Black Crowes Following "Croweology" Set, Tour With Indefinite Hiatus
By David Fricke
April 20, 2010
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/newsThe Black Crowes are celebrating the 20th anniversary of their multiplatinum debut album, 1990's
Shake Your Moneymaker, with new music and a major U.S. tour, then a disappearing act. In August, they will release a studio album,
Croweology, a two-disc set of fresh acoustic recordings of hits and deep-catalog songs from across the band's career. That month, the Crowes also embark on a four-month tour, performing three-hour concerts nightly, divided into acoustic and electric sets. But after the final dates, six nights in December at the Fillmore in San Francisco, the Crowes' current lineup - the founding brothers, singer Chris and guitarist Rich Robinson, original drummer Steve Gorman, bassist Sven Pipien, guitarist Luther Dickinson and keyboard player Adam MacDougall - are going on an indefinite hiatus. The official title of the tour: "Say Goodnight to the Bad Guys."
"Two years, five years, 10 years - you never know when you jump into the void," Chris says cheerfully, when asked how long he expects the band to be away. "This cycle we've been on has been incredible. Since the summer of '07, when we made
Warpaint, it's been the three most fulfilling years I've ever had with this band.
"But if we kept going, we might be playing with fate too much," he adds. "It would be nice to have a 30th anniversary. But we should walk away from this while everyone's in a good mood."
"Plus, we all have babies," says Rich. "I'm expecting one any day now. Chris and Luther just had kids. It seemed like a good time. To me, 'hiatus' means there is no plan. We haven't said, 'Let's get back together in 2012.' And we haven't said, 'Let's not.'"
This is not the first time the Crowes have officially dispersed. The group broke up in 2002, exhausted by 12 years of touring, fighting with record companies, turbulent personnel changes and the Robinsons' famously volatile relationship. "We should have taken that break in 1997," Chris admits. "We could have taken two years off, and it probably would have changed everything. Sometimes I'm surprised we got back in '05. But this time, it is more of an insurance that we don't get into those places. We can go away, but it doesn't all slip away and feel final."
"It really is just life stuff," Gorman insists. "My dad had an interesting way of saying things, like, 'If you squeeze the puppy too hard, you'll kill it.' That's how I felt the last time. It's nice now, to be able to stand shoulder to shoulder, looking in the same direction and say, 'See ya when I see ya.' "
The idea for an acoustic record came up last year, during discussions about how to mark the anniversary of
Moneymaker. The Crowes have done unplugged segments in their concerts, on and off, since the late Nineties. But the spark for
Croweology was two all-acoustic shows the band played in 2008, at New York's Town Hall. "We captured something different," Rich recalls. "We wanted to see if we could do something more with that concept." They did it fast too: The group cut
Croweology live in the studio, in five days, at Sunset Sound in Los Angeles. "Most of Chris' vocals are live," Rich points out. "He was just doing scratch vocals, but they sounded cool."
Rich cites the new arrangement of "My Morning Song," from 1992's
The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion as one of his favorite surprises on
Croweology. "It's a song we play all the time, but we felt it become something different and exciting." Even the
Moneymaker hit "Jealous Again", he says, "had a new life in that format. Actually, this is heavy for an acoustic record, more like
Led Zeppelin III."
Gorman has another comparison. "The best rock & roll song, in my opinion," he says, "is Rod Stewart's 'Every Picture Tells a Story.' That's an acoustic song. But the drums are thumping. The whole thing is a chug. That,
Zeppelin III, the Rolling Stones'
Beggars Banquet - those were our reference points. This is a surprisingly uptempo record."
"We're definitely going to play a lot of Crowes songs," Chris says of the fall shows, "but this record is the mantle." The Crowes will open each night with a 90-minute acoustic set, then play another 90 minutes of electric music. "But those songs we play acoustic one night, we can switch and play electric, completely different the next night." There is a pause - you can practically hear the light bulb going off over his head. "We could do one set acoustic, and play that exact set electric the next night." He laughs. "There's still people out there who want their minds flipped - and that's what we're into."
Neither Robinson has a specific plan of action ready for the hiatus, although Chris, for whom perpetual motion is a way of life, has already been busy on the outside this year. He sang with Furthur, the Grateful Dead side trip of Bob Weir and Phil Lesh, at Lesh's 70th-birthday show in San Francisco in March. Robinson has also produced an album by the band Truth and Salvage Co., out in May. "For me, when I hear ' break,'" he says, "I instantly think of producing records, doing shows. Who can I play with? Let's jam." Rich is looking forward to devoting more time to his other art form - painting - and doing movie scores.
When asked what he thinks the Crowes achieved in the 20 years since
Shake Your Moneymaker, Robinson declares triumphantly, "Chalk one up for the weirdos. We live in an age where everyone else is trying to aggressively own the middle. They'll do anything to be more popular." But why go away when the going is so great? "All the great bands take breaks from each other," Chris contends. "The Stones should have done it more. But if this record we made all of a sudden is the most popular thing in the world, we're never going away! Are you kidding?"
And if it isn't?
"Like I said, it's not a final thing."
