RealNet interview

  (this article is on-line at http://web.archive.org/web/20000615174528/http://www.real.com.au/ots/ots_807/crowes.htm

                               Black Crowes

 [Image] Charming The Snakes Of A Wild Youth
          
 Chris Robinson finds it isn't all so bad to be grown up

                         Writer: Ketherine Tulich

It's around 3pm on a sunny Los Angeles afternoon. The cab winds up a narrow
street high in the Hollywood Hills and desposits me outside a gate and an
intercom. I announce my presence. After a while a very sleepy voice greets
me. I ask for Chris Robinson. The voice says : "He's still in bed. I'll wake
him up". By the time I get up the stairs to the front door, a yawning Chris
is there to greet me.

"Sorry," he says, "I didn't realise the time."

The lounge room still shows the remains of an all night vigil - beer cans,
unemptied ashtrays, stained plates. As he takes that first breakfast sip of
Coke, Chris explains that he rarely goes to bed before 6.30am.

Chris has lived in the house for three years with his fiance Lala. It's a
modest, but roomy, two bedroom Hollywood style home that was built in the
'30s. The decor is 'early miscellaneous' with Moroccan rugs, a large lava
lamp, a chipped Jesus statue from Peru and an enormous collection of bongs
in all shapes and heights.

"Over the past six years I've just been collecting things," says Chris,
"it's nice to be able to afford the things you want to buy other than 'hey
pull over, there's a couch, let's grab it'. But we could still literally
roll up everything and be out of here in an hour, so it doesn't feel that
permanent."

As The Black Crowes lead singer, Chris Robinson is never shy of expressing
an opinion. In the course of two hours he managed to trash everyone from the
Smashing Pumpkins to Alanis Morissette to Pearl Jam to AC/DC. But The Black
Crowes are used to landing in hot water - they were thrown off a major tour
when they complained about corporate sponsorship and couldn't keep silent
when they saw legendary bands like Aerosmith use sampling onstage.

Then there's the band's stance on drugs. After all, this is the band that
had a giant marijuana leaf as a stage backdrop.

"All we really did a few years ago was admit we smoke pot. Then it turned
into 'we are the pot band', then it was 'the Black Crowes represent drugs'.
I think it then just became a good angle to sell magazines. I'm just for
innocent people not having their lives wasted by doing time."

With the release of their fourth album Three Snakes and One Charm, The Black
Crowes remain a band that refuses to be categorised.

"We've never been a band that has had a master plan," says Robinson. "we've
never said we're going to sound like Van Morrison or REM, but what we do
play is a really deep spring of influences in traditional American music,
from jazz to country to blues to R&B. With those resources you don't ever
run out. We may lack that up-to- the-minute-hipness but that's been our
blessing. That's what's helped us survive for so long. I hate fashion music.
Alanis Morissette says 'f..k' in a song and she's a great artist. She's made
one album and two years ago she was Debbie Gibson, and the guy who produced
the album did Wilson Philips. Alanis is just Wilson Philips repackaged."

Robinson also dismisses most so called alternative bands as just bad
musicians.

"I was talking to Billy Corgan from the 'Pumpkins down in South America and
I brought up the blues. He says to me 'who cares about the blues'. I said to
him that it's obvious from his band's music that he has no roots beyond the
Bay City Rollers and David Bowie. That sort of musical ignorance really gets
to me. When we get to a town like Chicago, after our gigs we go out and play
with everyone at every club. We love to jam with other musicians."

The 'Crowes are proud of their musicianship and a musical heritage that
began with the Robinson brothers, Chris and Rich, growing up in a musical
southern family in Atlanta.

"The South is for real, it's not fake and there's a lot of history to it. I
guess you could almost call us musical scholars without having gone to
school. We love all music and we listen to all music and we study it. We've
devoted our lives to it," says Robinson.

As a return to their roots, the band recorded their latest album in a home
studio in Atlanta. Three of the members still live in Atlanta - Rich,
drummer Steve Gorman and bass player Johnny Colt.

"We made the first two albums in Los Angeles but this time we thought there
would be something about going back home. It was great, it was like staying
in a big frat house."

Robinson says the band members have changed considerably in the past two
years.

"When we started there were five of us in a van with nothing. I had one bag
with two changes of shirt, a t-shirt and a pair of cowboy boots, but now
everyone is near 30, we've fallen in love, some of us have babies. You go
through changes in life regardless of whether you're in a band or not. It
just took us a long time to get through those boyish things, but everyone
comes to that realisation at different times."

They also managed to get through a rough time when the band was going to
split.

"We were doing the 'Amorica or Bust' tour and in the process the band was
completely disintegrating. We thought things were bad and we weren't getting
along, but when you get to the point of taking inventory of all your things
because you hate the other musicians so much and you just want to sell up
and leave, that's where we were at. I wasn't even talking to my brother. He
had his own bus and wouldn't even travel with us. I even had another band in
place ready to go, but then we realised we were breaking up our family, our
friends, our lives. So we just sat down and hashed it all out, and the band
was back together."

Robinson now says the 'Crowes are stronger than ever, and this is the most
proud he has felt about one of their albums.

"The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion was made in about two weeks and
we didn't have time to think about it too much. Amorica was like flexing our
musical muscles after five years of playing together. It was more flashy.
But this record is like the perfect blend - country, folk, rock, blues -
it's all there.

"But we also see our songs on the album as just a window to what we can do
live. People used to wonder why all our gigs were different. Now they know
what to expect. We're almost at the stage of being able to do a three hour
'evening with' show. Now we have fans that follow us around the country
'cause they know every gig will be different."

The 'Crowes also try to cater to fans by keeping ticket prices low, around
US$20, but they are not about to engage on any campaign against the
ticketing structure like Pearl Jam.

"What annoys me most about them is that they seem to forget they are still
making records for huge corporations. I say if you want to be the person you
think you're trying to represent in the press, then go and move to the
outback with an acoustic guitar and only play songs for free to people who
come and find you there.

"It's not selfish to want to be successful. By the time we sold our first
million records, my brother wasn't even 21 years old. But we've always said
that when this becomes a job for us, when we don't feel like doing a gig no
matter how wasted we are, then it's time to quit."

There's no danger of this band calling it quits anytime soon. With a strong
'cult' following, the 'Crowes have been touted as one of the successors to
the Grateful Dead.

"I've always said that the main thing about us and the Grateful Dead, apart
from drugs, is that there is no middle ground. You either love us or hate
us," says Robinson.

"It's like that famous qoute by Jerry Garcia, who said (the Grateful Dead)
was like licorice, some like it, some don't, but the ones who like it,
REALLY like it. That's the same with us. There's no lukewarm Black Crowes
fans."