"Ticket prices and the world's most famous sperm donor. "

Interview with Nash

By Jon Bream
Minneapolis Star Tribune
February 25, 2000

David Crosby, the world's most famous sperm donor, isn't the only member of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young who has made news in the past few months.Graham Nash broke both legs in a boating accident. He was in a wheelchair last fall when CSNY announced their reunion tour.

He's fine now, able to stand for the entire CSNY concert -- except, of course, for the sit-down acoustic set. But, he added, "I can feel it at the end of the show."

Nash and Crosby onstage last month in Auburn Hills, Mich.Associated Press On the road, Nash spends an hour each day working with a personal trainer/therapist. He also spent a half-hour recently talking about CSNY -- from Crosby's donations to the $200 Minneapolis concert tickets to how the group chose songs for the tour, which comes Saturday to Target Center.

How's the tour going?

Better than I could have expected.

Why?

Because we're all into it. Everyone has been into it from the very beginning. It's very gratifying. And the audience, of course, love us.

I read on your Web site that you made some changes in the band right before the tour started. What happened?

Michael Finnegan [keyboards] and Joe Vitale [drums] have been with us -- the CSN band -- for 20-odd years. But this is a different group. When you bring Neil Young into a group, you have to make space for his guitar, and you have to simplify your rhythms. We had trained Mike and Joe to be a little flashier than the CSNY band needed. Even though it was traumatic on a personal level, I completely understand it as a musical decision.

When did you actually make the change?

Just short of two weeks [before] the first show. It was madness. But we pulled it off. Jim Keltner [drums] has been in the studio for the last seven years; he hasn't been on the road. And he hasn't played any of our music. To learn 50 songs and have Neil Young staring at you, you better have your act together.

Is that fairly typical of the things you've gone through over the years when you try to balance a band that has four singer/songwriters?

Absolutely. But we are doing much better nowadays.

Why?

A couple of things -- we're more mature and we're not as drugged up, quite frankly. In 1974, whatever drug you had, we took. You don't get unstable, but you have a shorter attention span, shorter patience, and you don't listen. Now it's different.

How did you go about choosing material for the show?

We had a friend, Joel Bernstein, who's been our documentary photographer for years, make a master list of every song that any of us had done. It was 940 songs. And 480 of them were Neil's. We got the list, and we made check marks; we came up with about 15 or 20 each. Then we narrowed that down again to what we thought the audience would want to hear, balancing the older material, which we're enjoying playing tremendously, and we're doing nine songs from the new record [1999's "Looking Forward"].

People have noticed that you're not doing "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes." Why?

Time. We got kind of spaced a week and a half before the tour with no drummer and keyboard player. I think once we all settle down, Stephen [Stills] will want to do it. You can't just play the 'Suite.' It's 7½ minutes long and four complete time signatures. It's not an easy piece. We need to rehearse it.

Is 31 or 32 songs spread over 3½ hours too long?

It's not a question of whether it's too long, it's a question of what we need to say. There's 35 to 40 years experience with each of the individuals. That's a lot of music.

How have the jokes been going onstage and in the audience about David Crosby's involvement with Melissa Etheridge's and Julie Cypher's babies?

The other night, Neil started making a chant, 'Croz-Bee, Croz-Bee.' Everyone started in. I said, 'Don't encourage him. You'll only make him want to have more babies.'

There are all these jokes. But the very essence of all that is that you've got two very healthy, beautiful kids, and you've got two grateful parents, even though they're both ladies, and two donors because it's was David's wife's idea.

The headline in Rolling Stone said it best: The Start of a New American Family. If it breaks free this perception that only a man and a woman can bring children up, which is just not true . . .

You guys have always made your political or sociological statements.

Yep. This is a big one.

Tickets for your show cost as much as $200 in Minneapolis, which is high by most concert standards. How did they come up with that price?

But 40 bucks isn't high. Don't forget the other end of the equation. I think the average price is 58 bucks. And don't forget it cost you $150 to see Rod Stewart.
It was decided by the promoter, who was the guy who produced the last five Rolling Stones tours. So he knows what he's doing. It's hard for me to say, if you pay $150 to see Rod Stewart, what would you pay to see the four of us? We're not expecting anybody to pay 600 bucks. I'm getting this feedback every day; at the end of the show, they don't care what it cost. They've seen something that changed their lives.

What's the difference between CS&N and CSN&Y? In other words, what does Neil Young bring?

Grit, fire, focus, reality. Neil would rather have a well-intentioned mistake played with feeling than a perfect part.

When you were promoting "Looking Forward" last year, Neil talked about CSNY being "unfinished business." Is that how you felt?

I don't think any us feel like we've reached our potential as a band. That's gratifying to me. It keeps us moving forward. We're not resting on our laurels.

Do you guys have any plans beyond this tour that ends in April?

No. We have incredible offers -- from Europe, South America, Australia and Japan. But we're not going to do that to ourselves. One of the reasons we failed so miserably back then, if you look at it that way -- the music was great, but personally? -- we signed a six-record deal, and we booked a couple of tours. All of sudden, if it ain't going right, you're faced with all the responsibility of starting something you can't finish. That's when you have to disappoint people and get into lawsuits. So this time, all we're doing is whatever show is tonight.