Rich Robinson, guitar Marc Ford, guitar Steve Gorman, drums Johnny Colt, bass Eddie Harsch, keyboards Album: Amorica Label: American Recordings RockNet: Such a striking new personna with that beard. JC: Thank you. It's a thing that took a lot of time to refine, this beard. It's a metamorphis. RockNet: How did you enjoy playing the City Coliseum? JC: It was a great show for us. It was my birthday, I just turned 27. RockNet: Did you accompany Chris over to pay respects to Stevie Ray Vaughan and his statue? JC: The King. No, I didn't make it over this time. RockNet: Had you played in other bands before joining up with the Black Crowes? JC: No. I lived in Los Angeles for a while. I quit high school and moved out there trying to find a band. I wasn't into the scene or what the bands were about so I headed back to Atlanta. Actually, on my way up to New York to see friends, I met up with some musicians and we just started playing Atlanta. I have such an affection for the South. It's an amazing place. A lot of tradition and you can just feel the heritage there. My family is southern white trash. RockNet: Have your musical heros changed over the years? JC: Oh God, I hope so. You know what it is, from having heros to not really having heros in the biz. I have some heros. It's learning a respect and trying to understand what some of these people have actually gone through and then you can truly have a hero. Before you may look up to someone but you didn't know what you were talking about. Now a gentlemen like Barry Oakley or Duane Allman. I'm going through some of the things they went through. I'm playing venues they played and I'm having problems they weathered. I realize what it takes and how much it takes to continue your committment to music. RockNet: What were the signs along the way that showed you that your calling in life was that of a musician? JC: Just in general a confused state of being in any other realm other than music. Constantly feeling awkward all the time. I felt less awkward mind you in music and thought it could work for me. I wasn't one of those people who just picked up an instrument and boom! life made sense. I always had to practice twice as hard to be half as good as the next one especially early on. I knew it was for me and it just came together. As you take a few steps and you get small success in a band playing clubs, it just gave me just enough to let me know that the light was shining on me and I'd get there. I knew I could make it work if I committed 110 per cent. RockNet: I hear a new confidence in playing all around. JC: I agree with that. Absolutely. You get to that homey level after doing all that work and becoming musicians. You realize four strings on a piece of wood took me around the world. It's a magical thing and the more you do it the more you want to do it. It's a positive space to be in. It's a much more productive way to exist than anything else I can think of for me. RockNet: It seems like Marc Ford is really fitting in the way he appears to have? JC: Absolutely. He was a major lift in the band and he can play the hell out of a guitar. His band was opening for us and once we saw him play we all said 'there he is.' RockNet: A typical day on the road for you. JC: You don't get to see a lot of what's going on in these towns but it depends on the routing of the tour. Right now we're moving at a quick pace, traveling by bus. We have long drives and you handle the boredom by playing. We play music, we have stereos, and tv's, the whole nine yards, but mostly it's just music, it a big rolling damn jamboree. If you're not listening you can play. I'm reading that new Allman Brothers book that just came out. It's amazing. You just keep yourself busy in positive ways not to mention dominos or get the blender out and make some frozen cocktails. It's great. It's just a rolling party and your together with your brethern and it's a place to relax. RockNet: I've always felt that this band is really a group of friends. JC: Yeah, we're more like brothers. We have lots of love and then there's the day when you want to kill each other. In the truest sense of becoming a big family, you get the good and the bad. But the bad sometimes helps create good so for me almost the bad is the good. I've got an upside down sense of why things are positive and negative sometimes. RockNet: The recording time moved from eight days to seven weeks this time. That's a change. Did you still bring in all your own comfortable surroundings ie plush rugs, candles, etc. JC: It was definitely a different experience. Absolutely. That goes with us everywhere. For us living in the state of Amorica literally, any room we go into we turn it into our own thing. That's the consistency of our environment in life. We just choose to live in that space so we bring the space with us. You talk about being out here, well this is where I live. This is where we all live and where we choose to live. Every dressing room is set up that way and the inside of the bus. It's a fabulous surrounding. RockNet: The staging this year is a very warm, plush, velvety place. JC: That's the thing, it has to be that way especially when you're going for stetching your musical limits. You want people to be able to relax and set them up for a situation to feel comfortable to listen. If it's comfortable enough to maybe get into some spaces they're not used to going inside their head. They have to reach at the show a little bit. The jams are going to go a little longer than anything they've ever heard and they're going into some new zones and maybe a little higher at our shows than they are regularly. You want that feeling. The audience is with us. It's one big show, no line. The whole room is one thing. Jamming and taking it on home. No throwing people on top of each other, no fighting, none of that bullsh it at our shows. Listen, relax and a little respect. RockNet: Is this the most groove-ridden album you've done so far? JC: I think so. RockNet: Did that come from your producer Jack Joseph Puig or the band? JC: We drove each other I'm sure. It's just a completely different sitation-the band is in a different space. Jack is very sonically adventurous with the tones and we spent more time creating a different sonic situation if you will. I think it's a wider sounding record, deeper sounding overall. I think with the maturity of the playing now that everyone knows when to pick and choose their spots which gives up a lot of space. They're six of us and percussion is seven. Now we know how to jump in and get their piece and get back which makes us real spacey and open which creates a denser groove. Then you get counter parts and parts that are countering each other which also makes for a much more layered record. I think it's just a more intelligent record as well as a more creative record. The songwriting, lyric writing and the whole band's playing has matured. We just let Chris and Rich run with it. You have to go with that old adage, if it ain't broken, don't fix it. All the s ongs come in different ways. Some are pieced together and come in all forms. Maybe at soundcheck while we're all on stage Rich just starts ripping something out of the guitar and we all start molding and arranging but when it comes to the actual changes and melodies coming out of one of the Rotten Twins, as I like to call them, the rest of us knock it home. RockNet: What was the difference in days in the studio stemming from? JC: The eight day album was coming off of 15 months of touring and we were still just flying. This time we took some time off beforehand and tried to slow down. We already had a lot of the songs. What took so long was not the preparation on the band's part because we went in and did pre-production. We were more than ready. It was just a question of getting in there and getting the sounds. The vibe maybe isn't there and the parts aren't there. We consciously tried to take more time. I'm not even saying we really needed it, but we wanted to try it. We have worked ourselves into a position to afford to spend a little bit more time and try to make a different step. RockNet: I commend you so much for always laying out a different set every night even if it's a new town or two nights in one town. In fact bets are taken on what the first tune will be. JC: No. Nothing is played the same way twice. Nothing repeats. You get way out there and you slip into a groove or piece of it to get back to touch base. The jamming will go way off and then you have to grab something that you all know and tag up and then completely go somewhere else. RockNet: Does Chris ever call an audible on stage to even change things further? JC: Not in that sense. We're all pushing each other and testing each other sometimes. It depends where the music gets to but sure there are audibles called by each one of us at some point or another. You step up and you call one depending on what you play. If you start playing really outside and just start taking off people have to adjust their playing to you and then you do the same for them. Sometimes you have to pull back or step aside or sideways and I guess that's when you start to get into the realities of what makes a band a band. You're talking about those intangible, communicative elements that take a group of musicians from just being a group of musicians to being The Black Crowes or The Allman Brothers. RockNet: You guys always to be in control of your own business. I especially like your decision to reroute to Oklahoma City. JC: Well, we're certainly doing the best we can. That's going to be fabulous. It's coming up on May 10. We're out here and we're there so we have to do it. We're taping it for a television show and it'll have an 800 number for others to donate monies. All the dates got changed on the routing because the dates that aren't there had to be moved. A whole block of shows had to be moved for that. RockNet: Do you have any Rick Ruben storeis. I know he's working with them on their next album. JC: Actually, I went to the studio to see Rick when he was in with them. Phil Rudd the original drummer is back with them. So Steve Gorman and I went to the studio. Cliff, AC/DC's bassist are friends. He sent me a beautiful, beautiful vintage Thunderbird. We did a tour opening for them and he sent it to me as a gift, so I like to call him my friend. He's a great guy and you know certainly a thrill for me to see people doing it and doing it with heart after all this time. To see them still there and their heads are on. When you're out you see a lot of different bands opening up who aren't all there or certainly not what they were when we were young and looking up to them. Phil is back from New Zealand and it's AC/DC again, no questions asked. It sounds great and they're incredible. Rubin has worked a lot and had great success as a young man. I don't know him that well. We actually don't work with Rick per se but we're on his label. RockNet: Were you surprised that "Remedy" was voted the third best single on the 1994 Billboard Greatest Hits list? It still brings the crowd alive. JC: Yeah, that was great. It was a surprise to me personally. It's a surefire winner along with "Jealous Again." The biggest all the way around is "Remedy." On this new album "A Conspiracy" does really well along with "Gone." RockNet: Is the jacket that says "Sin City" on the back cover? JC: No, that's actually the back cover from a Burrito Bros. record. RockNet: The front cover came from an old Hustler magazine. JC: Yeah, it was the bi-centenial issue. (Click here for a full-size 34k jpeg of the cover image.) RockNet: Up front did you automatically do another cover that didn't show the pubic hair over the front of the swim suit? JC: No. I'll tell you what I personally think about it. Simply the fact that when there was a problem there would be a lot of people who have to buy records at a major outlet that's closest to them and there is no other choice for them. It wasn't a question of whether the industry was right or wrong. Personally I just thought you could take moral stances all day but it's not fair to kids who unfortunately by no choice of their own live in places where there aren't decent record stores. It's not their fault. It was a hassle for people and we certainly are not pleased about it. RockNet: Are you into the superhighway scene yet? JC: Yes I am. I am directly connected to the Internet through a place called Navigator which just formed in Atlanta. They're a direct carrier and one of my friends is one of the six owners. My house was one of the first to be tested. It's a lot of fun. Terry Casper has taught me everything about computers. Their company connects you directly into the Internet without signing up with a big online service. I don't keep a box and I don't know if our fan club, Taller has a box. I plan to establish an address as soon as I'm off long enough. I still have to get a P.O. box for all the tapes. I actually have lots of kids who tape the shows who have my home address. RockNet: How much feedback are you getting from your taping plan for the fans? JC: I keep swaping the kids for Dead and Allman Brother tapes. I get one of my tapes and I'll trade off for any Allman Brother tape. I can't get them any other way. When their taping I'm playing so I have to try and get them from them. I get to hear stuff I like and I fill them in on our iteneraries. I'll let you know my email number as soon as I get one up and running. I'm enjoying everything that's happening in that area of communication. RockNet: Thank you guy for always putting your butts on the line for the marijuana situation. JC: Right. You're welcome. It's just pursuing the ideas that are back to your same old tired, but the real thing...your freedom of choice and things that help people realize that they have to make choices for themselves. Most people go through the ir day and don't make any decisions and don't realize how much they're being led around. How much media you believe and how much of the written word you just believe. You just don't think to question anything. You have to learn to think for your self and to question everything. It's your right to simply question. It's part of being human, it's the experience and to not question is to be half dead.