Brotherly Love? Black Crowes’ Fighting Siblings Talk It Out And All Is Fine
Harmony within the Black Crowes? That’s an alien concept. This is a band with a tempestuous history of infighting between brothers Chris and Rich Robinson, who have often seemed like Georgia counterparts to Ray and Dave Davies of the Kinks. Their philosophy has been: When in doubt, blame each other.
But that was yesteryear.
Today’s Black Crowes are a different breed.
“I think the world is careening to a horrible, disastrous close at the turn of the millennium, but the Black Crowes are all getting along. It’s weird,” says singer Chris Robinson.
The Robinsons have buried the family hatchet that made the band’s 1994 album, “Amorica,” such an angry and depressing work, says Chris. The turnaround came via a long-overdue, heart-to-heart talk between the brothers.
“It was simple, really,” says Chris. “Rich said, ‘Well, I don’t like it when you yell at me.’ And I said, ‘Well, I don’t like it when you don’t listen to me.’ And it was like, ‘Oh, OK. I love you. See you at the gig.’ It was literally that type of thing. I think it was realizing that life without our family in the band is not going to be as enjoyable as when we have it.”
The renewed brotherhood was the spark behind the new disc, “Three Snakes and One Charm,” which has spawned the radio hit “Good Friday” (“Rich had the riff and we wrote it in probably 10 minutes,” says Chris). The Crowes’ hybrid sound of Southern garage-rock, acid-blues and psychedelic country suffuses the album, but it’s also more experimental and features an expanded role for Rich, who sings a rare lead vocal on “How Much for Your Wings.” He also sings more harmonies with Chris.
“I’ve been trying to get him to sing more for the last couple of years,” says Chris. “We weren’t really talking much on the ‘Amorica’ tour, so it wasn’t going to happen then. But that changed on this record. You can hear how much more confidence he has. He’s got such a sweet voice - unlike mine, which is, um, a little bit abrasive.”
The Black Crowes have - dare we say it? - matured. You can hear it in the sound, through an articulate blend of genres from the Gram Parsons-like country of “Girl from a Pawnshop” to the Tom Petty-ish “Better When You’re Not Alone” and the experimental “Nebakanezer” and “One Mirror Too Many.” The album doesn’t rock quite as hard as past discs, but it’s more song-oriented and has more depth.
“When Rich and I sat down to write all these songs, we didn’t argue once,” says Chris. “It was, ‘Hey, if you want to try that, cool.’ That was definitely a different place.
“Everyone in the band still wants to play music with the other guys. That’s what constitutes a real band. It’s not a job. I didn’t think I’d be 30 years old and have a wife, yet still be in a band. I don’t think Rich thought he was going to have a wife and kid and still be in the Black Crowes. … But once you get there, it’s nice. You think, well, this is what I want to do for another decade because it’s what I really love.”
The Crowes may be settling down, but they’re still not ready for fully conventional lifestyles. They still have a determined pro-pot stance and sell rolling papers at their gigs (“I change the art work on them every year,” says Chris).
Borrowing a chapter from Bob Dylan’s days in Woodstock when he recorded with The Band in a house known as “Big Pink,” the Crowes established a similar, alternativestyle household in their home base of Atlanta. They turned it into “a big hippie flophouse, but with a million-dollar recording studio in it.”
The band recorded in an 8-by-14-foot room - and the intimacy is apparent on the record. Of course, all that is just a prelude to the real nitty-gritty of the Crowes - their stage act. As with the Grateful Dead, every show is different and can veer from original material to cover songs. Catch this list of covers from the Crowes’ latest tour: Dylan’s “Girl from the North Country,” Ry Cooder’s “Crow Black Chicken” and Jimmie Rodgers’ “Sloppy Drunk.”
The Crowes are even thinking of increasing their shows by an hour, splitting the night into two 90-minute sets, again like the Grateful Dead.
For now, they’re reveling in their new stage set (“It looks like a big Buddhist temple … and we make the crew wear these monk’s robes”) and in the revived harmony of the Robinsons.
“When my brother has a smile on his face, man, it really changes everything,” says Chris.