Black in the Saddle Again With a new lineup, label and album, a reinvigorated Black Crowes set out to provide a Rock & Roll remedy for the masses INTERVIEW BY DAVID SIMUTIS The primal urgency of simple music played with sexual passion and energy isn't necessarily a daily requirement, but certainly the direct honesty of electric guitars should be enjoyed, at bare minimum, twice a month. For instance, Keith Richards is only still alive because of the amount of Rock he consumed in his youth. There is no one who understands this need better than Chris Robinson, singer for Atlanta's Black Crowes. He gets his Rock in huge daily doses. He lives and breathes the stuff. "We're one of the only bands around that really do have a touch of freedom and rebellion," Robinson says. "People say, 'What's there to rebel against?' It's like, 'Well, that statement alone.' We can go and have a good time, and it's not about anything but that moment. It's not about anything but the band giving to the audience and the audience giving back." The Crowes have been proffering Rock of the Faces/Stones variety to audiences since their 1990 debut, Shake Your Money Maker. With the hits "Jealous Again' and the Otis Redding cover, "Hard to Handle," they were an unlikely success story, breaking out in between the peak of Guns 'n Roses and Grunge. With Robinson and his brother Rich writing songs that recalled gritty Rock & Roll from the early-1970s (songs almost as old as Rich himself), the Black Crowes were classic Rock, only new. Two years later, their Southern Harmony and Musical Companion entered the charts at No. 1. They were a huge concert draw and Chris' outspoken endorsement of hemp for, er, whatever it is that people use it for, only added to the perception of the group as throwbacks to Rock's dangerous era. Their third record, 1995's Amorica, also debuted strong, in the top 10, but its Hustler-appropriated artwork showing a woman in an American flag bikini-bottom (with pubic hair visible) garnered almost as much attention. Amorica was the beginning of the band's jam-phase. Songs were stretched out, giving the band a looser, more Allman Brothers-feel. This experimentation with looser strong structures reached its zenith with Three Snakes and One Charm in 1996. Three Snakes was met with mixed reception from critics and fans. Their headlining spot on the Furthur Tour, with ex-Grateful Dead members on the bill, in the summer of 1997 invited the question of what the hell the band was doing on a tour with all of the living Grateful Dead members. The band soon answered that question when original bassist Johnny Colt quit and guitarist Marc Ford (who joined on the second record) was fired before the band began recording their new record. Robinson explains that they have never shied away from experimenting and never avoided letting their sound correlate to their emotions. He does defend the group's right to play extended instrumentals, even when admitting that the Furthur crowd didn't quite get it. "When we opened for Aerosmith in 1990, we played songs with improvisational bits, but it was always Rock," Robinson says. 'We have always been funky - even when we went into outer space there was always Funk underneath, especially rhythmically - and I don't think the Deadheads really understood that." He is a bit protective about that period in the band's history, understandable since he relates that he read a German publication that called Three Snakes "the worst record of the '90s." "The Three Snakes period was actually the first time dealing with how apathetic the music business is," he explains. "We had always known that, but it really hit at that point, along with things in my personal life and other people's personal lives where it started to be, Man, this isn't very fun,' and I don't think the music sounded fun." He laughs before saying, "I'm not comparing us to Neil Young, but (the press said the same thing about) On the Beach and Tonight's the Night when they came out. If that's what it's supposed to be then we'll wait another ten years, and it'll make sense in the lineage of all the records. Because things only make sense, even to me as a songwriter, a few years after you've done it. When you're in the middle of it, you're not really analyzing it, you're just in it. "At the end of the day, the work that you have done (is what's important). We've made some records that are more commercially popular than others. But artistically, all of our records are exactly what they had to be at the time. If Three Snakes and One Charm was a dark period or edgy period where we felt we were sort of torn and frayed, then that's where we were. That's how we deal with it as a group, we sat down and were like, 'Okay, we're going through this, and there's a lot of shit happening. Here's how I'm going to deal with it: I'm going to write about it.' I'm not going to hide from it, and I'm not going to think, 'What can we do to be trendy?' " The Crowes regrouped after Colt and Ford's departures, adding Sven Pipien on bass with the Robinson Bros. writing the same kind of bare-bones Rock that was their specialty. Invigorated, they supplemented the group with Audley Freed on guitar (joining original drummer Steve Gorman and longtime keyboardist Eddie Harsch) and the quintet did a warm-up tour in more intimate venues, 2,000 seats instead of 15,000 (including Bogart's last year). They had so much fun they delayed releasing Side to add a couple of tracks, written on the road. But the return to their more cohesive sound isn't a rebirth according to Robinson. It's just who they are right now, happier than in the past five years or so. "I used to feel that there was some bizarre, gray cloud hanging over us in the mid-1990s and I don't feel that anymore," he says. "Because (By Your Side) is an up record, straight-ahead, and stripped down guitars, the simplest thing is to go, 'Oh, well, it's like their first record.' But for us that's a hard thing to stomach because there's 10 years of living and loving and losing and learning all in there." The thrill is still there, more so now that the band is playing the pure Rock & Roll that everybody needs. "So many people are ready to be told what to like or to do," says Robinson. "That's why when something comes along that is genuine and soulful (it's great) to see people my age and older people, and teen-agers and young kids (enjoying it)." At a very recent show, Robinson says he "saw some kids singing along to 'Jealous Again' and they must have been 8 years old when that record came out. Shit like that makes you feel that the 10 years has been worth it."