LOS ANGELES - Neil Young wants to talk about vegetable oil.

It would be reasonable to expect that the rock 'n' roll veteran has more pressing matters on his mind -- he's just launched a month-long concert tour to complement the theatrical release of "Greendale," his first film in 22 years.

Singer, songwriter and filmmaker Neil Young (R) is shown as he shoots a portion of his new film 'Greendale,' in this undated publicity photograph. Young wants to talk about vegetable oil. It would be reasonable to expect that the rock 'n' roll veteran has more pressing matters on his mind -- he's just launched a month-long concert tour to complement the theatrical release of 'Greendale,' his first film in 22 years. But for anyone familiar with the project's storyline, which tackles such weighty subjects as religious warfare, corporate duplicity, the erosion of privacy and the destruction of natural resources, it will come as no surprise that its creator is eager to discuss not merely the tour itself but the tour's means of transportation. 'I have 17 diesel vehicles, and they're all running on vegetable oil farmed by American farmers,' Young said. (Reuters)

But for anyone familiar with the project's storyline, which tackles such weighty subjects as religious warfare, corporate duplicity, the erosion of privacy and the destruction of natural resources, it will come as no surprise that its creator is eager to discuss not merely the tour itself but the tour's means of transportation.

"I have 17 diesel vehicles, and they're all running on vegetable oil farmed by American farmers," Young, one of the founders of the annual Farm Aid charity concerts, said in a recent interview with Reuters.

Traveling cross-country in that biodiesel caravan with Young are his longtime backing band Crazy Horse and a troupe of friends and family, most of whom are reprising roles they created in the film. In Young's visionary slant on contemporary Americana, they play the residents of an invented California town.

With its rural setting and "down-home" people, Young said, "Greendale" is "almost like Disney at first. It's pretty mellow." But there's a decidedly non-Disney resonance to the fictional story's events -- murder, civil disobedience, FBI surveillance and media voyeurism.

OLD MAN TAKE A LOOK AT MY LIFE

"You can read about it in any paper; it's happening right now," Young said. "They're real people. And they're being affected by what's going on."

Emblematic of that is the character of Grandpa, the outspoken patriarch of the Green family. Cutting to the heart of the matter with folksy and incisive observations, he's struck a chord with American concert audiences.

"He's having a rough time," Young said. "The whole thing that he believed in is breaking down." Young senses that, like Grandpa, his U.S. audiences "don't like America to not be free. They don't like all of this behind-the-scenes stuff," he added, referring to the Patriot Act, a controversial tool in the U.S. government's war on terror.

Young said he supported the act until he saw how it was being implemented. "It gives people who are shown to be untrustworthy -- and unworthy of having power -- way too much power."

But for all the bleak issues that "Greendale" confronts, it's not hopelessness that prevails but a powerful sense of renewal, with 18-year-old protagonist Sun Green (Sarah White) finding her voice as an artist and protester.

"I believe in youth," Young said. "It's eternally going to wash away all of the sins and start over again. It is the great thing that happens."

Young, whose four-decade career has been characterized by faithfulness to his muse rather than slavishness to audience expectations, didn't set out to create a self-described "musical novel."

MULTIMEDIA APPROACH

He followed his instincts to new ground, and "Greendale" has evolved into a multimedia composition that includes the film and concert/stage show, plus two editions of a CD/DVD set, a book to be published in the spring and an intricately detailed Web component (http://www.neilyoung.com), complete with the Green family tree and character profiles.

Performing "Greendale's" 10-song cycle last summer in a solo acoustic tour of Europe, before the album was released, Young prefaced the numbers with explanations of the events linking them, adding and refining details with each telling. The introductions sometimes ran longer than the songs themselves and possessed a vivid visual sense.

"When the story of Greendale came out in the music and I finished the record, that's when it struck me that we could make a film," Young said.

He experimented with dialogue for a long-form video, and found the juxtaposition of dramatic scenes and band performances "no good." But director Bernard Shakey (Young's nom de film) saw "an otherworldly quality" in the acted sequences. He continued working with his cast -- among them Young's wife, Pegi -- who lip-synced to the album's tracks.

Self-distributed by Young's own Shakey Pictures, the film is set to be shown in at least 40 cities so far.

© 2004 Reuters Ltd

###