What Neil Young Told Dan Rather About Being Interviewed By Marc Maron

The hardest hurdle to jump over is the one we set for ourselves. The one we talk up to the point it makes us want to walk away, because we’ve talked ourselves out of it. Nobody else is putting that hurdle there, it’s just us and our fear.

A little planning and then some good old commitment to our craft can go a long way. It might be terrifying in the moment, but once we’re in the moment, there’s nothing left to do but see it through.

I heard this story last week and it captures this perfectly. Plus, it has a happy ending. It was about the time Marc Maron had Neil Young over to record a podcast, and how, of course, he had a plan to interview this guitar god.

Maron knew he had an amp Young liked to use, so he set it out, along with some guitars. He knew they’d walk passed the setup, and he figured he could make an ice breaker out of, “Hey, you’re familiar with this one, right?”

It was a good strategy. Familiarity breaks down barriers. On most people, this works perfectly.

What he didn’t know was that Neil Young likes to give interviewers a hard time.

So when he asked if he was familiar with that amp, even though he definitely was, Young answered, “No, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Maron didn’t quit. He worked at him. He went toe to toe, round for round, to get him into a conversation, which at about the 15 minute mark, started to actually go pretty well. Young laughed. They had a proper hang.

They weren’t going to be friends after it, but they weren’t going to be enemies either.

A good while later Maron ran into a friend who worked with Dan Rather. As it turned out, directly after Young’s appearance on Maron’s podcast, he went to another location to film an interview with Rather.

When Young arrived on the set, he went up to Rather and told him he’d just had a great interview. Maron would have been surprised to hear “great.” He knew it was good, but that first 15 minutes? Come on. He didn’t earn great, he’d worked hard to salvage good, probably at best.

But Rather, always a man with a question, followed up and asked, “What made it great?”

Young’s answer, which is about the highest praise for or from any artist, was, “The guy was fearless and wasn’t afraid to fail.”

All those big, successful, intimidating people - they seem scary. But they’re just people. The bigness, the successfulness, the intimidation - they are hurdles they’re maybe gesturing too, but the fear to take them on, that’s all on us.

We can jump. We might not get over them. But the fear to act by all those adjectives, it’s only in our heads.

Maron jumped. I mean, Young was already in his garage recording, what else was there to do? He jumped and hurdled and raced to the end because why not - it was Neil Young after all!

The fear is real. It’s everywhere we want or long or are curious to go. And, it’s imaginary.

What happens if you press publish on that piece, click send on that email, or anything else that forces hesitation into some action? It doesn’t even need to work - it just needs to be done.

Be fearless. Don’t be afraid to fail. You might not get to hear about it, like Maron did, but on the off chance you do, you might find out your commitment to the process is really paying off.