WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 751 - David Crosby

Episode Date: October 16, 2016

David Crosby readily admits that he probably shouldn't be alive. Drug addiction, alcoholism, and health issues have taken their toll but have not knocked David out. He's still making music and going out on tour, but he had a little time to talk with Marc about The Byrds, CSN, Neil Young, Jerry Garcia, Jimi Hendrix, Woodstock, Altamont, Melissa Etheridge, and much more. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

LOCK THE GATE! Alright, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fucksters? What the fucking ears? What's happening? I'm Mark Maron. This is WTF. This is my podcast. I've been doing it since 2009. Twice a week every week always a new show happy to do it thank you for listening

today on the show David Crosby the David Crosby who I actually kind of contacted on Twitter and we went back and forth we had a couple phone conversations he came over sweet man

and also a We had a couple phone conversations. He came over. Sweet man. And also a dude with a history. I don't know what you know, but some of us went through those couple of records, those Crosby, Stills, and Nash records, Sweet Judy, Blue Eyes. And I listened to them before I had David on. And no matter what's going on in the world today with singer-songwriter sweet country stuff

folky business uh thoughtful uh acoustic-y things you put those on and you put sweet judy blue eyes on and i'm not diminishing anybody i think everybody's doing a fine job out there with their guitars and their mouths. But those guys singing together, I hadn't listened to in years. I don't know why. It's just not one of the ones that I put in rotation. But Jesus Christ, nothing sounds like that. Nothing sounds like those fellas, those titans of harmony.

David's here. In a minute, he'll be here. He's got a new record out that I just got sent it's lovely uh his new album is called Lighthouse comes out this Friday October 21st he's gonna go on tour next month these guys they go out and they do it these 70 something year old fellas they out they gotta go out man what's the point of living you can also pre-order the album at davidcrosby.com and figure out if he's coming to a place near you still donning or or manning that mustache of his he's doing well with his uh his incredibly uh hardcore history and new liver and it was a pleasure to talk to him glad he came over he's a He's a radical dude who's lived through some shit.

Alright? I also wanted to say the Now Hear This Festival is next week. Come check out more than 30 podcasts live all weekend. It's October 28th through 30th at the Anaheim Marriott and the special WTF show with me and Brendan McDonald is on

Saturday the 29th. Go to nowhearthisfest.com to get tickets and see the full lineup. And now you can use the offer code WTF when you buy tickets to save 25% off general admission. That's nowhearthisfest.com. Offer code WTF. What is on my mind? I seem to be festering about something,

about the general condescension to those people, myself included. I will include myself in this. In show business. Show business. The show business industry. There's a lot of, you know, it comes from the right. It comes from whoever but there's this some sort of dumb idea that uh those of us who work in this industry don't work somehow

and it's fucking it's it's disrespectful and snotty do you know what it takes to make fucking three minutes of television now look i'm not saying i'm some sort of fuckingty do you know what it takes to make fucking three minutes of television now look i'm not saying i'm some sort of fucking hero do you know how many people are involved on how many levels it's not just writers not just actors there's lighting guys there's caterers there's hair and makeup there's truck drivers there's there's people that are operating cameras camera operators there are stand-in people there are are props people. There are people in charge of transportation, managing porta-potties, trailers. And it just keeps building out from there. Locations people.

People who hold mics. People who are hanging things from ladders. People who are risking their lives on some level. 12 to 15-hour days we do. It's just shitty when people think that celebrity culture, maybe celebrity culture is what it is, but the industry of show business employs a lot of fucking people on a lot of different levels, you know, who have families,

who do real work. I don't know where you get off thinking it's not real work. And again, this is not some heroic diatribe. It's just, it's real work. I don't know where you get off thinking it's not real work. And again, this is not some heroic diatribe. It's just, it's fucking work. This is the job we chose. I don't know what you chose. I don't know how it's working out, but it certainly hasn't been easy. And it's not easy on a day-to-day level. I'm not just talking about me. I'm talking about everything that goes in to the industry. Now you may not like what we produce. You may think it's shit, but it's a fucking business. It's an industry. And a lot may not like what we produce. You may think it's shit, but it's a

fucking business. It's an industry and a lot of people work really hard. So shut the fuck up with this condescending attitude about celebrity culture, which is different than the actual nuts and bolts of show business. I'm not even sure who I'm talking to or why it got stuck in my craw. There's just this general dismissal of something that you know is a major business and industry in this country and where people work very hard and and many of them are not appreciated okay we're trying to make stuff that that resonates some of us we're trying to make stuff that resonates, some of us. We're trying to make things that add and don't just distract or take away, that provoke, that confront, that entertain, but move you through things, humane and humbling.

Yes, show business. Look, I'm grateful that it finally worked out for me and I can earn an honest living, which it is. That's another thing people don't realize. As cable and things level off and options expand and the market diversifies in fragments, not all of us are running away with a billion dollars an episode you dig pow i just shit my pants just coffee.coop available at wtfpod.com classic

ad wtf ad from our original sponsors here's a nice email a A nice email. Don't read the comments in the subject line. I like this idea, by the way, what you're about to hear. It's from Sam. Greetings, Mark and or person, people that read Mark's mail. I thought of a good preamble to this pitch. I was kind of bummed this morning when I saw there was another singer-songwriter guest on the WTF podcast, but decided to listen anyway. I was delighted to hear the Margo price interview and even went back and

listened to the Hutch Harris interview resulting in even more delight. Lesson learned. And as I have recently heard the same sentiment espoused on a listener mail segment on the show in parentheses, don't skip interviews. I would also like to compliment WTF on incorporating a testimonial that actually rang true. That was the preamble. Here's the pitch.

Toward the end of the Margo Price interview, before I had ever heard any of her music, Mark and Margo were talking about how awful it is to read the negative trolling comments on Twitter. Margo spoke very passionately and truthfully about saying it ruins my happiness. While Mark had the tone of a seasoned cynic with his time-worn refrain, don't read the comments, which is when the light bulb came on, so to speak, because I had already been primed for the idea

because Mark and Margo were talking about collaborating on a song. I didn't know if it was a good fit, and I played with the idea until the end of the podcast. 10 minutes later, when Margo sang Desperate and Depressed, it was then that I realized I wanted to write this email. So there it is. Don't read the comments.

A duet sung by Marc Maron and Margo Price. I don't feel like I should elaborate any more than that. Either you get it or you don't, I guess. Except to say the challenge here seems to be not make it sound like a parody type Weird Al kind of song, right? To make it sound authentic and not synthetic. Anyways, food for thought. Keep up the good fight, WTF. Your podcast makes my job raking leaves as I try to finish my first novel, somewhat more bearable. Sam. All right, Margo Price, if you're listening it's it's been it's it's not a challenge but i think

it's a solid idea i think it's a solid idea i'm going to be in nashville soon i'll throw i don't know if you're going to be there yeah i could just text you this but why not make it public why not make this public i'll scribble some some stanzas you do. We'll go basic country, three chords, maybe with some sort of chorus. Maybe with a refrain that might throw in a minor chord or something. But I'm ready to work on this. I'm ready to work on Don't Read

the Comments by Margo Price and Marc Maron. I'm just putting that out there. Neither one of us need it, but I think it would be fun. I can sing. I can sing a little bit. Alright? You hear me, Margo? Do you hear me? Did a lovely charity event last night. Seth Rogen asked me to do a 10-minute spot on his hilarity for charity. Alzheimer's benefit was me and Jen Kirkman and Morgan Murphy and James Corden was there and Courtney Love was there and Snoop Dogg closed the thing out there was dancing it's nice when dancers are employed

I like seeing dancers I don't see enough dancing how amazing is it when you see somebody who's a pro up there doing whatever it is they do right david crosby for instance this guy stood in the front of thousands singing just a human a human with a voice great guy i mean i might have to maybe someday we'll talk again he seemed to want to hang out i thought he might move in. Kidding, kidding. It's a joke, David. It's a joke. I love talking to you,

so I'm going to share it with the people right now. This is me and the legendary David Crosby. You can turn the bird off? Do you know how? Yes, I am, but I'm going to tell my wife where the garage is first. Because she'll get here and not know what to do. I'll get her to text me when she gets here. There you go.

But then we're going to have to deal with that noise the whole time. No, I'm going to turn the noise off. Oh, okay. I'll leave the phone number where I can see it. Got it. Ding, ding, ding. Oof. I literally thought you were making that noise, and I thought, like,

what's this weird David Crosby thing? He just makes bird noises occasionally. He's very impressed. R2-D2 ringtone. Okay. So that, the fella that dropped you off, that's your son. That's one of my sons, yeah. One of your sons.

That's the oldest one, yeah. That's James. And there it is. And do you, from what relationship was that, David? One of a number. Yeah. I, you know. What? i was kind of irresponsible man i i i i um i don't want to say i was trying to like wear it off uh-huh um but i was like trying to

uh jesus there's got to be a euphemism I can use here. Get as much in as possible. Yeah, something like that. That's even more graphic than I was going to be, but yeah, okay. Live life. Yeah, to the fullest. His mom put him up for adoption. You were part of that choice? No.

Oh, that just happened. You were alerted of that later. Later. Right. And I knew he existed. You were alerted of that later. Later. Right. And I knew he existed. Right. I didn't know where. And so you reunited. Well, yeah.

You know, you can't track from the parent down, only from the kid up. Uh-huh. Right? So I didn't know where he was, and I wondered about him, and I tortured myself about it. Yeah. Oh, God, he's, you know, cold and hungry and living in a dumpster. Normal things that you'd torture yourself with. And so then I'm in the hospital.

With which ailment? I'm dying of hepatitis C, and I'm very close to dying. Yeah. Very close. This is before the liver? This was the liver. Okay. And so I'm about a week away from dying, and then they finally got a match, and they transplant me. Okay. And so I'm about a week away from dying.

Then they finally got a match and they transplant me. Yeah. And all of a sudden, it's a really strange thing. You go from being sicker each day, dying, and you can feel the system's collapsing, right? It's like a house of cards. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, they operate on you. And all of a sudden, now you're not sick.

You're wounded. Yeah. And you're getting better every day. Yeah. Well, you're lucky it took, right? Oh. Yeah. I'd be dead. Yeah. And you're getting better every day. Yeah. Well, you're lucky it took, right? Oh. Yeah. I bet.

Yeah. It's kind of science fiction. But anyway, I'm getting bags. Yeah. Like Santa Claus bags. Yeah. Of mail. Yeah.

They're bringing them in every day. Yeah. In the middle of those, there's a letter that says, Hi, we're John, Amanda, and Raymond, and we raised your son. Oh, my God. They had told him that you know he was he was had just gotten married and he was about to uh he was about to have his first kid yeah uh grace and uh they said you should know who your genetic dad is so he went and found out and he goes uh no way and then he checked and then way

it's you it was me and so he knew somebody that knew me, and actually the guy who was my sponsor. And he got a hold of me, and we connected up. And those things usually go wrong. Do they? Because of the resentment, maybe? Yeah. Right. People bring too much baggage to the deal.

Sure. You know, why did you leave me and mom? We weren't good enough for you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He didn't do that. He gave me a clean slate, which is a huge gift. Because he must have been, they must have, he had good parents. He had very good parents, really sweet people. And he was by nature a person who goes for the high ground. And so he gave me a shot. He gave me a clean slate.

He gave me, let me, you know, earn my way into his life. Which is not common. It doesn't usually go that way. So it was a huge, wonderful thing. And that's happened twice now in my life. I have a daughter who was put up for adoption by her mom. Same period? I mean, that kid that I just met must be my age almost, no?

Yeah. Yeah. And she was raised in Mexico and came back in, asked her mom who her father was. Mom told her. She got a hold of me and said, I think I'm your daughter. And I said, well, let's find out. And so we found out, and she absolutely was. And she's really frustrating.

She's really smart. And English is her second language, right? But she beats me every time I play her in Words with Friends. Constantly. She beats me like a rug. And how old is she? 50s, somewhere. So these were from that period. you were just uh having fun i really you know i like to kid around and say i have a phd in fun

yeah but you know it's a mixed blessing i was uh pretty selfish and and certainly irresponsible but you were like the funny thing about you is that your face, your mustache, your voice is one of the most identified emblems of the late 60s. Really. Mid-60s. Probably, yeah. And, you know, there's just these, like, the image I have in my mind is I don't know what kind of house you were renting up there in the canyon or in the hills, but it's just you, like just the hippie king of his fucking domain. Like I just pictured like it was nonstop up there at Crosby's place. I would be good at kinging.

Yeah. I would. I really would. You'd have a good time. Comes totally naturally to me. Uh-huh. Do you have royalty in your blood? No.

I got at least one signer of the Declaration of Independence and a couple of bishops and generals. Oh, really? Yeah. I don't keep track of it. But your family goes back to the English or the Dutch? Both. Uh-huh. Brit, Dutch, Irish, and Welsh.

Uh-huh. Welsh, you know, hey, drunk poets. Yeah, sure. You got it all. It works. Good mixture. I think the Kinging thing, hey, drunk poets. Yeah, sure. You got it all. It works. Good mixture. I think the Kinging thing, yeah, I would have. There was some of that.

In any case, the kids that I have all wound up being pretty great kids. They are. And you have a relationship with the donor kids, too, as well, right? Melissa's kids? Yeah, distantly, yeah. I'm going to Melissa's house when I finish up here. I'm going to Melissa's house. Oh, yeah?

She's got a show on satellite radio. Yeah, I had Melissa Etheridge here, and it was great. She was great. She's a very brave woman. Brave and engaged and still does very consistent, great work. Yeah. You know, it's hard, I imagine, for maybe you as well, that when you're as huge as, like, you were,

and you're still doing great work, that, you know, it's like it's hard to think that you're not doing it in a vacuum sometimes, I would imagine. You know, it's really hard to understand your place in the world. Uh-huh. I don't look at myself the way everybody else does.

Of course not. Because I know what a bozo I really am. And you try to tell people, and you say, no, no, I put my pants on one leg at a time, same as you. Right. But my life in relation to the rest of the world has been very strange. Making all the mistakes that I made in front of the world that was not fun well you were become because you were such an icon the fall when you fell you know years after the 60s you know it was surprising but you know that story not as you definitely outdid most of your peers by living. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm baffled about that, but yeah. But like, you know, there was sort of like, this is how the 60s crashes in a way. Yeah. I mean, there we were. And it had a lot to do with the substances. We were doing, you know, we were smoking pot, which I don't see much wrong with. Back in the day you're talking. Yeah.

And we were taking psychedelics. And then along came cocaine. And that was just destroyed the whole thing. you're talking. Yeah, yeah. And we were taking psychedelics. And then along came cocaine, and that just destroyed the whole thing. Late 70s. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely destroyed it. And speed, right? Not for me.

For the bikers, yeah. Yeah. But speed in the general culture seemed to be. Yeah, it was there. Yeah. I mean, it was this cultural thing was if you had any money, it was cocaine. If you didn't have any money, it was speed. Yeah, the horrible yellow speed that bikers yeah yeah i had some friends in the health angels so i i i knew

about it a lot but it's not something i i did um well let's let's track it back you know this is a very surprising thing and i'll tell you only because i i think it's it's i not it's there's nothing ironic about it just the way shit worked worked out. But Neil Young was sitting right there yesterday. Yesterday. Oh, no, no, no. I mean, look, I didn't talk. I don't, I don't do that shit. I, you know, he, you know, I very vaguely like everybody getting along.

He's like, yep. But you know, he's being diplomatic. And yeah, he just didn't want to do the same thing. I don't want to do laundry Put your laundry out in public. Yeah, but there's no, the thing is that what you've put out in public, I'm not a big laundry guy. You know, if it's fresh laundry, old laundry we can talk about. Yeah. But, you know, it always, it hurts me a little bit that you guys, all of you guys go in and out.

You're humans, right? Yeah. But the work you did you know was so phenomenal i'm proud of it no how could you not be right i'm totally proud of it i mean it is history but it's good history we i put in good work oh man dude i put that shit like i used to listen to the first csn record a lot you know when i was a kid it was already you know like it was i'm 52 so it was i'm coming to it not in its time. So I'm coming to it not in its time. You know, I'm coming to it like, what's this?

You know, and I just put it on this morning and I'm like, no one does this. You guys did something no one did, you know, and no one sounds like that on any level. It's not just the singing. It's all of it. It's the vibe. It's like it's completely hypnotic and beautiful and elevating and no one can do it. But you guys. Well, thanks.

Thanks, he says, blushing. You know that, though. I do. It really has a lot to do with the songs. And the magic of how you guys synchronize. Yes. We had a thing, a vocal sound that was exceptional. Three very different voices.

And it was an exceptional sound. But I think it always, in all performers, comes down to the songs. If you have a song and you can sit down with a guitar or a piano and sing it to somebody and make them feel something, then you have the jacks are better, the openers, the sin and quanon. Right. You've got the tune. You've got the stuff to work with.

Work the melody. If you don't have that, you can do all the production in the world and you're only just polishing a turd. There's no substance there. So we had them. Yeah. And part of the thing was we had three writers.

When Nino was there, we had four writers. Yeah. Which means you the thing was we had three writers. When Neil was there, we had four writers. Yeah. Which means you get the very best songs of each guy, which kept the bar pretty high on being able to play you something that would make you feel something. How would that work, though? Would you guys bring in songs you'd written and then work them together? Yeah.

We'd sit down with them and sing them a song. Yeah. And they would sit down and sing me a song. And if it tripped our trigger, we'd'd say oh what if i do this yeah yeah right right right you know and it was a very organic process uh-huh uh which doesn't happen with everybody no i mean you know you gotta you gotta pay some uh uh due to the chemistry yeah yeah and it was there and you know, I'm glad that Neil was here.

It's smart of Neil to come talk to you. He's a fascinating guy, don't you think? He's got a thing he's, you know, making. This player, the Pono thing

is why he's out in the world. Yeah. He always does. But what I noticed about him, though, was that, like, there are guys who want to talk about

back in the day and there are guys who could take it or leave it. Yeah. And, you know, he's a take it or leave it guy. Yeah. He feels the same way I do.

He's really concerned with what he can do today. Sure. And what he would like to do tomorrow and what he might be able to do this week or this month or this year. Right. He doesn't really look back at CSNY as much or at his past much, and neither do I. I mean, you've got so much time on the planet just so much right do you want to spend your time looking over your shoulder or are you trying to use every minute right because it's totally precious right and he gets that yeah but you know there's a the thing

for me in a conversation though is that i get sort of fascinated with you know where you guys come from what it looked like when you started what started to define you and your skills and you know and then you know what was the journey i think the journey is is a pretty beautiful thing i'm not saying you got to live there but i mean i i imagine that you know in your quiet moments when you're not thinking of a new tune or how the world is ending that you got to go back to some things and go like, that was a fucking good time. I don't. I don't.

I understand what you're saying. I'm going to make you. Well, no, I can. Yeah. But I don't. Right. And I think that's very admirable. I think some other people who show Romaine Nameless probably do that more than I do.

Right. But I think Neil is very much looking forward, and I know I am totally. Yeah. That's my entire focus is on today, tomorrow, next week, this year. Yeah, right. But the beautiful thing is, and this is something that people don't necessarily,

it's not their responsibility to answer, or they might not have answers, is that the magic of music is that, especially the best of it, it's really a timeless thing. And anytime you go to it, you can have a different experience with it. It can be nostalgic.

It can mean something to you in that moment. It can bring you to a place that is timeless and not defined, but beautiful in that moment it's like it's a magic thing it is and so you have this magic a career of magic that as the wizard you have to fucking answer for when you sit down with somebody on a microphone i totally get that and i and i don't have a problem doing it yeah i just my focus now yeah sure is is elsewhere. I'll be very corny with you, man. To me, just as war is a depressing force on humanity and brings out the very worst in us, music is a lifting force.

It is magic. It's been mankind's magic since the first caveman danced around his fire going, ugabug, ugabug, ugabug, ugabug. Right. And we, it's our party. Right. And we, it's our party. Right. And it's something that, it's one of the two things that link people all over the world constantly without, and transcend language. That's right.

Math and music. Eskimo can play music with a Kalahari Bushman. Yeah. It's a magical thing. Well, that's what was interesting to me about you just this morning uh listening to um uh is it i can't remember my name is that you know you in in particular that you know your approach to music and as you were talking this morning about open tunings that there is a meditative almost trance-like quality to to to that that album in particular

because it felt like a group of people coming in and out, not working a lot of chords, but working a repetition to get some sort of communal environment feeling. Yeah. It was a very, a very strange time in my life. When we had just finished making Deja Vu, and we were in the middle of Deja Vu, my girlfriend got killed in a wreck.

Oh, my God. How long were you with her? Long time. I've been with her several years. That's sad. And so I didn't know how to deal with it at all. And I would wind up sitting on the floor crying and just not knowing what to do.

And when we finished Deja Vu, the other guys went their own way, and I didn't have any place that I felt safe to be. I didn't have really anything to do other than be in the studio. That was it. That was the only place I really could exist without just, like, weeping.

Right. And so I stayed in the studio while I had her in San Francisco and my friends showed up. You were up in SF? Yeah. And my friends showed up, notably Garcia. Yeah.

Almost every night. Just to hang out? No, to play. And hang out though, right? Yeah, and hang out. I mean, he was a friend. He loved you. Yeah, and we out. I mean, he was a friend. He loved you. Yeah, and we played music really well together.

Yeah. You know, there's a, we would take a lot of chances. Yeah. And he, that was his thing. He wanted to be right out on the edge, you know, and an immensely creative human being. Yeah.

But also, without being mushy about it, he was pretty kind to me because he knew where I was at and that I was... Breathing. Shattered. Blown apart. Yeah.

And he would come... He's a funny guy too, right? He was a funny guy. Oh, yeah, he was a very funny guy. Yeah, yeah. And he would come, Cantner would come, Nash would come,

Johnny would come sometimes, Grace would come, Paul, Cantner, and Grace would come a lot because they were, Grace still is a good friend. David Freiberg, guys from Santana. People would come.

Lesh, Cassidy, two fantastic bass players. And I would sing them a song. I'd say, well, what about this? And we would start playing it. And very often that became the record. Right.

The actual first groove of it. Yeah. Everybody getting in it. It became the record, yeah. Like the first song on there, Music is Love. Yeah. That's just me and Neil and Nash goofing off. Oh, he was there?

Yeah. And Nash and we were in the studio and we were just goofing off. And I had written some words that were related to it, but they weren't the same. And it just happened. And that happened a lot in that record because we were open to it. And did it help you process? Yeah. To be engaged and around friends and, you know.

Like I said, music's a lifting force. Mm-hmm. And it really is. If I, you know, if there is anybody who puts people on earth to do something, and I'm pretty, I don't believe that there is, but if there were, they'd put me here to make music. Oh'm pretty i don't believe that there is but if there were they put me here to make music oh that's there's no question about that and now the deja vu's uh you know

process that was that was different that wasn't as loose was it no it was very strange neil you understand yeah it was never in the band no i got I got that. Not in his head. Yeah. It was a stepping stone. He had, what was the one he put out, Harvest, right afterwards? Whatever it was, he had it ready. Yeah. We went in there, and he brought his tracks in, and we sang on them. Right.

But he made the tracks to Country Girl and Helpless. They were whole things already. Yeah, and he brought them in. And then we arranged them vocally and put the vocals on them and made them what they are. So it was a kind of strange experience, but it was good. How did that happen? Did Stills bring them in?

I guess we need to go back. So when you grew up, you grew up here, right? I was born here. Right. I grew up here about fifth grade, and then we moved up to Santa Barbara. Oh, so nice. So you're by the beach and whatnot and live in that life? Yes.

And when do you choose music? When does music choose you? I started singing harmony when I was about six. Uh-huh. Just natural. You got it natural my my family uh used to play music my brother played guitar yeah uh he gave me my first guitar he was professional musician right yeah and my dad played my dad played mandolin a little bit and my mom

sang in the choir and stuff we used to sit around and sing folk songs oh yeah uh because we didn't have a tv yeah see my dad was a cinematographer. He made films. He was a big one, right? Yeah. He got an Academy Award and a Golden Globe and stuff. But anyway, so he, to them back then in the 50s, TV was the devil because they hadn't figured out they could show movies on TV.

It's still kind of the devil. It kind of is. But back then, in the film people, they won't come to the theaters. They'll put us out of business. This is terrible. It's awful. So we didn't have a TV. Right. Which actually happened.

That prophecy actually came true. Yeah, it did. But we used to sing folk songs and stuff, and that was what led me into singing. But it's an open family. You have a creative family. They were open-minded people that were in the arts to a degree. To a degree. You know, my dad was actually a pretty stiff, old, crusty old guy.

He was born in 1900, so he went through the Depression, was in a B-24 the entire length of the Second World War. Oh, shit. Doing photo recon kind of stuff. So he didn't get out after 35 missions. He just had to keep doing it. Because he was a photographer. Right. Yeah.

So he was kind of crusty and stuff. But in any case, the music thing happened quite naturally. And then I discovered the other half of the human race. And I found out that if you could sing to them, it was a good thing. Yeah. Good intentions. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You got to find your gift somehow. You know you got to do something. Yeah. Well, yeah. And because of your voice i yeah then then that leads us to what we started talking about there's still a few kids you might not have met yet uh no i think you are really okay i'm gonna i'm gonna find your weak point i'll get you what do you mean it's all over the place i'll you all want me to make a list i'll shove it across the table we can

compare lists. Yeah, okay. I'm sure you did better than me. You know, like I said, I was pretty irresponsible. I had a lot of fun. But so when did you start playing in bands? I was a folky for several years. Solo?

Yeah. And then I started doing it with my brother. And then we needed to actually put some food on the table. So we were in a band, my friend Bob Ingram and another guy named Mike Clow. And my brother and I were in a band that I can't even tell you the name. It's too embarrassing. But we were in a folk, a commercial folk band. We can find it yeah

i know you know that's where the problem yeah uh but it was pretty terrible and then i went out on the road some more by myself just singing in coffee houses and stuff oh yeah and i came back to la mid 60s early early before yeah before that yeah like right after the civil war uh-huh and uh sure and north one and you were like, great. And I was doing great. Yeah. And I came back and I walked into the troubadour and Roger McGuinn and he was then, he was Jim McGuinn.

Uh-huh. And Gene Clark was sitting there singing, Beatle-ish sort of stuff. Duo. Yeah. Yeah. And it appealed to me a lot. And so I started singing in harmony. You stepped on stage with them they knew who you were or you no this was just happening in the little front room out there in the bar okay we were just goofing around and um that became the

birds so that you were there at the beginning of that that was the birds you were the that was the founding members having their moment like we're doing this yeah and we knew that it worked we liked it so we found you know hillman and mike clark and we made it into a band that was the first real band that i was really in and that was a pretty powerful band it worked yeah i mean you know you changed the game a bit we had a couple of really lucky things. We figured out how good Bob Dylan was early on before anybody else. In terms of like you guys respected him as a songwriter and as an artist.

Yeah, we knew those songs were really good. Right. So we did that. Yeah. And it put us on the map pretty much. Yeah. And with Mr. Tambourine Man. Mm-hmm.

And what other, did you do other dylan covers no yeah later later on we did yeah uh um baby be good to you uh chimes of freedom uh yeah yeah yeah and there were several and you know but you had your own you're writing originals too at some point you were writing yeah we started Yeah, we started writing originals pretty quickly. Yeah. And so, but you guys were doing something that had not been done, which was the transition from folk and more country music into rock music, which was really a new thing and a bit psychedelic as well later on. Yeah, you know, they kept trying to label us, which was pretty funny. I have no respect for labels at all because they're generally a way to not think about a thing.

Oh, that's a blah, blah, blah. And then you don't think about it anymore. Right. You've got it tagged. But I'm saying that, okay, so I'm using those labels. But at that time in Hollywood, in this city, you know, when the birds are starting to do. Oh, no, we did do it. The first wreck.

Right. But who were the other bands? I mean, who are you guys sitting around talking with? Who are you at the club with? You know what? We didn't. There weren't there weren't any la bands that we liked the other bands were people like uh uh paul revere and the raiders really yeah who i normally call paul rovade in the rear doors so so it hadn't broken open yet you guys were ahead of the curve yeah way yeah and and the bands that we liked yeah uh were uh the bands that i liked were the bands that I liked.

The ones that counted for me were Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver, Mission to Service, Janice. So they were all just starting out too? Yeah. Mid-60s. So the first Byrds record is 65, Mr. Tambourine Man. And the 64. Okay.

So it's all just starting to go. Yeah. But most of what you liked was in the Bay Area. I liked them because they weren't Hollywood. Right. And they didn't give a damn about show business. Right. They couldn't, you know, they did not wear little bellboy jackets.

They played in t-shirts and they played what they wanted. Yeah. And they played the way they wanted and they weren't trying to have a hit. They were trying to play music that got them off. Were you up against that, the hit makingmaking sensibility in the Byrds? Was McGuinn about that? No, he wasn't about that. He was about good stuff.

Yeah. We were up against the old establishment. The only reason we got signed to Columbia, actually, we sent them a demo, and they didn't know what to do with that. They said, what the fuck is this? Really? Yeah. And so they asked Miles fuck is this? Really? Yeah. And so they asked Miles.

Miles was on Columbia. Yeah. And they said, what is this? Miles? He says, sign him. He told them to sign him. And so they did, but they really had not one clue. But it's a surprising ally, isn't it?

Yeah. I mean, long connection with Miles. Later on, he cut one of my tunes. Which one? Guinevere. He did? Yeah.

Much later on. And I didn't get it. He, because he called it Guinevere, but he really, you know, just played like a chord and went for the horizon.

Uh-huh. It's not recognizably Guinevere. So when he asked me if I wanted to hear it it he walked up to me in new york much later on yeah i am miles i said i i know who you are it's a hero of mine yeah yeah so he says i got one of your tunes. And I said, which one? He said, Guinevere. You want to hear it?

I said, yeah, of course I want to hear it. Yeah. So he took me up to his house. I mean, he said, follow that car. And this girl was like legs up to her neck, you know, got in the car. And they drove up to this thing that was, somebody had taken a brownstone and converted it to look like a mini castle. Yeah, yeah.

And he was living in there, and he played me the tune, and I was really rude. I said, well, man, you could change the name and get all the publishing, because I don't hear Guinevere in there. And he threw me out of the house, because he was pissed.

Really? Yeah. He almost didn't have a lot of patience with people. Was that in the 70s, like in that period where he was sort of? No, it ended in the 60s, right in there. So you couldn't identify any melody? No. Huh.

I mean, you listen to it. You tell me. But I was kind of short-sighted. Obviously, it was a huge honor that he did it. And I brag about it readily now. Right. Well, I mean, I don't think it's a surprise. You were did it and i brag about it readily now right you know uh well i mean i don't think it's a surprise you were a little cocky right a little a little i you kidding

me i uh i had an ego the size of a mac truck mm-hmm mm-hmm that's a that that that comes across you thanks man good to know i thought i had it under control not a chance but i mean but you you guys were like i mean once you started to find once janna started everybody started to come up like what you were what you were interested in was actually slowly becoming what the audiences were interested in yeah it must have been very vindicating and it must have been a good fuck you to the establishment on that level and there were some record guys that were for fourth uh had enough forethought like who were the guys that championed you you know in the biz that enabled all you guys to happen nobody as in as in fucking nobody everybody

was sort of like i guess, let's see what happens. So they were rolling the dice. Yeah, you know, they would pay attention if you had a hit. Right. And that was the only thing they would really pay attention to. So Mr. Tambourine Man was a hit. Yeah. Yeah.

Gigantic. Couldn't deny it. Yeah. But they really didn't pay attention. The first record people that really actually paid attention to us was a person. It was Ahmet Erdogan. The guy. Yeah, who ran

Atlantic Records. And he was different from all the other guys because he really loved music. He was like, this guy seems like a real mystic to me. He was a great cat man.

His father was an ambassador from Turkey. Yeah. So he grew up going back and forth and being in the States a lot and he was very comfortable in the States

and he loved music. He and Nets, we both did. They were jazz guys. Yeah. And then from that uh rhythm and blues guys yeah and then they got into the record business yeah ama could go to a ray charles concert and wind up weeping i mean it affected him he loved music and he was our mentor oh yeah he had still signed already because of buffalo springfield so when still said i want to do this group with David Crosby and this English guy. And he said, okay.

And he helped us do some little trickery and get ourselves on the same label and create CSF. So you were in the birds and you guys had run the course with them? Yeah, they threw me out. Because? I was an asshole. A moment of rare clarity. Oops. Were you upset at the time or were you like,

Yeah, of course I was. He's a good band. Well, yeah, and I thought I was pretty terrific. Yeah. And they thought I was a pain in the ass. And so you're out of a band, and Stephen is in Buffalo Springfield. They only did a couple records. His band fell apart around him. Because, again, Neil. See, Neil's always had a through line.

He's always had a plan. Yeah. And other people aren't necessarily part of the plan. Yeah. And other people aren't necessarily part of the plan. He will make music with somebody, but he's got a step beyond that. Mm-hmm. And he... You think he was conscious of that?

Yeah. Mm-hmm. But I think... I'm not saying that he was, like, mean or anything. Right. He just had a plan. Yeah. And look at, you know, Neil's bigger than we are.

Right. By a long shot. You know, he's a huge he seems to stubbornly do his own thing he does yeah uh he follows fashion a little bit but not enough to be bad about it right he you know he'll listen a little bit to what's what's out there but he doesn't really you know he tells you that he doesn't listen to other people at all uh-huh what's out there but he doesn't really you know he tells you that he doesn't listen to other people at all uh-huh he when i sent him cross the cross record yeah he said oh okay i'll listen to two songs he was grudging you know yeah yeah okay uh but uh he's he's very bright yeah and he's

very very much his own guy yeah Yeah. But it's interesting. But you guys, so like really when you think about it, like I know, like obviously you and McGuinn probably were friends. Yeah. And like so now Stills wants to out of Buffalo Springfield or it's falling apart and him and Neil are childhood friends. But you and Neil meet later, really, right? Yeah.

So you're not like you don't have this long relationship when you do deja vu necessarily right there had been some yeah what happened how that actually went down was i was sitting in on joni's driveway uh in laurel canyon yeah waiting for uh waiting for her to get back or her and I think she might already have been switched over from me to Graham. You both dated her? Yeah. She was my lady for about a year. I produced her first record.

Right. And then she went to Graham. How did that not cause all kinds of bullshit? Well, because I had already found somebody that I loved. The girl who got killed and uh and um then james taylor then jackson brown then there was a list of joanie people yeah but anyway talented people well she liked singers i guess yeah i guess and uh uh i was sitting there on the in a waiting and ne drove by, and he saw me.

So he turned around, came back, and pulled in. And at this point, we were thinking about how we were going to do going out on the road, CSN. We had the biggest record in the country. And Neil comes up and says, hey, I want to hear a song. And I said, sure. And he sits down in the trunk of the car with me with his guitar, and he sings me Helpless. God, I don't know, like three or four songs.

Really good. Really good songs. And it blew me away. So I went back to Stephen and Graham and I said, we got to do it. He's got to be the other guy. Because when we'd made the record,

Stephen had played keyboard and guitar. That's how he got the Captain Many Hands thing. So we knew that somebody had to be playing guitar while Stephen was playing keyboard and somebody had to be playing keyboard when he was playing guitar. Neil was the guy. So this is after the CSN record and before Deja Vu and this

is heading into what became four-way street this was heading into Woodstock okay and uh and when he sang me those songs I I I had been very iffy about having him there because I knew he wasn't my buddy. But he was Steve's buddy, no? To a degree. Yeah. But I knew how good he was. I knew how good those songs were. And they were irrefutable.

And you liked his voice? Relatively. It's not, you know, he wasn't as good a singer as I was. Right. Or as good as Stephen was. But he could tell the tale yeah and the songs were spectacular and to me songs have always been the key to the entirety yeah yeah yeah yeah

so you you tell steve and steve what what does he say he says well yeah i was right wasn't i yeah and you had played with steve before as a little bit right before before csn in springfield right you did what would you do a tour with them or did you do no i chris hillman took me down so you got to hear this band got to hear yeah and and it was uh stills and and neil yeah and i i went holy fucking shit this is good shit yeah that was how i got turned on to steven and Neil both. And so now you guys start rehearsing for Woodstock? We started playing together. I don't know if we ever really rehearsed legitimately. Yeah.

We would play together and stuff would happen. Yeah. This is so funny to talk through this history stuff because I'm very foggy about it all because I don't think about it very much. Is it bothering you? No. Oh. No where's you know what do i focus on i focus on what i did last night i mean sure we created a new song last night you did yeah uh james and i um that's why this girl uh talis is texting me because i i tweeted about it this morning

because uh she wrote the music and I wrote the words. But we did a piece of really good work last night. Working with James is a joy, man. Your son. Yeah. We listen to a lot of the same music. A lot of jazz, a lot of Steely Dan, a lot of more complex singer-songwriter stuff. Joni.

Steely Dan, a lot of more complex singer-songwriter stuff. Joni. That's a voice that it's almost hard to understand where it came from, isn't it? Joni Mitchell. Like, how does that happen? It's never happened again. No, I don't know if it will. And, you know, she shot her voice to shit smoking.

Yeah. And she's gone through a—she took a bad hit, man. Yeah, I know. Recent. Yeah. Are you in touch with her? Dist touch with her distantly yes i'm supposed to go by i have permission to go by yeah i will go by right right uh i love her yeah i mean we all do we can't can't help it you can't listen to the album blue yeah and not love joni mitchell right it's impossible yeah not if you have ears on your head you've got to to be, you have to love her. When you get to the end of that record, you say, oh, I love that woman.

So the new song you're working on, what is, what's the, how many, like tracks, how many people playing? So far? Yeah. Just an incredible guitar player named Greg Lease. Uh-huh. He's in Jackson's band right now, but he's worked on dozens of records you and jackson tight yeah that's good oh i love the guy yeah he's terrific cat yeah you know he walked in

somewhere back there he walks into a room at a friend of mine's house who said hey you got to hear this kid and he was like 19 who's this the kid jackson yeah and he walks into the room and i said hey friend tells me that you write songs. And he says, yeah. I said, can you sing me some? And he sat down, and he sang me Jamaica, Something Fine, and Adam in a row. And I went, holy shit, here comes the next wave. It was like, wow.

And I sang all those harmonies on his first record on doctor my eyes and well there's a bunch of them yeah on something fine on jamaica and you know a bunch of them well i remember when like someone turned me on to that album the uh the dot with the one that doctor my eyes is on it and they said that you were the back and i just remember the first time you know listening close enough to identify your voice. And I was like, that is him! I'm sneaky. Sometimes you can't really tell it's me. There's a seamlessness to something that something happens when you sing with certain people where, you know,

it becomes one thing. If you're good, yeah. It's what you try for. Well, that's great that, you know, you got this great tune. I got a bunch of them. And I don't understand it, man. This is a very strange thing. Yeah. Most people,

they get to my age, they kind of peter out. Mm-hmm. Hmm. Maybe that's a bad turn of phrase. You can fix that. They have peter pills.

Yeah, yeah. I knew you were going there. Low-hanging fruit. You had to go for it. I don't know how low it is, David. It is. That's a little too much information i forgot what i'm dealing with here okay um i don't always like that you set me up it was a softball i'm sorry man i'm sorry well i think that they don't peter up but there's certain

things like you know what what people want to spend their energy on well i think as they get older it just changes some people are like i'm fucking done yeah i want to spend their energy on well i think as they get older it just changes some people are like i'm fucking done yeah i want to know also they think that they've said whatever they've got to say right or they're just get lazy i'm sure or their brain goes or their brain goes or they get too into the drugs or the booze yeah that doesn't last i mean you you're about you're the you're you're like the outside of the possibilities of living through that. Yeah. I mean, I have to assume that most of the guys that continued that lifestyle that you knew from back in the day are dead.

Yeah. However, what happens is normally people get as old as I am, and I am older than dirt. What, you're 72? Let's not even go there. I'm very old. I'm like 92. Okay, 92, David Crosby. Okay.

But what's happened is the last couple of years, see, about three years ago, I decided I wanted to get out of CSF because there was just no forward motion. In terms of new work? Yeah, and in terms of, you know, the dynamic between the three of us wasn't good, and it just wasn't exciting for me.

It wasn't exciting at all. But you guys could still sell tickets, right? Oh, yeah. And we could still deliver a show that sounded pretty good, because Nash and I could still sing harmony really, really well. Yeah. Nash has fantastic harmonies, and we do have a magic

that we can do well you did what how many albums just to two of you like four yeah yeah it's good good music yeah but anyway so uh somewhere about two years ago i started a search. I've always written, you know, in bursts. Yeah. And then it'd be an empty part and then I'll sing, you know, write a bunch and then not. This is like two years now. Yeah. Really intense density of writing. It's just really coming a lot.

And do you see the difference? Do you see a wisdom that has evolved, you know, in your writing? That's just really coming a lot. And do you see the difference do you see a wisdom that has evolved in your writing? That's for somebody else to say. Yes, I feel that. But it's not good for me to say that. Right. I think I'm doing

since we started CPR, James and I, I think I've been doing some of the best writing of my life. And the Cross record, you know, that's good. There's pretty good songs on there. It's pretty good writing. And it's just going on. I kept waiting for it to stop

and it hasn't stopped. I've made an entire... You ever hear of a band called Snarky Puppy? No. Good band? Oh, man. Yeah. Holy shit. Great. I don't know why i don't know oh yeah well most people don't know there's a band called snarky puppy look them up on youtube okay blow your mind out your ear um i just finished making a record with michael league who's the band leader and

composer for that band and i still had so songs. I could start another record with my son, James. Right. But I guess the question becomes for me just impulsively is, for whatever reason, these were not songs that you're like, well, me and Graham should do this. Me and Stephen and Graham should do this. Me and, no. They were your songs.

Their chemistry hasn't been good enough in CSN for a long time for us to want to go in the studio with each other. Yeah. A long time. But the songs are there. Yeah. And they're what I live for. Right.

You know, and I've been writing a lot with other people. I wrote a really good song with Michael McDonald. How's he doing? Oh, terrific. Yeah. He's one of the, the only guy who can sing better than him is Stevie Wonder. Uh-huh. I mean, he's spectacular.

His voice holding up? Michael's voice is holding up. Does he, what are they, does he tour solo? Are the Doobies going to get him? No, no, he doesn't want to work with them. But, but. You guys and your bands. Yeah.

You know, but, but he, he's fantastic. We wrote a really good song together. I've written songs. I found this girl when I was doing a benefit record with Snarky Puppy. I found this girl, Becca Stevens, who's excellent. She's got a new record called Perfect Animal. And this girl has her own take on singer-songwriter. She's really good.

Wrote a great song with her. I think I'm writing a song with Donald Fagan. I think I'm writing a song with Van Dyke Parks. I think I'm writing a song with... What does that mean? That you've had a couple of emails? That means I've sent him words. And we'll see how it turns out.

You know, writing with... I like writing with other people. I write with my son constantly, and I write with this guy, Michael League, constantly. Michael came to my house, man. We wrote three songs in three days. Bam! Really good ones.

They're on my computer. How do you know when a... Like, I mean, I've never written a song. What, how does it work, dude? I mean, like.

Every which way. Yeah. Yeah. Do you start with words or do you play or? That's funny. That's the most frequent question I get asked on Twitter.

Oh, really? Yeah. What comes first? And the answer is everything. It happens every possible way it could happen. Here's the thing.

You have to be open to it. You can't legislate it into being. You know, you can, but it's not very good. You can say, okay, I want to write a song about the Eiffel Tower. It's big and it's tall and it's made out of iron, which is my tendency to go too directly at it that way. Yeah, yeah. But that's not it.

That's kind of like trying to force the issue. What you can do is pick up the guitar or sit down at the piano or have a pad and pencil or a computer and sort of go, okay, I'm ready. Yoo-hoo. Are you out there? Uh-huh. And see what comes. Right.

I fool around in these tunings every day. I pick up the guitar in a strange tuning and I like try to find new shit. And I do. Uh-huh. Every time. Every time. How many tunings you working with? Oh, maybe 10.

Yeah. Wow. At least. So you have like five or six guitars all tuned different hanging around yeah in the bedroom uh-huh yeah on the wall it stands everywhere a bunch of them and um so when i find something i i i noodle with it you know and it becomes the music of a song one of the best things that happened to me about songwriting was Joni Mitchell said to me, write that down. And I said, what?

She said, you just said something really good. You do that all the time. You toss off conversationally. Other people would work something months to get, and you forget about it. If you don't write it down, it didn't happen. Brilliant phrase. Brilliant truth. So I started writing it down.

So I have these scraps, millions of scraps, and I'll pick them up and look at them. I'll look at a line and say, well, that's actually a pretty good line. Maybe that needs to go, and bam, I'm off and running. Right. But every day, I make a space for it i work at it i don't take it for granted uh and i don't try to you know just create it by the pound the song has to mean something to me it has to take you on some kind of way it affect you in some way yeah and i love it it's it's i love playing live but i really love making songs and now you there's you know technology to where you you know you don't you

can almost do a studio record you know at your son's house yeah i can yeah i have uh we don't have any money yeah you know we don't have a record company you know giving us a big budget or anything we made craw's record on the on the grocery money uh couldn't have done it if james hadn't had a studio in his in his house and hadn't been really brilliant at it i mean but that's the world we live in now yeah i mean i imagine like you know having survived you know i can't imagine like after deja vu what was offered to you it must have been pretty spectacular yeah we were able to go in and and do wretched excess yeah you know go to the studio for months at a time order gigantic

meals take all afternoon to fool around with one thing spend a lot of time getting stoned and laughing uh and you know and we didn't care you know somebody else's money actually our money, but we didn't really pay attention. You didn't know that. Yeah. It's coming out. It's like we're having fun. I don't do that. I can't do that.

I don't have the money. I don't have very much money at all in my life. But it's not why I came to the party. Right. I didn't come to be a star. To be rich. I didn't come to be rich. I't come to uh be on the cover of rolling stone you know i came to but you did get all those things yeah yeah but but they weren't

sure no i get it they weren't my raison d'etre was it the same with all these i mean was it like you know what did graham and steven feel the same way you from the east coast a little bit Did Graham and Stephen feel the same way? You from the East Coast? A little bit. Do you have family from Jersey? All he is? Well, I mean, sometimes it switches up. Come see, I heard it.

My family's from Jersey, but like I picked up things. Yeah. You got me. I gotcha. Yeah, the Jersey roots. Yeah, well, that's good with me. Was it everybody's intention just to make good music? No.

Yeah. No. But you guys weren't making easy music. No. Yeah. There's nothing really on Deja Vu or even on CSN that was like, this is going to be a pop hit. No. We didn't, you know is going to be a pop hit. No. We didn't, you know, I've never had a hit.

I've been in bands that had big hits. Right. Lots of them. But I've never had one. And for the most part, I don't think that's what we were aiming to do. Maybe, you know, we were certainly happy about it with the Burt's. We were trying to get on the radio. But.

How did Woodstock go? I can't remember. I can't even imagine what it would have been like walking into that. And we didn't walk in. Flew in in a chopper. In a chopper. Yeah. There's some significant stuff about what happened there that really gets missed

yeah everybody gets uh off on how big it was or how significant it was right or a generation coming of age yeah a generation finding out that they existed yeah suddenly seeing themselves. There was some other stuff. There's never been a gathering that large that I know about where nobody got murdered, nobody got robbed, nobody got raped. Didn't happen. So there was something going on. Some sense of community, some sense of brotherhood, some sense of community some sense of brotherhood some sense of something going on i remember seeing a girl walking barefoot in the mud cut her foot badly i remember a highway patrolman walking over to her and picking her up and carrying her to his car and then I watched about 15 hippies push the car out of the mud.

And I said, wait a minute, that's working. This is a step up. I remember feeling really good right at that minute because cops were our enemy, you know. And to see that all go away for a second, there was something there. There was something there. There was something, I hesitate to say spiritually, but there was something happening between the human beings there that I have not seen anywhere else.

And you can't recreate it. They tried to at Altamont. Whoa, what a mistake. You can't really do anything twice. Whatever you do is going to be a different thing. No matter how much you try to copy the first thing that happens, the second thing that happens is going to be different. And also, did you stay for the whole thing?

Yeah. I just recently saw footage of people that I didn't even like, because I'm always a little late to the party, but I just recently watched Tim Harden at Woodstock. Good songwriter. The really funny shit is that a bunch of people, because the Woodstock people were making the movie, these Elf Brothers didn't have any money to pay you. Right.

A lot of people wouldn't consent to be in the movie. Right. A lot of people made a huge mistake. Neil Young, for one. Yeah. Grateful Dead for another. Neil Young, for one. Grateful Dead, for another. Jefferson Airplane, for another. They weren't in the movie.

Uh-huh. Because their managers or they thought, well, where's the cash? And they didn't realize it was going to be a gigantic hit and that being in it was worth far more than any cash they could have gotten and didn't hendrix go on at some weird time like yeah he went on like five o'clock in the morning or something it time took a vacation there yeah for a while were you close with him yeah relatively yeah i like the guy a lot he was much quieter and much nicer than you would think seeing him being flamboyant on stage. Sure. But if his hand could touch the keyboard, he could play anything.

Anything. He could play Bach. He could play Babies Crying. He could play a war. Yeah. He could play Planets Colliding. It didn't matter what it was. He could play a war. Yeah. He could play, you know, planets colliding. It didn't matter what it was. He could make it happen

if that one hand could touch that keyboard. The one thing I don't talk to a lot of people about, like I taught, like James Taylor was in here and he's very... Yeah, James.

Yeah. One of my favorite people. Well, he's, it was just one of these things where he was very candid about the struggle with heroin. Like, you know, like he laid it out.

You know, he's a program guy so he's really honest. Right, right. That's what heroin. Like, you know, like he laid it out. He's a program guy, so he's really honest. Right, right. That's what they taught us. You know, you go in those rooms and they tell you that the way to deal with it is- Is be honest. Is be honest, look at it very straight on, and then set it down. Right, but he don't have to do that publicly. I was just nice because I'm a program guy that, you know, he was able to do it.

He's been that way from the get-go, man. He's a very honest, very high ground human being. Yeah. He's one of the people I admire most in the whole business. And I'm so happy he made that record. That last record was so good. It was good. The newest one.

Oh, man. Awesome record. It's kind of wild, you know, because like, you know, people, you wonder like, what's that guy be doing? And he's like, he's been doing great stuff, just like he always has. Hey, man, it was the number one record. It's the of wild, you know, because like, you know, people, you wonder like, what's that guy be doing? And he's like, he's been doing great stuff, just like he always has. Hey, man, it was the number one record. It's the first one he's ever had. The last one.

Yeah. No kidding. Yeah. That's great. And he's as old as I am. Yeah. And that was a big encouragement to me. Yeah.

I see him, you know, functioning on the very highest level, writing superb songs, singing incredibly well, playing better than anybody. Nobody can play in that style as well as he does. Yeah. And I admire him tremendously. He's been a friend for a long time, and I really love him. Well, but the, yeah, it was beautiful. I mean, we've sung with him a bunch. Yeah.

You know, Mexico. Yeah, yeah. That's me and Nash. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lighthouse. Yeah. We've sung with him a bunch of times. It's a perfect match in a way, right?

Yeah. But I guess my him a bunch of times. It's a perfect match in a way, right? Yeah. But I guess my point was is that one thing that people don't talk about intimately, and I touched on it with Neil a little bit, but it was in passing, and just being as we are program guys, is just how hard that generation of performers got laid out by fucking dope and by you know like in that that people like they glorify it or romanticize it but it must have been horrible to not be able to help anybody you can't help anybody it was horrifying and it was and it it didn't just screw us up it killed us yeah i mean one time mark i i took this page and one of those double

yellow legal tablets you know big ones like this you know, one of those double yellow legal tablets, you know, big ones like this? Yeah. I took one of those and I started writing down, I think I started with Cass. Yeah. And then I wrote Jimmy. Cass Elliott? Yeah. Close friend.

Yeah. Real good human being. Uh-huh. And I wrote Hendrix, then I wrote Janice. These are all my friends. Yeah. And I was getting close to the end of the second page when I finally stopped because I couldn't stand it anymore. Of people who passed?

Yeah. It killed us, man. Dope killed us. Yeah. Cocaine and heroin just freaking killed us. And, you know, our experience coming into it, we'd been smoking pot and taking psychedelics. And they didn't do any harm to you. Right. Unless you were already psycho. Right. Then they didn't do any harm to you. Right.

Unless you were already psycho. Right. Then taking acid, probably not a good idea. Right. But I remember, you know, people telling me, oh, cocaine's not addictive. You can just, which is utter nonsense. It's the most addictive substance on the planet. And it destroyed us.

Yeah. It killed, just shot us down in rows well most a lot of people were doing the coke and then doing the dope to take you down yeah yeah classic thing yeah so but but it seems like you know out of the the bunch of you like uh just in terms of csn land that you were the the hardest right yeah yeah well Yeah. Well, I went down to Tubes of Cocaine and then I found out you could smoke. Smoke coke. Yeah. Yeah.

And that's when it really got grubby. Yeah. You know, that's the quickest, nastiest slide to the bottom there is, is freebasing. And were you doing dope too? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, both. And which, believe me, trying to kick cocaine and heroin in a Texas prison cell is not fun.

Well, here's a good question. And this is like the weird question because, you know, being recovered, you know, as we are, that, you know, you don't know at the time that, you know, if someone's in that, there's nothing you can fucking do to stop them. So you're a guy that- You can set an example. Right. But I mean- That's the's nothing you can fucking do to stop them so you're you're a guy that you can set an example right but i mean but when you're one thing you can when you're spiraling like like at the time i mean you were still you know on and off the road with csn right yeah i mean you're an older dude you're in your 40s right yeah so like you'd made it through the

your 20s and 30s having a good time i was going downhill very rapidly and they there were people tried to help you know the intention was there uh jackson and my pal car got labe and uh and nash and some other people tried to do an intervention uh were you just hold up like in your house just fucking i was paranoid and fucking, it was a mess. And very little higher consciousness still available to me, which was very bad. Yeah. And I went to prison. You got busted in Texas. What were you doing in Texas to begin with?

Playing. Solo? Yeah. And I went to prison, and it was horrifying. Hey, rock star, how are you? You look terrible. Bet you wish you weren't here now, huh? Hey, look, look, Rockstar's sick again.

Some bitch, ain't that grand? Really? It was horrible. Didn't they have any meetings in the prison? But was there any respect for you? No. Zero. It was probably the opposite.

Yeah. It worked against me uh and but i got through it and the point is it it takes what it takes as you well know sure it takes whatever jails institutions and death yeah and so that's what it took uh and i'm not i don't regret it i don't regret that year it saved my life i just remember those pictures i remember when it first happened when he first got busted they had the before and then after where they cut all your hair off. Yeah, it was horrible.

Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, I'm here. Did people come see you in prison? Carl did. My friend Carl. He did. I don't think anybody else did.

Carl is the one who wrote my autobiography, the first one. Yeah. And the second one. There's the one who wrote my autobiography, the first one. Yeah. And the second one. There's two of them. Yeah. Long Time Gone and then later on another one called Since Then, which are remarkably honest books,

partly because they taught me to be honest about it. And so I was. Other people's biographies have been notably lacking in that quality. But what about the guns? Why were you carrying guns around? You know, where I came from? Yeah. Like when I moved out of L.A., we moved up to a farm in Carpinteria.

And when you turned 12, you got a 22. Sure. I get it. I just wondered if it was paranoia or you were just... Well, it was after a while. But I was raised with a whole different viewpoint about it was just part of life. Right. Sure. Being a rifleman was a normal thing.

Yeah. So then the Manson thing happened. And that was a half a mile away from my house at Terry Meltzer's house. Who you knew? He was one of the producers of the birds. Terry was. I'd been to that house. About a half mile from my house.

And I said, you know, that's not okay. I'm getting a 12K. Did you know of Manson previous? No. He wasn't around? Never met him. Yeah. Grateful I didn't.

It was horrible. Don't want to get any of that on you. But yeah, that's where the guns came from. I did get scared about it, and I got more scared when they shot John Lennon. But, you know, guns is a funny thing. It's not the gun. It's the nut behind the wheel sure uh i agree uh it's i know a lot of people would like it to be the gun because that makes it external

right but the problem's internal sure and i don't understand why we have the the problem of violence that we do in the united States. Because here, and this is an interesting thing, I was ready to put it down to the cultural matrix. Yeah. To people see, you see somebody get shot every 10 minutes on TV. Mm-hmm. Constantly. Mm-hmm. I mean, it's all about that.

Movies and TV are just constant gun violence. Yeah. However, the Canadians watch the same TV and the same movies, and they don't have anywhere near the rate. No, no, absolutely. Not even close. No. So what's the difference?

And there's hunting guns around in Canada. There's tons of guns in Canada. Yeah. And they don't have anywhere near the rate that we do. And they're watching the same TV and the same movies. So that kind of discounts my theory that it was cultural matrix. I'm, you know, I've debated back and forth about this with people over and over and over and again. And I think it's just something you have to work out for yourself.

You know, I don't think, I know this. If they made guns illegal, it wouldn't work. Because they're in two-thirds to three-quarters of the houses in the united states of america and nobody's going to give them up they will all tell you the same thing i would which is you first yeah and they're not gonna but you live through like there was definitely i mean were you guys at altamont oh yeah i mean you know that was the that that was sort of between manson and altamont that was sort of between Manson and Altamont, that was sort of the end of it. Yeah, you know, it was a nadir, a low point, no question. You know what went wrong with Altamont?

It was very simple. The Grateful Dead management who put that show on, they put that show together. Was that Bill Graham? No. No, it was their management. Okay. They hired the Hells Angels to be the security. Yeah. Now, I'm the only one that defended the Hells Angels afterwards.

Yeah. Everybody else was, oh, they're terrible Hells Angels, and they shot that guy, and they killed him, and they knifed him, and it's so terrible. So, the biggest radio station in San Francisco calls me up. Yeah. And says, what do you think, Dave? And I said, you know what? If you don't want the tiger to eat your lunch guests,

don't invite the tiger to lunch. Right. These are angels. They fight. Yeah. It's what they do. It's part of their life. It's a normal thing for them to fight.

So if you invite them in, give them a job they don't know how to do, and put them in confrontational situation, there's going to be a fight. And you're stupid if you don't know that in the first place. So I blamed the situation and the management completely, publicly. And for a long time,

there was a picture of me on the wall in the Oakland Mother chapter. We like Dave. Hey, well, you know, I told it like it was. Yeah. Can I say? This guy's not on the hit list. No, definitely not.

Definitely not. But it seems to me that like, you know, a lot of your musical development as you came into your own really revolved around that San Francisco scene. Yeah, it did. revolved around that San Francisco scene. Yeah, it did. That sort of improvisational and jazz-driven element that was part of Jerry and part of, you know, who else up there? But it just seemed the looseness of it.

The real hippie ideal of what music could be with adventure was there. It was about being open to, you know, stretching the envelope. Yeah. And going for new stuff. And they were all wide open to it. And did you stay friends with them all the way?

Are you still friends with the dead guys? Oh, yeah. Yeah? Oh, yeah. You and Phil talk, you share liver stories? Yeah, we do. Phil's an anomaly man. He's a completely unusual human being

and I like him a lot smart guy yeah I like Bob I like I like Mickey I like you know

yeah all of them they're all good cats but you knew you probably knew Pigpen too then right I met him yeah

but I didn't get to know him the way I got to know the other guys because he was the first of the many keyboard players they lost right I know it's weird right

it's totally weird yeah Keith yeah I mean it was like every once in a while of the many keyboard players they lost. Right. I know, it's weird, right? It's totally weird. Yeah. Keith? Yeah. I mean, it was like every once in a while, oh, our keyboard player exploded. Yeah, yeah, right.

It's like Spinal Tap, yeah. But you found freedom in that environment in the Bay Area. Enormously. Yeah. Because they didn't give a shit about show business. Mm-hmm. And that really resonated with me. It's so funny because as CS csn as you guys got older

you were definitely a show business act no kidding and that's what got me to want to get out of the band but also you knew though like if like if a couple years went by and things got a little lean it's like let's go do a couple days yeah yeah oh yeah i'm gonna be right with it turn the smoke machine on yeah i'll do almost Got My Hair Again. No problem. Want me to sing it twice? No, I was right there. It's the path of least resistance. It's a devolving thing that happens to all bands.

I call it the turn on the smoke machine and play your hits thing. And it's the excitement in a band that's a new band when you're playing new music and you're exciting to people in there and it's a joy to do it yeah that fades yeah it does and i at a certain point you should go on to the next thing right which i was forced to do a couple of times and chose to do a couple other times and i'm truthfully man i'm very proud of the work that i did there i'm very proud of the work that we did there but i don't want to have anything to do with it it's not and there's no forward motion there's no room to stretch right and i need that sure and also you need to sort of like now like you know given that you are where

you're at economically and you are where you're at economically and you are where you're at creatively, but you do have the tools and the resources and the compassion and, you know, energy to just continue creating. Why not just do it?

Why not do it? Yeah. Truthfully, the biggest thing that being a success gives you is access to the tools. And you don't know that going in. You think it's getting laid or being famous. Being famous is really a pain in the ass.

And our culture in the United States is aimed at service rather than substance. And the surface stuff, this whole thing that's going on now where people are just famous for being famous. What's the name of those idiots? Kanye West married one of them kardashians yeah yeah i don't know what did they create i don't know nothing who did they help i couldn't even identify them in a picture who did they help no one what what have they brought to society what have they like what positive force have they been? None.

Nothing. They are nothing. They are nothing. And they are famous for being famous. It's all about celebrity. That's what TMZ is about. The most surface thing in the world. You know, it's nonsense.

It's just total crap. I have no patience for it at all. I have no patience for Kanye West. I think the guy's a total poser. I like a couple of his records. Well, you know, everybody makes mistakes. I think he's kooky, but at least he's put some things out in the world that were

good. Bad percussive poetry done to other people's music. Okay. It's not that I, look, the guy who did Hamilton, he can rap. Lin-Manuel, that's a great show. Did you see what he did? I think it was on.

I didn't. I got to watch that. It was on, was it on Colbert? Yeah, one of those. Yeah. The rap that he did about Puerto Rico? Yeah. It will knock your dick in the dirt.

I saw the show recently. You can't believe how good it was. He's a sweet, creative man, that guy. Well. It's a great show. Did you see the show? He's goddamn good at what he does. I did not see the show recently. You can't believe how good it was. He's a sweet, creative man, that guy. Well. It's a great show. Did you see the show? He's goddamn good at what he does. I did not see the show.

That's great. I am noted for not liking rap music. Right. And, you know, that's, my son did that to me. My younger son, Django, forced me to look at, and, you know, now I listen to somebody like this Lynn guy, and it it's it's undebatable there isn't any question that he

you gotta see that show you'd love that show I would you can't deny that sure of course not it's real shit well yeah everybody's doing what they do

there's room for everybody who's doing being creative there is and I shouldn't rag on the entire you know it's like saying all you know

all Chinese are bad drivers or something because it's really nonsense. No group of people bigger than 100. It's a little old guy stuffy for an old open-minded dude. It isn't open-minded. It's dumb. Because if you get 100 human beings, they got everything in there from axe murderers to angels.

Sure. And that's true of every possible conglomeration of human beings there's a spread there yeah there's people i don't want to have anything to do with and i think are dumb but the truth is like the beauty of it is is that you know people can put their shit out in the world relatively inexpensively exactly the way the way they want it and either people will come or they won't and that's not horrible that's a good thing that's a good thing. That's a good thing. Yeah. So now what we've come to is that, so you're happy with the stuff you're doing now? Oh, very happy. CSN is not going to do any more shit.

Well, that's what NASH says. Okay. Stills and I haven't said a word. Okay. Are you friendly with Stills still? Yeah, relatively. We've been together 40 years i know how much bro do you think there is left you know it's like it you grate on each other's nerves we are very different human beings

we have different agendas and different different uh values sure all three of us and nash has publicly announced you know that csn is over he's never going to do it again, ever. I think mostly just because it's the only thing he can say that will get attention, and he needs the attention. He's got a record out there. Well, we'll see what happens with all that. But you're not saying never. No, I never do.

Yeah. Because you don't know. Yeah. If Neil called, and Neil said there's never going to be any more CSNY, too. But if Neil called Stephen and me and Graham and says, you know, okay, it's all right, maybe we should. You know, I'd probably do it if there was music there. Everybody could bring some music.

Do you like singing with them? Yeah. Yeah. Hell yes. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. But there has to be some music. Do you like singing with them? Yeah. Yeah. Hell yes. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. But there has to be some music there. Are you sailing anymore?

No. So sad. So sad. I sailed. I had a boat for 50 years and I loved that boat. And last year I had to pretend to be a grown up for a minute. Yeah. There was a rumor I was going to grow up. Uh huh. It didn't pan out. No. you seem almost grown up near nearly sometimes nearly uh what happened is

uh i got my boat to be pretty perfect i had it about 50 years sailed it all over the pacific all over the caribbean through the canal a bunch of times and it's just been a big part of my life, a big sanity factor, big health factor, big spiritual factor for me. Last year, I was in very, very good shape, and I knew that I couldn't keep it that way. I don't make enough money to do that. And that's hard. I met a guy, wanted the boat, had millions and millions and millions of dollars,

could keep it perfect, could keep her in perfect shape. And he knew what she was. Yeah. He knew that she was an Alden Schooner. He's a Schooner sailor. He knew how beautiful she was.

He knew exactly what her value in the world was. Yeah. And I had to sell it. And I regret it because i miss her every day we will he let you use it no he'd let you take me sailing on it uh but you can't really go backwards on that yeah it's uh i haven't been sailing since since then because it's just pretty painful would you

go out alone and sail no i'm not really into sailing alone i like sailing with other people because i like sailing bigger boats yeah big sailboats you got it you got it a crew where are you at now health-wise well i'm old no i know i've been through a lot 92 right yeah 92 yeah and uh and and well pretty well considering I mean I had hepatitis C that's gone that's gone they finally came up with a cure

at a thousand dollars a pill ladies and gentlemen how many pills you need if you think big pharma is your friend consider that one so you had to treat that

after the liver transplant or before yeah after they treated it with a transplant which really was just a hair spread away from dying. So that's done.

I'm diabetic, which is a rough one. That'll probably get me. I've had a couple of heart attacks. That's probably going to get me. You know, I really try to stay as healthy as I can, but I mostly try to celebrate the fact that I am breathing right now. Yeah. And you sing and you write songs. And you work with, well, I know you did stuff with a lot of people, but you did some fairly recent work with David Gilmour?

Yeah. Yeah. I like David a lot. Yeah. He's one of my most favorite musicians. He's a fantastic guitar player no really wild yeah unbelievable his tone his touch yeah spectacular and he's a nice man yeah and what do you sing with him yeah i've sung with him and and done shows with him i i sang with him here at

the hollywood bowl i miss that that was big fun yeah Yeah. Big fun. And Phil Collins is a friend, right? Yeah. He got you a liver? Yeah. He helped. We wrote a song together called Hero, which was as close as I came to having a radio hit. He produced it, and we sang it together and stuff. It's real good. Phil's an incredible singer. Yeah.

He's got problems being able to play drums now because he's got problems with his hands, but he's still one of the great singers. And you are a Hall of Famer for two bands. Yeah. That's- Should be three. Yeah? Yeah, because CSNY is a totally different band.

Yeah. I mean, it's totally different. You add Neil Young to the mix and you just added Nitro Glycerin. Uh-huh. It's not the same band as Crosby, Stokes, and Nash at all. But you seem to have, despite personal history, you seem to have a lot of respect for everybody, for him anyways. If you look back over the work we did,

which is the only thing that counts, is the songs, we did some good work. Four Way Street's pretty amazing. Yeah, there's some really fine work there. And I'm sorry, I keep saying the name of your solo record wrong. If I could only remember my name. Do you know that record has been resurrected by hipsters as being? Yeah, it's kind of, what do they call it?

A cult classic? People love it. It has a vibe. It was a gold record though anyways, right? Yeah. Well, that's good. That's like a hit. Yeah, kind of. That's not a's good. That's like a hit. Yeah. Kind of.

That's not a radio hit. That doesn't exist anymore. There's no more radio hits. I guess. I don't know. It's funny to watch how the business changed. The biggest change was that the record companies didn't know what the word digital meant. They had no idea.

They thought it was a different kind of cassette. Right. Right. You know, it's like, well, it's like going from 8-track to cassette, right? Got away from them. Digital analog, that was a little beyond their capacity to understand. So analog, for those of you out there who don't know what we're talking about, Mark knows, but here's the deal.

Analog, you make a copy, it loses something. It's called going down a generation. You do it again, you lost another generation. By the time you make the 10 it loses something it's called going down a generation you do it again you lost another generation by the time you make the 10th copy it's useless by the time you make the thousandth copy of a digital it's exactly the same but there's problems with that well the problem is that the record companies didn't understand it and as soon as you put out a cd people can make a thousand copies off it and they're exactly the same. And also the integrity of the spectrum of sound is bad. They were compromised.

It used to be. Yeah. Digitally now, it really digital, you can get it up to the same quality if you slice it fine enough. Yeah. If you get a high res, you know, 24 bit 192, you know, that's good shit.

Yeah. That sounds good. Uncut. You and I both like vinyl. Yeah. And, I mean, it has a quality to it. Vinyl has a certain way that it approaches you. Yeah.

And I like that. Yeah. But digital, if you get high-res digital, it's terrific. If you're using MP3s, I'm sure Neil went here. He hates MP3s. No, he's selling his new thing, the Pono. Pono, I have one. There's one in my bag right out there.

It's a high-res player. You like it, right? Yeah, it's good. Yeah. You know, every member of my family has one. They're really good. Yeah. But, you know, the record companies just flat didn't understand it, and then things went

downhill from there. The streaming services are an abomination. They're totally wrong, totally bad. If Spotify, if you played one of my tunes on Spotify 10,000 times, I could buy you lunch. Well, that's, yeah, not paying the artist is a shitty thing. Yeah, it is. Because how the hell do you think other people are going to be artists if they look at it and say, well, I can't even make a living. I couldn't even put my kids in school.

How are you going to do it? Someone's making money. Someone is. Someone is. how are you going to do it? Someone's making money. Someone is. Someone is. They actually,

the motherfuckers that were screwing musicians to begin with have now evolved into a digital fucking. Yeah, bigger motherfuckers. Yeah, yeah.

And, you know, there are a lot of people fighting back. Yeah. But the, it's, and it's a really,

really crappy situation. I just signed a letter that my pal Walsh sent me that Don Henley generated. Joe? Yeah, Joe's a good guy. Yeah. He's a solid human being. He's one of my favorite people in the whole music business. He's a good friend.

Good songwriter. Excellent songwriter, excellent player, excellent singer, and a totally great guy. That's good. Sober too. Yeah. And you want to talk to him because he will crack your ass totally up. He invited me out to Santa Cruz Island a couple weeks ago.

He's on the board of the Conservancy out there. And we spent a couple of days out there just laughing our asses off. He's a wonderful cat. He seems like a good guy. Everyone has good things to say about him. Oh, no, he's a wonderful cat.

I remember when he was a quarter-day drunk. Yeah. And I loved watching him blossom the weed heads. You know, he and Richie married two sisters, right? Richie. Starkey. Yeah. You know, Ringo.

Yeah. So they married two sisters. Yeah. And they're both sober. Yeah. You know, Ringo. Yeah. So they married two sisters. Yeah. And they're both sober. Yeah. And they hang out together. Yeah. The two sisters and Joe and Richie.

And so we went to, Joe did a favor for the L.A. County Museum of Art. Yeah. It was supposed to be a benefit and somebody wouldn't show it, so he plugged in and covered it. So they owe him. And Richie can't go to the museum during open hours. Well, he'll be fucked. Well, he can't swing though, my God!

Yeah. So they let him go afterwards. Uh-huh. And the three of us and our wives all went. Mm-hmm. And we laughed ourselves silly. Yeah. We had more fun at that museum together.

It was a great night. And we had dinner there afterwards. It was a joy. Joe, is there somebody you want to talk to? I'd like to talk to them. I'll put a plug in for you. Okay, that'd be great. Well, Neil, it's amazing about talking to you.

And even when we talked on the phone a week or so ago, was that your spirit is fully intact, given how far you dragged it yeah how much you almost tried to kill it and your ego seems in check and you know you just you have a vitality that is rare in people of any age and it was uh beautiful to talk to you well you know i i'm lucky man i've got a great family and i've got a fantastic job. So believe me, I enjoy talking to you. If you want to do it again, I'll do it again.

This is fun. We haven't even covered half the shit we could talk about. Like we haven't talked about nuclear power. Yeah. Well, you're against it. Oh, totally. Are you kidding? Are you kidding?

No. Yeah, I was kidding. Well, I mean, no. I mean, human beings make mistakes. Yeah. A. Yeah. B. We have no place to put make mistakes. Yeah. A. Yeah. B.

We have no place to put the waste. Yeah. None. Zero. We have no way to deal with the waste. Yeah. And C. Mother Nature can knock down anything we can build. That's true.

And in California, she's going to. Yeah. It's not a matter of if. It's a matter of when. It's going to happen. That's the funny thing is that humans might not survive, but Mother Nature will be fine. Yeah. She'll handle it.

She'll handle it. She can absorb. She can take the hit. Giant cockroaches. Big ones. Yeah. It's not going to be a pretty world after we're done. No, but it'll be here.

Yeah. I want us to grow up and go out into space and find out who's in the neighborhood. That's my dream. All right. Well, maybe they'll actually, you you know you've got the new liver maybe they'll they'll figure out a way before you uh check out to take the brain and make you expand your consciousness that way i'd do it in a second i'd be a brain chip in a second yeah oh yeah i bet right oh hell yes well you said it here folks if anyone's out there working on that, David Crosby is available for brain chipping.

Yeah. We need that spaceship. Yeah. And we need it now. Okay. Thanks, man. You're welcome. That was David Crosby and myself chatting.

Lovely man. I even like just looking at David Crosby across the table with his white hair and white David Crosby mustache. It's almost like he invented that mustache. And that hair to some degree. Also, we've got something special for you on Wednesday. A brand new Mark and Tom show with me and Tom Sharpling. If you subscribe to WTF, you'll get it Wednesday morning. So enjoy that.

I'm Sharpling. If you subscribe to WTF, you'll get it Wednesday morning. So enjoy that. Me and Mr. Sharpling chatting as the lights dim. That's a mortality reference. We're okay. We're not. It's we're middle.

I'm older than him. It doesn't matter. We're just trying to figure shit out. You want me to play some redundant guitar? Boomer lives!