The MANE MAN! From Guitarist Magazine, November 2001 Transcribed by Horsehead Limited success, record company hassle and ProTools - three things you wouldn't necessarily associate With The Black Crowes. Guitarist caught up with Rich Robinson to find out what's hatching in the nest. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Take, for example, the early nigneties; as countless british guitarists mourned the passing of 'proper music' , america launched a mainstream rock offensive witht the much maligned MTV at the front line. Ammunition came courtesy of Blood Sugar Sex Magic by the chili pepers, Pearl Jam's Ten and, lest we forget, Nirvina's seminal Nevermind. The UK returned fire with Britpop, courtsey of Oasis et al, and whether you liked any of the music or not, it was all great news for those of us who love loud guitars. We all, however, should doff our caps to The Black Crowes. Their 1990 debut Shake Your Moneymaker gave the world its most overtly rock and roll, commercially succesful release by a new band since Appetite for destruction three years previously. As such, it helped open the mass market flood gates for the guitar bands that followed. Twelve years on, and with their sixith studio release on the shelves, we tracked down co-founder, writer and guitarist Rich Robinson at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium to chew over the crowes fortunes. It's a bizarre scene. Chris Robinson (brother, co-founder, writer, vocalist) is strutting around the band's dressing room, bellowing out Otis Redding tunes - quite clearly the extrovert. Rich, on the other hand, is quiet, composed and altogether more pensive as they all prepare to face the masses. Chris is psyching himself up, Rich is laid back and chatty. "I was 19 when I wrote and recorded that album (SYMM)," offers Rich when asked how the band has changed over the years. "and the thing is , when you make people a lot of money when you start off, they always want you to make them money. They start thinking they they know better than you. Like, Wll, if you sounded more lik SYMM then you'd sell more records." Clearly, as the crowes carrear has unfolded, so too have some disagreements about direction between band and label. For Rich, it's a bout more than just figures. "we've changed and we've gotten better; we play better, our songs are better. They might be more intricate, they might be harder to get maybe, but this is us! And so when people look at our records, they tend to focus on the one that sounds most like what they think we should sound like, instead of us sounding like who we are." Who, or rater where, they are in 2001 is Lions, their latest release which signals the return to a happier frame of mind for the whole band following a recent switch of record label. Rich picks up the story. "during Amorica, we were trying to figure out who we were. We were on our second record with Amorica because we tossed that other piece of shit [the band discarded their first effort after months in the studio]. "The band was confused, Chris and I were confused, because people had perceived southern Harmony as a failure. But we'd sold three million records! "Our record company, because Money Maker had sold seven million, said, Oh we need to take more of an interest and come in. So we came off the tour and it was weird, it was so confusing. When your that young - I was - 23 - you really think you know stuff. But you don't. We thought we knew how this business worked. But we didn't know shit, and the more you're in it, the more you realise that." Record company pressure, internal conflict, questions about direction; it all sounds like standard rock band stuff. But whatever the suits thought about Southern Harmony, it was hearlded by many as a musical masterpiece. The troubled Amorica followed, then 3 snakes and one charm in 1996. As the band's mood worsened - "the Amorica tour was just miserable", says Rich - the sound got darker. "By the time we got to Three snakes" continues Rich, "all the fighting and all this bullshit stuff filtered in. But then we really cut a lot of that. We fired Marc Fordbecause he was bringing us down. And Johnny Colt quit. We didn't wanna fire him because he was was one of us, but it turned out good for the band that he quit. "So we we went through all that and deceided we had to focus on a rock and roll record, which was By Your Side. and although we didn't really like the producer - he'd just made an Aerosmith record, so musicallity didn't really come into it - it was a good step." Fortunes were turning for the crowes. Although stuck witht their record company for the time being, another opportunity presented itself inthe form of ex-Led Zep six stringer and all-round guitar god Jimmy Page, with whom the the band toured and released an album in 2000. "Doing the Jimmy thing was great," enthuses Rich. "We got away from being The Black Crowes and just sort of went to summer camp; that's how we look at it. All the Led Zeppein stuff was really cool because I'd never learned any of the songs. I've always listened to Zeppelin as a fan, so it was really cool to just learn what he was doing." "Then the record came out [Live at the greek], and it went gold like that. Suddenly we're around optimism and success again, for what was the first time in a long time." Jimmy Page, offered the band some short-term respite, but the most significant change was to come - there was still the niggiling problem with the record company. Facing increasing pressure to head more for the mainstream, Rich and the band decided enough was enough as they reached the end of their contract. "Well y'know, they were a huge corporation," he explains of sony. " and they have bands that they sign for tax dodges, then they have bands that they put a shit load of emphasis on, and then there's a bunch of other bands in between that they don't give a shit about. "And so I was just like, Okay, we've been in this business for 12 years, and we've sold 17 million records. We have a career and we still play and do what we want, so we know what's best for our band. Like they wanted to bring in people to write songs to try to have a hit like Aerosmith, and we just said, NO! Clearly not a fan of Tyler and co, Rich is unrelenting in his dismissal of the overtly commercial approach to music. It was time to find a label sympathetic to the band's views. "Leaving Sony was really posative," he expands. "I mean we were really thrilled, really. It was just the best thing in the world for us. We took a year to sign with V2. We met everyone; RCA, Atlantic and all these major labels, but we also met with large and small independant companies just to get a vibe - we even talked about putting it [the next record] out ourselves. We talked about doing so many things. "At the end of the day, we liked what V2 had to say. They said, go make your record, give it to us and we'll sell it. And that's the best thing that any band could hear. So a lot of positivity, and that came out on this record." Even for a band moving forward again, retro is the one word that inevitably gets used in connection with the Black Crowes. And with good reason; the clothes; the hair, the carpets on stage and, goddammit, the sound! A quick poke around Rich's tour flightcase underlines the fact - there is hardly a new guitar in sight. similarly with amplifiers; it's valves only and lots of them. Nothing wrong with that mind you. One thing that has changed, though, is Rich's attitude to recording. When asked about the experience of recording lions at a converted theater in New York, he damn near knocks me off my seat with one word: ProTools. We're talking about a PC-based hard disk recording system, most definately not analogue and the antithesis of retro. "Yeah. yeah. I know!" he laughs. "I was always like never! I always said, I fuckin' hate it - I'll never use that digital shit. And then a friend of ours, Andy Sturmer fromJellyfish, said, Look, you can see it 2 ways. He said, I'm tellig ya, it's agreat tool, or it's a crutch. For a lot of bands that don't know how to play their instruments or write songs or keep a beat it's a crutch. But you know how to do all that. "So what happened was that I did a movie score with this thing called Digital Performer, and I realised that I didn't have to change tape every 15 minutes. The things you could do were amazing, so I thought, Wow this is cool, maybe this would be good for demos. I bought it and used it for recording pre-production. We wound up keeping 80% of it." Listening to Lions - you'd be hard pushed to tell. The production - carried out by Don Was no less, who according to Rich, "brought the word Yes to the table" - is natural and open. If you have a decent stereo, you'd swear you were in the room at times. Nevertheless, there's a whole lot of guff from audiophiles that say two-inch analogue tape is a purer sound, and many musicinas would agree. But, as Rich points out, any advantage analogue has over digital is getting less noticeable by the day. "We recorded it to Proools and to Two-inch tape. And we really AB'd them. The whole record is on both, but we wound up just using ProTools because the difference is really marginal. You know they've advanced it so much. And I never thought I would be that way at all... I've gotta say man, it's really cool." Hardware, attitude, record company - it doesn't stop there where change is concerned for The Black Crowes. Before the release of last album, guitarist Audley Freed (formly of Cry Of Love - Wooo-Hooo - my woo-hoo, gary) had become an increasingly regular feature of the band's live show. While Rich could cope with writing and recording, the Crowes have always relied on another guitar player to cope with the extra parts at gigs. With the release of Lions, it seems Mr Freed has been promoted to a fully paid up member of the band. I ask Rich what he brings as a player. "It's funny. I don't look at it like we're guitar players," states Rich, suprisingly. "Like we're guitar players, he's the drummer, he's the keyboard player...it's either you get along or you don't. And Audley and I really get along." I refine the question to ask if the relationship between the players is a rhythm/lead thing? "Not anymore," responds Rich. "I play a lot more lead now, and I play most of the leads on the record. And Iplay all the bass on the album too, for the lack of one. "But with Audley, he's definately more technical, he knows more about it and he approaches music in a much more structred way than I do. He taught music and he taught people how to play the guitar and so-on. I'm definately more self taught; off the cuff, and somtimes I don't know what the hell he's talking about! Like I know my music really well, and that's about it. But Audley comes in and he can back me up really easily. He has an abillity as a great rhythm, but he can also play lead. Like I say, Audley and I really get along." When it came to the record though, it seems Rich was very much calling the shots. "Audley didn't play that much on the record. He played the solo on Greasy Grass River [very hendrixy, riff-driven groove] and a couple of other things, but not that much," explains Rich. "Because we were writing, and with the whole no Bass player thing, I didn't want to deal the clutter. When you're trying to write a record and there are a lot of people not listening to whats going on - I'm not saying that he was that way - but we were trying to suss everything out, so at times it was like, Ed, Audley, everyone just go home except for me and Chris and Steve, and Ed I guess at times. The four of us. Audley was cool with that, because a lot of the time when you have 2 guitar players, there can be so much shit that in the end it just becomes this wall of sound. We've had that before, especially when Marc Ford was in the band. So on this record I was, like, Look, these parts are very specific, I want everything to have space. When you listen to it I want it to be heard and be very textural. And if you tack on seven guitar tracks it gets muddled. I just wanted to keep it sorted." Sorted. An apt word for the curent state of the Black Crowes it would seem. So it might be worth reflecting on that earlier point about hindsight. As Rich says: "The one great hing about this record is that it's aportrait of us - it's who we are." Don't wait for the next history lesson, go catch it while it's happening.