Jeff Rosenstock and Laura Stevenson Wish Neil Young a Happy Birthday with New Covers EP

It’s Neil Young’s 74th birthday, and Jeff Rosenstock and Laura Stevenson have given all of us the perfect gift: A four-track covers EP, Still Young, featuring “Harvest Moon,” “After the Gold Rush,” “Ambulance Blues” and “Through My Sails.”

Rosenstock and Stevenson go way back, having grown up in the same DIY punk-rock scene in New York. They’ve known one another “since [they] were teenagers skankin’ our buns off in the same VFW halls, church basements and high school auditoriums,” as Rosenstock puts it (Stevenson is quick to clarify that she “did not skank”: “I was merely a spectator”). Still Young finds them taking on new roles and new sounds in collaboration. “I like hearing Laura play guitar and she convinced me to sing quieter than I ever have,” says Rosenstock, who credits Stevenson with introducing him to the songwriting legend.

In conversation, the two offered their thoughts on Young’s diverse oeuvre and his impact on their musical ethos:

Jeff: Seth from Polyvinyl has joked that I like “sad Neil” and I have claimed on multiple occasions that “I hate it when Neil rocks.” But I don’t. I love it when he does anything, because no matter what the project is it always feels honest and pure. He is a famous-as-fuck songwriter that could sell out a basketball arena at the drop of a hat even though he’s always sticking his middle fingers up at the world, his audience included. That’s the kinda shit we’re into.

Laura: I think it’s just so different when he rocks. I get that the two are such opposite ends of the spectrum but they still have the same underlying emotional content. I feel like Jeff and myself, as songwriters who grew up in punk rock, have a similar thing, where you can be very sweet and beautiful, and then at times, kind of ugly and heavier, but it’s always the same voice and the same intention at the end of the day.