Rich Robinson: Behind The Black Crowes
Friday April 25, 2003 @ 12:00 PM
By: ChartAttack.com Staff
http://www.chartattack.com/damn/2003/04/2501.cfm

by Debbie Bento

Last year was the year of reckoning for the Black Crowes. Their frontman Chris 
Robinson got tired of singing the same old songs and wanted out. His brother and 
Crowes guitarist Rich, on the other hand, cleaned things up very nicely by 
looking over the release of the Crowes' last record and moving full-steam ahead 
into other projects. One is Hookah Brown, his new band with former Moke member 
John Hogg. They may sound a wee bit like Rich's other band, but hey, what can 
you expect? ChartAttack sat down with Rich and had a tete-a-tete about what 
really went on with the Crowes demise, what he thinks about starting from 
scratch again and why he hates damn, dirty rock critics.

Hookah Brown: Fionn O'Lochlainn, John Hogg, Rich Robinson, Bill Dobrow

ChartAttack: So how does it feel to finally be in a band without a family 
member?
Rich Robinson: It's the only band I've ever been in without one so it's 
different and it's good. I mean, all of it's good. I've never been in a band 
without Chris. I've pretty much been in a band with the same people for, like, 
15 years, so it's really cool to just get out and play with different people and 
learn different things.

Has starting a new band and constructing new songs brought you back to the early 
days and fresh feeling of starting it out with the Black Crowes? Is it the same?
No. It's different because when I was in the Crowes I was 19. I was in high 
school when I was making Shake Your Money Maker. Chris and I were writing that 
record. We were brothers, we'd been in a band for four years and learned how to 
play and it was something. else, ya know? It's like your first sort of love. 
It'll always be really special. And [Hookah Brown] is different. It's great, 
it's cool. But I'm coming at it from a different mindset because I've seen a 
path from the valley to the hill. I've seen how that works and I sort of have a 
bird's eye view. I mean, 20/20 vision is impeccable, a bit of hindsight is 
20/20, so you can see other things.

Are there any specific mistakes or experiences that you've learned from your 
days with the Crowes that you've taken with you in being part of Hookah Brown?
The great thing about the Crowes is that when we started we came in under the 
radar. No one gave two shits, it was just like they signed us as a favour. And 
there was no money involved. So we came in under the radar and then we sold so 
many records that we weren't under the radar, but no one really told us what 
kind of records to make. And so we were always able to make the records we 
wanted to make. The only problem came when people tried to pick our singles for 
us and all this bullshit, and it was always geared towards what sounded the most 
like "Hard To Handle." And they never used our strongest asset, which I thought 
was that we always changed. People that were writing that we sounded like the 
Stones on Three Snakes or Amorica, they were fuckin' idiots. And they proved 
their ignorance and idiocy for stating that because they never listened to our 
records. Our records grew leaps and bounds every time we made 'em. And I'm not 
talking about commercial viability, but musically and songwriting-wise. Playing 
together as a band that grew. Right now, these are my songs, it's my band, I get 
to do what I want to do and I don't care what the typical record company-like 
asshole has to say. Y'know what I mean? And it's not to be a contrary asshole. 
It's like, this is important to me and people can have their opinions, but at 
the end of the day look at where your opinions have got us. Like, the most 
depressing time of music in music history!

Is that part of the reason why the Crowes split last year?
No. We stopped going because Chris really wanted to do his own thing. Period, 
that was it. That pissed off fuckin' Steve (Gorman, drummer), then Steve quit, 
then that made Chris even more mad and, you know what, it was time because we 
weren't getting along by the end of the (Lions) tour. It was very apparent by 
the start of making Lions where things were headed. By the time we were finished 
the record it was very apparent. By the time the record came out it became even 
more apparent. And Chris just wasn't into it. And then everyone wasn't into it 
because of that. And it just became this. thing.

Your pairing with your brother is one of the most memorable and powerful in rock 
history. How would you describe or even compare the pairing you have now with 
Hookah's frontman John Hogg?
Chris is a really strong personality. A really stellar frontman, an amazing 
singer - all those things. With him, it was like, I wrote the music, he wrote 
the lyrics and if I ever tried to write a melody or lyric he was like,"No." 
Totally. For me, that would be like the same thing. It would just be a fight, 
like "No! You're not going to let me write this so I'm not going to let you 
write that." But it worked. With John, it's definitely more forgiving. I'm used 
to writing all the music, but I've written a lot of lyrics and he's cool with 
it. It's an easier collaboration now because there's not that much baggage and 
there's no ego involved. If I write a lyric he's, like, "Wow, I really like 
that" instead of "Oh, that sucks". which is what sometimes happened [with the 
Crowes].

What do you think of people who say your new band is just a Black Crowes Pt. 2 
and you're still just a bunch of hippies? I mean, look at the name of your band.
It's similar because it's my sound. People will write what they're gonna write. 
It's funny because they said we were just a hippie band and they also said we 
sounded exactly like the Stones, then when we played with Jimmy we sounded 
exactly like Zeppelin. So for people who said that, it was obviously based in 
ignorance. It's like, the Stones weren't a hippie band, yet we sound exactly 
like them. Zeppelin wasn't a hippie band and we sounded like them. And no one 
EVER accused us of sounding like The Grateful Dead so....