Eddie Harsch interview October 1996 KEYBOARD October 1996 RETRO RANGER Eddie Harsch of THE BLACK CROWES "Being interviewed by KEYBOARD is cool, but I'll know I've made it when I get the call from GUNS & AMMO" Not just any great musician can fly with the Black Crowes. Ask Eddie Harsch. When he stepped into the Crowes' keyboard chair five years ago, it was Chuck Leavell's boat-like shoes he had to fill. But it was more than just great chops, Crowe-approved looks, and a recommendation from Leavell that landed him the coveted gig. GETTING THE GIG. "Chuck played on their first record," says Eddie of Leavell, "and they were trying to get him to join the band, but Clapton wanted him to go on tour. So one night he says, 'Eddie, you'd be great for the Crowes.'" Summarily, Eddie booked a flight to Atlanta to meet up with the Crowes on the set of a video shoot. On his first night there, "Nobody even talked to me. I was invisible. But on the second night, Johnny [Colt, bass player] came up to me and said something like, 'Dude, you're that keyboard player? Wanna go for a drink?' So we went to the Gold Club [Atlanta adult establishment], and some dude jumped on Johnny...sucker-punched him. A giant fight broke out, and I ended up on top of this guy, pummelin'. The next day Johnny went back to the Crowes with a report: 'I don't know if this guy can play, but he can fight, and that's good enough for me!" Eddie did have to play, eventually, but one quick two-song audition was all it took: "You're in." THE ROAD TO THE CROWES. Before he was a Crowe, Eddie honed his chops in Canada, pigging out on a steady diet of ELP and Deep Purple. "I was a Keith Emerson freak!" Harsch remembers the day he came face-to-face with his hero backstage at a concert. "When I met him, it was like 'Carl Palmer, get out of my way, man. I'm talking to Keith here!'" [Laughs.] During that divine visit, Harsch presented Emerson with a handful of self-penned ELP transcriptions. "The very first thing Keith says to me is, 'Mistake there in bar 1. That should be a rest.' I was crushed." Bruised but not undeterred by the whipping, Eddie went on to honor his hero by forming an ELP clone band called PhD. "I listen to those old tapes now, and, you know, that stuff isn't all that bad for 22-year old kids." Update: "We're going to print some [PhD] CDs up," Eddie informs us. "Some guy in New York is putting together all this unknown progressive rock stuff from the '80s." We'll bring you the details as they unfold. Eventually Eddie traded his prog chops for the blues, moving across the border to Chicago, where he joined harmonica great James Cotton's band. Eddie was hard to forget during those days, especially since he "was the only white guy onstage," and a tall, towering one at that. During his six-year-plus-tenure with Cotton, Harsch sat in from time to time with Muddy Waters, and eventually landed in blues legend Albert Collins' band. Chuck Leavell caught Eddie's act at a Collins gig one night, and that led to the Black Crowes recommendation and audition. WORST TEENAGE PRANK. Keith Emerson was Moog man, and, no surprise, so was Eddie Harsch. But how did Eddie score his first Mini? "I'm not proud to say this, but I stole it. That's how bad I wanted one back then. It was an elaborate scheme--very "Mission Impossible". I rented it from a gear rental place, paid a month's rent on it, and then later snuck in and took the original rental contract so they wouldn't know who they rented it to. Terrible, I know." When Harsch's house burned down a few years later, he felt the karma gods had settled the score. THREE SNAKES & ONE CHARM. Today, some five years and three albums since joining the flock, Eddie is flyin'. It's his gnarly organ swipe that opens the Crowes' new southern-fried platter, "Three Snakes & One Charm" (American Recordings)--and there's plenty more musical grease where that came from. Tasty piano, vintage EP, and righteous organ riffs are all over this record. But Eddie never steps too far to the forefront, opting instead to splash occasional colors or weave smooth textures in and around the band's guitar-heavy attack. "Making this record wasn't anything out of the ordinary, really," says Eddie, "except the basic tracks were cut in a house in Atlanta. It wasn't a Chili Peppers-type thing, though. It wasn't a mansion. I mean, we didn't have a room big enough to fit the whole band in. We were literally sitting on top of each other." As with previous Crowes records, the Robinson brothers, Chris and Rich, supplied the lion's share of the songwriting. "When we got to Atlanta," says Eddie, "Chris and Rich put us in a room and played us the demos. The record was basically written. Twelve songs with vocals, dogs barking in the background, everything. We just looked at each other, like, 'What do you want us to do? It's all here." Turns out, there was plenty to do. Harsch eventually relocated to Ocean Way studios in L.A. and overdubbed track after track of keyboard material, including an honest-to-goodness celeste part on the song, "How Much For Your Wings?" TOUR REHEARSALS. A week before their first series of summer dates, the Crowes commandeered the main rehearsal stage at Third Encore in North Hollywood. There was a strange smell in the air--an incense-meets-burritos type aroma--but the KEYBOARD crew soaked up the sneak-preview performance like a sponge. An unexpected highlight came during a break when all in attendance gathered around a small back box to witness the unveiling of the band's '96/'97 stage set--a beauty of a glow-in-the-dark wonderland complete with inflatable mushrooms, towering orange cattails, and a big black spider that drops from the scaffolding. "That was my brainchild," beamed singer Chris Robinson of the spider gag. Excellent. ON THE ROAD AGAIN. By the time this issue hits the stands, the Crowes will be well into their '96 tour. Barring any unforeseen health problems or synth repossession incidents, they plan to tour for months, maybe years. Be sure to check out Eddie, stage right, flailing behind his B-3, Rhodes, Wurly, and Korg SG-1. No Moogs this time out.