Joe Rogan is "very sorry" Neil Young pulled his music from Spotify.
Joe Rogan has sparked controversy with his podcast
The 54-year-old broadcaster's controversial podcast, 'The Joe Rogan Experience', has sparked a wave of artists, including the 'Heart of Gold' hitmaker, threatening to boycott the streaming service in protest about it spreading coronavirus and vaccine misinformation and Joe has insisted he "most certainly doesn't want" that to happen.
In a lengthy Instagram video, he said: “Now, because of this controversy … Neil Young has removed his music from the platform of Spotify and Joni Mitchell and apparently some other people want to as well.
“I’m very sorry that they feel that way. I most certainly don’t want that. I’m a Neil Young fan, I’ve always been a Neil Young fan.”
Following the criticism, Spotify have updated platform rules, including adding a content advisory to podcast episodes discussing the virus, and Joe has backed their move, as well as offering his own pledge to offer more "balanced" opinions.
He promised: “My pledge to you is that I will do my best to try to balance out these more controversial viewpoints with other people’s perspectives, so that we can maybe find a better point of view.
“I don’t want to just show the contrary opinion to what the narrative is. I want to show all kinds of opinions so that we can all figure what’s going on…
“I do all the scheduling myself, and I don’t always get it right. These podcasts are very strange because they’re just conversations, and oftentimes I have no idea what I’m going to talk about until I sit down to talk to people, and that’s why some of my ideas are not that prepared or fleshed out because I’m literally having them in real time. But I do my best.”
But the broadcaster took issue with the accusations of "misinformation"
Defending his "highly credentialed, very intelligent, very accomplished” guests, he said: “They have an opinion that is different from the mainstream narrative. I wanted to hear what their opinion is.”
Joe ended his message with a thank you to his "haters", who he insisted have a valuable role to play.
He concluded: “If I p***** you off, I’m sorry. And if you enjoyed the podcast, thank you.
"Thank you all the supporters and even thank you to the haters because it’s good to have some haters. It makes you reassess what you’re doing and put things into perspective and I think that’s good too.”
Tagged in Joni Mitchell Neil Young