http://www.jambands.com/features/2009/10/27/art-is-not-a-service-industry-rich-robinson-and-the-black-crowes-endure/

Published: 2009/10/27
by John Patrick Gatta
"Art is Not A Service Industry": Rich Robinson and The Black Crowes Endure

Bands with stellar reputations as live acts often go through lengthy processes of understanding how to balance the live sparks elicited on a nightly basis with the discipline of songwriting and musicianship needed for a recorded piece of work. The Black Crowes never had that problem. Despite the inner-band turmoil that has marked portions of their career, the members recognized what was needed to function successfully in both areas, producing strong recorded efforts while becoming a performing monster of greasy jams, scorching solos and good ol’ blues-based rock ‘n’ roll.

Of course, the band moved forward stylistically as nods to folk, country and psychedelia never derailed the group’s essence. Only the members could do that, which led to a hiatus in 2002. Three years later the group seemed determined not only to make up for lost time but to find a peaceful coexistence that elevated the music to a higher level of importance than the sum of its parts. It resulted in Warpaint, and the more assured 2009 release Before the Frost… (and its download only companion piece …Until the Freeze).

Brothers Rich and Chris Robinson along with original drummer Steve Gorman, bassist Sven Pipien, guitarist Luther Dickinson and keyboardist Adam MacDougall, they recorded their eighth studio effort at Levon Helm’s barn-turned-studio in Woodstock. Better known as the place of Helms’ Midnight Ramble concerts, the venue hosted a select live audience for these recordings in which the live feeling of a performance infuses the preciseness necessary for a studio recording. It’s heard in the loose swing on the opening track “Good Morning Captain,” singes with a combination of familiar Crowes riffing and swamp rock on “Been A Long Time (Waiting On Love)” and even surprises with the disco-fueled rhythm of “I Ain’t Hiding.”

I catch Rich Robinson shortly before a soundcheck in Austin. Though often viewed as the quiet Robinson, he was an affable interview subject who cares passionately not only about his band but the general state of culture and art’s place in it.

JPG: “Before the Frost…” tell me the idea behind doing an album in such a manner.

RR: We’ve always tried to make different albums, trying to keep it interesting and trying to push ourselves a bit. Chris actually had the idea. We had some time off, I think it was summer of ’08. He went up to Woodstock and he just went up to a [Midnight] Ramble and thought how cool it was. And, basically, the whole set up was already there. We were already talking about where we wanted to record, if we wanted to go to L.A. or if we wanted to do this or do that. Trying to just figure it out and he goes, ‘What if we just do up in Woodstock? We’ll do it here.’ And everyone really liked the idea. So, everyone agreed and it was cool. The problem was when we got up there, how do we do it? Because you do have to juggle having it be a recording and also playing in front of people and having it be a show. How do you do that? So, it found its way. We had to come up with a sound that everyone could deal with — one amp, the same drum set up… because normally when you go into a studio, you change out amps, you change up mikes, you’ll have different drum set ups, different things that you can do with the keyboards. So, we had to come up with a common thing that we could just stick with. And it took a while but we found it, and it turned out to be a really cool, interesting way to record.

JPG: I’d like to talk more about your approach to these sessions. As you mentioned, there’s the technical aspect of having a set up that you weren’t changing on a constant basis. Also, you’re in front of people, so there’s the performing mindset, but you need to be a little more disciplined because you’re recording something.

RR: Yeah, there has to be. You do have to consider the feel of a song. Everyone can play/get through a song and it sounds great, but there’s a difference between that great take and the average take. And so we said when the people came in, ‘Look, we could go over things. We’re going to be changing things. There might be something that might not work as far as the structure of the song goes…’ We did have some technical difficulties. A channel would go out and then we’d have to work on it a little bit later, just weird things like that. Tuning. So we were pretty up front about it. But you go in and you just do your best and that’s why we chose to do five shows and just record it. Some songs we felt like we got and so we didn’t really have to play ‘em again. Other songs, we played a bunch of times to try to make sure that we had the right take, really. 

JPG: When I think of your album, I think of other so-called studio efforts that were made outside of the confines of studio such as Jackson Browne’s Running On Empty or Joe Jackson’s Big World, where he played in front of an audience and they were instructed not to say a word or clap so it wouldn’t sound like a live recording. In your case why bring the audience into that setting? Did these songs need that extra energy?

RR: We just wanted people to be there and be a part of it. I mean we’ve been doing it for coming up on 20 years. So yeah, I mean there is that element, but I think it was more just to be inclusive. ‘Here’s what we’re doing. This might be a really cool thing. We want you guys to come.’

And the audience was amazing. They showed up. They were very respectful to the process, seemed very interested and into what was going on. That was the best thing for us, just to have these people and have this symbiotic relationship where we work together and feed off of them and they feed off of us. It was this really interesting thing. It was a cool experiment.

JPG: The change to your approach is really interesting because I recall seeing you open for Aerosmith back in 1990 when you were supporting Shake Your Moneymaker. And then you were so different – image and musically – on your next album, The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion. The change seemed so drastic but I came to enjoy the band even more because of it.

RR: Well, Shake Your Moneymaker I was writing some songs when I was 17, like “She Talks to Angels.” And Chris was 19 and then 20 when we really started the process of that whole album. Then, I was recording it when I was 19. So, we were still kids. We loved music and, basically, that record was our love of music, writing these songs and doing this thing. It was successful beyond our dreams. No one ever thought it would be like that, but it was also us sort of standing up for the first time.

By the time Southern Harmony came out we could put a stamp on who we were, like ‘This is us.’ It was definitely a move in our direction, technically. People could write it off, said we sound like the Stones. That used to be…any time anyone wrote about us, ‘They sound like the Stones.’ Like really? I never heard a song like “Thorn in My Pride” that the Stones ever wrote. You know what I mean? But at least we were trying to take a stance. Then with Amorica, which is even further out and then Three Snakes, which is further out.

We’ve always tried and had sort of a theme. Southern Harmony was a live record. We went in and made it in eight days. Done. Amorica, we wanted to make a studio album. So, we found the guy who made those Jellyfish records that we loved and who we felt was the best engineer and we took our time and made a studio album. That took months and months and months. For Three Snakes we wanted to make a slightly organic almost like a Led Zeppelin III kind of thing in a house. And we went in there and did that. By Your Side was just a straight ahead rock record. We’ve always tried to do these specific type of records. Lions, it was an experiment as well. We went in and tried these different things. I really loved that record thought it was cool. Warpaint was like a re-introduction. And then this record was, ‘Okay, what can we do? What else can we do? Let’s try something different.’ So, it always keeps what we do fresh. I’m not the type of person that has a lot of regrets, that thinks, ‘Oh, I wish we would have done that or wish we would have done…’ I’ve always been comfortable or happy with the records we made at the time and what they represented and what they were at the time we made them.

JPG: Since Moneymaker was brought up, the Pixies are doing a tour where they’re playing the entire Doolittle album. Steely Dan’s been touring with a focus on two full albums. Has anyone approached you or have even considered doing such a thing because we’re coming upon the 20 anniversary of Moneymaker?

RR: Well, I mean, next year’s our 20 year anniversary. We’ve talked about it but we don’t know what we’re going to do. Right now, we’re in this tour, so we just focus on what we’re doing, at the task at hand. Next year, we’ll think about that. It’s definitely an accomplishment. There are many times when we didn’t think we would ever be 20 years into it. Half of my life was spent doing this. We’re definitely fortunate to be doing this for this long.

JPG: I can see just by how you described your albums that the idea of stepping back isn’t a thrilling proposition, but on the other hand you have grown as a band and as musicians, that the tunes may have so much depth to them from what the studio album was.

RR: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. We are absolutely a different band than we were during Shake Your Moneymaker, Southern Harmony, Amorica...all those records, how far we’ve come as a core. Also, to bring in Luther and Adam and to take that extra turn… really, you’re absolutely right to be such a different band and to play these songs; it’s definitely a new life into our past. So, there’s something to be said about that. Like I’ve said, we’ve talked about it. It’s a big deal. We’re like, ‘Wow. This is really a cool thing. What do you do?’ I don’t know what the answer is.

JPG: One last thing with that album because you find it with other bands, Pearl Jam being one example, that having your debut do so well it puts a whole different set of pressures than if say if “Moneymaker” hadn’t been multi-platinum.

RR: Well it’s definitely been backwards…[slight laugh] We sold seven million albums and then worked backwards. That’s a weird thing. And I remember on Shake Your Moneymaker it was funny, Chris and I got invited to the Edge’s birthday party when we were playing in Ireland and Bono was there and he said that it’s great, but it’s also really hard. I remember him saying that. And it was funny, you know, I was like 20, I’m happy to be here. When you look back, it’s definitely this thing. It’s not the natural way but in a sense, we’ve also weathered a lot. We were the interim between heavy metal and grunge. A lot of people credit Kurt Cobain for bringing metal down, but really, it came down ’92, ’93 when we came out. We were placed with Metallica. We literally did a tour with Metallica in Europe and AC/DC and AC/DC is a rock ‘n’ roll band. Metallica, Motley Crue, Pantera, and us. We were playing Allman Brothers songs and playing in stadiums and people had no idea what to do with us. When we came out the thought of these bands like Poison and these sillier metal bands started waning and there was something to be said about that.

Now grunge came out and really kicked the door open. Nirvana not grunge. I hate that word. Nirvana came out, really did shift the atmosphere for the whole thing. For two years we were on our own. And then once that horribly named genre, came into play, we were…we’ve always been an island. We’ve always just been the Black Crowes. Never looking back, never been part of this thing. We’ve just really been autonomous. It’s been good and it’s been hard at the same time. It’s easy to get swept up into this movement, if you want to call Seattle Music a movement back then, but the funny thing is, they were doing the same thing we were in a sense. We loved the Stones and Zeppelin and the Faces and the Band and they loved Black Sabbath and Zeppelin, you know what I mean? You listen to Soundgarden or listen to Pearl Jam even today; they’re a rock ‘n’ roll band today. And so, it’s just funny how just a label can do something, but we weathered it and we’re still here. And being ourselves or being an island has given us a lot more freedom to be whatever we want. Now that we’re 20 years in and we do everything on our own, it’s the most freeing thing in the world. And I think it’s one of our strengths.

JPG: I was going to bring that up because the Black Crowes do have an old school mentality for a rock ‘n’ roll band, as far as the organic nature and feel of the music and the approach. If you’re compared to the Stones it’s just because someone hasn’t looked a few inches further and notice that both acts listen to blues records.

RR: Well, they compared us to the Stones until we played with Jimmy [Page] and all of a sudden we were Led Zeppelin. It’s like, ‘Which one is it? What happened to the Stones?’ We’ve been fortunate. We toured with the Stones. We toured with Page/Plant. We played with the Grateful Dead before Jerry died. We played with Neil Young. We played with Dylan. We played with Aerosmith and AC/DC and everyone in between. That’s an amazing feat, let alone to have Jimmy in our band for a year. And when you look back, those are really amazing things to be able to do, to play with these people. Just even doing these damn shows with Levon has been so fun. I mean, they came out and played some shows with us. It’s been amazing and Chris and I will get up there and sing “The Weight” with Levon. What a treat! What an amazing thing to be able to do with your heroes. 

JPG: The song, “Good Morning Captain,” which opens Before the Frost… sounds like a nod to your host, Levon Helm in the way that it has that swing and feel of the Band.

RR: Yeah, I think that bridge is. I think it’s definitely like a different song. I think the bridge is definitely a nod to the Band or Levon. But there’s a lot of that. We’ve always done that because everything you’ve listened to in your life is an influence. All your experiences are an influence. Everything that you feel and go through is an influence on your music. Things you watch on TV or things that you see in life, traveling… And so, you can either ignore it and pretend that you’re someone that’s actually created something brand new or you can realize that things that are brand new get created through your filter system.

Most people are trying to emulate something that they’ve heard or something that they want to do and they’ve taken it in and then their brain filters it and it comes out through their hands and that difference is what it is. That and fuck up. With all this new technology to try to make music “perfect…” I was producing this band from Canada and they were a pretty big band. I went up there and they had never made a record live. They go in and they cut like five versions in a row, then they quit. And then producer takes the best of the five verses and then doubles them for Pro Tools. Then they do a chorus. Then they do a bridge. Basically, it’s just a Pro Tools building block. I was like, ‘Are you kidding? You guys have never just recorded a damn song as a band?’ You know, they were really into it.

The thing is, you miss with that shit, you miss the fuck ups that are actually special. The thing that makes those things special and sincere are John Bonham’s kick drum squeak in “I Can’t Quit You Baby.” You can hear that squeak, which brings you into the studio, which adds a human element to what’s going on. The beginning of “Celebration Day,” Jimmy explained the whole thing to us, sort of like a studio mess up so they had to come up with a way to do it. Anything and everything. John Lennon’s vocal mic crapping out. They would nix that shit right now. They would take that out. That’s part of what made those albums so special and so different and so sincere.

I don’t think that human beings really are being taught what’s sincere anymore through music or through really any part of their life. I think it’s so foreign to just be in touch with humanity or the human spirit anymore because everything is so fake. Everything is so overdone that you don’t pick up subtlety. I’ve used this analogy. After Hurricane Katrina, I think it was like a year later, some news guy went down there to do a follow-up piece and the National Guard was there, and they were showing this National Guard troop running in line and they cut to their shoes marching on the street. What struck me was this idiot has no idea. He’s trying to create a look or make a statement when all you have to do is turn the fucking camera to the 9th Ward and show it a year later and it hasn’t fuckin’ changed. That’s a statement unto itself. But instead, you’re going to try and fit something into a fuckin’ format on TV that works. It’s so disconnected. So, when you apply that to any creative medium, then you’re going to lose that connection to anything that is the human soul, that is the human touch. And that goes across the board.

Another thing that’s happening is that because of the internet and because of digital radio and all these things, everything is becoming more and more service-oriented to the consumer. You can create your own radio station, you can create your own this. Through Amazon if you buy these things then we create a profile for you and then we’ll do the work for you. Now that’s a scary thing because at the end of the day, what if everyone’s doing that? And then you have no desire to find anything new because you cater your whole world to your liking. But the thing about art and the thing about creative expression is that it’s supposed to challenge you. It’s supposed to challenge you. It’s not a service industry.

I think that there’s very little respect for the creative medium anymore. It’s all about money, and people are more focused on money and people get offended if you play a record above [volume level] 2 [at a store]. How weird is that? I mean, it used to not be that way. Because music is everywhere, people are sick of hearing it. It just becomes white noise. It’s just like watching fuckin’ politics on TV. It’s just white noise. They say the same shit over and over again. It’s just like you’re at this constant barrage of shit that you get throughout your whole day, on the TV, on your phone, on the fuckin’ iPod on this, this, this and this. And so I think people have lost out. I don’t think that they have a lot of respect for music. It’s turned into this consumption. I think people just consume, consume, consume. It’s like, ‘I have a hundred thousand songs on my iPod’ instead of ‘I have one record that moves me.’ And it’s really weird, a weird place to be.

It becomes a shame because music has been with human beings since the dawn of time. It has helped us hand-in-hand to shape who we are because it is something that we can do without instruments, without cameras, without anything. It’s literally one of the most basic things that has walked hand-in-hand with us. Now we don’t show it any respect. It has become this background noise. People just go and listen to this shit. Obviously, there’s still a lot of people out there who love music. There’s still a lot of people who get something out of it., but I think the world, the landscape has changed more in the last 10 years than I think it had in the last 100 years. Joni Mitchell actually said, ‘The minute that the record companies went public was the death of the music industry.” There’s something honest to that.

[Deep breath] I’m sorry I have to go to soundcheck …

JPG: One last thing I’m curious about. Since you mentioned your dislike for the term ‘grunge,” I wonder after the band’s progression from its debut in 1990 through the musical changes, appearing as part of the Furthur Festival and then when you reunited being embraced by the jamband scene. Do you have problems with the ‘jamband’ terms as well because it has grown and become an open definition as to what fits in that category.

RR: Again, I think we’re still an island. I don’t think that we’re a jamband, but we jam. I think that the jamband thing, I think that we’re more a part of that than any other kind of movement, genre or whatever you want to call it. But still, I wouldn’t consider us, quote unquote a jamband. I would consider us more the Black Crowes and that’s what we are. We have jam fans and we have rock ‘n’ roll fans. There is a spectrum of people that come and see us that crosses a lot of boundaries.