Graham Nash: “I miss David terribly…”

Speaking in the latest issue of MOJO, Graham Nash candidly reflects on his time with Laurel Canyon supergroups CSN and CSNY; his estrangement from the late David Crosby, fuelled by the latter’s rash, often hurtful outbursts in interviews; and the daily pangs of loss he has felt since his former bandmate’s death in 2023 as the two were on the verge of reconciliation.

“I think of David every time I drive through Van Cortlandt Park [in the Bronx],” Nash tells MOJO’s David Fricke. “Don’t forget: It’s David Van Cortlandt Crosby...”

During a career-spanning interview conducted over egg and chips in New York’s East Village, Nash recalls Crosby leaving him a message of apology and hope for a mending of their relationship after years of acrimony.

“I wrote back to him,” Nash remembers. “I said, ‘David, I’m still hurt by what you said. I don’t know.’” Crosby left another voicemail: “Please, let’s talk.” Nash set up a FaceTime call “because I wanted to look into his eyes while I was talking to him.” Crosby died before they could speak, on January 18, 2023, aged 81.

“I think that really small things got in the way, small attitudes,” says Nash when asked what he would have told Crosby on that call. Crosby was “a brilliant musician and thinker – and his own worst enemy. When David was joyful, the entire room lit up. But it could be instantly darkened by something he said.”

Nash remains in touch with Stephen Stills and Neil Young, but he reiterates that Crosby was “the very heart” of CSNY and without him the survivors will never play together again.

“I miss David terribly,” says Nash. “We had a couple of years that were a little nasty. But towards the end, we were getting together and saying, ‘Hey, c’mon, what the fuck?’”

Elsewhere in the interview, Nash reflects on performing CSN and CSNY material as a solo artist and what he misses about working with his former bandmates.

“I miss witnessing greatness – when you stand in the middle of Stephen and Neil and they’re talking to each other on their guitars, or Crosby’s singing the shit out of one of his songs,” he says. “There was a certain magic that is not there anymore. I miss seeing that creative streak spontaneously happening in front of me."

Nash is often viewed as the peacekeeper within CSNY’s den of egos, something which threatens to overshadow his talent as a songwriter, responsible for such timeless contributions as Our House, Teach Your Children and Marrakesh Express

“I never thought I was equal to them – never. It’s David, Stephen and Neil. Listen to what the fuck they do. I’m not that person. I can play guitar and piano, good enough to write my own songs. I can play [Young’s] Down By The River and any of David or Stephen’s songs. But I never put myself equal to them as a musician.”

Any band featuring such forceful personalities as Stephen Stills and David Crosby was likely to face internal problems, but after Stills’ old Buffalo Springfield bandmate Neil Young came on board for 1970’s Déjà Vu, the volatile relationships between the four musicians became characterised by multiple fallouts, reconciliations, periods of uneasy peace and more fallouts.

“Sometimes I think that the best thing that ever happened to CSN was Neil. And maybe the worst thing that ever happened to CSN was Neil,” reflects Nash. “Look at Déjà Vu. Country Girl and Helpless we got from him. But we already had Carry On, Our House, Teach Your Children and Almost Cut My Hair. If that had been the second CSN record, maybe we’d still be making records...”

“It’s incredible how relevant some of these songs still are. I mean, Immigration Man – it could have been written this morning…” Read the full interview with Graham Nash only in the latest issue of MOJO, on sale now. For more info, and to order a copy click HERE!

Picture: Graham Nash and David Crosby at Red Rocks Amphitheatre, September 23, 2014. Credit: Tim Mosenfelder/Getty.