Neil Diamond and Rick Rubin Return to the Studio

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On Saturday, Neil Diamond will kick off a 17-show tour, but when the tour ends on January 8, Diamond has immediate plans to return to the recording studio. On January 12, Diamond will team with producer Rick Rubin to begin work on their third album collaboration. Rubin previously worked with Diamond on 2005’s 12 Songs and his May 2008 release Home Before Dark, which earned Diamond his first number chart-topping album of his career.

As Diamond said to Billboard, “I told (Rubin) I want to start writing on the 12th,” and “He said, ‘Why don’t you not start writing and let’s sit down and talk about what the concept is and what we’re gonna do.’ I said, ‘Good idea,’ so we’ll meet on the 12th and go from there.”

Although Diamond does not want to speculate on the concept for the new album, he did mention that he expects it to be “a different approach” from their previous partnerships. Upon further expansion, Diamond replied that he does not currently plan to use any leftover material from his previous two sessions with Rubin saying, “We don’t know if the songs we’ve recorded are going to be meaningful or even usable on this next album.”

There is no word on when Diamond hopes to have the album released. For fans that cannot wait, or that were unable to see him live, Diamond plans to release footage from his current tour as both a television special and DVD sometime next year.