Ivan Neville: ‘I Was Not Ready For That Level of Success’

“I never really wanted to do music,” Darryl “DMC” McDaniels of Run-DMC tells Ivan Neville, son of legendary soul singer Aaron Neville, during a candid interview at Park City Summit.

As a kid, he was more into comic books. But thanks to a number of influences, including his mother and father and the radio station 77 WABC, which was unique at the time for playing a diverse array of artists, he started writing music. 

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“I wanted to be a rock star like Freddy Mercury, but I couldn’t sing,” he says. “But once hip-hop came along…it gave me the opportunity to be a rock star without changing who I was.”

After his first solo album If My Ancestors Could See Me Now came out in 1988, Neville was not in a great place. He had some stardom, thanks to his time playing with the Neville Brothers in the late ‘70s, but hadn’t achieved the notoriety he longed for. As he tells it, he was doing a lot of drugs and got arrogant. As Neville began working on his second solo album, he got into a fight with his label, and the album was shelved. “Not putting that record out could have possibly saved my life,” he says. “Because at that time, I was not ready for that next level of success.” 

In this 45-minute conversation, the two musicians talk about the dangerous influences of money and fame in the music industry, the importance of free speech, and a whole lot more.

To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.