THE BLACK CROWES
Back In Black
4 May 2001 
www.metal-is.com

 
The false start of 'Midnight From The Inside Out', the opening track of the 
Black Crowes' brand new album 'Lions', is perhaps indicative of the band itself. 
After detonating a righteous Southern blooze bomb on the pre-grunge populace 
with 1990's 'Shake Your Money Maker', many would argue that the Crowes got a 
little ahead of themselves, never really matching the glory of their debut. 
Their 1992 follow-up, 'The Southern Harmony And Musical Companion', was 
brilliant, but ultimately undervalued. From the 'Amorica'/'Three Snakes And One 
Charm' era, all many folks really remember was the mild controversy stirred up 
by a few stray pubic hairs on the former's infamous cover. 1999's 'By Your Side' 
was something of a return to their early form, but nothing on that album really 
topped the first single, 'Kickin' My Heart Around'. The Crowes followed that up 
with an aborted tour with Led Zeppelin demigod Jimmy Page, which yielded the 
double album 'Live At The Greek', consisting almost entirely of uninspiring Zep 
covers. 

Enter 'Lions', a new record on a new label that will perhaps mark an end to the 
Crowes' decade-long 'Behind The Music' saga of infighting, label disputes and 
under-appreciated records. Their sixth studio album just might prove to be the 
most auspicious and compelling Crowes record in nearly a decade. Recorded 
shortly after the sudden cancellation of the second leg of the Jimmy Page tour, 
the 'Lions' sessions took place in an old Yiddish vaudeville theatre in 
Manhattan, under the watchful eye of producer Don Was. Metal-Is' J. Bennett 
caught up with Crowes' drummer Steve Gorman to discuss the new album and the 
band's upcoming 'Brotherly Love' tour with UK pop giants Oasis. 

 

So tell me a little bit about Lions

STEVE: Well, let's see... it has 13 songs. It sounds good. (laughs) All of our 
records have one thing in common, and that's that they're all exactly where we 
are at that particular time. The thing that separates this record from the 
others is that, first of all, we're on a new record company, which we've been 
trying to sort out for about ten years, since about seven minutes after we 
signed our first deal. When we got a new deal last year, we talked to a lot of 
different labels - big labels and small labels and Internet-only labels. We 
thought about putting it out ourselves; we had all these different things that 
we looked into. And when we went to V2, the first thing the president of the 
label said was, "It's real simple. You guys make the record and we sell it. 
Let's just start there." And we were like, "OK, this sounds good so far."

We've made five albums in the past that were our albums, but to get our label to 
put them out as we finished them was always a struggle, always a fight. Well, 
not really the first record, because it was a tiny label, and the guy who signed 
us also produced the record. But we've made four records since then, and when we 
turned them in, we were told, "There's no singles. It doesn't sound like it 
should." And our response is always, "OK, so don't put it out. Let us off the 
label." And every time, they'd have to put it out, because we won't do anything. 
We have one band and they have 50, you know, so let us have our own band.

This new record, 'Lions', is the first time we went into a studio - and we 
didn't even realise it until we finished - where we were like, "Wow, we have all 
this energy left over," because what would normally be spent fighting was 
instead spent creating. It's a weird sort of looking back, talking about how 
this record was to make, because no one from the record company called asking to 
come listen. No one called and said anything - except to say "Have a good 
holiday", and then again in January when they called to ask if we were done yet. 
And that's just a really nice way to make a record.

So there was minimal fighting this time around between Chris and Rich? 

Yeah - well, none. It's funny, because I think gradually, over time, it's been 
moving in that direction. Every year it gets a little better. I think in the 
last year they actually just decided, "Let's just not do this any more." If 
they're gonna fight now, it's about being brothers, not the songs we're working 
on. With this record, any idea was worth exploring, instead of, "Well, why don't 
you turn that around and do this?" and suddenly, there are eyes being rolled and 
"What the fuck are you looking at?", and the idea goes away. It's always been 
writing and fighting songs. This time, throughout the entire recording, there 
was an actual Camp David accord signed, saying "Let's just stop this." After 
this long, you start to realise, well, we do trust each other. And that goes for 
the whole band. We spent the last summer touring with Jimmy Page, and what was 
great about that was that we all looked at each other and went, "Wow, you're 
pretty good." That was possible because that experience allowed us to step out 
of the Black Crowes and play Zeppelin songs. It made us appreciate each other 
more than we already did. 

Speaking of Jimmy Page, were you guys totally sick of playing Zeppelin songs by 
the end of that tour? 

No, but the tour was cancelled pretty early on. There were originally three US 
legs, and we played the first leg and the first show of the second leg, and then 
it was cancelled. We were supposed to go to Europe and Japan as well. If we had 
done that whole tour, yeah, we would've been sick of it - and that is no way a 
slight against that music, obviously. We're the biggest Zeppelin fans in the 
world, but had it gone through, we would've bitten off more than we really 
wanted to chew with that schedule. 

At the time, it looked great, because when we booked the tour, we were just 
getting a new record deal; we had a bunch of songs, but we hadn't done any pre-
production work or talked about whom we wanted to work with. When Jimmy 
cancelled that leg, we went home with an extra month to figure everything out 
for the record. About a week into that month, he cancelled the rest of the tour, 
so we had the rest of the year open and we just went in to make the record. So 
for us, it worked out beautifully. 

Why did he cancel? 

He blew his back out; he's got a very serious back condition. When we got back 
from the first leg and played that first show of the second leg, something was 
obviously wrong. It was worse than he was letting on. Then that night it was 
really bad, and he's been doing rehab ever since, and that was August. On the 
one hand, it was disappointing and we felt bad for him, obviously, but at the 
same time, we were on a roll, and there was a great energy, so we just took that 
right into the studio. 

So you have this tour coming up with Oasis, and it seems that the unspoken part 
of this 'Brotherly Love' title is that potentially either band could self-
destruct at any point during the tour

(Laughs) Well, sure, but I know it's not gonna be us. From what they say - we 
were just in London and spent a couple days with them - they are very excited 
about this tour. They have such a bizarre existence as a band outside of the US. 
I mean, it's so funny - one of the two of those guys, if not both, are in the 
newspapers every single day. Still - every day. They're so big, and for them to 
come to the States and just be a rock band and play with another rock band that 
they like, I think that's very appealing to them. Plus they've blown off their 
last two US tours just a few days in, so they know that if they're gonna do 
anything in the States, they have to go play; you can't phone it in from across 
the ocean.

This whole thing started because they came to some of our shows a few years ago, 
and they're really into our records and our band. That's how we met them, and we 
all got on really well right away. They said, "Oh, we love you guys, and we'd 
love to play some shows together", which is what musicians always say when they 
dig each other, but we're the kind of band that actually thinks like that. When 
we put tours together in the States, we think about who we want to play with.

That said, do you have a Plan B in case something does go wrong?

Uh, yeah.. that means we play for about three hours. (laughs)

What's the plan after the Oasis tour?

We're going to Europe to do some festivals, some shows with Neil Young and Crazy 
Horse. That's gonna be a lot of fun. Then back to the States to start our own 
tour, and we will tour for as long - as they say in the industry - as the record 
has legs. We'll tour for as long as it makes sense to.

What band would you like to see go away?

Well, this one half the time! (laughs) I mean, it's a constant love/hate thing. 
Ask me tomorrow and I'll come up with someone else. Ten years ago, I would've 
had some great answers for that kind of question, but now, I literally just 
don't care. I don't care what anybody else is doing. I know how we do what we 
do, and every band has their own style. We definitely have an unconventional 
approach, but to us it makes all the sense in the world. I mean, we've been 
around long enough.

And everybody's seen it, really - when the brand new band comes around and they 
are applauded for doing something, and then that one impression is run up the 
flagpole so far that there is no way anyone is going to care the next year. You 
just see the industry spit people out like that. And it's perfect; if I ran a 
record company, I'd do that. Why would you want a bunch of 30 year olds who know 
what's going on when you can have your pick of 18 million 20 year olds who are 
like, "I'll do anything!"? It's unfortunate, but that's been going on since the 
day somebody signed someone who sounded like Bill Halley and the Comets. I used 
to get really wound up about stuff like that when our first record was out, 
because we thought we'd find other people who think like us - and we have, but 
very few of them have record deals.

Would it be fair to say you've managed to stick around for so long because you 
avoided that trap?

Absolutely. Our record was big enough that if we had got caught up in that 
machinery and done everything people asked us to do, then the second Nirvana's 
record came out, we would've been dead. That's really what it comes down to.

People are constantly looking for something that matters, especially now. Look 
at what's on the radio. I listen to the radio, and I think that the people who 
are credited with certain music aren't even on their own records - it's a 
producer and some machines. That doesn't matter to the people who are making it, 
but it's always mattered to us.

When our first record took off, we were like, "This wasn't really the plan." We 
thought we would slowly build. We went through a whole period where we were 
trying to get people to forget about 'Shake Your Money Maker'. But it's all been 
a fairly honest attempt to maintain who we are. In the early days, we didn't 
necessarily know what we were, but we knew what we weren't. And over time, just 
like anyone else in their twenties, we spent that time figuring out who we are. 
That's why we're still around - we never presented ourselves as something we 
weren't, for better or worse.