By Michael Newman
Photos by Paul Natkin

Crosby survived a turbulent decade the likes of which would have (and has) felled many a less fortunate rock and roller. His fame and deserved acclaim as a musician were overshadowed by notoriety stemming from self-destructive self-medicating and the resulting psychic damage which led to prison time in Texas on drug and weapons charges.

Out of prison, clean and sober and creatively renewed, and with the support of his wife Jan, Crosby was ready to soldier on, already once a survivor. In the fall of 1994, Crosby felt the rug ready to come out from under him once again. He found out he was dying of liver disease, and that only an immediate transplant could save him. If Crosby needed yet another lap on the cosmic roller coaster, as he lay in the hospital confronting his mortality, he and Jan learned they were expecting their first child.

Crosby received his transplant and lived to see the birth of his son Django in July of 1995.

Since then Crosby's life continues to be a catalog of miracles. Pianist James Raymond, an adopted child, came to learn that Crosby was his natural father, a fact also unknown to Crosby. In addition to establishing a familial relationship with his grown son, Crosby has also established a fruitful working relationship with him. Crosby, guitarist Jeff Pevar, and Raymond, collectively known as "CPR," entered the studio on August 1 to begin recording their first album together.

JAMTV caught up with Crosby in Chicago on the eve of the final night of a three month Crosby, Stills and Nash tour. On a natural high lingering from the previous night's triumph in Indianapolis, an effusive Crosby was eager to talk about the good life.

JAMTV: So you tore it up last night?

Crosby: Tore it absolutely off.

Are you guys out with a band this time or is it just the three of you?

Oh no, it's (drummer; Joe) Vitale, (keyboard player; Mike) Finnegan and (bassist) Gerald Johnson and we're on some kind of roll man. I dunno, it's either that we... no, it's got to be a combination of stuff because it couldn't be this good just from one thing. We've got a set that works really really well. We've got like five new songs in it, sometimes more, depends on which night 'cause obviously we never do the same set exactly. And yeah, we're getting along pretty good...

Being on a roll, that's gotta make all the difference in the world...

Yeah, we've had like one clunker show in like the last you know, like two dozen.

There must be a lot of interplay between how it's happening on stage and off stage, working both ways.

Yeah, and it's not always easy for me. Stephen and I butt heads a lot. We disagree about a lot of things. But you know, he's been trying really hard to come up with his best guy.

Do you get along better when the music's great? Is the music better when you're getting along?

Yeah, they feed each other. And the music has been excellent, and that always reminds you why you like the guy. Instead of some other thing reminding you why you don't like him. We've all been doing pretty well. It has to do also with CSN working in theaters. Sometimes multiple nights, and sometimes we have to work more for the same amount of money, but I've been pushing for this for a long time because an acoustically designed environment with a proscenium arch stage...a theater, where they're close enough to see you and feel how you're doing what you're doing...it's so much better for us, man.

I'm selfish with that. I understand that if the economics are such that the people are promoting you think you're gonna fill sports arenas, that's where there gonna put you. There are a lot of things that play into booking theaters instead of sports arenas, but going to shows I'm delighted when it's a theater.

Well, everybody is, and it's been like that. Every night we've been just rockin' the audience's socks off because they can really see what we're doin' and they can really feel how we feel about what we're doin'.

I've never seen you with the band in a smaller setting.

It's really good. It's intense.

So, are you're playing a lot with James Raymond and Jeff Pevar these days...

I am.

And you guys are going into the studio?

We're going into the studio August first. We've written four or five new things in the last two months that are some of the best stuff I've ever been involved in ever...ever. I came into this with some songs that I really liked myself already..."Rusty and Blue," and this new one "Time" is the final currency or whatever the hell I'm gonna call it.

So are you going to revisit any older material?

Well, "Rusty and Blue" has been out live, but it's never been done in a studio. To me it's still a new song. We might visit some much older material, it depends, we've got eight or ten brand new things. The stuff that's really killing me is the stuff that James and I are writing, and Jeff and I are writing, and Jeff and James and I are writing that nobody's heard. We've got about five of 'em and they're some of the best stuff I've ever written.

What's attractive to you about James as a player?

He's so sophisticated man. He's really an advanced player. He doesn't play jazz the way McCoy Tyner would play, OK. But he's got that sophistication in chords and in melody line. He's very much like a Steely Dan player, or Hornsby.

I'm at a disadvantage. I haven't heard him play a note.

You haven't heard tapes of any of the shows from he coast? The best of the shows was one at a place called Questa College and we're gonna press that. We're gonna put it out. We'll have it out with us when we come out on tour. But there are tapes of a lot of the other shows. There's a tape of the San Francisco show where Phil (Lesh) played with us.

Are these board tapes leaking out, are you letting people tape in the audience?

They're audience tapes. We haven't let anyone patch into the board.

You're not hassling anyone that's taping at the shows with little microphones and stuff?

No. Fuck no.

That's nice of you.

You know, I only ever mind if they sell the stuff man. Tape traders I think is a natural, good thing. I always have, I thought the Grateful Dead thought the same thing. It seems to me to be a perfectly right part of all of it. I think the Dead have been right about that all along. But if you take a board tape that somebody lets you get, and then you take it to Italy and press it and you make $20,000 off it and you don't pay the artist anything then I think you're a fuckin' thief. But if you take a tape, and tree it out to your friends, I don't see anything wrong with that.

Well, I certainly think it was instrumental in taking the Dead's popularity to the next level.

Yeah, 'cause it made a tape collector out of everybody.

My theory was that the guys in Italy acquiring the tapes and pressing the CDs, somebody was doing this in the guise of a regular trader, and the person that got it to him was trading in good faith.

Yeah, well that's how human beings are, man. Most human beings are probably gonna do the right thing, they're mostly pretty nice. There's always a few bad apples and there's always someone that's gonna take advantage just 'cause he can. It's like people who sue people because they CAN rather than because there was some harm done. That's gonna happen and it's just too much baggage to carry around to be angry about it all the time.

We all know there are people who's modus is that if you see an advantage you can take, you take it, and that's how you survive in this world.

Yeah, I don't like 'em, and I don't want to be them, but they have to be them and I get to be me. And I don't have to feel like I do that kind of stuff.

And you have to believe that it's gonna come back to them in it's own good time and you don't have to bring it back to them.

That's what I think too. I don't have to be the instrument of their karma, it'll come around. I had a funny experience, man. I had an accountant do that to me, take gross advantage of me, and not pay my taxes and leave me with a million-point-two bill with the IRS right when I was getting sick. And the combination was not fun...and we lost our house. It was all pretty tough. And I thought about the guy. I wanted to...you know, my old behavior...I wanted to go and you know, take a Louisville Slugger and work on his knee caps for a while. But I didn't, I said "Okay Crosby, just for once, put your money where your mouth is. If you believe in Karma, and if the guy's truly evil like you think he is, then just let it stand. See what happens. Don't do anything except reconstruct your life. Go on with your life. Do the right thing, and continue to try to do what you think is karmically for your life. Stay in your life and do what you need to do. Leave that guy out there and see what happens." Son of a bitch, man. He did it to somebody else, and he's doing six years.

If you'd have knee-capped the guy, even if you're right, what does it do to your soul to be a guy who knee-caps people?

Yeah, I don't need that. I don't wanna be that guy, and that's the decision that I made. I said, "old behavior."

I'd rather go to bed at night being the victim of an asshole, than an asshole that does...

...does other people, yeah. Me too. Same...and that's what I came to...but I loved it...you know karma often operates on much longer scale than we understand. It comes around a long time later and we say "gee, how did that guy get off scott-free?" This time man, it came around the next week and just nailed the guy!

It's satisfying to be in a position to hear about the guys comeuppance, but even if you never get to hear about it, you've got to satisfy yourself with knowing it's coming.

No, but the thing you have to do is think to yourself what you need to do to keep your shit in the place where you can believe in your self. You can't do squat about other human beings. You cannot change what they're gonna do. You can help them sometimes but you can't correct 'em. We don't have a magic wand. We can't go out and fix people. There's no point in carrying around the baggage. It just doesn't work. It's just baggage. I had to go through it a lot, 'cause the guy made my wife cry and I don't like that. But I was just really happy 'cause he ate it.

When you talk about old behavior, were you always a guy who would take immediate action, or were you a grudge carrier?

No, no I don't stuff my feelings.

Immediate action?

Oh yeah, confrontation, specialty of the house. That stuff festers. Anytime you stuff anything instead of expressing it, even if it's small stuff, if a friend of yours does something that really ticks you off, go to your friend and say, "I gotta tell you this man, I don't like this. I think you did a chickenshit thing." Do that right then, because if you stuff it, even if it's small stuff, it festers and turns into something much bigger than it should be.

You're a dad, got a two year-old running around now...

I am! Yeah.

Is that a fun thing?

Have you seen him?!

No I haven't seen him.

(goes rummaging for a photo)

...he's beautiful.

Oh yeah, he's beautiful. Now consider the circumstances. My wife was pregnant with him when I was in the hospital, so I don't know if I'm gonna live to see him get born. So I'm lying there trying like hell to stay alive -- so that I can stay alive, and so that I can see this baby born, because I know he's special. We waited a long time. We tried for four years to have that kid. We were at the outside edge of the envelope. It was pretty much a miracle that he came along and that he's that beautiful...he's a stunner.

Is he musical?

I dunno but I play guitar to him, 'cause he likes it. I'll play guitar sitting on the edge of the bed and he'll come over and put his ear up against the guitar and listen to it...get right up close and I'll hit these big open chords and tunings. So the other day, before I hit the road this last time, I was doing that, and he sang me a note right out of the middle of the chord, exactly in pitch, and he's two years-old!

Did that make you happy, or scared? Another musician in the family?

Tell me about it. No, it made me purely happy. He's a delight, he's a great gift. I don't exactly understand, because I sort of think...well...I don't think I ever consciously screwed over people that I remember but I've been sort of a scoundrel, and to have as much gift laid on me man. I'm still alive. The guy who saved my life saved four people's lives that one night because he did one really right thing with the stroke of a pen. He saved my life. He and the doctors saved my life. OK? Then, I'm still married to a woman that I'm in love with after 20 years. Then, along comes Django, and he's...perfect...and beautiful...and he laughs...and he already knows about love, and he already knows about "funny", and he already knows about affection and he's just a FANTASTIC kid. And then on top of it all, along comes James, and James isn't just talented man, he's a wonderful guy. He's completely centered up. And he's definitely my son but boy is he a lot smarter than I am. He didn't ever do any of the screw up stuff that I did. And he's SO much more together than I was at his age.

Do you ever wonder what he'd be like if you'd been there as his dad all those years?

Yeah, I have. I've wondered that, 'cause I've beat myself up for being AWOL on him. I was AWOL on my daughter, too. I was gone. In the early years of a child's life the mother is their world. In the first year, she's the universe. Second year, she's the world, third year, she's still the biggest part of the deal. The father comes into it as they get older, an can make more and more of a contribution every year as they get older. Even though I'm his father, I really feel more like his brother, 'cause we both have kids that are exactly the same age. The day after he met me, his wife had their first kid. So he became a father and met his father in the same 24 hours. His daughter's name is Grace Isabella, and she's a princess.

Do Grace and Django have a relationship?

Yes. They love each other. They are each other's favorite human beings.

What does your daughter do?

My daughter's an artist. She's an animator, an illustrator, a painter, a sculptress and photographer. She just graduated from Cal Arts which for animators is Disney Prep. It's where all the good animators come from. And now that everyone is trying to compete with Disney, that's a real hot field. She's doing some graduate work there this year. She's a tremendously talented girl.

Are you going to tell her that when she produces her first animated feature, you'll do a voice characterization?

Oh yeah, I've offered to do that, I've offered to do music. I mean I'd do anything for her. She's a sweetheart.

Are you going to be doing any film or television acting? Is that something you're still interested in doing more of?

Yeah, I still to keep working at truing to turn into a decent character actor, and whenever I can, I will. But between Crosby, Stills and Nash, CPR, this book Stand and Be Counted that I'm doing with David Bender...I'm probably going to do a part two to the autobiography because I obviously wrote the first one too soon... Between all of that stuff, and simply living, being home with my family, living.

Having now a second band commitment, it's not the same as a solo thing. You can pick up or put down doing a David Crosby album...

...at any point. But it's different when I have other people's lives involved.

So now you have two music jobs instead of one music job...

Two music jobs and a book job and the job as a parent, and the job as a husband, and I'm learning to fly...I'm jammed. And you know I still want to go sailing. I've got it already planned to go sailing within two days after I get home.

Let's talk about the book Stand and Be Counted that you're working on.

It's a book about musician activism, though there are a couple of people that aren't musicians involved. Robin and Whoopie are both friends of mine, so they said they would do it too. They're doing Comic Relief. I think it's valid. It's mostly musicians, and I'm starting with Seeger and Guthrie, although you could start a lot further back, but you have to limit your scope or you end up with an 800 page book. And then when it goes to the civil rights period, their lives were at stake, those people. People were getting killed. When they were all sitting around in the basement of a church singing "ain't nobody gonna turn me around," or "we shall overcome" it really meant something. So the book goes through the civil rights movement then into the Viet Nam era, then on into People Helping People, Live Aid, Farm Aid, the anti-nuke stuff...the MUSE concerts, the Amnesty tours... It's actually turned into more of a mess even than I started, 'cause now there's some guys that have shown up that want to make it into a documentary, and we're gonna. We're gonna do a documentary and a CD-ROM. It's just too good a subject. I finally got a key interview with Pete Seeger. And when I had it, it was so good that I knew I had to continue to keep fighting to get the thing made.

Are you coming up to the present day, away from just your contemporaries? Beastie Boys...

Absolutely. I wanna know why they're doing that stuff for Tibet. I'm gonna ask 'em. I wanna know who got the picture. That's a tragedy. And somebody in one of those bands obviously got the picture.

Adam Yauch, one of those three guys is a Buddhist.

Well, there you go. My wife's a Buddhist, so I got that one. Yeah, I'm gonna go all through it. Basically to me it's a place where human beings put other people's welfare ahead of their own. Human beings get pretty shiny when they do that. I love that. I love that it just grew up out of the cracks. I love it that nobody mandated this, that it came from people. Seeing that thing about Gandhi of just standing up and saying, "No, this is not right. No I will not sit down. No I will not shut up." Here's this guy wrapped in a bed sheet, he doesn't have two nickels to rub together, he changes the course of history for an entire sub-continent. OK, so one person really sticking to what they believe in really can make a huge difference, and when I say stand and be counted that's what I'm talking about, is that guy, or the kid standing in front of the tank in Tiananmen Square. That's what I'm talking about. You watch the lives of Jackson Brown and Bonnie Raitt. They're the only people I know that do more than we do, but they do more than we do. They do probably 25 benefits a year, both of them, continuously...and they always have. And you know that they care about other human beings, and that they're willing to lay themselves on the line. It may not be laying your life on the line anymore, there aren't bullets coming out of the bushes at us...most of the time, but we are putting our time, and our rep, and in some cases our careers. Everybody in Hollywood will tell you that Jackson Browne has damaged his career by putting so much energy into benefits and using up so many markets by doing benefits in 'em instead of doing shows that pay. Jackson doesn't care, and frankly I don't think he's hurt himself because I think everybody believes in him as a good human being and I think his fans love him for it.

I think famous musicians have resources they can leverage. How hard is it to just show up and lend your name to something and be there?

Sometimes it's very hard. The thing is, why did they do it? That's what this book is about. That's my key thread here. Why? Why did you feel inside yourself that you had to do it? You've done stuff like that, we all have, were you just said, "you know, I gotta show up and be counted on this one. I have to stand in the street on this. I have to sign this petition. I have to go to this protest because it's just too clear-cut for me. I can't just leave it to somebody else."

Well, we'll look forward to seeing the book. Thanks a lot for taking some time for this, David.

Hey, it was fun.