Graham Nash: “I Want To Be Happy, What's Wrong With That?”
The CSN mainstay – who plays Australia’s Byron Bay Bluesfest this weekend – tells how his new album reflects recent epiphanies, domestic upheavals.
Graham Nash has opened up to MOJO magazine about his recent life changes – including divorce from his wife of 28 years – and their impact on his brand new solo album, This Path Tonight. "A lot of people are critical and don't understand what's going on with me but it's very simple,” Nash tells MOJO’s Sylvie Simmons. “I want to be happy, what's wrong with that?”
The Lancastrian, who plays Byron Bay Bluesfest on Friday (March 25, 2016) and Sunday (March 27), relives the highs and lows of a career in and out of harmony with his peers, going into recent tensions in the CSN&Y camp, with bandmate David Crosby scathing – and later, abjectly apologetic – about Neil Young’s recent domestic realignment: Young having parted with wife Pegi Young in 2014 to take up with actress Daryl Hannah.
Crosby has been somewhat estranged from Nash, too...
“David [Crosby] will have to deal with whatever he's created with Neil.”
Graham Nash
“The truth is that David and I have spent a lot of time together for the last 45 years and it's time to take a break from him,” says Nash. “I've loved him and protected him all my life and he's been a little weird in these last few months and he'll have to deal with whatever he's created with Neil.”
At 74 years of age, Nash has struck a prolific vein, with a recent, well-received memoir, Wild Tales, photographic exhibits and a busy live schedule. Bluesfest goers can expect Hollies and CSN classics including Bus Stop and Our House – plus nuggets from the Nash solo career. The article in the new MOJO magazine is the only major interview of the new album campaign.
“As a songwriter, what I'm trying to do is communicate, to talk to people and to myself,” he claims. “I always talk to myself. Every song, it doesn't matter what you think it's about, I know that I'm singing about what's going on with me.”
In addition to Graham Nash, Byron Bay Bluesfest features sets by Kendrick Lamar, Brian Wilson, Noel Gallagher, Eagles Of Death Metal, The National, Songhoy Blues and many more between Thursday, March 24 and Monday, March 28 inclusive. Byron Bay is 160-odd km south of Brisbane on Australia’s east coast.
Bluesfest tickets, if you’re down under or headed that way, are available here.
To hear music from Graham Nash’s new album, This Path Tonight, go here.
And here’s the Crosby Stills & Nash classic, Our House, from back when everyone was getting along...