Stephen Stills Selecting His ‘Best Stories’ for Upcoming Memoir
Stephen Stills is the only member of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young without a memoir, but that’s about to change. “I’m writing one right now,” the guitarist tells Rolling Stone. “And it is a bitch. It’s the hardest fucking thing in the world! I mean, there’s writing and there’s typing. I’m so frustrated with my computer that I’m going to get a fucking Selectric typewriter and organize this thing like I was taught to do in school.”
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Stills has been working on the book on his tour bus. “I’ve learned you can’t write on a computer on a bus,” he says. “It jiggles too much, especially an Apple. They keyboard jiggles around too much and there are too many typos. You spend all your time backing up. A Selectric is heavy and it sits on the table in the bus and you can hit it hard.”
Technical issues aside, it’s been somewhat difficult for Stephen to sort through the details of his hectic early career. “All this stuff is compressed into 18 or 24 months,” he says. “I have to get it all straight. Also, I went to five different high schools! I have no idea why. My father was up to something. So I’m going to stick to the funny stuff, but getting it all sorted out is just drudgery. Anyone that writes for a living knows what I’m going through.”
Stills’ entire time in Buffalo Springfield lasted just about two years, so don’t expect a long segment on part of his career. “It was so quick that picking out the best stories will only take a chapter or two,” he says. “It can be efficient. Back then, everybody was like Irish Wolfhounds and now we’re like Basset Hounds. You slow down when you get older.”
Unlike most rock stars, Stills is determined to write the entire book himself, without the aid of a ghostwriter. “I got an 800 verbal [on my SAT],” he says. “Dammit, I’m writing it myself. Why would I use a ghostwriter? Do you want a 300 page People interview?”