As the case garnered coverage, the anti-GMO crowd was re-energized once more. And Neil Young seized the moment, releasing The Monsanto Years and embarking on a tour of the same name. At one pre-show press conference, accompanied by Vermont’s then-Democratic Gov. Peter Shumlin, Young pledged $100,000 to the legal case defending the GMO labeling law.

Another guest at the conference was Shiva Ayyadurai, a technologist who’d published dubious research showing GMOs were dangerous. Ayyadurai would in 2018 run as a Republican (and later, as an independent), against Elizabeth Warren for a Massachusetts U.S. Senate seat. (Warren opposed an overly strict federal GMO labeling bill.) Ayyadurai has since pivoted to spreading COVID-19 vaccine misinformation—it was his tweet that started the #firefauci hashtag, when then-President Donald Trump retweeted it.

Young’s Monsanto album release and media tour doubled as activism—amplifying misinformation about GMOs to large mainstream audiences. He released a short anti-GMO documentary aptly named Seeding Fear. Most notably, and ridiculously, was an appearance on The Late Show with Steven Colbert.