Graham Nash has about seven songs that he knows people want to hear: “Teach Your Children,” “Our House,” “Military Madness,” “Immigration Man,” “Chicago,” and “We Can Change The World.”
The 84-year-old ex-Hollie promises to play them in Clearwater this month, but will also take some liberties during the two-night stand at the Bilheimer Capitol Theatre.
“In between all those songs, I can do whatever I want,” he told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay, crediting his bandmates Todd Caldwell, Adam Minkoff, and Zach Djanikian for helping him out.
It’s a pain in the ass, he said, that the social issues he wrote about in those tunes are still prevalent today, and he’s still writing songs about what’s happening outside his door.
Nash talked about all that, and more, in a 20-minute conversation with CL. Read our Q&A below.
Graham Nash
Time Wed., April 22, 7:30 p.m. and Thu., April 23, 7:30 p.m. 2026
Location The Nancy and David Bilheimer Capitol Theatre, 405 Cleveland Street, Clearwater
I don’t want to talk too much about your relationship with Croz. I know 95% of the time, he was the sweetest guy, and he protected you in a lot of ways, and said a lot of things to you that really helped move you along as a writer. But I do want to know if anyone has ever rolled a blunt as good as that blunt that David Crosby rolled the first time you guys met.
No. I stopped smoking dope several years ago, but nobody’s ever come close.
That’s funny. One time I had to talk to Croz three times because he was so scattered brain throughout the day and was doing all kinds of crazy stuff. I can only imagine what that first meeting was like when he had that box and was separating the sticks and stems without losing eye contact with you.
I miss him every single day.
I can imagine. You’re well known for your harmonies. And you know harmony requires melody, it requires watching someone breathing and creating, and then you get to sing what you feel like is appropriate. There’s a level of trust when somebody’s creating harmony around you, and you’re obviously really good at that. Oftentimes artists are so good at a thing, but fall short once they get outside of the studio. I’m wondering that listening that it takes to create harmony—does it translate to the rest of your life? Are you a good listener outside of work?
Yeah. When I’m singing harmony with somebody, I have to be almost the same as them. Particularly on a song like “Birds” that I did with Neil. There was no rehearsal for that. I had to be Neil there for a second.
Yeah, I love the story about Neil. I forgot who it was, who suggested that he join the band. And you were like, ‘I’ve never even met Neil. I gotta have breakfast with this guy first.’
Yeah, that was, that was exactly true.
Do you feel, do you feel like you’re a good listener,outside of work in your personal life? When you’re just like, Graham?
Yeah, I think I’m a decent listener.
You’ve described yourself as an ordinary person, but do acknowledge that you’ve done something really special with your life. Your life is a really happy story—”magical,” I think, is a word that you’ve used. It’s been about eight years since you wrote that line, “I never really thought that I would fall in love again.” And I know you want to live to 100, and I know you know you’re still at it, but you know I was thinking about the passage of time, and I’m at the age where some, some of my friends are starting to pass away. How many close friends do you have left?
Really close? Yeah, maybe less than a dozen.
And does that ever get easier? Like, what is that like? In your other interviews, you tend to have a certain kind of peace about the passage of time, but it is jarring. I think when Now was being released, you were juggling that jubilation with this new work, but also the loss of Croz. What’s that like for you? As you know, two dozen becomes a dozen and so forth…
Well, David’s passing took the heartbeat out of CSNY for sure. It’s life, you know., I’m 84 now. I know that my life is coming slowly to an end, but as you say, I want to try and make it to 100. My father died when he was 46. I was wondering, when I reached my 46th birthday, whether I would die like my dad did.
So you’re doing pretty good in terms of that. I want to ask you about somebody who has kind of passed on. I love the stories that you tell about Cass Elliot. Obviously, she was so instrumental in making CSN a thing, and she had such a gift for knowing what voices fit and where—she’s the only outside voice on your debut there on “Pre-Road Downs”…
Yeah, not, not a lot of people know that.
It’s an amazing record, obviously. And the stories about her bringing you guys together and just knowing, and she knew that she had to be in that band [The Mamas & the Papas], and she forced herself in there, essentially, you know, at a time when, I don’t know, maybe the industry wasn’t as kind to people who maybe look like her…
She had an incredible voice. That’s what won her a lot of friends. She was very much like Gertrude Stein, you know, of Los Angeles. She brought people together, and I really think that Cass knew what we would sound like singing together, and I’ll be forever grateful.
Yeah, it’s a great story that you tell about those first 45 seconds, when you knew you had to upend your life. And I mean, you’re already on the way out with the Hollies, just because of the way they were treating your songs. Thinking about Cass, you said that she’s the last part of your prayers every night. And that got me thinking, ‘What does Graham Nash pray about every night?’
I am not a strong believer in organized religion. I understand that God is not a gray haired old man in the clouds. My prayers are mainly for and towards the spirit of the universe. I go through my prayers every single night, and I end up, you know, thanking Cass for bringing us together at such an important time in my life?
Are there any particular things you try to will out of the universe or center your thoughts on at the end of the day? Things you’re working on personally or professionally?
It’s always very personal. It’s not about the work. I’m not a strong believer in organized religion—I think it’s a scam, actually, in lots of ways. But I do understand that religion is very important to people. That’s why it took me two or three years to write “Cathedral,” because you have to make sure every word is true to my way of being.
For sure, I want to ask you about songwriting. Correct me if I’m wrong, but songwriting for you starts with a feeling, and you don’t wait very long until you land at a title. That title helps you talk about the feelings, and then you start writing the songs, right? Are you able to share what some of the working titles of your songs are, right now, because you’re always writing…
I just finished a song with my wife, Amy, called “Out In the Snow” and it’s about ICE.
I was gonna ask you about that. Are you in New York right now?
I am, yes.
Did you do the No Kings stuff on Saturday?
I’m a believer that when you’re standing in a crowd of several million people, you know the chances of getting COVID, the flu—and all that stuff is very important. But I did post on my Instagram with a sign.
Why didn’t I check Graham Nash’s Instagram before this freaking interview, and I would have seen this sign. Here it is, I’m looking at it right now. “No tyrants, no ice, no fascists, no greed, no war mongers, no racists, no hate, no misogynists, no kings and no Trump.”
That’s right, my wife, Amy wrote that.
That’s awesome. We just got through a bunch of our photos of the “No Kings” stuff here. There was a lot of “Vote for Pedo,” a lot of Epstein stuff, a lot of trolling—stuff you’ve mostly avoided.
I wanted to ask, because you frequently tell that story about you and Joni going into that antique shop, getting that vase or vase, if you’re singing the song, and then you saying, ‘Hey, you know, it’s such a crappy day. I’lll light a fire, you grab some flowers and put them in the vase.’ The piano was open, so you wrote the song, but you still send Joni flowers every November, I think, what kind of flowers do you send her?
They’re always roses, and sometimes 11 white roses and one red one. Sometimes they’re 11 red ones, one white one. But I have sent Joni flowers every single year for her birthday since we parted.
I was listening to the Rick Rubin podcast, and you were really candid about that show you played at the Beacon with Stephen and David, and how you really thought, ‘Well, I should have acknowledged that my past marriage was over, and I have something new here.’ Can you talk about relationships and and for you at this stage of your life, how you’re able to have such good relationships, especially being a “rock and roller,” and why that’s been such an important part of your whole career and your whole life? You know, being able to have good relationships with people from all parts of your past.
It’s quite simple, really. My life is made up, as is yours, with choices. Do you turn right? Do you turn left? You talk to him, do you talk to her? Do you do this? Do you do that? Your life is the choices that you make. And I want to always try and make the right choice for my life, and so far, I haven’t done too bad.
And Graham, sorry, I’m not asking you too much about your songs. I just feel like there’s so many interviews where you’ve talked in depth about them, and I’m asking you about something that’s some outside stuff. You’re a photographer. What makes it into your camera these days, what’s what’s sitting in there? What are you excited about? I mean, you’re a collector. You love lending your photos out to see how gallery owners lay them out. What’s in your camera these days,
I know what I don’t take pictures of. I don’t take pictures of sunsets; I’d rather just experience them. I don’t use my camera as my memory. I don’t take pictures of kittens with balls of wool. I don’t take pictures that match my couch. I look for the absurd stuff around me that happens almost daily.
Is this stuff like that involves other people, or like, you know, the world? There things in the world that aren’t necessarily human can be absurd, too.
Absolutely yeah, and I’m working on a second book. I put a book out a couple of years ago called “A Life In Focus,” and I’m working on my second book.
Oh, excellent. Do you have a title for that book yet?
Yes, “Light and Life.”
I want to ask you about the tour. You’re stopping in just four cities in Florida, but there’s a total of eight shows. The venues here, besides in Key West, aren’t much smaller than the other ones you’re visiting in April. Why so much time in Florida? Are you looking for Trump at Mar-a-Lago or something? What’s going on?
Oh yeah, sure. My wife, Amy, is from Tallahassee, and I love Florida—apart from the Gators, of course. We were in Tallahassee just two weeks ago. For a week, we were visiting an ex-girlfriend of mine who became a very dear friend of Amy’s—Rita Coolidge and her husband, Joe.
Yeah, Rita is one of those people I was thinking about that you just still have this great relationship with.
Sometimes when you get two nights into place, I assume there’s room for you to be a little bit self indulgent and kind of vary the set list up. How much does night one and night two kind of defer each night, and how much of that do you think will happen in Florida on this run?
Well, fortunately, I’ve written a lot of songs, and I have about seven songs that I know people want to hear. They want to hear: “Teach Your Children,” “Our House,” “Military Madness,” “Immigration Man,” “Chicago,” and “We Can Change The World.”
But in between all those songs, I can do whatever I want. The band that I’m working with has three people, Todd Caldwell on keyboards, Adam Minkoff on everything else, and Zach Djanikian on everything else, too. I mean Adam Minkoff plays drums and bass at the same time and sings at the same time, you know. And Zach plays tenor sax, a mandolin, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, drums, bass. I can go anywhere I want. When I’m playing two shows in the same place, I want to try and mix it up as much as I can.
And you’ve never been afraid to write protest songs. You just mentioned, “Chicago,” “We can change the world.” Can you talk about the spirit of those songs? Those are from the ‘70s…
And the truth is that those songs that I just mentioned, are still incredibly relevant today, including “Teach Your Children.” Immigration stuff is on the front page of The New York Times today. It’s an honor that my music has lasted so long, but it’s a pain in the ass that we don’t learn from history.
Yeah, it is kind of perplexing as I grow older. I didn’t want to have a kid for a while, just because I would tell people, ‘Oh, man, this world is so messed up, like I would never have a kid.’ But people were saying that during Vietnam…
It’s a lot crazier now, though.
OK, so you will say that right now is unprecedented in so many ways.
Oh, it’s absolutely unprecedented. First of all, we re-elected a man who has 34 felony charges against him, and this Iran war is really making it easy for him to ignore the Epstein files. I think that the truth will eventually come out and he will be gone.
Let me ask you this last question, Graham, because you obviously came over here from the U.K., and you fell in love with so many aspects about America. It is a place where we can say the things that we just said openly—for now—and not get arrested or tracked down. How much beauty do you still see when you travel America? Has it gotten more beautiful or less beautiful since those first drives you took from Hollywood into the canyon?
Well, first of all, America is a very beautiful country. The majority of people want the same thing that everybody else wants—to bring up their children to have a better life than they had. And it’s an incredible country. It’s just the people that are leading it right now are completely fucked.
I think I agree with you on that for sure. Well, thanks for 20 minutes today. Safe travels down here. I hope, obviously you’re down here all the time. I found out today, so I’m glad you’re back in Florida, and hope I get to see you play when you’re in town.
I think you’ll really enjoy it.
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This article appears in Apr. 09 – 15, 2026.