The Black Crowes - Guitarist UK



 A new record label, band line-up and a fantastic new
album... Rich Robinson tells Mick Taylor why the past
is so important to the Black Crowes' future...
 

What do you think of the Black Crowes? Be honest, What
do you really think of the Black Crowes? Hairy old
rockers, perhaps? One-foot-in-the-past retro grave
diggers, maybe?

Or do you think they're the best kick-ass rock'n'roll
band around? If you bought their 1990 debut album
'Shake Your Money Maker', containing the cover of Otis
Redding's Hard To Handle and left it at that, then
nobody (except the hard core) will blame you for
giving later releases a wide birth. 

Despite a fair amount of MTV play, their brand of
sleazy, Southern rock and blues wasn't exactly to the
mainstream music press' liking - in the UK at least -
and as a result, the Crowes came in for a fair bit of
stick. All of a sudden, it had become a crime to play
honest rock'n'roll with an unusually high dose of feel
and accomplished musicianship.

The follow up, 'The Southern Harmony And Musical
Companion' in 1992 announced to the world that the
Black Crowes had found their feet. What appeared as
slightly forced authenticity on 'Money Maker' had
transformed itself into consummate writing, thoughtful
arrangements as well as downright heart-wrenching
emotion. And the only remaining question was how on
earth would they follow this.

Sadly for many, they didn't - 1994's 'Amorica' was
darker, some say lacking the depth of its predecessor,
while 'Three Snakes And One Charm' in 1996 moved
further away from their rock and blues roots,
effectively upsetting the potent formula present on
that seminal second album.

Three years later, the brothers Robinson are back with
a new record label, an overhauled line-up and album
number five. And it's a corker, a more positive
approach, coupled with renewed enthusiasm sees the
Crowes on their finest form ever. But it hasn't all
been plain sailing. What exactly happened to guitarist
Marc Ford and bassist Billy Colt? Did they jump or
were they pushed? Armed with these questions and
plenty more, I caught up with Rich and asked him to
spill the beans.

The Black Crowes 

Oh, and what do we really think of The Black Crowes?
Need you even ask?

The Crowes have been through some line-up changes.
What happened?
"Yeah, we lost a couple of members. We had to let Marc
Ford [guitar] go for personal reasons - he wasn't
really getting his gig on. He wasn't into it. And
Johnny [Colt - bass] actually quit, and I think he's
quit the music business. I think he's teaching yoga or
something. He just wanted to go and do his own thing,
which is cool. I hope he's happy. Same for Marc - I
hope they're both happy.

"Now we have Audley [Fried] and Sven [Pipien, formally
of Mary My Hope] who are great. Audley came from Cry
Of Love and it started out that he'd just be there for
live work, but everyone thinks he's great, so I think
he's gonna be in the band.

"But I played all the guitars on the album which was
fine because I'm pretty close to the songs, so it
wasn't really a stretch for me. It was sort of cool. I
knew when to step on and off my own feet and stuff
like that."

Who inspired you as a player?
"All the typical ones - Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Peter
Green, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Mississippi John
Hurt, Robert Johnson... Duane Allman... And Eric
Clapton, too. But I also like a lot of folk. I like
Nick Drake a lot. But I grew up listening to Bob
Dylan; my dad was a huge fan."

And Keith Richards? The Crowes are often compared to
the Stones...

"Yeah, I like his songwriting. That's what I
appreciate with the Stones. All those players
influenced me, but the most important thing to me are
songs, and I genuinely like songs the best - I love a
great song. So I was always more into that; the songs,
the vibe and the dynamics."

 Was there a moment when you thought 'Right! the
guitar's for me'?

"No. My dad was a musician, so we always had a guitar
around the house. I always looked at the guitar - even
before I could play one, and even now to an extent -
almost as something sacred. Like this 'other' thing,
something that was almost untouchable... And so my dad
took us out and bought Chris a bass and he got me a
guitar. And, I guess that's how it all started."

Have you ever done anything else apart from being in a
band?
"Well I graduated from high school and made 'Shake
Your Money Maker' when I was 19. I went to one quarter
of college in Atlanta and just said 'well, I have a
record deal' [laughs uproariously]. And here we are
ten years later..."

There's a more positive feel to 'By Your Side'
compared with your last two releases. Was that
planned?
"We went to make the record with Sven as a five-piece
and everyone in the band felt energised. On the last
tour - we did this Further Festival in the States,
with the guys from The Grateful Dead, obviously minus
Jerry Garcia. So it was a lot of hippy bands, a lot of
jammin', a lot of that shit. But we just came to
realise... we'd be playing Sting Me; a rock song and
we said y'know what? This is so easy for us'. And it
took us going as far as we did to realise that this is
what we do, this is where we are. We're a rock band.
And I have no regrets. I'm glad that we did everything
that we did. I think there are still elements of every
record we've done on this record. But I also think
it's a lot more energetic. It's a rock record and it's
easier to grasp."

How does the writing relationship work between you and
Chris?
"In the past I'd write some songs and send tapes to
him, and then we'd get together and choose what we
liked. This time around, I had a bunch of songs...
well, actually we had a bunch of songs that were just
floating around, 13 or 14 of 'em. So Chris came to
Atlanta to write the record, and we stayed there for
five or six months. Basically, I write the music and
Chris writes the lyrics, although we do overlap."

How did you go about recording the album? It has a
great 'band' feel
Well that's exactly how we did it, everyone in a room.
We'd basically do a song a day. A whole song in a day,
then move on to the next one - one mic on each amp,
just real simple miking - not a lot of shit.

Do you have a favourite track from the new album?
"I guess I'm too close to the songs to have a
favourite, but there's one track on there that really
reached its potential, and that's Welcome To The Good
Times [track 7] - it has this New Orleans feel. We
went there and got the Dirty Dozen brass band in.

Chris had this idea for the middle; he sort of hummed
these ideas to our producer, so we brought in this guy
who scores horns and he wrote down what Chris hummed.
It's a bit like The Band from 'Big Pink'. Y'know like
a parade - a New Orleans parade; a funeral march is
what some people would liken it to. That's where it
came from and it turned out great."

How do you react to the constant 'retro' criticisms
from the press?
"We've gotten that for our whole career. You know
what? Those guys are kinda stuck in their own ways,
too. To me, music is the ultimate creative medium - no
matter what. If you're talking about TV, movies - well
TV's not creative - but let's say film, painting,
literature, music... Any aspect of a creative medium
isn't propelled forward by technology, 'cos technology
breeds convenience, and it shouldn't be convenient to
do that.

It should be a natural progression. Sometimes hard
work actually pushes things forward, but it should
also come naturally. Also, especially in music, it
comes through interpretation. I was born in 1969, but
I'm living my adult life in the nineties. And so my
take on things is from the nineties. I don't live in a
bubble where everything in my house is from 1970. I
live in the nineties, I've travelled the world in the
nineties and so what I see is what I see in the
nineties.

I'm taking it in and spitting it out in my own way. On
top of that, I'm changing and adding chord
progressions, adding different genres; having
traditions, but taking things a bit further - that's
how music moves forward."

So how do you see the future for rock and roll. Will
guitar bands still exist?
"I think so. There are so many people - even people
who listen to techno and rap - so many people who talk
about it all day in the States; 'we're so sick of
techno and crap and all of that shit' and they think
we're just a good, straight-ahead rock band. We want a
band that'll be here for a while.

And music is cyclical: it comes and goes. It changes
from week to week. They'll always say rock is dead,
this is dead, that's dead, you're dead, you're retro,
you're all that shit. But whatever, who gives a shit?
At the end of the day, I like what I do."

How do you think the UK is going to react to that?
"Look at it like this; Oasis is a rock band and they
sell millions of records. The Stones still tour and
sell billions of records. Jimmy [Page] and Robert
[Plant] are still as popular as ever. Aerosmith are
huge - there are always gonna be rock bands, the only
thing is the categories. People get sick of the sub
categories, right? You categorise and you label it
'new and improved', slap some other bullshit label on
it. If it's grunge, metal, ska, whatever; rehashed old
bullshit. Now everything is 'swing' in the States.

Then you exploit the shit out of it and it doesn't
sell any more and you move on to the next thing. And
then in two or three years, everybody's gonna be sick
of the sub categories and they're gonna go back to
just liking 'music'. And then it'll go back again to
whatever rehash thing that they slap a new label
on..."

What about guitars? Do you still play your Zemaitis?
"Yeah, and I have another on the way. That's still my
favourite. When I started playing I can remember that
I always wanted one. Apart from that it's the same
guitars I've always had; my Tele, my Les Paul and of
course my ES335."

And what about your amps?
"I bought a 1955 tweed Twin; a 50-watt, low-powered
Twin. And that's the whole deal. I have a '55 and a
'53 and they're in immaculate condition; original
speakers, original everything and I used those on the
whole record. On the road, I have the '55 with me, a
Matchless and a couple of cabs."

What do you think of Matchless?
"Well the company was a pain in the ass to deal with,
but they sound great. Mine were made by Mark Sampson,
the guy who founded the company; they were the last of
the ones he made by himself before he started
mass-producing them. I can't beat 'em.

"I have a rack now, too, it's a Bradshaw and it's just
all my old pedals running through this thing so I
don't have 70 feet of wire connecting stuff.

"In there I have a Hughes & Kettner Rotosphere for
that Leslie thing, a Uni-Vibe and a wah and a couple
of different echoes. I have a Talkbox pedal, loads of
stuff - I don't even know what most of it is called.
Oh, and a couple of Fulltone pedals, too; the
Fulldrive is one of 'em. Now that sounds great."

So is there an ultimate guitar tone for you?
"Well there's too many, but just plugging straight
into an old amp from a guitar is it for me.

So your're not into modern gear, then?
"Well they haven't invented anything that sounds as
good to me as some of the older stuff. If something
just sounds like valves, then what's the point? Why
not own a valve? That's the whole backwards logic of
technology. It's just convenience: 'Hey this is
cheaper and it sounds just as good as that'. But no,
it doesn't, because a transistor or a computer image
of something is never gonna' have the intangible
fuck-up that the original thing would have. It gives
it that individual quality. You know what I'm saying?"

Y'know what Rich? I think we probably do.