Stephen Stills Talks Neil Young, Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Taylor Swift

Stephen Stills foreshadowed the entire Youthquake movement when he penned “For What It’s Worth” after running into a conflagration between cops and
teens protesting the closure of Pandora’s Box, one of the few all-ages hot spots on the infamous Sunset Strip. That singular event sums up Stills, who has had an uncanny knack for being in the right place at the right time, whether it was running into Neil Young and bassist Bruce Palmer in LA traffic and immediately forming Buffalo Springfield, or becoming a last minute stand-in on Super Session after Mike Bloomfield left the project in the middle of the night. He’s been an ongoing member of CSN&Y, rented a house to The Rolling Stones during their 1969 tour and counted Jimi Hendrix as one of his closest friends. Today, he is a member of yet another super group, The Rides, along with his former Super Session compatriot Barry Goldberg and guitar savant Kenny Wayne Shepherd. The trio released their debut record Can’t Get Enough this past August.

Despite your reputation for being a hard-ass, you seem to bring out the best in people who you come into contact with.

I can be cranky but a lot of it’s a put-on. A lot of it is force of habit because my father was a sarcastic son of a bitch. My sense of humor is all based around that and needling. Going to military school, [being on] teams and being in the band, you’re needling each other all the time. Some people are put
off by that and some people think that’s good guys-manship.

Do you deserve any of your reputation?

I don’t think about it and I’d rather not be conscious of it because otherwise it’s unnatural and false and I’m just another poser, even though I can get called out as being demanding. Sometimes I get frustrated and say, “Will you please do what I ask?” I can get a little cross. But to quote [golfer] Arnold Palmer, “I refuse not to be nice.” The older I get, the more dedicated I am to that. If I do have a flash of temper, there’s something that set it off and I always feel horrible about it later.

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