by Graham Nash
Stephen also experienced a slide of sorts. Manassas kind of withered away. It was too expensive a band to keep on the road, and the unending tour bled piles of cash. A second album, Down the Road, reflected Stephen’s condition. It was sloppy, disoriented, not a solid effort. “Things were moving too fast,” he told an interviewer about that period. “I got a little crazed. Too much drinkin’, too many drugs.” We nearly lost Stephen a couple of times. I remember one occasion in particular, at his house in Surrey. He OD’ed that night, and we had to get a doctor there pronto, who pounded on Stephen’s heart while Crosby and I anticipated a bad ending. Luckily, we were wrong.
Croz and I were also chasing personal ghosts. David abandoned a reunion tour with his old group, the Byrds, and dealt with resurfacing depression, watching helplessly as his mother, Aliph, died from an agonizing bout with cancer.
All kinds of shit was raining down on us lads. It was time to get together and think it all over.
In the summer of 1973, Neil rented a funky wooden beach house by Mala Wharf in Maui, where the Mayan was anchored, which seemed like a lovely place for us to reconvene.
The house Neil rented was rather large, so there was room in there for all of us. Everyone except me brought family with them: David had Debbie Donovan, Neil came with Carrie, Stephen had just gotten married to French chanteuse Veronique Sanson, and Elliot Roberts brought his girlfriend, Gwen, and her two sons along. It was a great place for all of us to hang out. It was within walking distance of the nearest burger joint. Nobody knew we were there, and anyone who did left us alone. Talk about paradise! There were palm trees, sandy beaches, beautiful sun, friendly people. I loved the place from the moment I set foot on it. And for a while, I thought Hawaii would solve all of our problems.
One day, soon after we got there, David said, “We’re gonna go diving.”
I said, “Who’s this we, Masked Man? I’m not going diving.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Because there’s a fucking shark down there with my name on it, and I’m not going in. Screw you! Good-bye.”
He gave me some macho shit. “Hey, man, if I can do it, you can do it.” Anyway, we smoked a big one and thought about it.
Now, I’m not an ocean guy; I’m English. My fear of sharks came from seeing the movie Tabu as a child. When the young kid wants to marry the prince’s daughter and doesn’t have any money, even when he knows he’s got to give the chieftain a dowry, he dives deep into the lagoon to where the giant clam is and steals its pearl—except the giant clam closes over his leg and a shark gets him. Ever since, I’ve been terrified of sharks. Ironically, Crosby’s father was the cinematographer of that film, so I can lay blame directly at David’s flippers.
Anyway, my first dive was about 140 feet, no training, completely mad, almost suicidal. There was a submarine off Lahaina that had been decommissioned and sunk to do paint experiments. We went down and swam around and inside it and came up—and I’m still alive. So Crosby’s father gave me the fear, and his low-down son took it away.
We all came to Hawaii with tons of songs. There was “Time After Time” and “Carry Me” from Crosby, “Human Highway” from Neil, and “Wind on the Water,” “And So It Goes,” and “Prison Song” from me. There was definitely an album in that musical bounty. Rehearsals started almost immediately after we got there, seesawing between the deck of the Mayan and Neil’s house. Plans were to iron out the material before heading back to California, where we’d record at Heider’s. The album was going to be called Human Highway, after the song Neil had written. Everyone was getting along like a house on fire. Until the last day, when it was time to leave.
I’m still not quite sure what happened—and I’m not sure if anyone exactly knows. The four of us had gathered on the beach in front of the house. It dawned on me that we’d need an album cover, so I grabbed Stephen’s Hasselblad, stuck it in the sand, worked out the exposure and framing, walked into the shot, and had my friend Harry Harris snap the shutter, which produced a juicy color portrait that was absolutely fantastic. A cover in one shot! We could hardly believe our luck, but that was as far as our luck would go. Right after that, some business, some cocaine thing, went down, and suddenly we weren’t talking to each other. The energy just fell out of the project. We broke up and left Hawaii separately.
This is the kind of shit we put ourselves through. Music, drugs, talent, ego, excess, stubbornness—mix them together and it’s a powerful explosive.
One night after rehearsals, Croz and I were at my house in San Francisco, smokin’ it, when Croz looked out of the window and saw a guy trying to steal the hubcaps off his Mercedes. Because my bedroom was situated under the eaves, the huge, triangular windows didn’t open, so Croz grabbed a handgun out of his bag, hustled downstairs to the front bedroom, and fired at the guy out of the open window to scare him off. Worked like a charm. The guy stopped what he was doing and fled. But David assumed the guy had a getaway car nearby and would come back for it, because you can’t very well go running down the street with hubcaps.
Sure enough, not ten minutes had passed before the guy came back to retrieve his car, and David took a few more shots at him, putting one directly in the trunk of the car, just for good measure.
Two days later, I’d returned to Neil’s ranch, where we’d resumed CSNY rehearsals for Human Highway. That meant my house was empty. But Joel Bernstein, who by this time lived in an apartment next door and had never been told of the earlier shooting incident, noticed a suspicious guy who had pulled over in a VW and seemed to be casing the joint. Joel came over to make sure that the guy knew that the house was occupied, and got the shock of his life when two bullets came screaming in through the window. Obviously, the guy had come back and mistaken Joel for David. And he must have been a pretty good shot, because those shots were close, way too close for comfort.
Crosby always had guns around. Later, he would say it was because of what happened to John Lennon, but he’s been fascinated with firearms since he was a kid. And the Manson murders helped fuel his point of view. Those killings occurred in a house owned by Terry Melcher, who had produced the Byrds. Croz had been there often and lived less than a half mile away, which prompted him to add a twelve-gauge shotgun to his arsenal. I grew up in England, where no one, neither police nor criminals, had guns, so to me the gun thing was a pretty bad scene. Personally, I believe that the gun lobby—along with the tobacco lobby, the alcohol lobby, and the pharmaceutical lobby—will be seen as major criminals in years hence. But as far as Croz and CSNY went, it wouldn’t be the last time that guns played a role.
That was CSNY in the summer of ’73. And it’s been a trait of ours repeatedly through our entire existence. Put all of us in a room, and anything could trigger a fatal blast. We were our own worst enemy. What a partnership!
For a while, we kicked around in splintered variations. I actually went on before Neil when he played the Roxy’s opening in Los Angeles when Cheech and Chong had to cancel, and Croz and I continued performing as a duo in slightly larger settings. Stephen attempted to jump-start Manassas. Meanwhile, in the fall of 1973 I decided to stretch out on my own, putting together material for another solo album. Wild Tales was a good collection of songs but dark and moody, which was where I was at the time. Even the cover was pretty stark; Joel Bernstein’s black-and-white shot of me looking intense, forlorn, caught the vibe perfectly. For whatever reason, the public wasn’t ready for it. The album never caught fire and Atlantic didn’t promote it. The whole affair left me in a deep emotional hole.
Around this time, I was out doing something in Los Angeles with David when we drove back to his boat in Newport Beach. The plan was to spend a nice night having dinner, then go to the Mayan and smoke one, enjoying ourselves. David had his stash in the big shoulder bag he always carried. As we pulled into the shipyard, we noticed a convoy of black sedans in the surrounding parking lot.
“Ah, the fuzz, the feds, I can smell them,” Croz said. “They must be
here to bust me. Maybe I should leave my bag in the trunk. There’s a lot of stuff in it.”
We both laughed, writing it off to paranoia. So we parked and climbed onto the boat. Simultaneously, a US Customs agent came up the steps from the main cabin and pointed a gun at us. “Stop right there. You’re under arrest.”
Apparently, someone aboard the Mayan had been smoking dope. A person in the next boat had smelled it and called law enforcement. So big deal, they’d found a couple of roaches on the boat, but we hadn’t been there in a week or so. The cop didn’t want to hear it. He was only interested in making a bust. The way I saw it, he had no right to do that and I gave him an earful, a real bunch of shit. In my English way, I said, “This is not good manners. Why are you treating my friend like this?” I grew outraged at the way he treated Croz like a criminal. In retrospect, he was a criminal, but the way it went down wasn’t right—and I said so. Why I didn’t get arrested, I have no idea. But they took David off the boat in handcuffs.
Incredibly, they didn’t find David’s stash in the shoulder bag. He just casually hung it over a chair and everyone forgot about searching it. Lucky thing, too, because inside the bag was plenty of incriminating evidence. In any case, Elliot Roberts was called and Croz was bailed out, costing him a cool twenty-five grand to a lawyer to avoid a jail sentence.
But the allure of drugs was beginning to take its toll. When Croz and I did our acoustic gig at Carnegie Hall, an incident with dope cost us a powerful ally. For some reason, David didn’t want to travel with his stash. Instead, he had given an envelope filled with dope to Reine Stewart, one of the wonderful, beautiful naked women who were always around David. Croz learned that David Geffen was on his way to New York and insisted that Geffen bring it with him before we did the show. Geffen, of course, refused. He didn’t do that kind of shit, it was the last thing in the world he’d be involved with. Croz went ballistic. He told Geffen that if he didn’t bring the grass to New York, we weren’t going on that night, so begrudgingly Geffen relented. He put the envelope in his briefcase, got stopped at LAX, the envelope was found, and Geffen was promptly arrested and taken to jail. On Yom Kippur, of all nights. Even with that, Geffen managed to make bail and get to New York in time for our concert. He actually showed up at our hotel before we went on, at which point Croz demanded the dope. Geffen couldn’t believe his ears. “I was arrested and put in jail!” he explained, completely exasperated. “I don’t have it.” Croz was apoplectic. “I’m gonna fucking kill you!” he screamed. It was a standoff, but Geffen eventually had the last word. He figured that handling us was a nightmare and promptly ditched us and all his other rock ’n’ roll clients, dissolving his management business.
I once again realized the power of drugs and excess.
Another potent drug was CSNY, one whose habit I just couldn’t kick. No matter how much bullshit had gone down between us, making music with that gang was too much of a temptation to resist. So when a tour was proposed for the summer of 1974, I was in. We all were, and then some.
The idea was Bill Graham’s. He’d already put out feelers to national promoters and convinced Elliot that we could fill arenas and stadiums—about thirty-five of them, in fact—the first tour ever of that magnitude. Nothing under twenty thousand seats, with many topping fifty and eighty thousand strong, and one, the Ontario Motor Speedway, in California, clocking in at two hundred thousand. The Beatles had played Shea Stadium and the Stones had done some isolated big dates, but at that point it was unheard of that a rock band could put that many people in a facility to hear music, night after night, for two and a half months.
Things hadn’t ended great between us in Hawaii, but—so what? We’d make it work. We knew there was a lot of money to be made. We hadn’t been out on the road for a while and all of us had expensive lifestyles. The financial incentive was definitely there. And, in that respect, I have to say we sold out. Generally, we liked to play small venues, where you could see the audience’s eyes, gauge their body language to know if they were connecting with you. But that’s too difficult with fifty thousand people. So we did it for the money.
Everything was going to be first-class. Travel was in private planes, helicopters, and limousines with police escorts. Hand-embroidered pillowcases in every hotel with Joni’s drawing of the four of us silk-screened in five colors on the front. That same logo was burned into teak plates that we used at all the shows. We stayed in huge suites at the best hotels, with the most amazing food every night: sushi, champagne, lobster, caviar, all endless. We had our own guy who supplied each of us with a gram of coke every day. Once, I called my friend Mac and asked, “What happens if you swallow an entire gram, because I think I just took the coke capsule along with my vitamins?” He said, “Don’t worry, just watch TV. You’ll be fine.” Incredible decadence.
The music was another thing altogether. We’d perform our preshow ritual: snort a line and hit the stage. Sometimes we were great, other times we weren’t. There were a couple nights we were ragged, out of tune, lethargic. None of us was really on top of his game. There was just too much cocaine around. I don’t think that when you’re smoking the amount of dope and snorting the amount of coke that we did—and staying up to all hours of the night—that it’s possible to be on top of your game. We were out there, constantly stoned—constantly—and glad of it. It was madness. We were so incredibly loud that it was difficult to keep pitch. (I’m sure we did major damage to our hearing on that tour.) The monitors weren’t great. And it’s hard to sing “Guinevere” to tens of thousands of people.
We knew how to shift onto automatic pilot, and there was a certain amount of that taking place. Onstage, Neil stood to one side, Stephen to the other, with Croz and me in the middle, all those hardcore egos colliding like nuclear fusion, but as soon as the lights hit and Stephen kicked off the riff to “Love the One You’re With,” our opening number, all that flew out the window. It didn’t matter how much you despised the guy who didn’t want to be part of the band or another guy who is so out of it that it’s hard to bring him back. The moment the music started and the lights hit us, everything was okay.
Despite all the craziness, our shows were often incredible: four- or five-hour extravaganzas that didn’t end until well after midnight. Joni was part of the festivities, not our opening act—she was too big for that, but she alternated with Jesse Colin Young, the Beach Boys, even the Band occasionally. It was a different combination every night. You’d never know who was going to shine. As far as CSNY went, we all wanted our songs in there, so there was plenty of group and solo stuff. Neil would blow the crowd away with “Pushed It Over the End.” He was telling the tale, and he was an angry motherfucker, really emotional and extra-powerful. David performed “The Lee Shore” and a new song called “Time After Time,” during which Stephen would wander out to sing with him, holding his newborn son, Christopher, then do “Word Games,” a killer of a tune. I’d do the “Prison Song,” sometimes “Chicago” or “Our House.” We’d do whatever we felt like on whichever night. I once played a new song that I’d just written for my girlfriend Calli and had to teach the guys the chords, live, right there onstage.
We were good at making everything appear seamless. Onstage, our image was the Four Musketeers. Still, we each had our individual personas. I’m the guy who tries to keep us all together, careful not to isolate any of the parts. Neil needed no hand-holding, he took care of himself. He knew how to do it. But Neil usually followed his muse. If the music wasn’t good he checked out early, and you’d feel the hole where his energy should have been. Crosby was also pretty strong on that tour, so I didn’t have to worry about giving him a boost. Stephen was my main concern. If Neil was the added fuel that made the locomotive go faster and blow more steam, Stephen was still the driving force in the band. And if he was failing, then we were failing. It all had to do with his delicate approach. He tended to overblow when he got insecure or when he was out of it, in which case the subtleties—those fabulous Stil
lsian subtleties—would not show up in his touch. So you had to mother Stephen onstage for him to play at his best. During a song, I usually walked over to encourage him, smiling even when he, or any of us, made a mistake. It was important, if that happened, that we laughed and said, “Fuck it. Next song. Who cares? Carry on.”
If you looked behind the scenes, there were cracks in the facade. Neil was up to his old isolationist tricks, being in the band, but not a part of the band. He kept his distance every chance he got. He’d turn up for soundchecks but disappear until showtime. He didn’t hang, even at some of the ridiculous parties after the concerts. And he showed up for the gigs in mirrored shades. The rest of us usually traveled together, but Neil had his own Winnebago with Carrie and their son, Zeke, a symbol of independence, which had everything but a no-trespassing sign on the door.
Crosby was engaged in his own sexual divertissement. He took two beautiful young women on tour with him: Nancy Brown, a stunning young girl from Great Falls, Montana, and Goldie Locks, from Mill Valley, not as pretty as Nancy but, shall we say, way more adventurous. Those ladies totally took care of David all through that tour. Crosby had incredible sexual energy. It got to be such a routine scene in his room. I’d stop by with someone and go, “Aw, fuck, he’s getting blown again. Oh, dear, let’s give him a minute.”
It was a wild, profligate, orgiastic, self-indulgent couple months, loaded with crazy scenes and often wonderful music. On that tour, Neil Young hit a patch of brilliance in his songwriting: “Don’t Be Denied,” “On the Beach,” “Hawaiian Sunrise,” he brought all of them to the act, great, great songs, and we did our best to play them all brilliantly, too. Stephen had moments when no one could touch him, not Clapton or Bloomfield or Beck or Santana or anyone in that league. And we all sang our hearts out, the CSNY magic. Those were the highlights that I try to hang on to. Some nights after the show, we celebrated our triumphs. We’d have great parties with strange people all taking the weirdest drugs and eating the best food—all paid for by us, of course. Other nights, the excess would overwhelm. Tensions between us crept up all the time. The petty bickering was so damn debilitating. The ups and downs, the highs and lows, were emotionally unrelenting. For obvious reasons, Crosby took to calling it the Doom Tour.