Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young Discuss Plans
CSNY article from CDNOW
1999

Wearing loud print shirts and overgrown facial hair, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young took over the General MacArthur Suite at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco for two days last week, followed by a fleet of cameramen, personal assistants, and international journalists.

Their primary mission was to discuss their first album together in over a decade, Looking Forward, as well as plans for their first tour in 30 years, a 41-city trek clumsily dubbed CSNY2K. But what was more remarkable than the rock and roll veterans' professional reunion was witnessing the restored camaraderie in the room, especially considering the quartet's volatile history.

David Crosby, 58, Stephen Stills 54, Graham Nash, 57, and Neil Young, 53, sat above an elegant coffee table covered with candles and flowers, plucking at acoustic guitars, sharing stories and ribbing each other with sly asides, as they worked their way through the incessant round of questions.

"These guys are the funniest guys in the world," Crosby said, nodding towards his bandmates. "When we were making this record we were laughing our ass off the whole time, and at the same time feeling triumphant about the music."

On the long gap between Looking Forward and their last album together, 1988's American Dream, Young proffered, "We do it when we feel like doing it. Obviously, it doesn't happen all that often. This is our third studio album -- so we're on a roll.

Meanwhile, Crosby explained how the band democratically chose the 12-tracks that made eventually made it onto Looking Forward. "We had a list posted up in the studio with all the song titles," he said. "You could check your initials next to a song if you wanted it on the record really bad. Nine of them had CSNY check marks. And then there were my check marks -- I checked my own songs."

Nash, who was not expected to make the press conference after breaking both his legs in a boating accident three weeks ago at his home in Hanalei Bay, Kauai, added, "When we found out that we agreed completely on nine things, we were pretty close."

"The next part took a month," Stills said dryly.

The seeds for the current CSNY reunion were planted this summer, when Young and Stills got together to do some work on a box set for their former band Buffalo Springfield, which they formed in 1966. Stills invited Young to drop by the studio where Crosby, Stills & Nash were working. The trio has been active since Crosby was released from a Texas jail in 1986, where he served a year on drug charges.

"I was just visiting, and the tunes were real good," Young said. "They were making a record because they wanted to, not because the label told them it was time or anything like that. I could hear that from the first note.''

With Young on board, the whole thing turned into a major event, despite the band's discretion.

"We didn't plan it," Crosby said. "We didn't talk about it, think about it or do it. It's chemistry. We just focused on the music that was in front of us. It's not something you can legislate into happening."

Nash's condition will prevent CSNY from performing at Young's annual Bridge School Benefit Concert at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, Calif., on Oct. 30-31, but he expects to be fully recovered and ready to play by Jan. 25, when CSNY2K kicks off in Detroit.

That is, if they can make it till then. "I want to play 'Down By The River' real bad," Crosby said.

Young stopped picking at his guitar, slowly gazed up from under his gray fedora hat and snarled. "We'll never play that fucking song," before breaking into a smile that nearly tore his face in half.