Neil Young used albums to roof his barn

Neil Young used thousands of albums to build a roof for his barn. Photo/AP.

Rocker Neil Young has revealed he tiled the roof of his barn with 20,000 unusable copies of his 1978 album, Comes A Time.

A "mastering error'' left Young dissatisfied with the sound of the album and forced him to pull thousands of copies from stores.

But rather than throwing the albums away, he recycled them in a unique way.

"The tape got damaged when it went through the airport or something,'' Young explained to RollingStone.com. "I had to go back and use a copy of the master - it was a copy, but it had better-sounding playback than the other one.

"I made a barn roof out of (the albums). I used them as shingles,'' he said.

Meanwhile Young has delayed the release of his four-album Record Store Day boxset until November.

Just 3,500 copies of Official Release Series Discs 5-8 were to be pressed, which would include On The Beach, Zuma, Tonight's The Night and his rare 1973 album Time Fades Away.

A statement said the delay was "due to several other projects that Young has in the works that he wishes to focus on".

The singer recently announced he was launching a digital music player, Pono, as well as a second volume of memoirs and a covers album.

- WENN