Southern Fried the black crowes

Rip It Up, Issue 210, 1 February 1995, Page 4

Southern Fried the black crowes

Hyperactive, beanpole rock star Chris Robinson paces around the Toronto hotel suite as his record label rep and road manager relay the latest messages. “The [trendy] Bovine Sex Club phoned and said you're all welcome there again. They'll set you up with drinks.'' “The Kids In The Hall [top North American TV comedy stars] phoned. I've got 22 tickets set aside for them for tomorrow's show."

Lock up your daughters! Southern bad boys the Black Crowes are back in town, and they know how to party. "Last time here, I went to all these speak-easies. I jammed at one with Kevin from Kids In The Hall,” says Chris.

This time out, he and the boys enlivened their promo’ trip by playing a (badly kept) secret gig as OD Jubilee. Celeb guests for a bluesy jam this time were Stones keyboardist Chuck Leavell and Ronnie Wood, proof positive the much maligned Black Crowes are now being viewed as the real deal, by their peers at least.

This is the news Chris Robinson wants to spread — that his band are serious, striving musicians, not just the motormouthed, wasted rock stars they’re so often viewed as. Their third album, Amorica, helps support his claim, for it's an adventurous, sprawling work, that further expands their already diverse sound by adding Latin and country tinges on a couple of songs. Typically for The Crowes, however, it comes with controversy — this one over the stars and stripes bikini cover shot (taken from porn rag Anyway, the volatile lad is in a good mood, so here’s some of the rock ’n’ roll gospel, according to Chris Robinson.

On spying a magazine with Joni Mitchell on the cover, he says: “I had dinner next to her a few months ago. She looks good. Actually, I think our record is very Joni Mitchell [laughs] — sort of Blue, sort of Ladies of the Canyon.” Amorica does show a lot of musical growth. “That’s the weird thing. I hope it does, otherwise all this touring and trying to learn about what kinds of people and musicians we are would be a waste. You have to put some sort of tag to it, place some kind of gravity upon it rather than just: ‘This is how we make our money,’ or, ‘You’re on MTV, you’re famous.’ You have to put a bit more substance on it. These are real things you have to deal with as an adult. I think the pursuit of being what a musician is probably our greatest attribute, and probably our worst deterrent.”

I sense you stand outside of that hit single/video quick fix mentality. Do you consider yourselves musical mavericks? "I feel like Madagascar [laughs], I want to be a part of other things, but I don’t want to change enough to be that, maybe. It’s awkward — like your voice changing. Those things go back and forth. I’ve got to the point as a musician, and I think we’ve got to the point as a group of musicians, that: ‘This is what we do. If you don’t like it, Okay. We’re cool with that.’ It used to be: ‘lf you don’t like it, you’re fucked.’ Now, whether it’s 100 here or 100,000 there, if these people like it, I’d rather put all that energy into a creative space. I suppose the word ‘maverick’ has to come up. I’m sure part of that, regardless of the medium we’d choose, would come into play, us being Southern. A few years back, if we’d done an interview and were called Southern, we might have slugged you, which is, of course, the most typically Southern thing to do — ‘I will get drunk and punch you’ — but we’ve changed. Now I think we’re comfortable with our position, and the traditions that are behind us, and what lies ahead. And a lot of those traditions are living. I did a press tour in Europe for six weeks. I was in

Spain and this guy goes: ‘Well, every few years there seems to be a resurgence of the blues.’ I go: ‘Well, I don’t mean to be offensive, motherfucker, but you live in Spain. You see American music forms and trends that come and go. You see what’s popular, but where we grew up and the kind of musicians we are, that’s always there, that tradition.’ It’s the same with popular music. We were into the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, the Faces, Muddy Waters, Gram Parsons, the Long Ryders, X, the Replacements — all this music, but, at the same time, we’d listen to Stones records of 20 years before, like Exile On Main St. MTV seemed like a million miles away. We’d watch it once in a while, and we’d see it as manufactured and manipulated specifically to be popular. We were suspicious of that, and still are. And, of course, we’ve never had a fuckin’ hit record! Of course we’ve had good selling albums, where people like the whole album, but we’ve never had a hit single. ‘Hard To Handle’ was the closest.”

Is that a blessing, more than a curse? “Yes, but I don’t have a choice [laughs]! You could get a gun and hold it to me and Rich and say: ‘Write a fuckin’ hit song,’ and I’d go: ‘Shoot me!’ I don’t fuckin’ know. It’s always been that sort of mentality, and we still come from that place. It’s compounded with going around the world a couple of times, and meeting more musicians. You get a different relationship with your music, your musicianship, what you want to say and having an audience — all these things. It does keep you moving.

“We’re not the same band we were on Shake Your Moneymaker. It was so frustrating then. People say: ‘How could you be frustrated? That record sold four million copies.’ It was frustrating, because that’s all we could play. You could feel this thing coming, this relationship, but it

wasn’t there. So we had to go on the road and do it. While you’re trying to learn and make that connection, you’re selling records, there’s the business side, all the personal side and this other shit going on. People stopping every five seconds and screaming: ‘You’re a fake!’ I’m going: ‘Don’t point at me man, I'm just singing. I’m from Atlanta, Georgia!’ So it was a weird way to grow up, but I wouldn’t change it. I don’t have any regrets about that time.”

You made your mistakes in public? “And I still do, or I hope I do. From that, there’s wisdom. Maybe some people call it humility. I think the most euphoric places, and the most desperate places, all add to wisdom. Being a creative person, you are your experiences, and your experiences will allow you to explore this range of emotions.” Do you feel Amorica reflects that range? “Oh yes. There are songs on this record I think of as being in the blues tradition. The blues don’t make me feel worse, they make me feel better. I’m not a sharecropper in the 1940 s and moving to Chicago, but I do understand desperation in my own personal life. I understand segregation, humiliation. Whatever emotional landscape you can explore, lyrically and musically, as long as it's a connection, where it doesn’t make you feel worse, it makes you feel better that you’re not the only person. Joni Mitchell's Blue, that’s a

very heavy record. Exploring those things without any regard for the consequences is still a valid thing. Big Star’s Sister Lovers, to use a cliche, that’s an emotional exorcism." Was this an easy record to make? Rolling Stone talked about frictron.

“Yes and no. We did do a session and started a record that was very hard to make. We were producing ourselves, but it just wasn’t right. Everyone wasn’t together. Then we met [producer] Jack [Joseph Puig] through Andy Stuermer, my friend who’s in Jellyfish. Jack’s been making records for years, co-produced and engineered both Jellyfish records. I like to think Andy is a confidant, someone you can talk about song writing with. We’re such totally different people, go about our crafts so differently, but I think he’s such a talent. I have so much respect for him, and I’ve learnt so much about music from him. I love those records, as misunderstood as they were. He’s never got what’s due him. Through him, I met Jack.

“Sonically, sound can be the same thing. Once you get that realisation, how much better you feel. But we’ve only made three records! Imagine what someone like Jerry Garcia thinks when he hears that — someone who’s really done some work! I’m glad we don’t really know anything. That’s what keeps us afloat. With Moneymaker, it was a local band making a record. When we went on the road, we knew we didn’t want to make that record over onstage. We wanted to change —and on Southern Harmony, even more. It took us like four years to realise that if we don’t want to reproduce the record on stage, why should we conceptualise putting the stage in the studio? It took three and a half years to realise that, the simplest thing. We still recorded the same way — live — but the mentality was different. It wasn’t just about creating a live scenario on this record.” All the jamming you do live — does that help keep it fresh? “I think the selfish part is that the music has made us become those musicians, whereas we’d really be limiting ourselves to keep to those arrangements as they’d been done. Maybe that’s pompous, but it’s a very musical thing. I don't think, musically, the band can do that because of the kind of cats they are. On the other hand I’d like to justify it by saying we’re not going to let the audience let us be the band that just goes: ‘Yes, ‘Hard To Handle’, ‘Jealous Again’,’ in the

same place every night. I don’t let you do that. So you might lose a few people along the way. Then again, we’ve never written one song to make a video. It gets back to that hit thing — we make a record, hand it to the record company, tell them: ‘You pick the single.’ Do you sense your success has helped other bands get signed and does it make you feel good? “[Long pause] Maybe this will sound so pompous, it’s ridiculous, but I look at a band I wholeheartedly love, like Little Feat. How many bands ripped off shit they were doing and never gave them credit? They came from a very specific traditional background, took all these forms and made their own thing. How many bands owned up to the things they learned from Little Feat at the time? Like the Eagles. First there’s Gram, the Byrds, then Poco, then, all of a sudden, there's the Eagles, and they never talk

about Poco or GP. Some of those early Poco records are fuckin’ great. So maybe I’m being pompous. Maybe we don’t mean those things, but I’ve heard and seen bands do certain things and they’ve said certain things that reek of a familiarity, and I’m like: ‘l’m sorry, but I know the

bands around when we came out weren’t doing that.’ Makes you look over your shoulder. But maybe I’m wrong. I’ve been wrong many times!” Isn’t it ironic that you in turn are an influence now, after being slagged as derivative? “I guess I’ve regretted some of the comments I’ve made about the resurgence of punk rock. I feel jealous and angry, so that’s why I lash out with this easy fuckin’ bullshit thing. That stems from: ‘Why doesn’t Green Day get the fuckin’ shit we got?’ I’ll tell you one thing, we had a lot more punk rock in us than those motherfuckers did! The blues has always had punk rock in. I can see now, after I say something, that I’m so wrong. Kids at 16 — when I was 16, I’d have thought

Chris Robinson was the biggest asshole, a dick

for saying that. I told Rolling Stone: ‘Punk rock — what a novel idea. Didn’t sell two million of it last time, they’ll get it this time!’ It’s bullshit of me to say that. If there’s a kid at 16, and he’s into that, go for it. Go all out. Green Day, good for you. I get wrapped up in my personal thing. And I don’t like hearing people say they don’t like being rock stars. Who does? It’s bullshit. I just want to play music and sing. That’s all I’m good at. Any other thing in the way, I’ll fuck it up somehow. That’s the reality of being a real musician, an artist. Then there’s that other half of: ‘No-one made you sign on the dotted line. No-one made you make videos.’” But does it piss you off to be portrayed as archetypal, wasted rock stars? "No. I guess there are obvious things I do to live up to that. I do go out in public sometimes, and I’m fuckin’ wasted and people see that. And most people look at the Black Crowes as a bunch of fuckin’ rednecks anyway. Like Bill Clinton. He’s a horrible president, probably because he’s a bad man. But people think he’s a bad President because he’s from Arkansas! Why doesn’t Ted Kennedy pass some more fuckin’ anti-drug legislation with that red nose of his? It’s the same thing. I suppose I involve myself in the politics of popular music with my comments. What’s wrong about it is that as a fan I can see it’s bullshit of me to talk shit about Courtney Love. I haven’t

heard her record. I didn’t read that Rolling Stone. I’m playing the same game people have been playing with me — just listening to what somebody else [says].” Finally, have you read the thriller Strip Tease, by Carl Hiaasen? Here’s an excerpt: ‘lt came her turn to dance on the main stage. Kevin put on a cut by the Black Crowes, which woke up the whole joint. The song was fast and nasty and Erin loved it. She kicked and whirled and doubleclutched, working out lots of unspent energy.’ “That’s in the book? Great [big laugh]. That’s crazy. You know that play Angels In America, about AIDS? He wrote the title ‘cause he heard ‘She Talks To Angels’ on the radio. Yeah, that’s cool. I wish I was in JG Ballard’s Crash. That’s the latest thing I’ve read. Have just started The Venus Hunters. Crash blew my fuckin’ mind! Read it on airplanes right through Europe.”

You could get a gun and hold it to me and Rich and say: ‘Write a fuckin’ hit song,’ and I’d go: ‘Shoot me!’

KERRY DOOLE