am very happy to have this all ready for you.
“It won’t be long now and it will be great to have new songs to play on the road this summer in Europe, the USA and Canada. We are looking forward to that!”
Neil – whose ‘lost’ album ‘Oceanside Countryside, recorded in 1977, will be released on February 14 – recently made a U-turn after pulling out of Glastonbury Festival over the BBC’s involvement.
In a statement posted on his website, Young said: “Due to an error in the information received, I had decided not to play the Glastonbury Festival, which I have always loved.
“Happily, the festival is now back on our itinerary and we look forward to playing. Hope to see you there.”
It is not clear whether Young’s decision will mean that his set will be televised after he only allowed the BBC to screen a short portion of his two-hour headline set when he last played at the festival in 2009.
He previously suggested that he had turned down the chance to perform at the world-famous festival as he bemoaned how the event had fallen “under corporate control”.