Crosby, Stills and Nash ditch label and producer

The Guardian reports today that after getting at least a third of the way through a comeback album, those strange old dudes and ageing hippies, Crosby, Stills and Nash have split with Columbia Records and producer Rick Rubin. Despite months spent working on a covers record, the rock legends were reportedly tired of delays – and Rubin's obsession with Kid Rock.

"We have amicably parted ways with both Rick Rubin and Columbia," the trio said. The problem was not musical vision, according to the Daily Express, but the slow pace of recording. Rubin, who is co-president of Columbia, had a panoply of production projects, including new albums by Adele, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Gogol Bordello. His work on Kid Rock's new LP, Born Free, was reportedly particularly galling to David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash.

There were signs of friction between Rubin and the band in 2009. Though the group were excited to undergo the kind of reinvention Rubin engineered for Johnny Cash and Neil Diamond, it was already a laborious process. "We write down a list of songs we think are potentials, learn them, make up our version, and sing them for him," Crosby said. "He'll like maybe one out of eight." Despite recording songs such as James Taylor's You Can Close Your Eyes and Bob Dylan's Lady of the North Country, "it's a lot slower than it's ever taken us to do an album. Nash said last year. "It's hard to tell CSN what to do in the studio after almost 40, 50 years, but it's an interesting experience. We're certainly opening to listening to [Rick]."

The group's last studio album was Looking Forward, released in 1999.