Wild Tales (19 page)

All that time, I never saw the fucker sleep. Mitch was always up, always zoning. With all due respect, we smoked a lot of dope, but Mitch was higher than that most of the time. He loved to greet the morning with a half tab of acid, just to see what the day brought.

Another guy who came around was Eric Burdon. I was drawn to Eric because we were both in bands from the north of England. The
Animals were from Newcastle, one of the toughest towns in England. Eric knocked on the door of my new digs one night in the spring of ’68. “Hey, how ya doing? C’mon in. Want a beer? Here, snort this.” Same shit—musicians, right? He was pretty high already, and so was I.

“You ever seen this?” he asked, shoving a book into my hand.

It was a collection of work by
M. C. Escher, the Dutch graphic artist whose architectural constructions and geometric grids explored infinite space. Encountering Escher under normal circumstances was challenging enough, but Escher on acid was a mind-blower. I was into his vision from the moment I laid eyes on the worlds he’d created. I loved the irony, the light and dark opposites, the division of space. Seeing the images in that book was like another form of acid. I thought, “Jeez! Somebody sees like that? Well, then I can see like that, too.”

Escher turned me on to art in general. Remember, I was a guy who never read a book or had any image on his walls, never went to museums. But I had a bottomless supply of curiosity, and Escher tapped right into those reserves. I began educating myself, studying the European expressionists—Erich Heckel, George Grosz,
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, and especially
Egon Schiele. Later I amassed a large collection of Eschers, including the twenty-one-foot
Metamorphosis III
, which I still have, the only extant print in the world. I was searching for something, and I found it in art. Just like that, another door had opened wide.

At the same time, I seemed to be closing one on the Hollies. My dissatisfaction with our direction became an untenable tug of war, with each faction pulling in opposite extremes—me on one side, Allan, Bernie, Bobby, and Tony on the other. To ease the tension, I suggested I take some time off in order to work on a solo album. I’d stockpiled a nice little set of songs that either the band had rejected or I didn’t feel like sharing. But the other Hollies were completely opposed. They didn’t feel I could make my own music while remaining a member of a band. They were being dicks. It was like: “What in the bloody hell are ya tryin’ to do?”

We prided ourselves on keeping internal struggles private, but it was hard to mask my frustration. Even harder to keep a secret in that incestuous scene. That May, as we were leaving on a tour with the Scaffold and Paul Jones,
NME
broke the news with a headline:
GRAHAM NASH MAY SPLIT HOLLIES
. I must have shot off my mouth to a predatory reporter, because they had the whole story, with a fat quote from me: “I believe in a completely different musical direction to that in which the Hollies are going, and right now I feel as if I’m letting myself down not doing as I want.”

That was a nice little grenade lobbed into the works. Once that happens, it’s almost impossible to hold things together. Out on the road everybody’s in such close quarters. You’ve got to keep your cool, not let that stuff interfere. But, man, everyone was feeling it. I was so bored, trying not to let it show. I’m sure the other guys were resentful in their own way, wondering what was going to happen to the group. There was a sense that things were getting away from us. The marriage was on the rocks.

Looking at us onstage, you’d never know we had problems. It was always such a joy singing with those guys, so for a few hours
each day the Hollies were a happy family. But afterward, something would spark the fires. Business moved to the front burners. Recording would come up. “You know, we need another single.” “Time to start thinking about a new album.” Boom! We were back on that bandwagon.

I remember talking this business over with
Mickie Most. He was a damn fine producer, knew a hit record within the first two bars. A couple years back, he’d been recording Donovan, and if the session was booked from four to eight, Dono would be done by six. With the leftover time, Mickie worked with my friends from Newcastle, the
Animals, and in a couple of takes “House of the Rising Sun” became the cheapest hit record in history. I hung out with Mickie and his wife, who were encouraging me to go solo. He offered to produce me. We’d do an album together, no strings attached. And Dono’s manager,
Ashley Kozak, agreed to take me on: He was ready to go. It was tempting, but my mind kept flashing on Crosby in the States.

Finally, in August, I went back to LA to visit Joni, which was the first time I sang with David and Stephen. And then I had to face the music with the Hollies

I
T WAS HARD
to hear what I heard that night and not start thinking about the future. There was no doubt in my mind that the Hollies and I were finished. They were my past. It was obvious that David and Stephen were my future. Not only were they writing great songs; they were great players, great singers, and they thought differently. On top of that, they recognized my talent.

Nothing concrete was discussed. There weren’t really any plans. Everything was kind of half-assed, up in the air. The
Springfield had broken up. Neil had gotten a solo deal with Reprise Records;
Richie Furay was making plans with Jimmy Messina to put
Poco together. Stephen and David were just hanging out, writing and singing songs. They actually made demos of a few things—
“Guinevere,”
with Jack Casady on bass, “49 Reasons,” and Croz’s startling tribute to
Bobby Kennedy, “Long Time Gone.” Los Angeles radio deejay B. Mitchell Reed played these demos on the air, referring to the two of them as “The Frozen Noses.” But that night at Joni’s gave everyone ideas. It was one of those moments when lights go on and everything begins to make sense. We had discovered something fantastic and were willing to let it speak for itself, to let it gestate a little. We knew we had to sing together in some way, but I was still with the Hollies. Even though I was unhappy, we had dates to do, records to make—but my heart wasn’t in it anymore.

On the way back to London, I tried working things out in my head. I didn’t have anything to keep me from cutting ties with the Hollies. There were no legal papers apart from our recording contract with EMI. Nothing internal with the boys themselves, other than a verbal agreement in which we shared songwriting credits and publishing equally. That was another bone of contention. Allan, Tony, and I had a long-standing deal that our names would all go on songs that we wrote, no matter how large or small the contribution. Credit where credit’s due. If you put two or three words in there—fine, we’ve written it together. But at some point that no longer made sense. “King Midas in Reverse” was a perfect example. Allan and Tony didn’t write any of it, but all three of us are credited on the record. That started to piss me off. I had several fine songs that the Hollies were reluctant to sing and I’d be damned if I’d share publishing with them. It was time to put things in order.

I made an appointment to see our publisher,
Dick James. He was a character, an old music-hall soft-shoe guy who’d bullied his way into Tin Pan Alley. Everything about him was old school: navy-blue blazer with gold buttons, ascot at the neck, pompous schoolboy accent. In business, Dick had the reputation of being a first-class prick. John and Paul were less than thrilled with him because he had a standard fifty-fifty deal with them. That meant that every time a song of theirs got played or a record got sold, he put 50 percent of their publishing royalties in his pocket. It’s a terrible deal for songwriters,
one notch above slavery. However, once artists got big enough they’d usually renegotiate the percentages down to something more equitable: say, 80 for them, 20 for the publisher, maybe less, depending on the artist. But not Dick, he wouldn’t budge, even with the
Beatles. And he did the same thing later with
Elton John. So I wasn’t expecting much when I went to see him because the Hollies had the same standard fifty-fifty deal.

But I’ll say this for Dick, he may have cracked the whip over his artists’ backside, but he was a man of his word. When we were in the throes of signing with him, and hesitated, he did a little grandstanding. “If there is ever a problem, just come and talk to me. We’ll work it out, and blah-blah-blah. Now sign right here.” His ability to sweet-talk us was one of the reasons we eventually signed. And I reminded him of that when I went back to see him.

Dick was shocked to hear that I was thinking of leaving the Hollies. He clearly thought I was another crazy kid on my way back to nowhere. Soon enough, I’d be working in the coal mines.

“No, I’ve found something else,” I assured him. “I’m probably going to America to sing with two men. Now, remember when I first signed with you? You said that if I was ever unhappy, we’d work it out.”

“Yes, I remember that,” he said.

“So, how are we going to work it out?”

“Like this,” he said. He picked up his phone, buzzed his secretary, and said, “Doris, bring in Graham Nash’s contract.” A few minutes later, the agreement landed on his desk. “So, you see your contract? This is what we’re going to do with it.” And Dick proceeded to rip it into shreds. “You’re free. Good luck to you, my boy.”

He didn’t try to talk me out of it or get a piece of my new music. He was a real mensch. I hate to think what that gesture cost him. I’ve made several million dollars from my post-Hollies publishing. But that wasn’t the point in 1968. It was only a step, a first step toward freeing up my obligations, but a step nonetheless in the right direction.

It was harder, however, to keep up pretenses with the Hollies. After our gigs, I would simply retreat, head back to a hotel room, and write songs. It was the only way I had of keeping my head together, reaching inside and expressing my emotions. In August, we were doing a residency at a nightclub in Leeds. At the Oulton Grove Motel, after one of the shows, I hit the trifecta. I had a chunk of hash that I was secretly smoking and wrote two songs that would take my writing to a different dimension: “Right Between the Eyes” and
“Lady of the Island,” and the beginning of another,
“Teach Your Children,” one right after the other.

“Right Between the Eyes” was about the wife of a friend of mine, a gorgeous White Russian woman I was attracted to from the moment we met. Beautiful women are hard for me to resist. We just fell for each other, simple as that. And during a period when she and her husband had separated, we ended up having a brief but torrid affair. I felt a little guilty, even though their relationship was over, so this song was kind of a confession.
“And the pain that we could bring to him I don’t think I could beat / Please don’t ask me how I know, I’ve just been up that street.”

“Lady of the Island” was about two ladies: the woman from “Right Between the Eyes” and my wife, Rose, who’d moved to the island of Ibiza, in Spain. All the dreamy desires of my subconscious blended with the aching loss and I was inspired to write this heartfelt lyric.

The afterglow of those relationships left a deep-rooted impression on me, and I was caught up in memories that refused to let go. In my solitude, they haunted me. The images those lyrics create are forever etched in my soul. You can almost hear the effect the
recollections are having on me. In any case, I thought both songs raised the bar on my writing abilities and I couldn’t wait to share them, although I wasn’t sure with whom—the Hollies or my new American friends.

As for
“Teach Your Children,” the origin of the song came from my recent infatuation with art. I had begun collecting photographs around that time, powerful images that had an emotional effect on me. One, in particular, was a Diane Arbus image of a boy in Central Park. It spoke volumes to me. The kid was only about nine or ten years old, but his expression bristled with intense anger. He had a plastic hand grenade clenched in a fist, but it seemed to me that if it were real the kid would have thrown it. The consequences it implied startled me. I thought, “If we don’t start teaching our kids a better way of dealing with each other, humanity will never succeed.”

The song I wrote was slow and eerie, not at all like the recording that everyone is familiar with. The words and melody were pretty much intact, but the feel was all wrong. It was sluggish, too sluggish for the message I wanted to convey, so I put it aside until I could approach it with a fresh ear.

No matter; that night in Leeds was an artistic bonanza. Credit the mood or the hash or a combination of the two, but it was a blessing to get three great songs out of a sitting like that. Finally I was convinced I had songs the Hollies would love. Surely this would break through our differences. Certainly Allan would hear it right away. Maybe it would send us down a new and vital path.

Ah, no such luck. The Hollies weren’t interested in any of my new songs. Nothing was going to dissuade them from doing that album of Dylan covers. Crosby weighed in with valuable advice. He told me, “Those are pretty good songs you got there, Willy. You’ve got a nice wide palette. If someone listens to those songs and doesn’t appreciate the fact they’ve got a world-class writer in their midst, then the group is no longer seeing clearly.” He’d hit it right on the
head. Seems as though I was at a complete loss with the band. That did it, I decided. We were through.

That September, we fulfilled some previously canceled shows, a short tour of Sweden, Finland, Holland, and Belgium. Then as soon as we got back, it was right into the studio, where we cut a new single, “Listen to Me,” but in my head, I’d already left the Hollies. Crosby and I kept in touch through the upheaval. He told me that he and Stephen were waiting to make music with me. In fact, Stephen had taken the demo they’d made to
Ahmet Ertegun, the founder and president of
Atlantic Records, and hyped him on the fantastic sound the three of us had come up with. Ahmet loved Stephen’s ass. Ever since the
Springfield disbanded, they’d talked about doing something else together. I could tell Crosby was getting impatient—and nervous. No matter what I told him, he and Stephen had little faith that I’d ever leave the Hollies. They figured that my loyalty to and friendship with Allan would go a long way toward mucking things up.