by Graham Nash
The cover was also a last-minute slap-together. Tradition has it that a picture works best to sell an album, especially for as identifiable a group as Crosby, Stills & Nash. I would have preferred it that way, with an image of the three of us together, happy and healthy. But David looked dreadful. He was overweight. He looked like Dra- cula: No amount of makeup could make him presentable. And there were those sores, his famous staph infection. So we approved an illustration by Gilbert Williams called Celestial Visitation, three flying saucers hovering above a temple in the canyon of a magical kingdom. Another bit of a smoke screen to mask our ongoing anarchy. Proof, again, that we were wasted on the way.
chapter
15
CSN DIDN’T TOUR TO SUPPORT DAYLIGHT AGAIN, AT least not at first, not when it was released. We were too concerned about David’s deteriorating condition, especially from reports that were coming in from the road. His reckless behavior was making his backup band nervous.
I’m not sure whose idea it was to stage an intervention, but once we decided to do it, there was no turning back. The idea of a crisis intervention, as it’s called, was an entirely new one for me. Its purpose, ostensibly, was to save someone’s life—to assemble a person’s family and friends in order to confront a substance abuser and convince them, by telling him or her, gently and with love, exactly how they’ve hurt them and to voluntarily get help in overcoming the problem. Everything about it was radical and inexact, but it seemed to many of us a logical last resort.
A bunch of us decided to participate: me, Jackson, Paul Kantner, Grace Slick, Joel, Stanley Johnston, Nancy Brown, and Carl Gottlieb, among others. We gathered at David’s Mill Valley house on May 11, 1981, when Croz was expected home from the last date of a tour. We were all there, seated in a circle, in his living room, waiting for him to arrive. Gene Schoenfeld, a doctor from the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic in San Francisco, briefed us on what to do and how to behave: that we had to be strong, to deflect the denial that would come. We were instructed to tell David, calmly and lovingly, how he affected our lives, what it was about his actions that upset us, how it affected us personally. It was just after sunset. We hid our cars. Nothing was evident from outside that would tip Croz off. As darkness fell over the room, we heard David’s car pull up in the driveway. A minute later, he slammed the front door, dropped his Halliburton case on the floor, and shouted, “Hey, home—I’m here! Fantastic! This is fabulous!” Then he spotted us sitting there and went: “Oh, fuck!”
I grabbed Jan and gave her a hug, but someone quickly steered her outside, away from the intervention. Since Jan and David were coaddicted, we were told it would be better to separate them and get them into individual treatment centers, but in the end, they went to the same place.
The look on David’s face was ghastly. He knew this was a moment of decision, and I wasn’t sure if he was up to handling it. I remember Carl Gottlieb looking at David’s swollen feet and saying, “Oh, man, you’ve got edema here.” Croz couldn’t even put shoes on, with all the swelling in his legs. We sat him down and told him how much we cared about him—his soul, his physical well-being, his music, who he was. Then we began to take turns, each of us going through our personal stories.
Grace, who was a recovering alcoholic, talked about her own substance abuse, as did Paul, who was very frank and confessional. Jackson accused Croz of losing his musical edge, especially his songwriting, which was pretty much shot. When it was my turn, I told him how betrayed I felt. How the drugs had deprived me of our friendship, which I desperately missed, how all the lies and dishonesty sabotaged our partnership, to say nothing of our greatest pleasure, singing together. “Remember how we made a deal not to be victims of this fucking world,” I said. It all came pouring out, all of my resentment. I went through a litany of the bullshit that had pissed me off. He was taking all of it in, but I could see him getting fidgety. I figured he wanted to go get high.
The intervention went on for nearly three hours. By the end David was a wreck, he was in tears, unable to function. We convinced him that he needed immediate professional help. Jackson and I had arranged for him to go to Scripps in La Jolla, whose drug-detox program was renowned. Jackson paid for a private plane to get him down there the next morning. Since there was no medical insurance, I wrote a personal check for $3,500 to underwrite his treatment.
David went into his bedroom to pack and use the bathroom, which raised my suspicions. I knew this guy well. So I followed him, because I knew—I know my friend. Sure enough, he was in there hitting the pipe. I was outraged. Something inside me just exploded. I flipped out. I couldn’t help it. We were standing nose to nose, screaming at each other. After all the love that had been directed toward David for three fucking hours, he stole off and got high. I knew he couldn’t help himself, but emotionally I was gone. If he wanted to kill himself, that was his business. I threw in the towel. I’d had it.
Jackson volunteered to stay with Croz all night until he could get him and Jan on the plane down to Scripps. It was a bad scene, another bad scene. David tried every way to get out of going, delaying, dragging his feet. Jackson even took him to score the next morning so he wouldn’t suffer withdrawal once they got in the air. Little did anyone know that David and Jan freebased throughout the entire flight, lighting their pipe with a propane torch they’d smuggled aboard.
Somehow, Jackson got them settled into Scripps without an enormous amount of difficulty, but by the time he flew back to LA that same morning, David and Jan had already checked themselves out. They got into a cab and convinced the driver to take them all the way to Los Angeles while they freebased in the backseat.
Jackson washed his hands of the situation, as did I. We’d done all we could for David Crosby. There was no more left in the tank. I had a family to think of, my kids to protect. It was time for me to get on with my life, even if it meant separating myself once and for all from my friend.
FUNNY THING HAPPENED while I was minding my own business: The Hollies, of all people, rolled back into my life. In August 1981, a Stars on 45 medley called “Holliedaze” was released in England and became a smash on British radio. Have to say, I never saw that coming. It had been about fourteen years since I had anything to do with the Hollies, when I walked out on Clarkie and the band. Now we were back on the UK charts. Naturally, Top of the Pops wanted the band to appear—the original Hollies, with Eric Haydock and me. Bobby Elliott called and asked if I was interested in coming over and doing the show. I said, “Fuck, yeah, let’s keep it all rocking,” so Susan and I took off for the UK.
It was a little tentative with Allan at first. It was the first time I’d seen him since splitting from the band. I definitely felt an edge, an undercurrent that quickly ebbed away. He looked good; his voice was great. And even if he was still bitter with the way I’d handled things, career-wise he had nothing to complain about. The Hollies had two number one records after I’d left—“He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother” and “Long Cool Woman (In a Black Dress)”—the same kind of success that I had with CSN. If they’d spiraled downward, it might have been different. But each of us had our respective hits, so we were even on that score. Time to move on.
We did Top of the Pops and the weird thing about it was … nothing felt weird. The moment we started harmonizing together with that classic Hollies blend, it was like 1963 all over again. Man, I slipped right into singing with Allan and the lads. It felt good, as though I’d never left.
After the TV show, I said, “What are you guys up to?”
“We’re heading into Abbey Road to make another record, and then over to America to tour.”
Yeah, well, that was interesting. I had to think, for a moment, about what I was going to say next. If I suggested teaming up again, a reunion of sorts—which was so tempting—I’d have to deal with old fears about moving backward after such a progressive and innovative stretch. I was about to turn forty. Did I want to go back there again? Put myself at a rocky professional crossroad? But,
God almighty, was it easier to sing with the Hollies than with CSN! It was certainly more fun, less plagued with personal bullshit. No freebase, no egos, no Neil Young. Unlike my demanding partners in the States, the Hollies didn’t give a shit if someone handed them a coffee that was two degrees colder than it should be because they didn’t get it right away. I wouldn’t have to hear, “Hey, man, my Louis Vuitton bag got scuffed! Who’s responsible?” CSN lost several members of the crew because some poor soul didn’t take care of the luggage. The Hollies were such easygoing guys. They were all so delighted about making it out of Manchester. Just like that, we were back to being five guys from the pub who had made it.
“I wouldn’t mind joining in on the album,” I said at last. “Let’s see what happens and decide where we go from there.”
In the meantime, I went back to LA in time for a benefit on the schedule, a No Nukes rally outside the San Onofre power plant in Orange County on March 28, 1982. We intended to heighten awareness of what was going on at that facility, so we staged a concert outside the gates. In those days, no one interfered with such a demonstration. The owners and the cops generally left us alone. They let us get on with our protest, keeping it out of the press as much as possible, because so many people were making millions of dollars constructing those plants. David was going to perform with Stephen and me, and that was all right: The cause was bigger than our personal problems.
Or so I thought. David was extremely late for the gig. We were waiting, having already rehearsed, unable to contact him, wondering what was up. More of David’s bullshit, I figured. Stephen and I quickly adjusted to the circumstances. We can entertain for an hour, just the two of us, no problem. We put our heads together and went, “Okay, ‘Southern Cross,’ two-part. If Croz shows up, fine, and if he doesn’t we’ll give the folks what they came for.” At the time, none of us knew that David had been arrested en route. But when you’re trying to roll a joint and take a hit on a pipe going seventy miles per hour, of course! He drove into a guardrail on the San Diego Freeway. Lucky to be alive. Again.
Things got worse for him when a cop arrived on the scene. He saw Croz’s bag on the floor of the car with a .45 pistol sticking out, as well as a lab’s worth of drug stuff David used for freebasing. So they busted him and took him to the Orange County Jail, where he was charged with DUI, narcotics possession, and carrying a concealed weapon. Luckily, he faced a sympathetic—or starstruck—judge, who dropped the charges down to reckless driving, hit him with a $750 fine as well as three years’ probation, and ordered Croz into a drug rehab program.
I have to believe David wasn’t unfamiliar with the consequences. Only a week or two earlier, Jan had blacked out while driving home from the airport, crashed, and lost many of the bottom teeth in her mouth. As I said: lucky to be alive.
But junkies have no judgment. On April 12, 1982, two weeks after the San Onofre incident, Croz was doing solo shows at a funky club in Dallas, which is what you do when you want to make money for drugs. There was a flimsy curtain that divided the main room from his dressing room, which is where he was freebasing, his gun at his side. It didn’t take long for a policeman to scope things out. When you live on the edge like that, you’ve got to expect shit to happen. Well, it did, and David was arrested again. Only, in Texas drug possession and weapons possession were felonies, which ultimately came back to bite him in the ass.
I was in Hawaii when the Texas bust went down. We were toying with a tour to back up Daylight Again, and this certainly put a new wrinkle in the plans. If we were going on the road, Crosby had to have his shit together. It wouldn’t be like occasional studio work, where we could work around him when he was out of it or worse. He had to be lucid for more than a couple hours each night. Performing, there was no way to cover for him.
David assured us he could handle the road. But during a warm-up on June 6, when we played the Rose Bowl on Peace Sunday, things were pretty bad. First of all, the clergy who were involved didn’t want his name on the bill. David could sing, but not well enough, so we had to carefully disguise it by turning down his mike and having Mike Finnigan off in the shadows, singing some of his parts. That really put me on alert. Could we tour? Could we count on Croz to come through? I wasn’t so sure, and hedged about going. But by June, “Wasted on the Way” was a top-ten hit and we no longer had any choice. We had to promote a hit album and, frankly, Stephen and David needed the money. And don’t get me wrong—I certainly liked the idea of the bread.
We rehearsed on a huge soundstage at Zoetrope, which is Francis Ford Coppola’s studio in LA. I was worried from the get-go. David wasn’t well at all. He was still wedded to that damn crack pipe, and I was worried that he couldn’t survive the road. And old interpersonal issues resurfaced. One afternoon, during rehearsals, we were scheduled to do some much-needed publicity for the tour. Later, a highly rated newsmagazine on CBS called West 57th arranged to do a segment on CSN, and a network correspondent was coming to interview us. They set up at Zoetrope around 11:30 in the morning, with taping to begin at 1:00 P.M. An entire TV camera crew was ready to roll on schedule … waiting at 1:30 … still waiting at 2:00. No sign of Stephen. They were checking their watches, getting more pissed off by the minute. It was unprofessional, really embarrassing. Stephen finally waltzed in around 2:30, and I just attacked him. “You fucking asshole!” I shouted, grabbing him while, I assume, the cameras caught all the action. Fortunately, I never saw the footage, but I’ll bet we gave the show a pretty interesting twist.
My partners: priceless.
The night before we left on tour, I had more incentive not to go. Susan gave birth to our third child. Another boy, according to the doctors and the scans. But in our home in Los Feliz, where all of our children were born, all the experts came up short. “Hey, I know a vagina when I see one,” I said. A girl! We had a baby girl. Susan and I were overjoyed. Nile Ann Mary Sennett Nash. A long time comin’, to be sure, but now our family was complete.
CSN started our tour the day after Nile was born, July 29, 1982. God bless Susan for her strength. I took off for the road, leaving her with three young children (including the newborn). Our first show was three days later, in Hartford, Connecticut. We had no expectations about the makeup of our audience, whether they’d be aging hippies, a college crowd newly tuned in to our music, or ghouls waiting to see Crosby collapse onstage. The complexion of the rock crowd was rapidly changing. We, the sixties stoners/radicals, had begun edging into our forties. We’d become classic rockers. Classic! Mainstream. Mainstream! Relegated to AOR—Adult Oriented Radio—stations. Adult! To quote Aristotle: Ain’t that a piss! Even Neil, who was on tour in Europe, was shooting off his mouth, comparing us to Perry Como. The next generation, the emissaries of the Video Age, were already claiming their piece of the rock. Rightfully, they followed their own apostles: Talking Heads, Prince, Mötley Crüe, Springsteen, the Clash, Run-DMC, the Police, Michael Jackson. Would they come see us? Impossible to say. But as we rolled out, word drifted in from the network of promoters that we were drawing from across the age spectrum. Still, we had to connect with the kids.
I wasn’t worried for a New York minute.
WE TRAVELED ON three individual buses that had been converted into spacious living quarters. In a way, they enabled us to stretch out in privacy, and in another way they enabled David to get high. He could smoke his way from one gig to the next with no interference from Stills or me. He was now traveling with his drug dealer, a pretty shady character named Mort,* who’d taken over most of David’s business affairs. They worked out a deal whereby Mort would supply Croz with enough credit for the drugs in exchange for a large chunk of income and royalties. Mort had a piece of everything David did: albums, publishing, tours, concessions, the works. It was sickening to watch it all go up in smoke. Croz kept promising that he would clean up his act, but that part of his act got darker and dirtier. There were plenty of crack addicts who made that sad scene, hangers-on who’d score off him and split. Croz sold
one of them the publishing to “The Lee Shore” for dope.
Come showtime, things didn’t improve. It actually got so bad, we had to build a room adjacent to the stage so Croz could wander off and freebase between songs. Often, David walked offstage, threw up from the drugs, and was literally dragged back to sing. In Philadelphia, on August 11, he had to leave the stage because he wasn’t functioning. On the fly, Stephen and I did a couple of songs together, then Stephen did a solo set—we were creating a show spontaneously, as was needed. When it was my turn to solo, Stephen left the stage while I sang. He found Crosby nearly comatose on a couch in the dressing room, threw a bucket of ice water on him, and when David came back he was completely soaked.
Because of David’s arrests, we now became targets. I remember going to a small airport somewhere in the Phoenix area. In those days, you could get counter-to-counter service. Let’s say you wanted a lawyer’s letter that needed to be signed. You could arrange for someone to go to the United Airlines desk in one city and drop off the letter to be picked up on the other end of the flight. David had arranged to receive some dope that way. We got to the airport and picked up our bags. He went to the airline counter and said, “Is there a package for David Crosby?” The attendant said, “Just a minute, let me go and see.” Immediately David’s antennae went up, and so did ours. It wasn’t “Mr. Crosby? No problem, here it is.” “Let me go and see” was weird. Something was wrong. When the guy brought the package out, it had already been opened. David was smart about it. He said, “No, that’s not for me. I’m expecting a letter.” And we left—but we all got the message fast.