Birds of a Feather  
By James Rotondi

Marc: I'm not big on the technical side of things. I'm about letting it all hang out, and if 
it sounds like shit sometimes, that's fine, because you're finding your way to new areas. 
Even Jimi Hendrix at his best, when he was playing flawlessly, would occasionally hit 
the clam. "Ouch!" But he was up there in heaven with the guitar, feeling his way around 
and always trying to push further and further, to find that new thing that tells you, "I've 
never done that before." Page was the same way-all the greats were. You've got to fuck 
up to move ahead. We're not a pop band. It's spiritual. "Don't think, feel"-that's my 
motto. I can't listen to guitar as athletics. Who cares how fast you can run? It's how cool 
you look. [Laughs] It's like a woman. Do you want a natural-born woman with beautiful 
curves, or do you want someone with silicone and collagen all over their body? Do you 
want someone manufactured that's supposed to look great, or someone just being who 
they are and being beautiful? I'd rather hear Keith Richards just strum than somebody 
flippin' out all over the guitar. 

Rich: I'm not technical at all. I mostly play in open G, so I don't know the names of any 
chords. I know that I throw a capo on different frets, but I don't know what the chords or 
scales are. And I've never bothered to find out, though it's something I'd like to learn. 
The strongest thing about Marc is how well he knows the instrument and how many 
different styles he can play. He knows everything about every note. 

Marc: I don't know as much as you think I do. If there's one thing I've brought to the 
band, it's the ability to listen. I was a little more familiar with my instrument than the 
other guys when I joined, and they learned from watching me and listening to me say, 
"This is not a competition. No one's better, no one's worse. Let's listen to each other. 
Let's make this sonic tapestry together." You can have six guys with instruments in their 
hands-they could be the most amazing players in the world-but if they're not listening 
to each other, it's bullshit. There are live versions of us doing "Thorn in My Pride" that 
are like 18 minutes long. We just keep going, trying to really listen to each other. 

Rich: It's not the typical arena drum-solo/guitar-solo deal, and it's not like the super 
hippy- dippy space jam. It's not just a bunch of people soloing-it has structure and it's 
musical, like parts of a song where everyone follows each other. 

Marc: We're listening to each other. If someone starts going... 

Rich: ... the rest of us back off. 

Marc: If someone starts taking that dive, you support him. Then when he's done, it's 
someone else's turn and you help him. "Help that man slide!" 

Rich: Since I initiate the whole thing, everyone pays attention to me. They don't always 
know where I'm going to go, so it's amazing how well everyone follows. The only guy I 
really need to look at is Steve. He and I are on a wavelength when we jam - I can tell him 
the weirdest shit, and he'll understand what I'm getting at. If Steve and I are in sync, 
everyone else knows exactly what's going on. 

Marc: Rich is sort of the band director. You need one guy saying, "It's going to be up, 
it's going to be down." Rich gives Steve a cue and we'll follow Steve, but really it's a 
vibe situation-it's so instant. Steve might raise his hand, but what does that mean? We 
just know. It's a strange communication. 

Rich: I've got Ed Hawrysch over at my side of the stage. Marc handles it on his side, and 
Johnny follows Marc... 

Marc: ... which is so weird. He's following my hands. I'll say to Johnny, "Go over there 
next to the drummer-you're the bass player!" 



Guitar Player: How do you work out parts for the stage? 

Marc: Sometimes we'll double rhythm parts, but more often Rich will play the bottom 
end of a chord and I'll play the top. Or if he's on top, I'll widen the chord on the bottom. 

Rich: Plus I play a lot of weird chords in open G. A lot of times I'll only play two notes 
of the chord, and Marc will follow it up. 

Marc: When two guitarists restate what [the] other's doing, it can make it really big and 
powerful, but most of the time it's just redundant. We've got seven people in the band, so 
you've got to make space, because there's a lot of area that's already covered. You've got 
to do your thing, but stay out of the way and be part of the whole. There's a lot of notes 
lying around. 

Rich: We will double up parts, but we don't overdo it-there's a balance, and that's what 
keeps it interesting. I think our songs are interesting; they take you to different places and 
emotions, and that's what music is for. 

Guitar Player: What's it like spending ten hours in a bus every day for a year? 

Marc: It all depends on what you're holding. [Laughs] We have a great time. Chris and I 
enjoy the outer side of reality, so maybe we'll drive for eight hours, and everyone will get 
off the bus and go into the hotel room, and we'll just sit there and rap until everyone gets 
back on the bus. Sometimes you don't want to leave the bubble-bus, stage, hotel room. 
It's not a bad bubble as long as you keep it in perspective and know what you're doing. 
I've seen a lot of people crash. But it's very cool, 'cause you know you're going to make 
rock in a couple hours. Days off are fucked, 'cause you've got no gig to do, and you end 
up getting yourself in a lot of trouble. 

Guitar Player: What's the worst trouble you've ever gotten into with the Crowes? 

Marc: No comment. [Laughs] I can't say. Lots of trouble. Never been arrested, knock on 
wood... or formica, or whatever that is. 

Rich: Being on the road is a weird way of life. It's not bad, but it's strange, especially 
when you've been brought up to live in one house and go to school every day. But we 
still soundcheck every day! I love soundcheck. Get up there and play, that's what you do. 

Marc: Yeah, we always jam at soundcheck-a lot of bands don't even show up at 
soundcheck, which is unbelievable to me. I want to spend as much time around the gig as 
I can, because the rest of the day is fuckin' boring. How many times are you going to be 
in the same city, and you know where the coffee is, you know where the beer is, you 
know where the weed is, you know how to get what you need. Get to the gig! Be as close 
to the stage and the guitar as possible. Every single day, we show up religiously to 
soundcheck. Sometimes it's just to check the monitors and things, but some days we'll 
stand out there for three hours and they'll have to kick us offstage because they're 
opening the doors. "Get off!" Every day we switch the set around, because it would be 
such a shame to have it be mundane. "Aw, we did that last night." It would turn into a 
job, and I'm into this because I didn't want to have a job. I wanted to make sounds that 
people could appreciate, and see as many smiling faces as I possibly can. I say it all the 
time, though: "I have a great job. I go to work with a beer in my hand." Just a bunch of 
belligerent drunks running around the world. 
A Classic Ford in the Making 

Marc: I was born in Long Beach, California on April 13, 1966, and I grew up there. My 
first guitar was a $7.50 acoustic that you couldn't play past the 3rd fret; the neck was so 
fucked up and bent that all the notes were the same after that. My grandmother was a big 
antique freak. I used to go with her to swap meets all the time. At a Rose Bowl swap 
meet, I walked by this old, toothless man playing an acoustic guitar, and out of nowhere 
something hit me. I said, "Please, please, buy me a guitar." It took me all day to beg her 
to break with the $7.50 to buy this shitty little acoustic, and ever since then, I just can't 
put it down. Magic came to me. Then my little brother trashed it! My grandfather kept 
buying me guitars because he saw that it meant a lot to me. He bought me a classical 
nylon-string, then a steel-string, and finally a Les Paul copy, probably 'cause Frampton 
Comes Alive was the big record at the time. "Three pickups-wow." As I kept getting 
better and more involved with the guitar, he got me a Fender Stratocaster, but it had no 
whammy bar, and I was so depressed. "Oh, damn it. How could you get me a Stratocaster 
with no whammy bar?" But I was already playing to a hundred million billion fans every 
day in my room. 

GP: Did you ever take lessons? 

Marc: Yeah. That's probably why I got my first guitar. In elementary school, we had this 
elective period for a half-hour a day. You could grow gardens or play guitar with Mr. 
Milling. He really got turned on by turning other people on to guitar. He taught me D and 
A and all the rudimentary chords, and he would write out songs like "Clementine." At 
some point his class at school ended, so he started a night class for adults-mostly bored 
housewives. I was the only kid in the class, so I ended up teaching all these women how 
to play "Stairway To Heaven." I also took classical lessons from a woman who lived 
around the corner from my mom's house. I hated that so much, but at least I was learning 
something. I'd go for a half-hour every Wednesday at 5:30 p.m., and it was like going 
through hell. [Puts on mock formal voice and twists his body into classical posture] "You 
have to hold the guitar like so, put your foot over here...." She would give me homework 
to do, and of course I wouldn't touch it until 15 minutes before class the next week. I'd 
cram really quick, memorizing by ear, because I had to fake my way through the reading. 
I played trumpet in fourth grade, so I knew what the notes were, but I couldn't really get 
it together. I didn't have the heart to tell my mom that I didn't want to go to this teacher 
any more, because I was afraid that it would be a slap in the face. 

GP: What were your favorite records back then? 
Marc: I really got turned on to the Beck-Ola and Jeff Beck Group albums. I'd blast them 
as loud as the stereo would go and as loud as my amp would go. I couldn't wait to get out 
of school to get home and pick up the guitar and play Jeff Beck. At some point, someone 
taught me the blues scale and the Mixolydian and the Assholian modes. And it really 
didn't help me. I learned a lot more from sitting there with records and playing them over 
and over. I drove my parents fuckin' crazy. In the early days it was stuff like Ted 
Nugent's Double Live Gonzo. I had a friend who really turned me on to Hendrix. But I 
always tried to keep open to any other style that might be heartfelt. I still do. Chris really 
turned me on to Gram Parsons. Clarence White was unbelievable, his picking and things. 
The guitar saved my life. I'd either be dead or in jail if I didn't have the guitar. It was 
always there. It was always someone I could talk to. It was my lady. I could always go to 
it, and it would help me out. I never bought into the macho, jock bullshit, and I never 
bought into what they were trying to teach me in school. I dropped out of school when I 
was 17, told Mom and Dad, "I have to be a musician-I'm going to be a rock star." It 
went over really well. My father's a banker. "No, you're not. Get a real job. Don't you 
know that for every 10,000 people who say they want to be rock stars, only one will 
make it?" I said, "Yeah, but I'm the one. I'm going to do it. I know what I'm doing, leave 
me alone." I was living at Mom's house because I didn't have a job. I was just hanging 
around. I'd crawl into Mom's house at five in the morning when Dad was leaving the 
house. We'd wave at each other. It was really hard to explain to them that it was all worth 
it. I had to stay out late. I was networking. We had this network of people who were 
really fighting against the big-hair bands, metal bands, and all the bullshit. I knew Jimmy 
Ashurst in high school, and we had a garage thing, but he quit and formed the Broken 
Homes with Craig Ross. [Now with Izzy Stradlin's Juju Hounds, Ashurst plays mandolin 
on Amorica. Ross has been Lenny Kravitz's lead guitarist for the past three years.] We 
were trying to keep it fresh, with real guitar sounds, not this stupid overdriven "crunch" 
thing. We were just sitting in alleyways drinking whiskey out of plastic bottles and 
screaming out, "We're the next generation of great musicians!" And three or four years 
later, here we are. But at the time it was hard to find a singer who understood what I was 
trying to do, so I ended up having to create my own situation. I tried getting a lead singer, 
a friend of mine, but we just didn't see eye-to-eye, so I quit. I figured I would have to 
sing myself. My record Burning Tree came out in 1990 around the same time the Black 
Crowes' first record came out. Chris and I got each other's records about the same time. I 
said, "I will listen to this man sing. I will be playing with this guy, I know it, because he 
hears and feels the same thing I do." [Burning Tree later opened for the Crowes on a leg 
of their first headlining tour.] I got the call when they were done with their first big 
tour-350 shows in 14 months. I was still on Epic with Burning Tree, and we were about 
ready to do another album, but the label was dicking us around and we were looking for 
another deal. Chris called one day and said flat out, "We're kicking Jeff Cease out of the 
band. He's not working out, and we don't want to play with him anymore. And being the 
best rock and roll band in the world, we need the best guitar player." I went to Atlanta 
and we jammed in Chris' garage, and it went great. I went back home for a week, got 
some more clothes, and came back. Meanwhile, they had written a whole new batch of 
songs. They said, "We trashed those other songs; these are the new ones." We rehearsed 
for two more days, learned all these new songs, and on the third day we were in the 
studio making The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion. It was finished in eight 
days. It was a whirlwind. We were on the road for 18 months after that. And now we're 
going out for another 18 months. 

A Rich Heritage 

Rich: I was born in Atlanta on May 24, 1969; the same birthday as Bob Dylan. I grew up 
in the South. My dad used to always play guitar for Chris and I when we were kids. I 
always listened to a lot of folk and bluegrass with my dad, because he knows how to play 
it for real. My dad was mainly a songwriter and singer. He went by his name, Stan 
Robinson, and had a folk band called the Appalachians. He had a few songs in the Top 40 
and he was on the Alan Freed Show and American Bandstand. He used to play at the 
Ryman Auditorium and the Grand Ole Opry. My mom is from Nashville, and she used to 
sing, so she knows all the old folk and country songs. Sometimes I'll hear a song and 
recognize it from my mom singing it. 
When I was 14 or 15 I started picking up my dad's favorite guitar, a really nice 1953 
Martin D-28. To keep Chris and I from playing that guitar, he and my mom bought me a 
little shitty Lotus Strat copy for Christmas and got Chris a bass. We were into punk rock 
back then. There was a band in Atlanta called Neon Christ, so I had a big Neon Christ 
sticker on my guitar. I didn't have the patience to try to figure out someone else's songs, 
so I started writing music and Chris started writing lyrics. That's how the whole thing 
started. 

Guitar Player: What were your first songs like? 

Rich: The first stuff showed that we'd liked the Cramps, the Dead Kennedys, the 
Effigies, Fear, and all those bands. It was punk-rocky, but we always had a pop thing 
going, too. We liked the punk phase, but everyone goes through it, and it runs its course. 
And then with R.E.M. being big, and coming from the South, you heard a lot of 
alternative radio-real alternative, not 80 million listeners like it is today. It was what 
alternative is supposed to be: the alternative to commercial mainstream music. There 
were all these college stations that used to play bands like Rain Parade, R.E.M., the Three 
O'Clock, the dBs-who were big fans of the Long Riders, and Let's Active-[early 
R.E.M. producer] Mitch Easter's band-who, though they were supposedly an alternative 
band, used to do Zeppelin covers live like "The Rover" and "Dancing Days." We also 
started listening to Big Star and Alex Chilton around then. 
Nick Drake is one of my all time favorites. He's kind of what got me into open tunings, 
because he's just so.low. Especially his guitar tone and his picking, the subtleties that 
you can only pick out on acoustic, which is how I write. 
I started with a double-dropped-D tuning, and I gradually tuned the A string to G, and it 
all started from there. Nick was the guy who got me into that. Then I started listening to 
blues and started seeing different ways to tune down. I like Lightnin' Hopkins and Furry 
Lewis. [Furry's] blues made me feel so good. It's just him and an acoustic. Lightnin' 
makes me feel good too, but he's a little meaner and less folky. You know "Prodigal Son" 
on the Stones' Beggar's Banquet? Elements of that are definitely Furry's thing. Even his 
chord progressions make me smile, whereas someone like Mississippi Fred McDowell's 
kind of bums you out. McDowell's actually my favorite guitar player, but Furry's one of 
my favorites for his overall thing. 

GP: Do you write most of the band's music? 

Rich: Chris and I always collaborate. He'll ask me about melody and I'll ask him about 
arrangements. Chris and I usually work the songs out before we bring them to the band, 
but sometimes I'll write a song in practice by accident. I came up with the "riff"-I hate 
that word-for "Gone" with Chris, took an older song and melded them together. 
"Descending" is almost like a Prince tune because of the chord changes and the 
percussion. Prince is underrated as far as melody goes. That guy is amazing. I wrote 
"Descending" in practice, and I didn't even like it at first. I wrote the music for "Cursed 
Diamond" by myself on an acoustic in a hotel room. That song is really heavy; it's hard 
to listen to. But it's cool that after hearing it a hundred times I can still get bummed out 
by it. It's really kind of lonely. 
When people say, "What did you mean when you wrote this?" my answer is, "What does 
it mean to you?" because that's inevitably the most important thing. With words you can 
come up with a billion meanings or associations of your own, and that's when people 
really get songs. It may have nothing to do with what whoever wrote it was thinking, but 
you got something out of it. It's hard to find something in common with anyone, but the 8 
million or so people who buy our records all liked a song or a sound, and that's 
something they now all have in common. 
Retro R.I.P. 

Rich: The whole retro thing started as an easy label created by someone who thought that 
retro was going to be big for about five minutes. They created that little niche. It's like 
"alternative" now. Then retro became a bad word, and suddenly only losers are retro. 
Which Seattle band doesn't have Zeppelin or Sabbath in it? Soundgarden is Black 
Sabbath, but they're not retro. This is the music we grew up on. You can't deny that. You 
have to know what has and hasn't been done before, do you can figure out what to do 
next. It all comes in a cycle. There's a reason the Stones sounded like the Beatles and had 
similar haircuts when they first came out. Then they found their niche and spread out. 
The music industry is stifling people when they don't sell enough records at first or don't 
fit any niche. Bands aren't being given the chance to expand and grow. They're not being 
taken for their talent or their capabilities for the future. They're being signed because 
they fit a niche. "That guy looks grunge-let's sign him." That's about how pathetic it is. 
There are all of these bands in the pot when money or glory is to be made, and all this 
selfishness stems from one of the most selfless acts a person can do, which is write a song 
and give themselves up to someone else. Even if you write a song to your girlfriend, 
you're opening yourself up to a lot of criticism, a lot of hate or a lot of love. When you 
realize that, it's a scary thing. But we love what we do, and no one can take that away 
from us. 

Taken from Guitar Player, Jan. 1995