#1 Without a Net by Vic Garbarini 

transcribed by Anthony (ZoSoCroWe297)

Marc Ford's first day as a Black Crowe got off to a
flying start. The former guitarist for Burning tree
arrived early at Chris and Rich Robinson's Atlanta
garage to begin rehearsal for what would become The
Southern Harmony and Musical Companion, the Crowes'
eagerly awaited follow-up to their multi-platinum
debut. The first surprise was that the Robinson
brothers had completely rewritten the album they'd
sketched out for Ford at the audition a couple of
weeks before. the second came as they began working on
a new song called "Sting Me." They began the song as a
slow ballad then sped it up to a full tilt rocker.
Which was better? Lead singer Chris Robinson began
arguing with his younger brother Rich; suddenly
Chris's mike stand was arcing through space- directly
at Rich. "It hit him right in the head," recalls a
still amazed Ford. "So Rich threw his guitar down,
lunged across the room, and grabbed Chris by the
shoulders, throwing him up against the wall. Glass,
candles and books went flying everywhere." Bassist
Johnny Colt and drummer Steve Gorman had been through
this before, but even they seemed shaken. Meanwhile,
Marc Ford stood clutching the gold-topped Les Paul
Chris had given him for Christmas, wondering what the
hell was going on. "It was complete insanity" he
confesses. "That was my first weekend with the band.
So I just figured, "Okay, this is basically what we
have to deal with." 

"It was a perfect shot" asserts Chris Robinson with a
mixture of pride and regret. "God, I thought Rich
broke my arm after that and then of course I stomped
upstairs to my bedroom, slammed the door and raged for
a while." Thirty minutes later he was downstairs
hugging Rich and all was forgiven. 

"It's cause Chris won't shut up, basically," grumbles
Rich, "but it's so superficial, I really don't
remember what it was about five minutes later." 

"Musically my baby brother is an enigma." responds
Chris with obvious admiration. "But because we're
brothers whatever I want he's going to do the
opposite." He pauses for a moment, then grins
sheepishly. "Do Angus and Malcolm beat the crap out of
each other like this?" 

So are the Crowes the brawling, arrogant bad boys of
legend? Well, not exactly. Running a hand through his
hennaed hair, Marc breaks into a gentle bemused smile.
"Chris and Rich are actually fiercely protective of
each other. Really, I haven't seen them fight, except
for a few words, since that day. Maybe they just did
it for my benefit." he muses, adding that "They do
seem to have a way of getting to the core of each
other's nervous systems, if they need to." There's a
thin line between creative friction and
self-destructive craziness, but the Robinsons seem to
have things under control. "Besides, we knew you
needed a headline!" Chris chides. 

but the rehearsals were nothing compared to the
recording sessions. the Crowes charged into the studio
with their brand new material (and new guitarist Ford,
having replaced Jeff Cease) and proceeded to knock out
in a week what it took Def Leppard five years to do.
Every cut was done in one or two takes with songs
evolving and mutating, literally up to the moment of
recording. "Chris and Rich were counting down the
intro to Remedy when they stopped and said, 'Okay
we're changing this part right now' and the rest of
the band is going 'are you serious?!'" Ford became so
confused by the rapid-fire changes in songs and parts
that "it took all I had to concentrate on where to put
my hands and just get through the songs." But the
experience was exhilarating and out of this creative
chaos came a remarkably coherent album that debuted at
#1 on the Billboard charts. "This whole band is done
on a wing and a prayer, really," asserts Ford. "In
fact," he insists, "that's the secret to their
success. You're really forced to stop thinking about
it all so much and just trust your initial instincts
to groove. It's not a question of following any trend
or trying to be like anybody else. It's about keeping
things very alive and on the edge. And it either works
magically or it falls apart. I think it worked out
pretty well," he adds with obvious relief. "That's the
key to the band." 

It's also the key to why those critics who can't get
past the bellbottoms and open tunings-and so
cavalierly dismiss them as Stones clones-are missing
the point. The Crowes are about extending, not
copying, the traditions they draw from. They're not
just copping a sound but struggling to stay hotwired
to the spirit and energy that made all those Stones,
Zep, and Free records so resonant to begin with.
They're on a crusade of sorts to recapture the
spontaneity and risk-taking and bring it crashing into
the present moment.

In jazz, Wynton Marsalis picked up a lost thread of
'60s post-bop and carried it forward, as Robert Cray
has attempted with the blues. The difference being
that Marsalis and Cray are praised, not persecuted,
for re-connecting with their traditions and expanding
them. "I guess we're just not politically correct,"
Rich Robinson deadpans.  

A few minutes later Marc and I rendezvous with the
rest of the band in the lobby of L.A.'s Sunset
Marquis. We pile into the group van and head off to
the band's first post-album rehearsal for their
upcoming world tour. Chris bounces around the van like
a bad check. Long hair flowing, jeans featuring more
patches than denim, he's the skinniest humanoid on the
planet. Also, one of the wittiest, he rattles off
opinions on everything and everyone, from politics to
pop culture, skewering certain bands (usually ones
that have knocked the Crowes). Meanwhile, Rich
radiates a quiet, smoldering intensity. Talk to them
sincerely about their music and they both switch gears
into passionate overdrive. The arrogance and
defensiveness flash by, but usually as a response to
attacks on them as "Retro" or the hypocrisy they sense
around them. They care desperately about the music
they're making - and how they make it. 

"Everything on the new album is unconscious," claims
Rich. "Sometimes I'm afraid to go back and analyze how
I wrote something 'cause I'm afraid I'll start to
subsequently repeat the same formula, 'How did I write
that hit?'" Chris has the same take on the lyrics.
Yes, he'll agree, there's a theme running through the
new record that revolves around hurt and healing.
There are Stings and Illness and Thorns and Disease,
contered by the positivism of Salvation, the
liberation of No Speak No Slave, and the transcendence
of My Morning Song. But he prefers to not get too
specific, and rightly so. Most great music comes from
a place deeper than conscious thought. Something
integrates all those elements and transforms craft
into something ineffable that can resonate with each
person in an individual way. "That's part of the
mystery of it all," asserts Chris. "How can you stay
really and in touch and out of your own way? That's
why the Stones wrote 'Sex Drive' isn't it?" he laughs.
It's also the unspoken philosophy that permeates the
writing, recording, and playing of the new album. Keep
that line open to the subconscious so creative
surprises and fresh energy can keep flowing, putting
craft at the service of something higher. "It's like
the difference between spirituality and religion,"
says Chris. "To me, religion can be a form of
manipulating something personal and sacred, like
government does. And in a watered down way, so does
the music business. If there's anything that the Black
Crowes have nothing to do with, it's manipulation." 
	
Seen through the looking glass of the press, the
Crowes have often come across as aggressive and
touchy. In person, they're certainly opinionated - but
not in a negative mean-spirited way. Unlike many bands
who say "correct" things in public, and are bitter
behind the scenes, the Crowes' bark is worse than
their bite. Chris Robinson flashes a goofy smile and
he does his imitation of certain "corporate" bands:
"Hi, we're all just so happy that our album is #1 and
we just love everybody," he oozes. "Then they're back
in their tour buses grumbling about how they hate this
or that band, blah blah!" Chris snorts derisively, "I
mean hello! you don't love everybody, get real. Just
play some music that takes me somewhere and shut up!"
There's more heart than heat in Chris Robinson's
diatribes. "During the 60s and early 70s the
counterculture and even the way you looked, were at
least a statement about your values. Our music is
nothing but an extension of our lifestyles. As manic
and as seemingly desperate as that music is sometimes,
that's the way our lives are. It's all there, the ying
and the yang, the euphoria and the hard times," says
Chris. He worried about keeping himself, and his band
in touch with their creative spark - and expects no
less from others. "That's why we're afraid to analyze
what we're doing too much," he continues earnestly.
"What if we start to second guess ourselves too much?
'Uh how did I write that hit? What's the formula?'" He
shudders. "Look the reason Chris gets so defensive -
the reason we all do...well" he hesitates, "it's
because we're all scared....you know what I'm saying?
We're scared of the ultimate..." He shrugs, lost for
words. "This music is our baby, we put our souls into
it. And then some jaded asshole from the press or some
other band says, 'Oh, just a Stones rip-off,' or 'the
record that Rod Stewart never made." He grimaces.
"They don't even know us or where we're coming from. I
didn't even learn that open G tuning from the Stones,"
claims Rich. The brothers have been trading records
for years, everything from Gram Parsons, Otis Rush and
Little Feat to Thelonius Monk and old blues. "When did
the Stones ever write a song like Black Moon Creeping
or No Speak, No Slave?" Good point. 

At rehearsal the instinctive chemistry Marc Ford spoke
of kicks in as Rich slides his capo up the neck of his
Telecaster a few frets and preaks into the awesome
climbing riff from No Speak No Slave" The band swings
in behind him in perfect synch, John and Steve's
elastic rhythmic pocket creates an exquisite tension
for the guitarists to play off. Marc Ford kicks in
with a dirty, raucous wah-wah solo that lifts the song
to a new level. It may sound cliched, but Ford's
replacing Jeff Cease really does echo the Stones
replacing Mick Taylor with Ron Wood. But Ford adds
Hendrixian fire and Page's angular riffing to Wood's
rawness, resulting in a volatile hybrid of blues-rock
styles that lends an edge and fullness to Rich's
chordal vamps. Still in Open G, Rich slips off the
capo and slides into the gnarled intro to Sting Me.
Chris grabs the mike and sings "I've got nothing up my
sleeve, 'cept this heart and a chip on my shoulder.."
neatly summing up the band's philosophy amidst a
roaring wall of sound as Rich cranks out those
Stonesian chords. Black Moon Creeping's ominous chink
n' funk maelstrom owes as much to Lowell George and
John Lee Hooker as it does to Led Zeppelin and Keith.
Marc and Rich end with a duet solo in different
tunings. They pull off the tricky interplay perfectly
- even though it's only the second time they've played
the passage together. Rich gives me a black look when
I ask about soloing in open tunings. How does he keep
track of scales? "I don't even know what scales are,"
he shrugs. "It's all pretty unconscious, I just do it
by feel." Marc Ford, who plays in standard tuning adds
that "Rich often doesn't know the names of the chords
or the keys that he is playing in. He has to turn
around and ask me and Johnny. There's the obvious
chords you play in an open key, but Rich always tries
to stretch them and get into other stranger note
clusters. It opens up amazing harmonic possibilities
for me to weave in and out of," agrees Ford. They end
with My Morning Song, all searing slide crescendos and
wiry riffs - think of Zeppelin's When the levee Breaks
filtered through the Clara Ward Gospel Singers.

Contrary to legend, Mrs. Robinson didn't mix melted
down copies of Exile On Main Street and Physical
Graffiti into her sons' baby formula. Chris and Rich
grew up in suburban Atlanta, the sons of a 50s singer
who weaned them on folk music and country. "He was
like a Bobby Darin, Brill Building type who became a
real folk purist. Doc Watson and Jimmy Driftwood, Flat
and Scruggs - he wouldn't listen to Dylan or the
Byrds," says Chris, "that was a bastardization."
Saturday mornings at the Robinson's ranged from Sly
and the Family Stone and Joe Cocker to Vassar Clemons
and the Clancy Brothers," recalls Chris. It wasn't
until he was 19 that Chris and Rich discovered the
Stones, particularly Exile On Main Street. "I'd spent
the first night of my life on mushrooms, it was about
six in the morning, and somebody put on Torn and
Frayed. "Suddenly I didn't feel so isolated from
everything." Having unconsciously digested and
integrated the same blues and country records,
Robinson felt an odd kinship with the Stones based not
on Classic radio, but on shared sources. rich absorbed
a lot of his musical tastes from listening to his
older brother's records, but his early inspirations
would surprise his most ardent fans. "The first two
records I bought were Prince's Dirty Mind and AC/DC's
High Voltage. When I listen to Down Payment Blues
there is a kind of desperation there that makes you
want to gasp for air. That got me."

Though he became an Exile devotee shortly after Chris,
Rich still bristles at accusations that the Crowes
copped everything from Keith and Co. "Of Course the
Stones inspired us, along with many other bands. But
we didn't copy or steal from them," he asserts. "To
me, art is something that comes from inspiration.
Well, to certain jaded asshole critics I'd say this:
Where do you expect us to get inspiration from, the
future? You get it from the past. Are you going to
call Dali a rip-off artist because he occasionally
painted a landscape?" In fact, the Stones have
admitted to slavishly copying their blues heroes note
for note in the early days.  "People are going to
accuse us of theft? Well let me play where Keith and
Mick took credit for writing 'Love in Vain' and 'Stop
Breaking Down'.

What the Robinson really loved about the Stones,
besides the music, was their attitude. "They didn't
just have a career, they had a relationship with
people - fans, journalists, whoever." And those open
tunings that have pegged Rich as a Keith disciple? "I
didn't get into open tunings because of the Stones,"
he insists. "Keith didn't even invent the tuning. He
got it from Ry Cooder, I think. The rumor in the
industry is that that opening riff on Honkey Tonk
Women is actually Ry playing. I got into open G
because I heard Nick Drake this English songwriter,
singing Pink Moon. He always seemed to have a place to
go lower and you couldn't do that in standard tuning."

Rich, who just turned 23 the day of our interview
thinks that he may do a reverse Keith and "discover"
regular tuning when he's 30. "I think in terms of
chords and songs, though I do like to play solos
sometimes." On the new album, Marc and Rich traded
solos on "Thorn In My Pride," and on "Hotel Illness"
Rich plays both the dobro part and the solo. which
brings us to the touch question of what happened to
Jeff Cease, the original lead guitarist on Shake Your
Moneymaker. As usual Rich is characteristially blunt.
"Jeff didn't even lay some of the stuff on that
record. He didn't play any guitars on She Talks To
Angels. On a lot of his solos our engineer and myself
showed him what to play." Rich sighs. "After 10 months
on tour, he still couldn't play them and we needed him
to catch up and it wasn't happening." But what about
Cease's comments to the press that the Crowes didn't
approve of his lifestyle? "Think about that for a
minute," counters Rich. "Why'd the Black Crowes kick
you out? 'Well they didn't want me to play
basketball.' Come on what are you talking about!? I
read that and I wasn't mad, I was just stunned.

"Look," Rich adds wearily, "after 22 months on the
road and a half million records sold, I wanted to
write another record and play with a guitar player I
could work with." Chris Robinson agrees that "it's all
about the songs. Shake Your Moneymaker was not that
great of a record as far as playing goes. We were a
baby band." The brothers wanted the second record to
still reflect where they were coming from while
stretching their boundaries. In a sense, the new
album's evolution began as soon as they started
touring behind Moneymaker. "Our first arena show ever
was opening for Aerosmith, who were one of our idols.
Our manager, Pete, was ecstatic." Rich smirks. "So we
got out there and started playing new songs." Needless
to say, Pete was no longer ecstatic. "He was screaming
'Play your damn record!'" Opening later for ZZ Top the
Crowes kicked off with a new tune, "Words That You
Throw Away," that generally went on for 14 minutes.
"And we only had 45 minutes opening for ZZ Top,"
laughs Rich. "We'd barely gear in five songs. But we
thought that was so cool - keep it fresh." Their
daring paid off in the end. "Words.." was eventually
boiled down into a little number called Remedy, which
became the seed for the new album. But the Top tour
was also where Chris began to earn his reputation as
the Mouth of the South, delivering homilies from
onstage about the evils of corporate sponsorship as
the Miller Beer logo flapped in the breeze above him.
Eventually, the beer suits had them axed from the
tour. 

"We got along with the band at least at first,"
asserts Rich. " I was always an Ac/DC guy, never a  ZZ
Top fan - the cars and girls in the videos were a
bigger image for me. " But at the first sound check
Rich spotted Billy Gibbons sitting backstage with a
Les Paul and a slide. "I went , Wow this guy is
fantastic." He just had the coolest tone. Then during
the show they came out with these big goofy Gibsons
all that sampling. I was a little disappointed,
because they can really play, that's the sad thing. "
It wasn't the beer the Crowes objected to as much as
the idea of something they held sacred, their music,
being hawked like peanuts under anybody's logo. The
corporatization of rock is a threat to its essence.,
and they feel it's time to draw some boundaries.
"Here's a scenario for you. offers Rich. "A band signs
a contract for a million dollars with any label. Now
here comes a beer company that offers you 10 million
to sponsor your tour. If you take that money you're
greedy anyway, right? So who are you going to show
more allegiance to, the guy who brings a million
dollars or the guy who brings 10 million dollars to
the table? So then you play a show and the head of the
beer company brings his kid. You say fuck on stage.
They guy comes backstage and objects, bad for their
image. And so it starts. They begin showing up in the
studio. So now, not only do you have your producer and
record company guy looking over your shoulder, you've
go Budweiser and Reebok. Soon the Taco Bell guy'll be
there saying, 'Well when you use the word slave in No
Speak No Slave that might offend some people so take
it out.' It's called heading down the Slippery Slope.
"There's bands like us and U-2, Mellencamp,
Springsteen and others who just aren't into that,"
concludes Rich. "I think like-minded bands need to get
together and say 'Hey corporate America has taken over
every aspect of life, and made it suck. It's halfway
taken over music. Let's stop it where we can.'"

Back on tour, the Crowes either drew raves or were
slagged by the critics and some bands for their music,
their hair, bellbottoms and even their shirts. It was
the same old counterculture/lifestyle stigmatization.
Only this time it wasn't the establishment on their
heals, it was their peers. Chris tends to adopt the "a
good offense is the best defense" theory of dealing
with slights. "I was backstage at the Allmans saying
hello to Greg, and his girlfriend says, 'Oh look he's
dressed up like the old days.' And I'm like, 'No
you're just dressed like you don't know what to be
anymore'" snaps Chris. Then there was the Pink Pop
festival in Holland last year. The Crowes took the
stage early in the morning. "And there was Nick Cave,
staring at us like were the foulest wretches on
earth." remembers Chris. "So I said ; Well Nick have
you smelled your breath lately?'" Later Chris jumped
into the crowd and slugged this kid for throwing money
at him when the lights were out. And there was the
time at the Greek Theatre when Chris noticed a famous
rock personality and his manager slumped in their
front row seats smirking at each other while the rest
of the crowd was on their feet dancing. Chris took a
towel off the drum riser, wiped his brow, then threw
it at the astonished celebrities, adonishing them to
either "Stand up and have a good time like everybody
else or take your jaded asses down to the bar and sit
there till somebody asks you how long it took to tie
your fucking headband on." They left. 

But it was certain heavy metal bands that inspired
Chris to the heights of creative revenge (and Southern
Harmony), specifically, Junkyard and MSG. 'When we
opened for MSG, they were there every night yelling,
'You suck!' They hated us, man." So Chris and Johnny
figureing their tormentors were probably a bit thick
and probably homophobic, added a new twist to their
stage show: "Johnny and I would begin rubbing each
other all over and I'd hump his leg whenever those
guys started on us," admits Chris. "We figured if one
thing was bound to upset them, it was two guys
pretending to have sex," he rolls his eyes and grins.
but was this trip necessary? Does he feel his
hair-trigger responses were a bit to defensive and
overreactive? Could his quick mouth have led him into
unnecessary conflicts? Why not ignore them? "I don't
really see it as defensive," counters Chris. "I see it
as maintaining an open forum." Brother Rich is less
certain. "When Chris gets into trouble with other
bands, I sometimes think 'Why do you have to lower
yourself to that? Even if you are right.' He grimaces.
"It's silly but in actuality, he's scared - just like
the rest of us. Because every night we're putting our
asses on the line, and who needs that abuse? Who the
hell asked them anyway? 

After almost two years of winning friends and
influencing people, the Crowes were ready to head back
to the studio with 25 new songs to choose from for
their sophomore effort. "I'd been worrying for months
about the new songs, confesses Rich. "Suddenly I said
'The hell with it, let's just write a whole other
record.'" Amazingly enough they did just that keeping
only two of their older tunes, My Morning Song and
Thorn In My Pride. It was an astonishingly bold move
for a relatively new bands facing the industry's
heightened expectations. But that's precisely why they
felt compelled to take the leap. The Crowes knew that
for them, playing it safe would be a threat to their
creative spirit. "See the first record was about
reflecting our influences," says Rich. "This record
was totally written by just Chris and I alone in his
house, with no music around - nothing. There was no
net underneath us. We just knocked it out in two
weekends. 'No Speak No Slave' was written in 10
minutes based on that ascending riff. My Morning Song
was the same thing, but done in a Dallas hotel room
one night when we were bored. Hotel Illness was
written literally the first time Rich played it as was
Thorn in My Pride. 

The Crowes were determined to record their new
material in the same spirit of spontaneity and
freedom. "On the first record we were told to 'Play it
straight' This time we said Screw you,' we're keeping
what we want in terms of arrangements, like on Black
Moon Creeping, our producer wanted to cut that show
passage at the end - we weren't supposed to stray to
far. But we said, ' We like it and it stays.'" If some
of the songs on The Southern Harmony... seem like
jams, rest assured, they are. Thorn and Morning
evolved a bit between writing them and the studio. But
all the others had been played by the band three or
four times before recording them, usually in one or
two takes. Needless to say, they were few overdubs.
For Rich, Marc Ford's last minute hookup with the band
"was the final poke in the wheel we needed." Chris had
always had Marc in mind, 'cause they were friends. I
wasnt a big Burning Tree fan, but I loved Marc's
playing. And for the first time I felt there were
really two guitar players playing in synch, rather
that me playing something and wondering what was going
to happen when Jeff jumped in. I didn't have to worry
about it 'cause I know Marc would have it covered."
The two would talk briefly about a part, whit Rich
giving Marc a sense of where he wanted him to go. And
Marc did the rest, usually in one take. "Marc's solo
in No Speak No Slave was a single take as was the one
in Sometimes Salvation.  

"I like it when two guitarists play complementary
parts that make interesting chords and mesh like a
wall of sound," says Rich. "Like on 'Black Moon
Creeping. That's me at the end just playing three
notes and him playing some weird thing, but it sounds
so full." Marc used his Les Paul on most tracts though
for the solos on No Speak No Slave and Remedy he
reverted to his Strat Plus armed with Seymour Duncan
pickups. Rich used his Gibson 335 for "Sting Me and a
Gretsch White Falcon for both the into and the slide
work on "Morning Song." The rest of the time he
switched between a brace of old Les Paul Juniors,
vintage telecasters (one with a B-String bender on it
for Black Moon Creeping), and three Gibson Dove
acoustics.

Rich fought for the slower version of "Sting Me," but
"our manager was like, 'Come on, if you're going to
let me have any say, let's do the fast one.'" The 14
minute opus was chopped into fragments and rearranged
as Remedy. Like many of the Crowes' compositions
Remedy features Rich's trademark descending chord
patterns. "I remember George our producer talking
about how when Chris would sing it, it just kept going
down," says Rich. "George wanted to change the chord
progression but we didn't let him." Some of the slower
tunes were written in open B and B flat, tunings rich
says he picked up from Keith's ex-roadie Alan Rogan.
Rich sees Thorn and Morning Song as the two songs on
the record that take you on internal journeys,
lyrically and musically. Thorn has this little Nick
Drake intro and then the drums kick in. Finally
there's this amazing huge part where the piano comes
in. It's like a roller coaster ride. Morning Song is
just gospel," says Chris," that uplift is intentional.
That's why people like the Swans and Nick Cave get on
my nerves," he continues. "It's like they're into that
obvious dark side - and wallowing in it rather than
cathartically processing through it, like Lowell
George," he adds, "or Tears of Rage from Big Pink.
That's what gospel means, that's what the blues is all
about." Chris has an ancient autographed promotional
copy of an early Dylan album where Bob talks about
singing the blues to help get out of them, not to
masochistically marinate in them, "Some of those
English bands seem to think oppression and alienation
is exclusive to them," Chris sneers. "Please!"

By now, if you think the Crowes used some high tech
studio wizardry to achieve the hot immediacy of the
Southern Harmony...., you obviously have not been
paying attention. "I mixed Thorn In My Pride with our
engineer Brendan at the Record Plant - and I hated
it," says Chris. "They had this hug board with digital
computers and shit, which Brendan love. Forget it, I
went over to Hollywood Sound, got on that little Neve
board and hot-mixed the whole rest of the album in one
evening. What else do you need?" According to Chris,
that's why their records sound different on radio. "I
don't have an ear for hit records," he admits. "That's
the only reason we're any good - we don't know what
the fuck we're doing, we just do it. You can analyze
it all after." For the Crowes, structure and
discipline has to come from inside not from some
codified set of rules or formulas. This is a band that
thinks with their hearts and feels with their heads. 

Obviously they're on to something The next morning at
breakfast the band gathers in the hotel lobby to check
out the new Billboard. The Southern Harmony and
Musical Companion enters the charts at #1. The guys
are pleased but subdued, even a bit somber. After all
this, they don't want to lose their sense of them
selves. "You know , Woody Guthrie, he never separated
himself from folks," reflects Chris. "Maybe the Crowes
are going to be one of the bands in the next five or
six years that brings it around to what's important, I
don't know." And what is important to the country's
newest #1 band? Rich Robinson looks pensive. "Maybe if
I still have a vital relationship with my music the
audience and my band in 15 years or so I'll have the
right to talk about success, and what it means." 

Chris Robinson pauses, then breaks to an impish grin.
"When the critics start saying that Mark Farner of
Grand Funk is cool. Then I'll know things have really
changed! I don't care if he is a born-again whatever,
'Nothing Is The Same' from Closer To Home is a bad
song," Chris chortles. "And you gotta admit, the guy
had great bellbottoms!"