High-Flying Hitmakers Are At It Again
By Rex Rutkoski
The Music Paper
August, 1992
 

Chris Robinson doesn't have the franchise passion in The Black Crowes.

Listen to Crowes bassist Johnny Colt talk about this Atlanta-based
band who, with only their first album, solidified a reputation for
doing things their way:

"Our music has a life all its own," says Colt. "It breathes, smiles,
grinds. It defecates and it screams and we can't always control it or
[laughs] ourselves. Some people say, 'Why do you go overboard?' How
can you go overboard or too far with anything this important to you?
You're dealing with people's souls."

After taking the music world by their Southern storm of blues-based
rock with Shake Your Money Maker, their debut 1990 album which sold
more than five million copies, The Crowes have returned with The Southern
Harmony And Musical Companion (Def American). The album debuted in
Billboard at Number One. The Shake Your Money Maker album, considered
a sleeper in the industry, took 54 weeks to break into the Top Five.
The album peaked at Number Four and was still on the charts 100-plus
weeks later in June of 1992. "Remedy," the lead track from the new
album, topped Billboard's album rock charts for several weeks.

The Crowes were named best New American Band in Rolling Stone's Critics
And Readers Poll. They earned a Grammy Nomination, two MTV Awards and,
on their first tour, played 350 dates to more than five million people.
This is a band, writes Terry Southern in the liner notes to The
Southern Harmony and Musical Companion, "generally thought of as having
replaced the Rolling Stones."

Colt is not sure why Money Maker was able to do what it did. "I really
don't know," he says. "When we made that record we were really making
that record ourselves. I think it's a great record, certainly, for a
first time out."

The new album, says Colt, has a lot of stretch marks and growing pains
on it, "but that's what our life is like. I think it's an important
record. I would say that even if I wasn't in the band. We made an
important record. I'll leave that word 'important' open ended. Let
others figure that out. We did exactly what we wanted to do, sticking
to our guns. The record company's not telling us what to do. Just us."

While the mega-success of the first album may have purchased that
freedom, Colt cautions, "That freedom is great, but it's hard. It
takes a lot to earn it and a lot to keep it. It's really hard to be
honest all the time. You get misinterpreted, people misunderstand you."

Often, it seems, lead singer and lyricist Chris Robinson has been at
the center of that misunderstanding. Colt says Robinson is "very much
like Don Quixote, but he is truly carrying our flag."

The band is no fan of corporate sponsorship. In fact, The Crowes were
kicked off the ZZ Top tour last year when Robinson refused to stop
criticizing the beer company that sponsored it. And they have no kind
words about the increasing corporatization of the record business,
including people with business degrees making artistic decisions.

The Crowes also pointed their collective finger at some leading rock
groups for using back-up tapes during concerts. Robinson has said,
"I'd like to think we represent something that's not in abundance, like
a real, live, breathing, rock 'n' roll band."

"We're trying to be honest. I'm not saying we always are. No one can
be. We are trying," says Colt. "It's hard. We are not holding back.
We say what we think. Sometimes it may make us look like assholes-
and maybe we are sometimes. We are just people who love music. There
was music being played before people spoke. It's always been there. It
is spiritual. There are societies where the whole society's spirituality
is based around music. The only way my life stays in balance is if I
can play."

Much is being made of the fact that The Crowes recorded their new album
in just eight days. But, says Colt, "that was 22 months on the road and
years before that knowing each other and spending every day on the bus
together and listening to the same albums and doing sound checks. It is
eight days just to harness, for a moment, all that time."

While other bands might be able to learn from that approach, Colt says,
"You don't preach about it. If it takes someone two years, that's what
it takes. The Stones made some amazing records taking two years.
Whatever you need to get your gig done. Who knows how long?"

Everyone in The Crowes has improved as a musician and artist, he says,
"and the songwriting has improved so much. The goal with the album was
to be ourselves, to be everything we could be, really capture a moment
in time. This is basically a live record, which is what we wanted to do;
really be ourselves as much as we possibly could be."

Colt offers this description of the recording sessions:

"It's a band. We're all holed up in a room, a big room, literally
thrashing out this music which is coming from the heart. There are a
lot of fights, but from the heart. Rich [Robinson, Chris' brother]
writes amazing songs. As a songwriter, he's way ahead of himself in
years. He is becoming so skilled in songwriting. You realize what
your parts are, whether you are playing drums [Steve Gorman], bass or
guitar [Marc Ford]. The awareness is just so heightened you want to
raise the level of hte song and play to the level of the song. You
had to be the best you could be [in the sessions].

"Rich comes in with music. Chris is getting words together. But it's
not that cut and dried. There is a lot going on, a lot of grey area.
They come in with the heart of it. The job for Steve or Marc or me is
to play the heaviest groove possible. That's a job in itself. If you
want to be great at it, you just specialize in it. I'm there to cop
the biggest groove possible for the songs. That's the way things work.
Don't pass the hat. That's not for us."

The musicians sense that there is a special feeling in the band about
being Southern. "We all have a vibe about being Southern. It's
Southern not in the way people think. It's not rednecks," Colt says,
laughing. "The idea of the Southern gentleman is a beautiful thing.
There is a lot of pride and values down there and people are strong-
willed. I think it is a passionate place. My family has always been
from there. If someone says people in the South are racist, I say go
to Boston where people fight whether they are Catholic or Italian or
black or white. It's not like you think down there. There is racism
everywhere, period.

"I think there is a family tradition and stuff in the South, not in
the normal sense, maybe spiritually. Strong and great people have come
from there. We have pride, and a lot of things come out of the South.
It doesn't mean we are waving the rebel flag. It's a whole other
thing. There's so much beauty, down to the food they cook and the
houses. Those are beautiful moments of life that really are disappearing."

As for The Black Crowes' moments on the concert stage, Colt advises
audiences not to expect a note-for-note rehash of their records. "I have
a beef, since TV and all these things, and I am one of the people- I'm
not being hypocritical- where if you watch TV all your life, your
attention span gets shortened," he says. "Sitcoms, commercials,
Nitendo; music seems to follow that. You go to some concerts and the
bands feel they've got to do a lot of stuff to keep people's attention,
including playing four-minute songs. I'm not mentioning any names. Our
stage looks like Chris' basement in his house. We are just playing the
songs. We jam. They are open-ended. We don't play the same set every
night. Certainly we don't play them at the same speed. If you see the
show, I want you to have something with us. That night was tha night and
that night only."

Colt's and the band's quest for honesty seems to have application to
their view of success too. "When I was younger, I thought success
would be a certain thing. I never exactly knew what it would be," Colt
says. "Now I have some things I always wanted, and just as many things
as I have, I want new ones. It's just that thing of chasing. Success
for me is to be the most honest person I can be. If I'm honest, I can
be the most honest musician I can be. It's like anything. It takes work."