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Features The Crowes Fly South Tuesday, February 19, 2008 The Black Crowes Are Set To Uncork Another Great Rock Album And Bring Their Thing To Australia For The First Time In Fifteen Years. By Martin Jones
“Uh, let’s see, you used to have to take a boat, it took 16 months to get there, and no-one had cellphones!” is Chris Robinson’s answer when asked to date the last time The Black Crowes toured Australia. It was actually back in 1992, some two years after their debut album Shake Your Money Maker blew up in an era when any kind of roots-based music was decidedly unfashionable. In the spaces between grunge and hyper-commercial pop, The Black Crowes attracted a niche audience that wanted to hear something with soul and swing, supporting the band’s second album, The Southern Harmony And Musical Companion to a number one chart debut that same year of their first – and last – Australian tour.
The Black Crowes never expected, nor perhaps even wanted, the level of chart success they initially received – and the results of the pressure proved devastating. They never again saw the kind of chart success that first album songs like ‘Jealous Again’, ‘She Talks To Angels’ and ‘Hard To Handle’ earned them, and as the band struggled with inevitable major label dilemmas and a series of line-up shakeups around the core of Chris and Rich Robinson, they continued to record and release albums until 2001, gradually earning a kind of Grateful Dead style live following. In 2002, The Black Crowes announced an indefinite hiatus.
Chris and Rich, however, could not stop making music if they tried and, after a bunch of individual projects, they reassembled The Black Crowes in 2005, the band’s return welcomed with a run of sold-out shows. And now, with a line-up that still seems to be changing daily, the band is preparing for the release of a new album, Warpaint, and their first Australian tour in 15 years, thanks to an invitation from the East Coast Blues and Roots Festival.
So what do you know about Bluesfest? I guess you would have talked to other musos who have played here…
Yeah, yeah, yeah a little bit. I mean that is a strange thing to be not playing in a place for so long and get to come back and do what we do, it’s really exciting for us, with the new album. Our new record is really heavily blues influenced and roots music influenced. I mean all of our music has been I think, but I think with this one we’re kind of in the middle of that, so I think it should be really nice.
You’ve always displayed the American roots in your music very proudly haven’t you? From naming your album The Southern Harmony And Musical Companion to the covers you’ve chosen including the huge hit of ‘Hard To Handle’…
Yeah, yeah totally, it just seems like that’s always been the stuff that really inspires all of us. Whether that’s gospel music, R&B, blues, country music, folk music, psychedelic rock music, that’s kind of where it all starts with us.
You Google ‘Hard To Handle’ and The Black Crowes comes up more than Otis Redding or Grateful Dead or anyone.
Yeah, which is kind of sad (laughs). That’s Otis’s song, but it was good for us, yeah
I guess you’re being recognised for your proud passion for roots music these days with invitations to play festivals like Jazzfest in New Orleans and Bluesfest in Byron.
Well I mean just for the sheer fact that we’ve been playing music for the last 18 years and we still have a super strong following of all these weird people who come to see us over and over again and they follow us around and that would go to prove to me that a lot of people when I was 24 who said what we were doing was really passé or not cool or whatever, like well I guess it’s not been cool for a long time but people seem to like it.
And I think part of that is our relationship to what we feel is a real soulful experience and the thing is I don’t think we were ever very clever. You know, if I’d been a clever writer I’d be an ad executive and I would be like the devil or something. But I’m not so we kind of do what we do that feels right for us and that’s what’s lead us down some weird roads and some beautiful roads and that what keeps it going.
Bands like yourselves and the Heartbreakers were almost ahead of your time, now you have bands like Jet and Wolfmother digging up the past and the kids love it.
Yeah totally, and I mean I think that’s what you’ll see in terms of why the music business is in such a death spiral. I mean here in America, yes the thing is already just a big carcass laying in a field somewhere, but you really get to understand that, okay, this has always been about the artist and their relationship to the audience and systems and rules and too much corporate aggravation is not part of any trip that we want to be on. If you want to make music because it’s something that’s completely possessed you, then you’re going to find ways to do it that have nothing to do with the way everybody else does it. And that’s kind of always been our mantra – we have to do it our way. And it caused a lot of problems when you’re young and you’re making grown, adult people and straight people – you know none of those people were heads really (laughs). For the young people out there, heads are like hippies, but real ones – you know what I mean, they just want to make money. And money is real and it’s important and stuff but some of us just want to make a good sound, man, and try and get something going with some energy and some dynamics.
When you guys reassembled The Black Crowes a couple of years ago, were you surprised by the overwhelming reaction and support in all those sold out shows?
Uh, yeah I think that I was. I think we all were. I mean the one thing about us is that we’ve always been super opinionated and we’ve always been really stubborn like I said because this is our life, it’s our band, it’s our music, and we’re the ones who live and die by it. But the other side of that coin is that we are really humbled and fulfilled by living in the tradition of being working musicians and writers and performers. So to have everyone be that excited that we came back as a band like us who doesn’t survive on hit singles and we don’t survive on getting funny haircuts and stuff – I mean people probably think we look a little weird, we look more like Hawkwind than whatever – but you know what I mean? So we just have a different relationship with our audience than some groups would. And I think that’s why we have such a dichotomy of people and age groups and stuff going on in our concerts. I think the other part of it is in terms of that stuff is not to think about too much and just do it.
The band has survived a LOT over the years, do you feel like it’s just been the determination of you and Rich that has kept it going, or has the music almost had will and determination of its own?
Well I definitely think that, at least that’s the way that I can look at songs. ‘Cause my brother and I did an acoustic tour last year and we just made a record that came out from our nights here in LA at the Roxy and we call it Brothers Of A Feather and it was the opportunity for us to not only play songs from our solo outings and stuff that people had never heard us play together, but to play some of our favourite songs by our favourite artists. The catalogue of some of The Black Crowes material really starts to take on a different light and meaning to us playing them in that context. And that’s what I look for, even when we were teenagers it was always about getting good songs together and if you’re not writing good songs, or at least songs that we felt were indicative of who we were and how we were feeling and what was going on with us, then you’re not really doing anything.
So you feel that you’re driven by the same motivations today that you had when you first started playing music?
Yeah, exactly. Even maybe more so than then, because even when we started I think we never really… or at least we weren’t the kind of people that looked ahead that much. We were kind of in our little weird cocoon and doing it ourselves. But with time and stuff comes that kind of perspective – at that time we were like ‘oh my God, someone could pull the rug out from under us at any minute so let’s play as many shows as we can and get as out of our heads as possible!’ And we did. Read the full feature in February Rhythms.
Warpaint is available in Australia through Stomp.
The Black Crowes Tour Dates: Monday March 24, Bluesfest; Sunday March 30, Hordern Pavillion, Sydney; Wednesday April 2, Royal Theatre Canberra; Thursday April 3, Civic Theatre Newcastle.
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