In a 2018 interview with Mojo, the late David Crosby recalled talked about several names, including his own bandmates. However, among these names, there were two that he couldn’t stand — Yoko Ono and Ted Nugent.
When the interviewer noted that people might be careful not to say the ‘wrong thing,’ Crosby responded, “I don’t buy that. I talk about people who can really do it. I applaud Joni Mitchell – I know she’s crazy, I know better than anybody else, she was my old lady. But man, she was the best – she was the best of us. And I’m not going to shut up when somebody says… somebody was trying to say that Yoko Ono was a legitimate artist, and I said, ‘You’re out of your f*cking mind – I’ve heard better music out of an air raid siren.'”
He went on to share his thoughts on Ted Nugent, not needing to ‘be gentle’ with him. “I do go off on people sometimes when it’s an extreme case. What I try not to do is for some kid who’s saying, ‘Will you listen to my brother’s band?’ or, ‘I just wrote this song, it’s really emotional for me. Could you, like, tell me if it’s any good?’ Well, I try not to rip their heart out, because you need to be a little gentle there. But I don’t see any need to be gentle with, what’s his name, the really right-wing guitar player?”
He added, “Ted Nugent. I don’t see any need to be gentle with Ted Nugent. He’s an asshole! It’s a slippery slope.”
While the rocker didn’t really have a past with Yoko Ono, he had a beef with Nugent before his passing. After causing a stir about Rock Hall, Crosby didn’t hold back his thoughts.
Nugent has been eligible for induction since 2000 but has never been nominated, and this frustration caused him to speak out. He described the idea that he hadn’t been nominated as ‘the most outrageous and disgusting lie.’
Crosby, a two-time inductee into the Hall of Fame as part of The Byrds and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, responded to Nugent’s rant. “That is really funny stuff… he’s not good enough and he never will be… a hack player and no singer at all… could not write a decent song if his life depended on it,” he said of Nugent.
“David clearly is correct for every music lover in the world knows the Michigan rockers don’t know anything about music when they named Ted Nugent the number one guitarist ever in Michigan. Poor David. Proof that substance abuse is not a victimless crime,” Nugent responded in a now-deleted Facebook post.
Nugent has often blamed his exclusion from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame on ‘political correctness‘ and his connection to the NRA. In 2017, he said these factors were the reason he hadn’t been inducted. Back in 2011, he also criticized the Hall for ignoring both historical and current facts about his career.
