Posted by Jason Davis on July 05, 1999 at 22:02:50: Guitar Player magazine, January 1995, Issue 301 Despite Pot Shots & Killer Weeds, The Black Crowes rule the field. There've been many tears making this record, just sitting behind the board listening and weeping, going 'Gooddamn, that's beautiful.'" Marc Ford's usual impish grin and twinkling eyes dim for a moment. Dragging on a Marlboro and taking a swig of Bud, the 28-year-old lead guitarist suggests that the emotional nature of the Black Crowes' music and lifestyle is partly a result of the band being "very family-oriented." That might refer to the blood tie between Chris Robinson and his brother, guitarist Rich, or the way the band moves through the world, a self-supporting, idea-generating entity unto itself. Like all families, that closeness can bring shared pleasure or agonizing dysfunction. The Crowes have dealt with both. The 11 songs on their new American release Amorica, recorded by Jack Joseph Puig of Jellyfish fame, feature lush textures of open-tuned electric Dobro, mandolin, pedal steel, and Latin percussions supporting songs that lash out at outsiders and point at bubbling inward troubles. It's heady stuff, but will anyone notice? Since the band debuted in 1990 with Shake Your Money Maker, which yielded the hits "Jealous Again", "Hard to Handle", and "She Talks to Angels", critics have overlooked the band's soulfulness, poetry, and rhythmic edge, harping instead on their sonic resemblance to '70s hard rock outfits like the Faces, Humble Pie, and Free. They've been criticized for supporting marijuana legalization, attacked for their combative stance in the press, kicked off a tour for criticizing corporate sponsorship, and largely shunned by so-called "alternative" radio. Their considerable playing ability and musical background haven't been highly touted either. Joining the band to replace Jeff Cease just before the recording of 1992s The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion, former Burning Tree front man Ford is among the handful of truly convincing young blues-based rock guitarists. His lead work on Southern Harmony's "Bad Luck Blues Eyes Goodbye" established his heartfelt single-note lyricism and he comes of age as a powerful Duane Allman- inspired slide guitarist and stunning soloist on new songs like "Cursed Diamond" and "P-25 London". Rich Robinson, who writes most of the group's music, is a driving boogie-rhythm player and a strong arranger. His ambitious pieces balance drummer Steve Gorman's hard grooves with potent chord changes fleshed out by Eddie Hawrysch's piano, Farfisa, and Hammond B-3, Rich played "Gone," "Cursed Diamond", "She Gave Good Sunflower" "Ballad Of Urgency" and "Wiser Time" in his customary open G-tuning while "A Conspiracy, and "High Head Blues" (which recalls War's classic "Spill the Wine") are in standard. For the airy parts in "Non-fiction", he used a pretty B tuning, F, Bb, F, Bb, D, F. Their musical chemistry may be a winning formula, but the Crowes' personal relationships remain volatile. Amorica was not made without ruffled feathers. The group originally had 17 songs before scrapping the project and starting again. "Sometimes you have to go through a bunch of shit to get it right, and you fight with band members," shrugs Rich, who attributes group squabbles to the pressure cooker of long tours and the psychological vacuum that follows them. "Sometimes Chris and I won't talk to each other for three months". After intense meetings that Ford describes as "therapy sessions", the band reconvened in a different studio, and the sessions went off without a hitch. "The band was getting along much better", says Ford, "and you can hear it". Outwardly, Rich and Marc seem worlds apart. Marc walks with a cool-guy lilt, wears mischievous grins and is open about his heavy partying, describing chemical-free, earnest, composed Rich as a "rather sober fellow". But both see themselves as musical lifers. "I really love the guitar," says Ford. "I just have this insane passion for music." Rich agrees: "I guess you could almost call us musical scholars, without having gone to school. We love all music, and we study it. We've devoted our lives to it". Marc Ford is ambivalent about gear mania: "B.B. King once said, 'Give me any guitar and amp, and I will get my sound, because my sound is me and not the instrument.' That's totally right on. Give me a Hondo II, and I'll make some nice sounds with it. The guitar is just wood and some electric bits. Get over it." Of course, Marc doesn't use a Hondo II. His main roadhog is a stripped-to-the- wood '71 Gibson Les Paul Standard, a Christmas gift from Chris Robinson. "I had never played Gibsons before," says Ford. "I was always a Stratocaster man, because you can throw them on the ground, step on 'em, drag'em behind your car, and they still work. Gibsons always seemed too precious. A Gibson is like a Cadillac; it almost plays itself. With Fenders you've got to really dig in to get it out of there. Along with a red Gibson ES-330 he borrows from Chris, Marc lays into two mid-7- 's Strats, two early-60's Epiphone Casinos, and a black early- '70's Les Paul Professional. He keeps a Guild D-25 acoustic at home. He likes brass, titanium, and ceramic slides, uses Gibson strings- either .010s or .011s on top- and totes .71mm Dunlop Delrin picks that say "Shit Brown" on the flipside. His few effects include a reissue Vox wah, the Dunlop Roto-Vibe heard on "High Head Blues," a Dunlop/Heil Talk Box, and a prototype tube-loaded Dunlop Fuzz Face. Marc played a Coral Electric Sitar on "Ballad of Urgency" and used an Ebow for the very first time on "Gone," nailing it on the first take. "I know the guitar," growls Marc, "and some little gadget isn't going to be that scary. Your first instinct is always your best." Rich Robinson has over 30 guitars, his signature ax being the natural-finish '68 Fender Telecaster he's played for years. The Fender Custom Shop also made him a '69 reissue rosewood Tele and a B-bender-equipped Tele. "I've gotten into Firebirds lately," says Rich, pulling out a gorgeous mid 60s model. Rich also digs Les Paul Juniors and Specials. He calls his limed mahogany-finish '73 Special "Bob Marley," because he saw a film of Marley playing a similar one. He also has two '63 TV Juniors. A few years ago Rich had Tony Zemaitis build him a custom ax with three Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates pickups. He also owns a black '61 Gretsch Duo-Jet and a Gretsch White Falcon, a Travis Bean 5-string, a 1028 National Resonator that he plays on "Downtown Money Waster," a '50's Les Paul gold-top with a Bigsby tailpiece, a '61 Gibson ES-335, and an ancient Supro given to him by Motley Crue's Mick Mars. His acoustics are two older Martin D- 28s and a D-45. Rich uses Gibson Brightwire strings with .010s on top; his slides are made of brass, and he digs in with yellow .73mm Dunlop Tortex picks. As Rich stated in our July '92 issue, " I have never used an effect." In the studio, Rich and Marc used an assortment of 50- and 100-watt Marshalls, blackface Showmans, a '60's blonde Fender Tremolux, a black-face Bassman, a '50s Vibroulux, Vox AC30s, and Matchless Clubman 35s. For their tours, the Crowes' entire backline was Marshall: Marc relied on his "baby," a '60s 50-watt Mark II, and a 100-watt Plexi head, while Rich preferred Silver Jubilees. On this year's outing, the band is going with custom prototype heads by Mark Sampson of Matchless. Each houses two amplifiers: a 35-watt and a 120-watt, with separate controls and outputs. When the amps are on, the scriptive name-plates that normally read "Clubman" light up with "The Dommer" and "The Deptford," in reference to March and Rich's respective guitar techs. Matchless is also making the band two 8x12 cabinets with 30-watt speakers made from reconed Celestian frames. The cabinets' top halves are open-backed, the bottoms closed; each side has a separate input jack. Robinson is optimistic but concedes, "I'm going to bring the Showman on tour just in case." Rich recently purchased a home studio, as well as a mobile studio to record shows and those magical sound check jams. BIRDS OF A FEATHER 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!" 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 each 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. 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. 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. Did you ever take lessons? 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. What were your favorite records back then? 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' 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 at 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. What were your first songs like? The first stuff showed that we like 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 we were big fans of - the Long Ryders, 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. That's why you really have to listen hard to pick out half the shit I'm playing on our records, because they're always washed over by so many different instruments. 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. His bues made me feel 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 things. Even his chord progressions make me smile, whereas someone like Mississippi Fred McDowell kind of bums you out. McDowell's actually m favorite guitar player, but Furry's one of my favorites for his overall thing. Do you write most of the band's music? 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 because 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, so 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 wen 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 hands in the pot when money or glory is to made, and all this selfishness stems from one of the most selfless acts a person can do, which is write a song and give themself to some 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.