David Crosby was among the handful of artists who decided to follow Neil Young and take their music off Spotify due to grievances with Joe Rogan. He hadn’t said much about it aside from some brief statements, but now he has spoken about the ordeal at length in a new Stereogum interview.
At the top of the conversation, Crosby was asked about the Spotify situation and he starting by saying he was “stunned” that his label was cool with taking his and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s music off the platform. He also spoke about his general disdain for Spotify, and streaming services in general, due to how they pay artists (not much). He also suspects karma will come to bite them at some point, saying, “They’re not doing the right thing, and in the long run it will get them. In some kind of karmic thing, it’s going to come around and crush them. I don’t know what it’ll be, but I hope it’s soon.”
Then he got to Rogan, saying:
“I think Joe Rogan is… eh, not real impressive. But I think he has a right to spew his garbage. He has a right to do it. I think Spotify has a right to put him up there. I absolutely will fight for their right to do that. I have a right to not be associated with it. I told a friend this morning, ‘Listen man, if I was selling my records in a marketplace, I don’t want to be selling them next to some spoiled meat.’
That’s why I don’t want to be on the same platform as Joe Rogan. He’s calling people the n word all the time. He’s talking about women as if they’re a mouth and a pair of tits. He doesn’t really represent me at all, so I don’t want to be there with him. That’s all I said. I said I’m removing me. I’m not trying censor him or you. That’s of course the first thing that all his fans said: ‘This is censorship! You used to be a hippie!’ I still am. I still have the exact same set of values. I just don’t want to be associated with that guy.”
He also noted that even if Spotify got rid of Rogen, he does not “envision going back,” saying, “No, I don’t want to be in there. I don’t like ’em and their quality’s lousy and their payscale’s lousy and I don’t want anything to do with them.”
Crosby spoke a lot more about the topic, including how he feels about only a small number of artists leaving the platform, so check out the full interview here.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. .
