Graham Nash’s Wild Tales
Singer and Songwriter Graham Nash is one third of Crosby Stills and Nash, and one fourth of Crosby Stills Nash and Young and was a member of The Hollies. He’s written some of the most classic songs in music, including “Our House”, “Just a Song Before I Go”, “Teach Your Children” and many more. He’s also known for his political activism, was one of the founders of the group “Musicians United for Safe Energy”, the No Nukes movement, and he has taken a strong anti-war stance over several decades. He recently stopped by the SiriusXM studios to talk with Ron Bennington about his new book, “Wild Tales: A Rock & Roll Life.” Excerpts from the interview appear below. You can hear the interview in its entirety exclusively on SiriusXM satellite radio.
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Graham Nash Talks About The Beginnings Of Crosby, Stills And Nash
Ron Bennington: [Playing “You Don’t Have to Cry” by Crosby, Stills and Nash] With that song begins Graham Nash’s “Wild Tales”, and what a song it is, Graham.
Graham Nash: Unbelievable, isn’t it a brilliant song?
Ron Bennington: It’s a phenomenal song, but the story that you tell in the book how you came in, heard the song, had them replay it, so you could start to figure out harmonies, and by the end of that song, singing together the first time you guys really were Crosby, Stills and Nash.
Graham Nash: I think it was even earlier than that, Ron.
Ron Bennington: Yeah?
Graham Nash: Yeah, it was forty seconds into the song. We had to stop at one point and laugh, because I mean, The Springfields, The Birds, and The Hollies were good harmony bands, we kind of knew what we were doing. This was something totally different and we all knew it, that instant. I was at dinner at Joni’s [Mitchell] house, David says to Stephen, “Play Willy that song,” and they did “You Don’t Have to Cry” in two-part. I asked them to do it again, I asked them to do it third time. The third time, I had the words down, I had the breath down, I had the phrasing down, the harmony down – forty seconds it took for that sound of Crosby, Stills and Nash to be born.
Ron Bennington: And when it happened, you guys don’t have the record deal, but you think to yourself, whatever we have to do to get to the point, this is where we’re going. And everyone is leaving great bands, Hall of Fame bands, but you’re like, “We have to follow this other muse.”
Graham Nash: Yeah. Once I heard that sound, I knew what I had to do, I had to go back to England, I had to undo everything in my life. My bank account, my band, my friends, my equipment, I left everything. I left The Hollies on December 8, 1968; December the 10th I was in Los Angeles with David and Stephen.
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Graham Nash Talks About the Influence of American Music
Ron Bennington: You heard rock and roll when you were a kid and decided that was it.
Graham Nash: Yes. From Radio Luxembourg. It was a station in Luxembourg, in Europe, and when weather permitted, when the clouds weren’t completely covering the sky, as they normally are in England, we’d get this radio signal. It used to broadcast the American Top 40 every Sunday night at like 9 o’clock at night or something. Now, on Sunday night you’re supposed to be in bed getting ready for school, but I was listening down my bed post of my bed to the radio below, in the room below where my mother and father were playing the American Top 40. I could hear it through my bed post.
Ron Bennington: Wow.
Graham Nash: And that’s why, I think, I love bass and bass drums, because they’re the heartbeat of music. Yeah, from a very early age, I loved American rock and roll.
Ron Bennington: So you were getting more of the bass and bass drum out of it and probably somewhere in your mind, adding your own melody.
Graham Nash: Absolutely, because I learned to sing three part, singing with The Everly Brothers records. We’d play The Everly Brother records and where could I go? Don had the melody, Phil had the top harmony, where do I go? I went on top of Phil. As a matter of fact, I have a story in the book but I’ll just tell you: 1992, CSN is in Toledo, Ohio, and our gig is on Saturday, but we got there Friday morning. The phone rings in my hotel room, “Yeah?” “Hey, it’s Phil Everly,” “Phil, what the hell are you calling me for in Toledo, Ohio?” He says, “Well, aren’t you playing tomorrow?” I go, “Yeah,” He goes, “Well, we’re playing tonight in the same hall, do you want to come down to the show?” So, I get on the bus with the Everly Brothers and I’m going to an Everly Brothers show, I’m in heaven, right? During the after sound check dinner, Don looks at me and goes, “Okay, so what are you going to sing with us?” (whispers) I’m fucking dying, this is my dream, right? And I’m being kind of cocky, I said, “Well, you know, I like that song, “So Sad” let’s do that.” I have a cassette of me singing three part “So Sad” with the Everly Brothers. That thrills me to this day.
Ron Bennington: This is a kid’s dream. You know what I mean? In your mind, as a kid, you are the third Everly Brother…
Graham Nash: That’s right, I was.
Ron Bennington: And going down the rabbit hole, you get to eventually get to that part.
Graham Nash: Yup, yup. We started The Hollies, I started it with my friend Allan Clarke, who was the lead singer in The Hollies, in December of 1962, and in April of 1963, which is only four or five months later, we cut our first single, which was “Ain’t That Just Like Me,” which was a cover of The Coasters song. And we’ve never looked back, since.
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Graham Nash Talks About Moving on From The Hollies
Ron Bennington: At what point did you say to yourself, “I’ve written a song, that I know can stand the test, and I don’t mind having it out there with everybody else’s song.
Graham Nash: It was a song I wrote in Split, Yugoslavia, when The Hollies were on tour in Europe, called “King Midas in Reverse,”
Ron Bennington: Great song.
Graham Nash: And we made a pretty decent record of it, but unfortunately, it only got into the Top 30, and didn’t go bouncing into the Top 5, like most Hollies singles did. And so, The Hollies started to not trust where I was going with music, what I thought The Hollies could do. And that was one of the first times that I thought, “You know, I think I’m done with The Hollies, I have to move on.” Because we were great at writing two and a half minute pop songs. We were good at it, when I was there, and I was only there for six years, even though I started the band, I left in ’68. We had, I think eighteen Top 10 records, so when “King Midas” failed, meaning it only got into the Top 30, they started to not like me.
Ron Bennington: And yet, that song is so perfect of that time.
Graham Nash: I think so.
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Graham Nash Talks About Putting Together Crosby, Stills And Nash
Ron Bennington: I don’t know anybody else who was part of that London, British Invasion, who also was at the ground floor of that Laurel Canyon, West Coast sound that got big. So, it’s like you caught this one giant wave and then the next giant wave.
Graham Nash: Yeah, even though I don’t go in the ocean, I guess I’m a surfer. (laughing)
Ron Bennington: Yeah, you are. When the wave comes along, you are ready for it.
Graham Nash: I am ready for it. But, what it is, is I get moved. When I heard me, and David, and Stephen sing, my heart was moved to act about it. I could have gone back to England and forgotten that I had sung, “You Don’t Have to Cry,” with David and Stephen. I could have gone, “You know, I’m safe with The Hollies, every record we make is going into the Top 30, and this is fine, I’m content.” But that wasn’t me, I wanted more. I wanted songs that spoke more than moon-June-screw-me-in-the-back-of-the-car, kind of songs. And, there’s a lot of room for that but, I was getting restless.
Ron Bennington: And here you are with these great singers, songwriters, the three of you are hitting it off, and the songs are just coming one after the other. Everybody is writing great songs.
Graham Nash: Every one of us, yeah.
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Graham Nash Talks About Bringing Neil Young In
Ron Bennington: At the time, do you think, this is perfect? But, then you guys add Neil to it, again, who does that? Who risks it?
Graham Nash: I know. Well, we perfected this three-part harmony sound and we’d made that first record. But, it was a physical thing. What happened is that David and I were content to let Stephen play most of the instruments on that first record. He played the lead guitar, he played the bass, he played the B3, he played piano, la, la, la, la, la. I mean, me and David played guitar on our songs, “Long Time Gone,” “Lady of the Island,” “Marrakesh Express,” but it was Stephen that played most of the instruments. Now, we make this great record, we realize we’re going to have to play live, how are we going to do that, when one of us, Stephen, played most of the instruments? So we knew we had to get another musician, right? David and Stephen were at our friend, Ahmet Ertegun’s, house one night for dinner and they were talking about, we need this extra guy and Ahmet said, “Well, I know who you should get,” and Stephen said, “Who?” He says, “You need Neil Young.” And that shocked Stephen because he’d just been through madness with Neil with Buffalo Springfield, and said to Ahmet, “Do you want me to go back there again, what?!” But, Ahmet understood that the chemistry between Stephen and Neil, particularly on guitar where they duel with each other, where one of them plays a riff and the other guy answers him better, and then Stephen answers him – Ahmet understood the magic of that and he understood that if we took that magic and put it with the magic of the voices that would be a very, very interesting band. And that’s why Neil joined.
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Graham Nash Talks About Songwriting
Ron Bennington: The book is fascinating on so many levels, so many times we’re seeing just what was happening in the world, at the time, there are so many great names that go through it. But, I love, Graham, the way you go through song after song and give us that mindset.
Graham Nash: I think people are interested how songs are born.
Ron Bennington: Oh, yeah, it’s fascinating.
Graham Nash: First of all, I’ve been asked, “How do you write songs?” And I don’t know. I know what happens to me, I see something that I have to speak about and I’ll reduce it to its essence and come up with a title, “well, now I’ve got a title.” And then I go, “Wait a second, that melody that I was thinking about, that I wrote two weeks ago, fits these words, today.” Now, I’ve got a first line. Now, I need a second line, and then I need a chorus. So it’s kind of like building a house with bricks, but I don’t know what that creative process is, I only know that I can’t stop.
Ron Bennington: And you follow that thing whenever it comes up, right?
Graham Nash: Whenever it comes up.
Ron Bennington: There’s no part of, here’s a set part of the day, that I write songs.
Graham Nash: No, life happens to me every single moment of my life.
Ron Bennington: And you never know, is tomorrow going to be another “Our House?” There could be some song out there.
Graham Nash: You never know.
Ron Bennington: But, does it feel like you get it, the same way that we hear it? Does it come to you as one whole piece?
Graham Nash: It’s happened every single way. A song starts with one word, and one beat. I’ve done it every single way, I’ve started with a kick drum, only and built up a track and then written a song to it. “Our House” took me an hour to write, completely finished. “Just a Song Before I Go,” was forty minutes. Sometimes it comes all at once, but it took me four years to complete “Cathedral.”
Ron Bennington: That’s fascinating. Not only that, do you have your own songs, but you were there when Stephen Stills shows up with songs, when Neil…
Graham Nash: Absolutely
Ron Bennington: And that has got to be so exciting to hear these guys come up with these things and to be there for it.
Graham Nash: I’m a lucky man, kid.
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Ron Bennington: It’s a great, great, wild tale. Graham Nash’s “Wild Tales”. The great thing about Graham is that none of this is slowing down even slightly. It might as well be ’64, ’67, 1970 – still happening just as fast.
Graham Nash: I’m rocking, kid.
Ron Bennington: Always great to have you come by, here. I always enjoy it. I’ll see you next time.
Graham Nash: Thank you so much, Ron.
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For more info visit GrahamNash.com and you can buy the book Wild Tales: A Rock & Roll Life
on Amazon.com.
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You can hear this interview in its entirety exclusively on SiriusXM satellite radio. Not yet a subscriber? Click here for a free trial subscription.
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You can learn more about Ron Bennington’s two interview shows, Unmasked and Ron Bennington Interviews at RonBenningtonInterviews.com.
