SECONDS: Tell us about your dad's Rock career and what you picked up from him.

RICH ROBINSON: He did some things on his own a long time ago and by the time he had Chris and I, he was way past that, so the only thing that we picked up from him was music because it was always in the house and he always listened to it. Through osmosis, I suppose, it just kind of sits in your head. You appreciate it and love it.

SECONDS: Was your music a reaction or continuation of his?

RICH ROBINSON: It was just something Chris and I wanted to do. My parents were always of the frame of mind to let us do what we wanted to do, no matter what it was. They were very supportive. When we said we wanted to do music, they were like, "All right. Here you go. Figure it out yourself."

SECONDS: How does your sound and style differ from your formative days as Mr. Crowe's Garden?

RICH ROBINSON: Well, now we can play. I was sixteen years old and into Alternative - the real Alternative scene. Growing up sixty miles south of REM and listening to Let's Active and Rain Parade and the Long Ryders ... Things like that make you think differently as far as music goes. Plus, it was a simple music back then. The one good thing about REM, I think, is that they challenged their fans to listen to other music. They did an Aerosmith cover tune or they would do some Velvet Underground songs. Luckily for Chris and I, my dad was a big Byrds fan. He was also way into Dylan. I think that's what Chris and I saw in REM and a lot of those bands. We really heard Buffalo Springfield in them. My dad listened to Buffalo Springfield all the time, and Stephen Stills' solo records, Crosby, Stills, & Nash. We heard all those bands and that's maybe why we appreciated REM and the Long Ryders.

SECONDS: What else was happening musically in those days for you?

RICH ROBINSON: Atlanta's a strange town. People from the South are always pigeonholed as dumb-asses, rednecks, slow, and racists. I remember the first time I went up to LA, I was twenty years old and I'd already made Shake Your Money Maker and went out to meet managers. People you talk to are like, "Wow, you guys have an airport in Atlanta?" I think that a lot of the Alternative scene seems to be much more of a cerebral music, to get away from the Skynyrds and Molly Hatchets, which is what most people think Southern music is. They don't get the whole background of how much music and culture has come out of the South. It's actually one of the main fuels for American culture, which is really scarce right now. Through that, Atlanta's music scene was kind of split. You had the whole Alternative scene, and all the bands were so into being Alternative, trying to be REM and then later on trying to be Jane's Addiction. Then you had the bands who played Molly Hatchet cover tunes. We were never like any of them. That's kind of what was going on locally at the time.

SECONDS: What exactly is your relationship to Southern Rock? While you distance yourself, there's some obvious influences that have rubbed off over the years.

RICH ROBINSON: Yeah, there's some influences, but I don't like to say Rock, because "Rock" is that one word that pigeonholes it. The one thing Alternative did for me was it kind of made me a snob to what's big. Just assuming that if it's big, it sucks - which in the Eighties it pretty much did. When you get into this Alternative mentality you go, "Everyone sucks." Then you listen to an Aerosmith record and say, "Maybe they sing about weird things, but they can play." We looked back at what Chris and I listened to throughout our childhood and said, "These people can really play." Then that whole thing flips upside down. I always hated the Allman Brothers, and I always hated Skynyrd, but then I listened to the Allman Brothers and I'd go, "Wow, that's amazing." You kind of get into them and realize they're not those rednecks people always portrayed them as being. They write beautiful songs, and smart songs. In that sense, maybe there is a little bit of that that rubbed off on us.

SECONDS: Is there any homegrown "American" style Rock music, or is it all really based on the British Blues Pop formula perfected by the Stones and Faces?

RICH ROBINSON: I think that it's more Southern. I think the Blues-based British Pop bands got it from the South. I mean, listen to an Otis Redding record. It has everything a Rolling Stones record has and more. At the time, unfortunately, it wasn't marketed as well as the White bands. People were closed-minded and it's a shame, because they missed out on a lot of talented people and amazing music. Unfortunately, they had the likes of Elvis in their place. Fuck, how amazing is Otis Redding? How amazing can James Brown be? That's where people missed out.

SECONDS: How did it come to be that the guitar is the dominant instrument of Rock?

RICH ROBINSON: It could be because it came from the Blues. Practically, maybe because no one could carry around an upright or a grand piano. It also has a distinct sound which really appeals to a lot of people. I like guitar, I like the way it sounds.

SECONDS: ZZ Top threw you off their tour a few years ago for making derisive comments onstage about their corporate tour sponsors, Miller Lite. What did you learn from that episode? I'm sure it threw the realities of the Rock biz in your face.

RICH ROBINSON: Not really. If anything, it made people question sponsorships. It's funny. Here we are, this band from Atlanta, I was twenty-one years old, and we get thrown off this tour. All of a sudden, everyone like Mötley Crüe and the huge bands come out of the woodwork and say, "Yeah, I don't like sponsorship either." It's all such bullshit anyway. The reason we don't do it is because it's about greed. The only reason that you're going to try and sell a product is to get money. I don't look at my records as products. I want people to buy them, I want to succeed, I want to affect people the way I was affected when I was a kid when I listened to music. It's kind of sappy-sounding, but music helped me growing up and I think it helps a lot of people. Some people say, "This song helped me get through a hard time," just as a book or a painting would. I think that bringing in Miller Beer or Reebok makes us too close to what they are, which is a product. You don't need to tour like that. People always say, "It gets real expensive to tour" - well, look at the Grateful Dead. They tour in stadiums without having a corporate sponsorship and I'm sure they make a shitload of money. I know they do. It's just about greed and that's one thing we choose not to motivate ourselves with.

SECONDS: Do you feel that your career has been harmed in any sectors by Chris' honesty about Pot?

RICH ROBINSON: Who knows? Could be. I think that a lot of times, we are to people what people write about us. It's always a clouded issue. Most journalists are kind of biased in a sense. If you're asked to do a story and you can't stand the fucking band or if you love the band to death, then it's going to be hard not to write personal opinions. What really happens is clouded a lot of the times, especially with that issue, because you have an editor over your shoulder going, "Hey, we gotta work this angle. 'Chris Robinson wants to smoke Pot.'" It's just an angle to sell magazines. The whole Pot issue is about human rights. People go to jail for a long time for Pot. You have to analyze what's worse for a kid. A sixteen-year-old smokes a joint for class - what's worse for him? The ill-effect of that - some people think of it as a positive effect - or going to jail for ten years and being brought up in that society? At the end of the ten-year thing, he can't get a job because he's a convicted felon and will probably have a warped view of society, much more warped than if he smoked Pot every day. The whole thing about Marijuana is that I don't think people should be punished for doing something that they choose to do. If they're going to be punished - which I think is ludicrous - then the punishment should not exceed what the ill effects of the drug are. That's just common sense. You look at government. Government are people we vote in to tell us what to do and take our money. Because America's so apathetic, they don't really care. Americans are apathetic. As long as it doesn't affect their money, they could give a shit. I think that's a scary thing. Like the album cover, some people got offended by that.

SECONDS: Why did people freak out over that cover? I don't really get it.

RICH ROBINSON: I don't either. One thing that Chris said, which I'll relate to the album cover, is that if people got as upset about education in this country as they do about goofy little album covers, then we wouldn't have an education problem. That's how warped our society is. "Look at that, there's pubic hair on the cover." Yeah, but you don't get upset that your kids are taught this insane curriculum. The funding of one bullshit government program could go to give every teacher in the country a raise. It needs money to get the proper facilities, to get the proper teachers, so that kids all over the country can be taught the way they want to be taught and what they should be taught.

SECONDS: Why are sex and drugs so important to the Rock vibe?

RICH ROBINSON: I don't know, because I don't think that about us. That's the most over-used cliché on Earth. That's just really just totally pathetic: "Dude, sex, drugs, Rock & Roll ..."

SECONDS: But people still say it.

RICH ROBINSON: I don't think people say it about us. Guns 'N Roses were the last band of that ilk, but who knows?

SECONDS: What do you think of what became of them?

RICH ROBINSON: It's a hard thing to deal with - going from being nothing to the biggest band in the world, and far bigger than a Pearl Jam or Nirvana. They were just fucking huge. They sold so many records ... trying to deal with success is a hard thing, but I'm not going to be of the "I don't like being a Rock Star" school - I think that's bullshit too. A lot of the Alternative bands sell millions of records and then complain about it. Well, then give all your money to a charity and don't put out records any more, or put out records on a really independent label and don't make videos and don't do interviews and then you'll be fine.

SECONDS: Are you Rock Stars?

RICH ROBINSON: I don't know what constitutes a Rock Star.

SECONDS: I don't know either, but you just used the term about how other people don't want to be it. But you guys have a little bit of a swagger ...

RICH ROBINSON: I guess we're famous. Chris is famous. He can't walk anywhere without people coming up to him and knowing who he is. I don't know if fame is the same thing as being a Rock Star or what. Who knows? Okay, I guess we are Rock Stars, but I don't think that's something for me to say.

SECONDS: How do you pull off being sexy without coming off tacky?

RICH ROBINSON: In what sense?

SECONDS: A lot of bands look like they're pouting for the girls instead of doing it for everybody.

RICH ROBINSON: I guess because maybe they are pouting for the girls. We're just up there for fun. We love what we do and we want people to like what we do. We get on stage and we try different things and we try to make it fresh for us, which would in turn make it that way for everyone else. We change the set-up, we get up and play, we jam, we do different things, we bring friends up to jam all the time, we take out bands we really like, and we try to make it a pleasant tour. Maybe for that reason we come across that way.

SECONDS: What's your view of groupies? These girls just see you as an object ...

RICH ROBINSON: They're there for every band. It's kind of funny how people get caught up in that whole thing. I don't think we're a big groupie band. Maybe we're too ugly. I just don't think about it. Things like that don't consume my thought. I think about music and trying to write better songs.

SECONDS: Do you ever feel like you're swimming upstream in these days of Grunge?

RICH ROBINSON: You mean swimming in concrete? Yeah, exactly. It's a hard thing because I have my own opinions about where we fit in this whole scheme of things. Then again, it's not really good to blow your own whistle and sometimes it sounds like that. I think that we loosened the industry up when we put our first record out. In the midst of the Heavy Metal boom, we made people realize what it was about and how corporate it was. I think that we really changed that. We brought music back into it. Oddly enough, that year Nirvana put out their record and were given all the chances we were never given, which is cool for them because I think they were a good band. Then all of a sudden, the industry sees another band selling millions of records and then jumps on that whole bandwagon. It goes from Heavy Metal to Grunge and all the kids cut their hair and all the kids buy the flannel shirts. It's the same thing, it's just now called Grunge, under this fake air of integrity. Fuck, I've talked to guys in some up-and-coming Alternative bands who say, "Man, as soon as I get enough money I'm just going to quit." I'm like, "What the fuck are you talking about?" The music industry is the reason for those bands getting signed. The music industry never gets criticized, it's always the bands. That's what's fucked up about this. It's the music industry that signs these losers and sells them to people and the people buy them and realize they're for shit and then they get mad at the band. People don't take music as seriously as us. Maybe we take music seriously to a fault. I think we've created our own weird little world where we are unto ourselves in this music industry. There's no other group like us. In actuality, we're the only Alternative band.

SECONDS: What's the biggest misconception about the Crowes?

RICH ROBINSON: The fans that I talk to seem to know what's real about us. I don't know what the misconceptions might be. I know that a lot of the music media tends to write more about what we wear, what we say, what we do, how we do it, what's on our album cover, what's not on our album cover - everything but music.

SECONDS: How would you characterize your dealings with the Rock press?

RICH ROBINSON: I think we started on positive ground and a lot of critics saw what we were trying to do. Then when you become successful, they feel left out and then they turn on you overnight. They go from "This is the best band, man. They're bringing it back" to "They're retro and they're assholes." That's what happens. Now, I think that the press has been a little more positive this time around. They've been more into listening to us instead of just ... we would do interviews where these fucking guys would come out on tour with us and they'd sit there and drink beer and hang out and we'd talk about things and they'd go back and write, "They're the biggest bunch of assholes on Earth." It's so rare that you talk to people who know about music. You start talking - "Wow, what about this record? Let's listen to this." You get these relationships where you think, "It's really cool to meet someone that really knows about music and knows what we like." You open yourself and then this asshole flies home and writes "They suck." It's such bullshit. It's happened on many occasions. For a while, we had a bad taste in our mouth about journalists because of that. Now, we're just like, "whatever."

SECONDS: How do you and Chris get along as brothers? Is it ever you two against the other members?

RICH ROBINSON: Chris and I fight and we get along. Sometimes we don't talk and sometimes we do. It's a weird world to grow up in. I mean literally grow up, because I graduated from high school and a year later I made Shake Your Money Maker and went on tour for five years. Then you have the ego things that come into play, and you have all these dumb-ass extra headaches, but you get through it. I think it's just in-fighting, and when you in-fight, you fight with everyone. When you first get into this industry, you kind of are naive and think, "Well, these people aren't that bad." It's a shame, because they really are and you don't realize that until money comes into play. When you're making a lot of money, people come around. Crew guys, friends, people you think are friends ... I'll go visit Chris in LA and see these fuckin' losers trying to get on his bar tab. It sickens me and I'm just like, "I never thought it would be like this."

SECONDS: So what's in the future? You talked about these bands who just want to make money and quit but there's also the sixty-year-old Rock Star ...

RICH ROBINSON: I really feel bad for those guys because they've been making music for forty years and then all of a sudden they're expected to quit. Some of them obviously do it for money and they cash in big. I don't think that's cool, but then there's someone like Neil Young - who, other than doing stuff with Pearl Jam, I think does some decent things I think that he still makes great records. Who am I to say they should quit when they reach a certain age? When I reach that age, maybe I'll want to write mellow, meaningless New Age music. Should I quit then because someone thinks I should? Maybe there's lots of people right now who think I should quit, but I'm not going to.

SECONDS: How would you like to be remembered?

RICH ROBINSON: I don't think about stuff like that. I guess you want people to think you're good. I'd like people to think of our records the same way they would think of Exile On Main Street or Physical Graffiti. When I make a record, I do want it sound like a record that I love. Well, what do you love? If I could make a record like Natty Dread I'd be happy for the rest of my life.

SECONDS: I like the new record a lot. You guys keep doing it.

CHRIS ROBINSON: Cool, yeah. I think sometimes a lot of people don't like it ... maybe apathy does play a role in the world. Music isn't taken very seriously, is what I'm saying.

SECONDS: What role does music serve, then?

CHRIS ROBINSON: To me it's very important. We call it Rock & Roll music, but music is really about expression and communicating. When people did think about things like counter-culture and different lifestyles ...

SECONDS: What became of all that?

CHRIS ROBINSON: I think it still exists but I think it's sort of a transparent hologram of what it used to be.

SECONDS: How so?

CHRIS ROBINSON: To me, the main responsibility of a group of people is policing yourselves. Do what you want to do, be as freaky as you want to be or be as straight as you want to be, but just don't harm anyone else. Respect the community that you're in.

SECONDS: Do you think people got scared of the counter-culture?

CHRIS ROBINSON: Yeah, and I think it also became very fashionable. You can tell, when all the kids on sitcoms dress like the guys in Pearl Jam. It was like that when the Sex Pistols came out and Sears had t-shirts that said "Punk" on them. People who follow fashion and trends, they're just going to put on this week's color, which comes right back to The Black Crowes - who are very unfashionable and not very trendy at all.

SECONDS: How do you fight all these things?

CHRIS ROBINSON: For one, I don't fight anything. It's not important for me to be a Pop Star. It's not important for me to have hit singles. All we want to do is play music. I think now, more than ever, that's what's it's all about.

SECONDS: Do you feel like you're swimming upstream?

CHRIS ROBINSON: Do you know what makes it seem like swimming upstream? It's how the industry is set up. What is really good about The Black Crowes as a band is we can start, in our little ways, to change little things. I never knew what to expect when I got into this and I still don't try to go about things with heavy preconceived notions 'till I get there and I see how I feel about it. When we started and the first record was really popular, I realized that was the least interesting part of everything. I thought with success came artistic freedom - which we always have had but then you start to realize when you've sold that many records that you become a cog in the record company's machine. Meaning when you make a record you have to go out to all the business things, like go do a press tour and talk about it. They have to plan the release of your record. I want to be able to get to a point where you just put out records and you don't have to do a tour corresponding with a record because hopefully your songs transcend that system. I would hope, ideally, that's where we're heading. If we could get to that, that's heavier to me than saying, "We don't want to use Ticketmaster." Greed is the motivating factor of the recording industry and greed is not a motivating factor in my life. If you really are an "artist" - I guess you have to use that word - how do you have time to change people who are so stuck in financial matters?

SECONDS: Well, how do you do that?

CHRIS ROBINSON: I think you just have to be patient. People always ask about what success is. If you're not a musician, you probably just see the most shallow aspect - the most unimaginative part of the whole thing.

SECONDS: What's the most disappointing thing you've realized about the music business?

CHRIS ROBINSON: I had a hint, I didn't go into it totally naive, but I thought there would be a few more real sorts of people here and there. You're only as good as the last sales. Your songs and your music: that's your life. But the people calling the shots don't care! They haven't been on the road with us for the last four years; they don't make decisions that are hard. They make decisions that are easy. It happens three or four times a year - someone will say, "Hey, what about doing this gig? We'll give your four times the amount of money you'd make on your own gig." But it's sponsored by the beer company and I'll say I don't want to be involved.

SECONDS: Speaking of that, what did you learn from the ZZ Top episode?

CHRIS ROBINSON: I would say Aerosmith, out of everyone, taught us what never to become. I really love their records from the Seventies and just to see them the way they are - but that's America. People go, "God bless them, they came back."

SECONDS: What did they become?

CHRIS ROBINSON: It doesn't seem like they're musicians. They're definitely MTV Rock Stars. I don't think that's very interesting. Being a musician contains more substance and having a deeper relationship with your music than "Wow, I can be sexy and make a lot of money for the rest of my life and tell people 'Don't do drugs because I did them and my experiences are more important than yours.'"

SECONDS: That's the stuff that kills me with these Rock Stars - "I did it, but you can't."

CHRIS ROBINSON: How exalted are you that you think you're the only one that's had these experiences? What music does is bring people together. It makes a connection, because we all have similar experiences, we all go through highs and lows. A cat like Henry Rollins is really intriguing because I like his music and I used to go see Black Flag when I was a kid, but here's this guy who tells people not to do drugs and he has all these horror stories, yet he has the nerve to talk about Jimi Hendrix and John Coltrane. Their music and their lives were heavily influenced by chemicals and there's this guy telling kids not to do all these things because he knows better, yet he's extolling the virtues of these people who did experiment with their lives.

SECONDS: Do you feel your career has been harmed for being honest about drugs?

CHRIS ROBINSON: Maybe, but I don't think so. None of us are in NORML, I'm just for innocent people not having their lives wasted by doing time.

SECONDS: Why hasn't Pot been decriminalized yet? Who's behind this whole prohibition?

CHRIS ROBINSON: Those are some of the underlying problems with America. At this point in time, who knows who is in charge? Orders are coming from somewhere to treat people a certain way ... why are there more liquor stores in the ghettos than in the suburbs? Why is Oliver North a hero? Richard Nixon is one of the most evil people in American history and when he dies we have to take a whole month of mourning? What the fuck is that? What about all the people who got killed during the above-ground nuclear testing? Why don't we have a couple of days for them? I'm not really into politics, but I am against all the hypocrisy, all the false morality. Look at America, man. We're living in a place that's founded on the Manifest Destiny, the White Man's Burden ...these White people are going to go around the world and teach everyone what's right. Of course, we fucked up the entire planet along the way. I can't say I'm proud to be an American when the entire country's based on the genocide of its indigenous people. There is something ironic there. The damage has been done. I can't change it, I can just try to live with less judgment and try not to be a hypocrite. I have to have something that steeps me in reality. I feel so sorry for a cat like Eddie Vedder who's just trying so hard to ... hey man, if you meant all the things you said, you would just be cool about it. No hassles, man, just sing your songs - that's all people care about.

SECONDS: I saw this article in Kerrang! where they blew up your whole Heroin admission, but I just looked at it and said "big deal."

CHRIS ROBINSON: That's the English thing. The whole point was, I have friends who are junkies and it makes me sad. Why don't you just run a picture of Keith Richards and you'll realize he did Heroin for fifteen years. "Oh my God, he did? Let's run a headline!" The English press is like the National Enquirer of Rock.

SECONDS: How would you characterize your dealings with the Rock press in general?

CHRIS ROBINSON: The same as anything else - some people get it and some people don't. I have a realistic approach. I know the media is a satellite of the music industry, so in that scenario it is victim to the vastness and hugeness. You meet some people who really love music and you meet some people that this is just their gig. I understand that journalists don't go to the store and make a choice to buy my music. They don't buy concert tickets. Therefore, their opinions are not going to be as important to me as the people who have given us this space. The other thing is this apathy. You review so many bands in a year, how can you really take the time to dig deeper into what's going on? Remove yourself as a critic and be more of an observer. Sometimes when people show up and they start criticizing my work, I sort of go, "Hey man, that's fine. Everyone's entitled to their opinions." Most guys you talk to, they pop in the cassette they got from the publicist and they listen to each song from the verse to the chorus and fast forward to the next one - and maybe don't even get to the second side - and then they come in and tell you about what you're doing. To me, those things don't weigh up. In a real sense, I don't really care. If people get it, cool. If they don't, usually the people who really bag us write the funniest things we ever read.

SECONDS: Why are sex and drugs so important to the Rock vibe?

CHRIS ROBINSON: I think they're important to the vibe of everyone. Everyone wants to get high, everyone wants to have sex, and everyone likes music - some people just don't know it. That's why people who don't live by that false morality tend to go to this other lifestyle, which some people call a Rock & Roll lifestyle. It's an adventure and you're using experiences as energy. That, to me, is more a bohemian thing, as opposed to being wasted and down and out. Some people like to get out on the road and see what's out there. You can do it sober - I've had just as many bizarre times sober as I've had high.

SECONDS: How does sex help your musical creative process?

CHRIS ROBINSON: I've never really thought about that. I've never thought of The Black Crowes as having any sexual intrigue. We're the ugliest seven people you could ever get together.

SECONDS: I don't know. You're probably the only band that can use that sexy Rock Star swagger without coming off tacky.

CHRIS ROBINSON: I see what you're saying. Sex is a motivating factor, but to me, sex is something that's really controllable. If I'm single, then I don't have any responsibility to anyone. But I've had a girlfriend now for a while. Sex is something I don't think about except in terms of her. I don't associate being on stage and singing with a sexually charged thing. I see being on stage as a free thing, but I don't know what I could describe it as. I guess I wouldn't say it was overtly sexual. I feel it's more atmospheric.

SECONDS: What kind of girls are attracted to The Black Crowes?

CHRIS ROBINSON: I don't know. I guess you would have to ask them. I meet all sorts of different people. There's people our age, there's younger people, there's Hippies, there's straight-laced people, there's bikers, there's lawyers, there's doctors - I met a state trooper the other day who dug us. We have tremendous respect for those people. It's a low-paying tough gig. You don't want them around, but if something weird happens they're the first people you call. Imagine spending your days dealing with all the psychos. It must be pretty heavy.

SECONDS: Before you had a girlfriend, what was the most outrageous proposition you had?

CHRIS ROBINSON: Eh ... ask Bon Jovi that one.

SECONDS: What is a Rock Star today, and are you Rock Stars?

CHRIS ROBINSON: I'm a musician, but I'm a musician who people will like. Does that make me a Rock Star or does "Rock Star" mean I'm freakier than someone else? I think it's a convenient guise to not have to own up to anything. No one made you sign a record deal. No one comes to you. You go to clubs and you play and then someone might say, "Hey, let's do a tape." You do it for them, you sign a piece of paper ... it's pretty ludicrous at that point to say you didn't want it. If you don't want it, give back all the money and quit making music. I don't understand why that's an attractive pose to take.

SECONDS: On the other hand, you've got to say a guy like Kurt Cobain was unhappy with it. A Rock Star blows his face off - you can't make a bigger statement than that.

CHRIS ROBINSON: Yeah, but what about a guy like Richard Manuel from The Band who wrote some of the most beautiful lyrics I've ever heard who quietly hung himself with a brown leather belt from JC Penny in a hotel room in Florida? That guy made music a lot longer than Kurt Cobain.

SECONDS: Why do you think people freaked out about your Amorica cover?

CHRIS ROBINSON: You pick a picture for an album cover and the record company has a meeting with the people who own the record stores, who go, "We won't carry that!" Those people don't buy records anyway. It's ludicrous. Two weeks later, who cares? It's old news because somebody in Stone Temple Pilots stubbed their toe. People look at an album cover when the most intriguing thing is the songs.

SECONDS: What's the biggest misconception about The Crowes?

CHRIS ROBINSON: The thing that I hate is when I meet people and they go, "Man, I thought you guys were going to be uptight and mean." If you ask me something, don't you want me to answer honestly? Music is very passionate, so I become very passionate doing interviews, so the interviews come off really serious. That doesn't mean we're not a bunch of goofy guys with our own stupid jokes and own stupid characters. It's only different when you're up on stage or writing music. When you're sitting down with a pen and your notebook and you're writing lyrics, that's when I'm in my own personal place. When I put it down and go up to the record store, I'm just a guy buying records.

SECONDS: What's your relationship to Southern Rock?

CHRIS ROBINSON: It depends on what your definition is. I had this question asked a couple days ago: "Do you think Jackyl's giving Southern Rock a bad name?" I said I'd never even heard them. Do you not take the Allman Brothers as seriously because of Molly Hatchet? It depends on what way you call it. We are a Rock Band from the South, so it would be classified as "Southern Rock," but I don't think it falls into any cliché. The Allman Brothers are great because they encompass all sorts of American forms, most of which originated in the South.

SECONDS: You guys obviously never liked that Skynyrd fan type ...

CHRIS ROBINSON: Even the Allman Brothers. All through high school, I only listened to Cameo, Parliament-Funkadelic, Prince, the Bar Kays, but I always had stuff like Bob Dylan records and Blues records. Then we really started to get more into Punk Rock and started with the Clash and moved to Hardcore - Dead Kennedys, MDC - and that's when we started to go see other bands. There would be all-ages clubs with that type of music. Then, I would have never listened to the Allman Brothers. Led Zeppelin? That was dumb. But Dream Syndicate, Long Ryders, Rain Parade, the Replacements, those bands I really liked. I went back to listening to the Byrds and Buffalo Springfield, which lead back to the Allman Brothers. It's like Sly & The Family Stone is probably the single biggest influence on my music. I never get tired of hearing any of his records.

SECONDS: Who were some of the great forgotten bands you grew up on?

CHRIS ROBINSON: A band whose first few albums were really great was Poco. That live album, Deliverin', is unbelievable. I still think musicians our age aren't really hip to Little Feat. Lowell George, y'know ...

SECONDS: How do you and Rich get along as brothers? Is it ever you two against the rest of the band?

CHRIS ROBINSON: Not really. It changes as we get older. It takes a lot of energy to be angry at someone. The main thing about me and Rich is that if we had problems, then it would be impossible to get anything done, and we have got a lot of stuff done. I don't feel like there's anything to argue about because we all want the same thing, and that's just to be the best band we can be.