Retro Ranger
Keyboard Magazine
October, 1996
 

"Being interviewed by KEYBOARD is cool, but I'll know I've made it when I
get the call from GUNS & AMMO"

Not just any great musician can fly with the Black Crowes. Ask Eddie
Harsch. When he stepped into the Crowes' keyboard chair five years ago,
it was Chuck Leavell's boat-like shoes he had to fill. But it was more
than just great chops, Crowe-approved looks, and a recommendation from
Leavell that landed him the coveted gig.

GETTING THE GIG. "Chuck played on their first record," says Eddie of
Leavell, "and they were trying to get him to join the band, but Clapton
wanted him to go on tour. So one night he says, 'Eddie, you'd be great for
the Crowes.'"

Summarily, Eddie booked a flight to Atlanta to meet up with the Crowes on
the set of a video shoot. On his first night there, "Nobody even talked
to me. I was invisible. But on the second night, Johnny [Colt, bass player]
came up to me and said something like, 'Dude, you're that keyboard
player? Wanna go for a drink?' So we went to the Gold Club [Atlanta
adult establishment], and some dude jumped on Johnny...sucker-punched him.
A giant fight broke out, and I ended up on top of this guy, pummelin'.
The next day Johnny went back to the Crowes with a report: 'I don't know
if this guy can play, but he can fight, and that's good enough for me!"

Eddie did have to play, eventually, but one quick two-song audition was
all it took: "You're in."

THE ROAD TO THE CROWES. Before he was a Crowe, Eddie honed his chops in
Canada, pigging out on a steady diet of ELP and Deep Purple. "I was a
Keith Emerson freak!" Harsch remembers the day he came face-to-face
with his hero backstage at a concert. "When I met him, it was like
'Carl Palmer, get out of my way, man. I'm talking to Keith here!'"
[Laughs.] During that divine visit, Harsch presented Emerson with a
handful of self-penned ELP transcriptions. "The very first thing Keith
says to me is, 'Mistake there in bar 1. That should be a rest.' I was
crushed."

Bruised but not undeterred by the whipping, Eddie went on to honor his
hero by forming an ELP clone band called PhD. "I listen to those old tapes
now, and, you know, that stuff isn't all that bad for 22-year old kids."
Update: "We're going to print some [PhD] CDs up," Eddie informs us.
"Some guy in New York is putting together all this unknown progressive
rock stuff from the '80s." We'll bring you the details as they unfold.

Eventually Eddie traded his prog chops for the blues, moving across the
border to Chicago, where he joined harmonica great James Cotton's band.
Eddie was hard to forget during those days, especially since he "was the
only white guy onstage," and a tall, towering one at that. During his
six-year-plus-tenure with Cotton, Harsch sat in from time to time with
Muddy Waters, and eventually landed in blues legend Albert Collins'
band. Chuck Leavell caught Eddie's act at a Collins gig one night, and
that led to the Black Crowes recommendation and audition.

WORST TEENAGE PRANK. Keith Emerson was Moog man, and, no surprise, so was Eddie Harsch. But how did Eddie score his first Mini? "I'm not
proud to say this, but I stole it. That's how bad I wanted one back
then. It was an elaborate scheme--very "Mission Impossible". I rented
it from a gear rental place, paid a month's rent on it, and then later
snuck in and took the original rental contract so they wouldn't know who
they rented it to. Terrible, I know." When Harsch's house burned down
a few years later, he felt the karma gods had settled the score.

THREE SNAKES & ONE CHARM. Today, some five years and three albums since joining the flock, Eddie is flyin'. It's his gnarly organ swipe that
opens the Crowes' new southern-fried platter, "Three Snakes & One Charm"
(American Recordings)--and there's plenty more musical grease where that
came from. Tasty piano, vintage EP, and righteous organ riffs are all
over this record. But Eddie never steps too far to the forefront,
opting instead to splash occasional colors or weave smooth textures in
and around the band's guitar-heavy attack.

"Making this record wasn't anything out of the ordinary, really," says
Eddie, "except the basic tracks were cut in a house in Atlanta. It
wasn't a Chili Peppers-type thing, though. It wasn't a mansion. I
mean, we didn't have a room big enough to fit the whole band in. We
were literally sitting on top of each other."

As with previous Crowes records, the Robinson brothers, Chris and Rich,
supplied the lion's share of the songwriting. "When we got to Atlanta,"
says Eddie, "Chris and Rich put us in a room and played us the demos.
The record was basically written. Twelve songs with vocals, dogs
barking in the background, everything. We just looked at each other,
like, 'What do you want us to do? It's all here." Turns out, there was
plenty to do. Harsch eventually relocated to Ocean Way studios in L.A.
and overdubbed track after track of keyboard material, including an
honest-to-goodness celeste part on the song, "How Much For Your Wings?"

TOUR REHEARSALS. A week before their first series of summer dates, the
Crowes commandeered the main rehearsal stage at Third Encore in North
Hollywood. There was a strange smell in the air--an
incense-meets-burritos type aroma--but the KEYBOARD crew soaked up the
sneak-preview performance like a sponge. An unexpected highlight came
during a break when all in attendance gathered around a small back box
to witness the unveiling of the band's '96/'97 stage set--a beauty of a
glow-in-the-dark wonderland complete with inflatable mushrooms, towering
orange cattails, and a big black spider that drops from the scaffolding.
"That was my brainchild," beamed singer Chris Robinson of the spider gag.
Excellent.

ON THE ROAD AGAIN. By the time this issue hits the stands, the Crowes
will be well into their '96 tour. Barring any unforeseen health
problems or synth repossession incidents, they plan to tour for months,
maybe years. Be sure to check out Eddie, stage right, flailing behind
his B-3, Rhodes, Wurly, and Korg SG-1. No Moogs this time out.