Back with a Roar By Steve Morse, Globe Staff, 5/4/2001 A&E on BOSTON.COM ''Crusty'' and ''cynical'' describe Black Crowes singer Chris Robinson's outlook on the music industry. ''It's beyond corporate now,'' he says. ''The bands all have the same names. They all look the same. They all sound the same. It's really sucked the life out of things more than I've seen in my 10 years in this business.'' Yet, hard as it may seem, Robinson is a happy man these days. He is proud that his band hasn't sold out (''No one has ever been able to buy us'') and the proof is in a fine new album, ''Lions,'' due out Tuesday. It's a brash mix of Southern boogie, Zeppelin-style rock, Hendrix-spiced guitar riffs, and a Funkadelic- meets-the-Stooges blend in ''Lickin','' a song now on the rock charts. Above the decibel din of the Crowes, however, is the fact that Robinson is madly in love with his new muse and wife, Kate Hudson, the Oscar-nominated star of the rock film, ''Almost Famous.'' Thus, in contrast to his darker past, Robinson penned several very positive love songs for the new disc - like ''Soul Singing'' (''We'll get high and feel safe and sound''), ''Miracle to Me'' (''Be my lover, be my friend, be a miracle to me'') and the funky ''Ozone Mama.'' So what gives? ''It's a rare and wondrous thing when you meet somebody like that, especially when you're as cynical as I am,'' says Robinson. ''A lot of the reasons that made me want to be an artist and a writer were some of the darker things, and then all of a sudden, you take a walk through Central Park with this woman, and I knew on that day that my life would be different. Those things don't happen that often. It really is a profound influence on both of our lives.'' Robinson, whose band will team with Oasis for a date at the Tweeter Center on June 11, first met Hudson at a Halloween party three years ago in Los Angeles. ''She was dressed as a '20s flapper kind of girl, and we were sitting next to each other. We started talking and I wanted her to take her wig off and she wouldn't go for it. But we had a nice conversation. Then a couple of years later, the Kids in the Hall were doing a performance at the Beacon Theatre [in New York] and they're good friends of mine. Kate went with some of her friends and we met up at the after-show party. That was a Friday night and she moved in on Sunday.'' In between was the Saturday walk in Central Park. ''We had one day to see if we liked each other and then she was in. She got her keys [to my place]. ''It's a new world to feel emotions that you never really tapped into before,'' says Robinson, who lives in New York. ''The first day she came over, she was in my old loft, and I had these black velvet curtains about 12 feet from the ceiling to the floor. And that first day, she opened them up. I was like, ` No!' But you know what, I haven't had any curtains closed ever since. That pretty much says it all.'' Hudson is in the background as he's talking on the phone. He teasingly starts joking about first meeting Hudson when she was a groupie trying to talk her way on the Black Crowes' bus. Suddenly, it's Hudson's turn to yell '' No!'' And he says, ''Just kidding, honey.'' No question, these are heady days for Robinson, but the most important thing for Crowes' fans is that the band sounds rejuvenated as well. The new album harkens back to the higher-energy Crowes of days of yore, causing Robinson to even apologize for the last disc a couple of years ago, ''By Your Side.'' ''That album really should have been `Three Guys Just Trying to Hang in There.' The second half of that record I liked, but it sounds like what it is - an after-hours New York record. I would say that there's a good time to be had in that lifestyle, but it's very shallow. And the music sounds like that. And, by the end of that whole period, we found ourselves opening for Lenny Kravitz and going to Europe with him and Aerosmith. We were like, `Oh, man, if this is what it means to survive in the business, maybe we should stop surviving.''' But the Crowes took stock of themselves and decided on their new album to ''celebrate our survival and really put it all on the line.'' They were aided by producer Don Was (whose credits include Bonnie Raitt in her Grammy-winning ''Nick of Time'' days) and he lit a fire. ''Don brought an element of enthusiasm that we haven't had in a while,'' says Robinson, who once again wrote songs with his guitar-playing brother, Rich, but with more freedom than when they worked with past producer Rick Rubin. ''Don was the first guy to look at Rich and I as what we are and what we can be, as opposed to what we've done and how would that affect his career. ... And Don is a musician and an artist, so he's totally coming from that place with us. And when you see Don, you just see him in the studio. You can't call Don at home to ask what he thinks the new single should be, because he doesn't answer the phone. And the guy can't get into bars in NY in January because he doesn't have shoes on. He's our kind of guy. I have to give Don a lot of credit. He kept me and Rich in a good place.'' The Crowes also went into the studio fresh from a tour backing Zeppelin legend Jimmy Page. ''That was a shot in the arm - a fun, nonpressure situation,'' says Robinson. ''It had been a while since we had played any really heavy music like that.'' And more heaviness should be on the way when the Crowes are billed with Oasis this summer. It's called ''The Tour of Brotherly Love,'' because of the Robinson brothers in the Crowes, and the Gallagher brothers (Liam and Noel) in Oasis. Both sets of brothers are known for occasional feuding, so the ''Brotherly Love'' title has a certain irony. ''I was just in London, where Noel and I were doing some interviews, then Liam came down to meet me. It was so funny, because when all four of us were together, people were really freaked out,'' says Robinson. ''But the main motivation for the tour is that we want to, and we can.'' Look for a possible interchange between the bands, too. ''I'm hoping that at the end of the night, everyone will come out and we can do a few covers,'' says Robinson. ''I'm trying to get them to do `Teenage Head' by the Flaming Groovies. And they're going to come up with some songs that they want to do with us. Noel sat in the other night in London and did [Fleetwood Mac's] `Oh Well' with us. So that was pretty cool. ''It's going to be a fun tour.'' This story ran on page 12 of the Boston Globe on 5/4/2001. c Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.