I understood when I took acid that everything is meaningless.
I took less than a dozen trips in my life but I realised with the first one that here we are, this ball of mud whizzing at 67,000 miles an hour through space, on one of trillions of planets. Photograph: David Warner Ellis/Redfernsĭid acid also have a positive impact? “It did. “I get up every morning and I’m glad I’m alive.”Ĭrosby, Stills, Nash & Young at Wembley Stadium in 1974. It changed my life completely,” he says in that unlikely Salford-Californian hybrid accent (imagine Mark E Smith as an LA lifestyle guru). “I’m glad that I got to know marijuana when I did. He was no longer satisfied writing bubble-gum pop about fancying girls he had bigger issues to explore – war, justice, idealism and grownup relationships.Įven today, he says, much of his joy comes from the way dope enables him to focus on the world’s beauty rather than its horror. While they were still drinking eight pints a night of bitter, he’d had his mind expanded by cannabis. In his book he called the band “provincial”. It caused a huge fallout with Clarke, though they made up long ago and Nash is currently helping him with a solo album. “No, I’m English,” he says.īy the late 60s Nash felt he had outgrown the Hollies and told them he was leaving. Are they natural? He smiles, giving me an even better view. And that’s terrifying because we’ve all done incredibly stupid things.”
And once it’s on the net it will never leave the net. Photograph: Val Wilmer/Redfernsĭoes he think today’s pop stars could get away with what they did? “I don’t think they can get away with it now because of social media. Nash (far left) and Allan Clarke (second left) with the Hollies in 1964. Not surprisingly, his marriage to Rose Eccles (whose surname inspired the hit Jennifer Eccles) was over by his mid-20s. “We’d get laid a lot, of course, mainly girls that you picked up at the shows … once you were found it usually led to sex,” he writes in his memoir. The early days of the Hollies, in particular, sound like one long shagathon. Let me get my tea.” He reaches for his mug. Your memoir is pure sex, drugs and rock’n’roll, I say. The only difference was that he was lucky enough not to have an addictive personality. But here it emerged that he indulged just as much as they did. Nash had been regarded as one of the quiet men of the music industry, a sensible, unifying figure who did his best to keep the excesses of Stephen Stills and David Crosby in check. In 2013, Nash published his memoir, Wild Tales (also the name of his second album). I was like: ‘Oh, I see!’ Once I could play three chords on the guitar, my attractiveness to the ladies went up sky-high.” Ladies and his attractiveness to them loom large in Nash’s life story. When did he realise he could make a career out of music? “The first time Allan and I with our two acoustic guitars attracted really pretty women. They had hit after hit in the 1960s, with catchy songs such as Carrie-Anne, On a Carousel and Bus Stop. He formed the Hollies with his best friend from primary school, Allan Clarke. At 14 he became the man of the family when his father was imprisoned for receiving a stolen camera (a present for Graham) and refusing to grass on the relative who had sold it to him.
It’s a far cry from the Salford of his working-class childhood, living in a two-up, two-down terrace, outdoor toilets, no hot water. He’s video-calling from New York, where he now lives after decades on the west coast and Hawaii.
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