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lemonade kid
Old Love
USA
9880 Posts |
 Posted - 17/02/2012 : 19:35:09
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(many thx to RW)
Stephen Stills interview: Solo shows, CSNY and Buffalo Springfield
Published: Monday, October 10, 2011, 5:00 AM
Kevin O'Hare, The Republican
As a founding member of Buffalo Springfield, Crosby, Stills and Nash (and sometimes Young), and Manassas, Stephen Stills is best known for his work in bands.
But the Rock and Roll Hall-of-Famer will be taking the solo headlining route on his current tour, which includes dates at the Calvin Theatre in Northampton on Thursday and the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Conn. on Oct. 21
Stills will be working with his backing troupe of Joe Vitale, Todd Caldwell and Kenny Passarelli, starting the tour Oct. 10 in Alexandria, VA, with 16 dates over the remainder of the month up and down the East Coast.
Prior to hitting the road, Stills talked about the tour, the recent reunion of Buffalo Springfield, his upcoming solo box set and some previously unreleased recordings by CSNY in 1974.
How much are you looking forward to doing these solo shows?
I’m really excited to come and play, I’ve been sitting in the house so long I’m dying to get out and play. The Berkshires at that time of year are really lovely, the leaves will be just starting to turn and so I’m happy to get up in that neck of the woods. I have a friend who lives near there too and family that lives up in Portland, Maine, this little New England jaunt is going to be fun for me.
Will this be the same format as say, the Shepherd’s Bush shows, starting with an acoustic set and then going electric for the second half?
Uh-huh.
Compare the satisfaction you get from playing solo, compared with CSN or Crosby, Stills Nash & Young.
I like the band thing better than this but I like this. Partly, because I get to talk, because (David) Crosby won’t let me get a word in edge-wise. It’s different, it’s apples and oranges. The underlying premise is that one’s better than the other and it just isn’t.
Wasn’t this the time of year you were going to be bringing the Buffalo Springfield reunion to the East Coast?
What do you mean you were?
The band, there was going to be the next step in the Buffalo Springfield reunion tour.
The band implicates there are other people involved. So why don’t we just drop it right the (expletive) there. You can call him, he’s up in Toronto. It’s a sore spot right now, I’ve been sitting on my (expletive) since May, so I’m peeved.
In your opinion, how did those Buffalo Springfield gigs go?
I loved it, it was really fresh. After doing the CSN songs for so long, even though we keep changing them up, there’s this certain block of hits that we have to do. Not to have to do those and also playing with Neil (Young) was just great. I was having the time of my life. We were just getting it ramped up. It usually takes about six shows and that’s all we did. Because Neil wanted to make sure or something. But we didn’t know that he had a concert film in his back pocket or that he would want to go to the Toronto Film Festival now or that he would want to write a book about himself.
(Without being asked, Stills returns to the issue later in the interview, with a more conciliatory tone)
There’s nothing anybody could have done about it, he got burned out and decided to go back and present his concert film. He couldn’t face going on the road again for awhile. He wanted it far enough away where he didn’t have to think about it.
Let’s clear up a few myths about the origins of Crosby, Stills & Nash. Did you trek through snow to a cabin in England to try and get Steve Winwood to join you?
Well me and Dallas (Taylor) did but it was kind of just a flirtation. But back in those days people did go to a lot of trouble to hang out with each other and play in private. It wasn’t unusual for people to travel…to jam. It was something we did even if we were in other bands. He wasn’t doing anything at the time. He’s an intriguing fellow, just bursting with talent. Dallas is pretty brazen he did all the heavy lifting on this, “Ok I have the directions let’s go.” Next thing I know we’re knee deep in mud walking to his cabin which is in the middle of this freshly grown, plowed field in England. If you’ve ever been there you know that is the stickiest mud on earth.
Who else did you ask to be in the band? John Sebastian?
Yeah, we kind of did. He was on his own. He had another thing in mind, he wasn’t sure if the Spoonful was broken up forever or not.
How old were you when you first picked up a guitar?
9 or 10.
What brought it about?
I was a really weird kid and didn’t have a lot of friends but I really liked the guitar. I had music lessons when I was little, little. I had a set of drums. I had these drumsticks where I was beating the (expletive) out of the furniture and my father bought me a drum kit to save my mother’s furniture. About five minutes into Christmas morning, he regretted it a lot.
Jimi Hendrix played on your first solo album and you two were very good friends. What was he like to work and to be with?
He was really gentle and sweet and articulate. But he had the same as all of us Asperger’s kids. His attention span would be on what he was doing or what he was thinking about. He was just a beautiful, beautiful guy.
Now there’s been a David Crosby box set and a Graham Nash box set. I understand Graham Nash is working on a long-awaited Stephen Stills box set?
Well apparently he has had a wonderful time announcing that to the world. That’s this box set, then we have the Manassas box set and there’ll probably be a later one. But this one really needs to get done and Graham will get it done. That’s what he does best of all. I just have to double check his choices, being more of a rock ‘n’ roll guy…I don’t want to sit there blowing my ears out listening to this stuff over and over. We’re doing lists now and the listening part, but we’ve pretty much blocked out what we want to do. That’s all great. There’ve been some remixes of things along the way and we’re going to use those. There’s a mix of “To a Flame” that was done by Nathaniel Kunkel…it was perfect. And all the little surprises that show up in a box set...
The marketing business and the music business are in such a sorry state because of the Napster people and what they have wrought, so the record companies are very gun-shy. Nobody can afford a big Neil Young every time I went to the bathroom album. Believe me just getting the best ones, the most important ones all in one places is a job enough. I think they only want three CDs and that’s like “hah!” There’ll probably be another one after that and another one after that.
Graham has also talked about working hard on a live album of Crosby, Stills Nash & Young’s 1974 reunion tour? What have you heard from that and how close to completion is it?
I’ve heard some of that and the playing is pretty good, however fast. They wouldn’t take my suggestion to just put the whole thing in Pro-Tools and just slow it down (laughs) …I’m probably just remembering the show at Wembley, we were the first band to go into the stadium and we put a humongous amount of people and played so ridiculously fast it’s unbelievable. I think this one if from Philadelphia about two weeks before, but not jet lagged...
Who do you want to make music with who you still have not had the chance to?
I want to play with my Gods which are Clapton and McCartney. I love that English craftsmanship applied to low down and dirty American Southern black music. That and salsa. I’d love to do something with Arturo Sandoval who lives near me and we’ve been promising each other we’d do it. I think I might jump into a Latin thing here next just because everybody else is going country.
You’re widely considered one of the best guitarists of the rock era and were ranked No. 28 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time.
There’s a new poll, I might drop because I haven’t hardly worked all year. I think those lists are really foul though, when you get to the top 50 it’s apples and oranges everybody’s got to be really good. Even if they’re just rhythm players like the Ramones, I mean what a groove.
Who are your favorite guitarists?
Clapton and Hendrix, Django Reinhardt, Kenny Burrell and Segovia and people like that. But like I said after a certain level there’s no better, there’s just different.
Now I get what Neil was talking about to that DJ, I’d rather talk about why I got down to 170 lbs. I’m less than 170, I’m 168.
How’d you do it?
I went on the ELF diet. That stands for Eat Less Food. I look back at those films from 2000 and that embarrassing “Living with War” movie and I just look gross. That kind of made me sick to my stomach…I turned myself over to one of those vegan guys, almost the food Taliban but not quite. I learned about the different antibodies and stuff, I basically eat everything I want but there’s a lot of stuff that I got away from long enough ‘til I taste it again and go “ugh that’s just awful.” Like bread. I don’t like sandwiches; I like burgers out of the bun.
Booze and bread right there is 20 to 25 lbs., it’s a third of getting yourself to your target weight. If you just keep it to wine and a little of it, and stay away from bread. Right there, there’s so many useless calories that turn into sugar and don’t do anything.
How much weight did you lose?
40 pounds. I mean, 205, I actually maxed out a little higher than that, 210, so 35 honestly. Now it’s like if I get to 173, it’s like “Stop.”
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We are raised to honor all the wrong explorers & discoverers-
-thieves planting flags, murderers carrying crosses.
Let us at last praise the colonizers of dreams.
-Peter S. Beagle 1973
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Edited by - lemonade kid on 17/02/2012 19:51:04 |
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Steve Stills interview>>Buff, Neil, Cros, Hendrix
