{"id":2296,"date":"2018-09-28T12:25:29","date_gmt":"2018-09-28T11:25:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shindig-magazine.com\/?p=2296"},"modified":"2021-04-09T12:21:51","modified_gmt":"2021-04-09T11:21:51","slug":"david-crosby-on-here-if-you-listen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/?p=2296","title":{"rendered":"David Crosby on Here If You Listen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Poet. Survivor. Living legend. The mighty DAVID CROSBY (Croz) talks to MARTIN RUDDOCK about his excellent new collaborative album Here If You Listen<\/em>, mortality, singing along with yourself and that “asshole” in The White House…<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/bmg-bf\/sets\/david-crosby-glory-from-the<\/p>\n

Shindig!<\/span><\/b><\/em>: Your latest album Here If You Listen<\/em> is your second with The Lighthouse Band (Snarky Puppy\u2019s Michael League, guitarist Becca Stevens, and keyboardist <\/span>Michelle Willis). It<\/span>\u2019<\/span>s a collaborative effort<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

David Crosby<\/span><\/b>: Yes it is in fact\u2026 The first one went down so well. I was so knocked out with what great musicians, great singers, great writers they are. The first one was sort of a “me” album with Michael producing and the girls sang on it and contributed to it. It went so well that I went to all three of them and said \u201cI want to make a group record, I don\u2019t want to make a David Crosby record I want to make a Lighthouse record. I want you to sing lead too, I want us all to write the whole thing together.” And that\u2019s what we did. We went into the studio in Brooklyn and we had two songs\u2026 we had Michelle\u2019s \u2018Janet\u2019 and we had the one I wrote with (Snarky Puppy pianist) Bill Laurance, that I wrote to my son \u2018Your Own Ride\u2019. We wrote the entire rest of the record in eight days together, right there.<\/span><\/p>\n

SD!<\/b><\/em>: Throughout your career, you\u2019ve always had a love of making music through jamming and collaboration. Is that how you prefer to work these days? <\/span><\/p>\n

DC<\/span><\/b>: I\u2019ll work any\u00a0<\/i>kind of way. Anything that produces a good song, produces decent music that makes people feel something\u2026 I\u2019ll go anywhere, any way. I\u2019ll do it stark naked in the middle of a snowstorm. Anything that will make good art, I\u2019m willing to go through to do.<\/span><\/p>\n

SD!<\/b><\/em>: You\u2019re one of the great songwriters of the last century, but on Here If You Listen<\/em> you\u2019ve thrown open the writing process to the rest of the band.<\/span><\/p>\n

DC<\/span><\/b>: Well, they\u2019re such talented people man. Michael League is one of the best writers I know, and Becca Stevens is the same, Michelle the same\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

They are unbelievably\u00a0<\/i>good writers. The result is this record and the proof is in the pudding. The quality of the songs is really high.<\/span><\/p>\n

SD!<\/b><\/em>: The song \u2018Your Own Ride\u2019 is lovely, and features a very poignant lyric addressed to your son, Django.<\/span><\/p>\n

DC<\/span><\/b>: Yeah, I wrote it about my son and to\u00a0<\/i>my son about 10 years ago when he was like 12 years old. And I showed the words to Bill Laurance last year and he thought they were one of my best sets. He asked me if he could work with those words, and he gave me an unbelievably good song back. It\u2019s funny you should ask about him, I\u2019m meeting him here for lunch today in Boston.<\/span><\/p>\n

SD!<\/b><\/em>: You\u2019ve been making music in so many different ways over the years, you\u2019ve done the band format with The Byrds and CSNY where you\u2019re trying to accommodate other people\u2019<\/span>s songs\u00a0<\/span>or find a space in there. Would it be fair to say you\u2019re more like a jazz bandleader these days?<\/span><\/p>\n

DC<\/span><\/b>: There\u2019s something in that\u2026. I don\u2019t really feel like a band leader\u00a0<\/i>so much. I guess I am in the Sky Trails band more probably than The Lighthouse Band. When I\u2019m with them I tend to feel more like Michael is the leader. He\u2019s a firm and natural bandleader, and he\u2019s a much more knowledgeable musician than I am – so when we work in The Lighthouse Band generally I\u2019m the lead singer but I\u2019m not in charge (laughs). The two girls make damn sure I\u2019m not in charge \u2018cause they\u2019re very strong women, both of them.<\/span><\/p>\n

SD!<\/b><\/em>: It seems a very harmonious set-up you\u2019ve got there.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>DC<\/span><\/b>: It is yeah, we\u2019re very very good friends and we really do care about each other. We do respect each other\u2019s work tremendously so there\u2019s a really good work ethic there. If any one of the three of them says something to me man, I\u2019m really listening.<\/span><\/p>\n

SD!<\/b><\/em>: Two of the songs on the new album \u20181967\u2019 and \u20181974\u2019 have been worked up by you and the band from old demos, how did those come about?<\/span><\/p>\n

DC<\/span><\/b>: Yes. One of them (\u20181967\u2019) is a really magical thing because you can actually hear me writing the song. We actually had the tape machine going while I was thinking up the song. It\u2019s the only time I know of that that exists. You can hear me find the melody, right there on the tape. And then what we did was Michael said \u201cThere\u2019s no rules, we can be a time machine, and take them right up to now and complete them.\u201d And I said \u201cJeez, could we? It would be fun, there\u2019s no law saying we can\u2019t.\u201d Michael and the girls said \u201cAw c\u2019mon, let us at it!\u201d and the result is what you heard. We wrote words to one of them and we completed the other. I think it\u2019s fantastic that there\u2019s a tape of a thing all the way from the first moment that you think the melody up<\/i>. And it\u2019s all there, the whole thing on tape.<\/span><\/p>\n

SD!<\/b><\/em>: Were you still in The Byrds when you recorded that demo or was it just after?<\/span><\/p>\n

DC<\/span><\/b>: I think it was right after, yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n

SD!<\/b><\/em>:Is it a strange feeling to sing along with your younger self on those tunes? <\/span><\/p>\n

DC<\/span><\/b>: You go through a lot, but the person is still the same person so it really connected up pretty well.<\/span><\/p>\n

SD!<\/b><\/em>: Your voice sounds amazing on this album. How do you keep it in such good shape?<\/span><\/p>\n

DC<\/span><\/b>: I\u2026don\u2019t. I have no idea how it works at all! I did everything wrong, the only thing I didn\u2019t do was smoke cigarettes and drink whisky. So, don\u2019t smoke cigarettes and drink whisky I guess! (laughs)<\/span><\/p>\n

SD!<\/b><\/em>: It sounds pretty seamless where you\u2019re singing over these old recordings. (Former Byrds manager) Jim Dickson once said that you re-sung a line on the Byrds\u2019 version of \u2018Triad\u2019 20 years later for the Never Before<\/em> album and you can\u2019t tell where the substituted line is at all.<\/span><\/p>\n

DC<\/span><\/b>: Yeah I believe that\u2019s probably true, and I don\u2019t know why. I can\u2019t explain it but there it is. I think the thing for me to do is be grateful that my voice has stood the test and use the shit out of it, sing as much as I possibly can.<\/span><\/p>\n