The Black Crowes: Join The Jubilee
By Team JamBase Feb 21, 2008 • 5:11 pm PST
Call out the instigators/ because there’s something in the air/ We’ve got to get together sooner or later/ because the revolution’s here/ And you know it’s right/ and you know that it’s right – Thunderclap Newman
 |
“The days of people even thinking about some sort of conscious revolution or taking back responsibility and putting it in our laps as fathers and artists and people in love with the universe, well, those days of talking about revolution or utopia are long gone,” says Chris Robinson, lead singer and one of the chief architects of the Crowes’ music with his younger sibling, guitarist-singer Rich Robinson. “So, the next place is to make that come from within. If you can get into that, find your ground and your place, then the community around you starts to feel that and then you’re making something from the ground up. And it’s handmade; it’s not something derived by some corporate means. It’s something we’re responsible for, the audience is responsible for, something you’re responsible for, whether you listen to it alone or with your friends.”
Warpaint is the rare combination of positivity and skepticism, often in the space of a single tune. It is the product of battered faith and surviving the rough, gnarled road to adulthood. Within this sphere of hard won maturity, they manage to carve out hope even when none seems present. Warpaint is the kind of record that makes you tear up and grin as it progresses, a friend on your turntable when no other can be found. In short, the sort of soul deep stuff The Black Crowes have been creating since they began 18 years ago. A thick coat of living now lies on top of their compelling recipe of blues grunt, folk lilt, R&B strut, country comfort and gospel reach salted with a dash of coliseum rock. Their latest is both the distillation of what has come before and the beginning of a new era.
Walk Believer Walk
Spend a few minutes talking with anyone in the band these days and you pick up on an electric current running between them. Their enthusiasm for sharing the new songs and new lineup with fans is palpable. Despite being almost two decades into the tough game of professional music, The Black Crowes sound like a bunch of delighted newbies to the biz.
 |
“With computers and everything else that forces you inward, and as information grows and as the technology to communicate with each other grows, the feeling of isolation comes more and more into play,” says Rich Robinson. “There needs to be a relatable force to people that really unites instead of divides. The beauty of relation – and music still does it – is it gets a mass group of people together to enjoy something simultaneously, which is a really heavy, faithful, spiritual thing.”
In 2008, The Black Crowes are comprised of the Robinson brothers, Steve Gorman (drums), Sven Pipien (bass, vocals) and new members Adam MacDougal (keyboards) and guitarist Luther Dickinson (North Mississippi Allstars). Beyond the lyrical bent, there’s a tremendous well of feeling to the playing of this configuration on Warpaint. Though a cliché, the fresh blood has clearly turned their collective crank.
“I remember sitting on the couch with Chris while Luther went over some guitar stuff, not even recording but just going over different possibilities for what the songs could be,” recalls Sven Pipien. “We were both slackjawed, staring at this guy and realizing he’s a true brother. The beauty of Luther is more than any note he’s playing is the feeling behind that note. He was saying exactly what we want to say, and the same thing goes for Adam. Eddie [Harsch, the Crowes ex-keyboardist] is not the easiest guy to replace but Adam is his own man AND he fills those shoes really well. Going on the road with this record is a super exciting prospect. I was talking to Chris the other day about it and we’re just beside ourselves to do this stuff live.”
 |
Rehearsals for the spring tour, which will take them to Australia, London, Amsterdam and all over the U.S., begin next week in New Jersey. This will be the live debut for this lineup but a feeling of foundational rightness has infected each of them, erasing the nerves you might expect given circumstances.
“We want to go out there and play for people who love the songs. We want to go out and play for us. It’s what we love to do, and it’s what we’ve been doing since we were teenagers,” Rich says. “Sometimes when new people come in it brings so many positive changes. Adam’s solo when we’ve been playing ‘Wiser Time’ is fucking great! It’s different but it fits and it’s great. We love that. Songs needs to be juiced for us and hopefully also for the people who come see us and support us.”
“Adam came in and tried out and everyone was impressed, but when we got into the studio everyone’s jaws dropped. Then we got on tour with him and were excited to see what he’d do,” Rich continues. “He comes in on the right moments similar to Ed but then takes it somewhere else when it’s not an integral part of the song. That first night he played the solo on ‘Wiser Time’ and it just made me so fucking happy.”
“One thing I appreciate about where we are is how we had the patience to NOT make a record last year,” says Chris. “With a little bit of time and a little bit of wisdom – a very little bit – comes real patience. A lot of stuff has changed. We went through so many things when we got the band back together [in 2004 after a nearly four-year hiatus], and the people who weren’t supposed to be here aren’t here. They had their choices and we had our choices. This thing is here and either we love and nurture it, and in return it gives back to us, or we fuck around with it and it becomes like black magic, and that’s something you don’t want to deal with.”
Continue reading for more on The Black Crowes…
 |
|
Pastoral
Warpaint was recorded at Allaire Studios in Upstate New York. The facility is quickly becoming a new Bearsville or Record Plant Studios. In the past few years it’s helped birth the debuts of Norah Jones and the Wood Bros, Ray LaMontagne’s Till The Sun Turns Black and My Morning Jacket’s Z, just to name a few. The remote location focuses everyone on the task at hand, and trace elements left behind by Bob Dylan, Robbie Robertson and others have clearly seeped into the water table. Warpaint handily joins this list of great releases, and no small part of the credit for the album’s cohesiveness and insight into their strengths and weaknesses belongs to producer (and temporary second guitarist for a spell) Paul Stacey.
“It’s got that whole Woodstock history, and it’s a beautiful atmosphere, beautiful views,” says Stacey. “The Internet’s rubbish up there and mobile phones don’t work well, and in a way that was good. We were kind of cut off communication-wise up there. There’s only one place we could all stand to get our cell phones working, so whenever I wondered where someone had got off to I’d find them standing there [laughs].”
“I thought of it as our little temple for three weeks. We were watching bears and turkeys run around the place, and beautiful sunsets,” says Chris. “And The Black Crowes do keep a fantastic cellar, if I do say so myself. There was no shortage of fine French wines. That’s just a fact. I’m one of those people that think even though F. Scott Fitzgerald lost everything he probably had a blast.”
“With technology and the way people make records today, they’re more interested in quick, easy results that can be had by pressing a button on a computer. Then you’re missing the most important thing, and the thing we celebrate after 18 years and a lot of recording and writing, which is the dynamic of the group, the dynamic of music and the balance within that,” says Chris. “All the tracks were recorded live. We used Pro-Tools but used it as a seamless sort of thing. There’s very few overdubs compared to the last few Crowes records. The first couple things we cut we instantly knew. You don’t know until you get in there, especially with a group like ours that’s super temperamental and sensitive and weird and egocentric. We got in there and realized this is the part of our story I’ve been looking forward to for a long time. If there was any bit of it that had turned out tedious or contrived then it all falls. And then The Black Crowes fall because we’re not the kind of people who are just going to play our catalog.”
“You can really tell the difference this setting made,” comments Rich. “Lions was really a Lower East Side [NYC] record. We made it on Attorney Street and Rivington in 2000. There’s plenty of that place in there. Southern Harmony [1992] and Shake Your Moneymaker [their 1990 debut] were made in Atlanta. Amorica [1994] does feel like L.A. to me. You draw from the place where you are. I’ve always wanted to go to Europe and record in Italy or France just to see what it’s like.”
 |
“Not to say there aren’t dark moments but I think, overall, this was permeated by light,” observes Pipien. “Chris put words to what we were all feeling. There’s not a word on this record I disagree with.”
Chris Robinson has long been a poetic and consciously clever lyricist but there’s an emotional depth on Warpaint that boils tough concepts down to a few potent words that knock at your heart, like on “Locust Street” where the sunrise finds Robinson singing, “Just a glimpse of what love could be/ Once a dream that I owned/ One of many lonely, longing souls/ At least I’m not alone.”
“It’s one thing to say those things but the poignancy of that song is he understands them. It’s not trite. He really did feel those things, and turn some corners in his life and had the experiences to come up with these lyrics. It’s not just lines,” says Pipien. “It’s easy to come up with stereotypical bullshit. The fact that his words come from honest, real experience translates and the listener feels that.”
The Crowes are a rare exception in these rush rush times, slowing down periodically to really sink into the music in an almost contemplative way. Until someone smartly puts the brakes on like this it’s easy to miss how much music just speeds past. They grip the reins tight, using their considerable power with focused restraint, letting it loose at all the right moments.
“If you rush by something people will miss the lack of craftsmanship. It’s much harder to take it slow,” comments Rich. “To record live like we did is also exposed. We go in there and focus on the craft of singing, the craft of playing and the craft of putting it all together, which is getting lost.”
“The mid-tempo rock song, we’re the last people in the world playing them” laughs Chris. “I wonder what the stud fee on an animal like that is? We’ve always liked that world. That’s always been a good place for us, and when we pick it up and rock then it means a little more. Anyone can write a rock song but you have to write a good rock song. The Stones from ’68-’72 are the best example of that. Even ‘Bitch’ from Sticky Fingers is slow.”
“If there’s a turn-of-phrase or an idea that works for you then I’ve hopefully really done my job,” continues Chris. “Lyrically, all the songs on Warpaint came to me very easily in a big bunch. Warpaint manifested itself in a super organic, quick fashion. The whole idea of making this record was to be able to go out and play these songs.”
Continue reading for more on The Black Crowes…
 |
|
Photo by Jay Blakesberg
One Mirror Too Many
The Black Crowes may forever be dogged by comparisons to past classic rock acts. What’s largely misunderstood about them is how they draw from the spirit and tone of earlier artists they admire but consciously strive to create something of their own, even within a realm as naturally and necessarily derivative as rock ‘n’ roll.
 |
“When people would compare us to the Stones I’d think, ‘Have you heard Amorica?’ There’s nothing like the Stones on there, and the same thing is true for Three Snakes, where they still kept comparing us to the Stones,” adds Rich. “When you’re younger that shit matters, then you realize, ‘fuck it. People get it or they don’t.’ The people who don’t will never understand us.”
“I’ve never really understood The Faces thing. We never had that ‘good times’ feel,” says Chris. “The Faces were kind of silly at times. They had great stuff and Rod Stewart was a fucking incredible talent at the time, but our band has always had an art school leaning to our fuckin’ country rock, psychedelic, blues vibe.”
Despite a penchant for AC/DC, who the band once saluted with an opening set on Halloween with the Crowes dressed in Angus schoolboy attire, there’s remarkably little bloke/pub rock feel to what the Crowes do. When they crank it up things tend to get seriously weird or just plain nasty. For them, amplification isn’t a sledgehammer, it’s a finely tuned power drill, boring holes in facades and letting the dark matter inside burble up.
“It’s very ambitious music. We want people to listen to it, but we’re just in a better place,” remarks Chris. “If some radio station or any format or genre anyplace wants to play our music we’re grateful and humbled by that. But, we’re not going to be anything we’re not to make that happen.”
“Coming out of the ’80s, we came from a place of The Replacements mindset,” says Steve Gorman. “We made Shake Your Moneymaker but we weren’t thinking about things the way the Stones or The Faces or anyone else they said we were ripping off did. We thought we were The Replacements. It was fun, a little stupid, but real. I wanted to be in a band. I never wanted to be a musician. That’s The Replacements thing.”
“We’ve never been interested in having a Top 40 record. We’ve never been interested in changing the way we looked or sounded to fit into modern rock or whatever people thought that was. To me, it’s just silly. I like some pop music but that’s not what I am and that’s not what we are. It’s not what we were and it’s not what we’re going to be,” asserts Chris. “It’s all about living it. I always felt that even as a kid. I’m not impressed with easy answers, and I’m not impressed with somebody else pretending their decision would behoove me. I’m not letting people who don’t live MY life tell me how to be an artist or how to be creative, and especially how to make music. I have no one to answer to but the muse itself.”
Dirty Hair Halo
 |
“It was definitely a change for us. We delved more into the jamming aspect of it, which hadn’t been there as much before. It was definitely a transitional thing but as a band all these different approaches gave us a shot to get into it more,” recalls Rich. “However, playing like that during the Further Festival, we came out of it wanting to make rock ‘n’ roll records.”
Another thing, besides their occasional forays into uncharted instrumental waters, that’s endeared them to the jam world is their freak-streak, which surfaces like aromatic lubrication in the hips of their extended takes on Otis Redding’s “Hard To Handle” (which would echo Pigpen-era Grateful Dead on some nights) and new cuts like “We Who See The Deep.”
“That’s part of playing in those mid-tempo places. That’s where a lot of funk and R&B was born, whether it’s The Meters, the Isley Brothers or Funkadelic,” observes Chris. “It’s called backbeat everybody. Don’t let your computers tell you where the ‘one’ is.”
Continue reading for more on The Black Crowes…
 |
|
Photo by Jay Blakesberg
 |
“Well, look where we are. Grow your hair long and wear some dirty clothes and see how you get stared at and spit at. People will hate you in America no matter how famous they might think you are. We live in a time where it’s the same shit [as the ’60s]. Don’t let the powers that be tell you that you can’t live the way you want,” barks Chris. “It’s a cliché and it’s kind of tongue-in-cheek, but long hair doesn’t cost a thing. In a weird way, wearing clothes from a fucking Salvation Army means more than going to a Gap or wearing designer clothes right now. There’s all these things now from eating organic foods to not putting pesticides in your home. It’s about lifestyle and choices and these things don’t have anything to do with status. That is mirrored in our music from early on till now. It’s just become more refined. I know which parts of it retain their worth now.”
“It’s funny talking about how Warpaint has this independent, defiant stance,” continues Chris. “Culturally, we start to mirror that. The music industry starts to mirror that corporate interference and the lack of any sort of direction or judgment other than profit. So, they say that music is over but maybe that’s because it’s what the industry turned it into. Those of us who’ve fallen through the cracks have made our own place. And you know what? That place is what this record sounds like.”
Movin’ On Down The Line
 |
In no small way, they think of themselves as the keepers of a flame lit a long time ago by Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis and the countless bluesmen and barrelhouse cowboys before them.
“I remember a moment Luther and I had in the studio where I told him how I feel so privileged to be part of this thing that seems to be the last great gasp of what rock ‘n’ roll is. We almost came to tears with that realization,” says Pipien. “It was such a beautiful experience, and sad too, because why is it the last gasp? Sure, there are other folks doing this but it comes down to meaning it in your bones. Everything else is trite bullshit.”
Warpaint is refreshingly free of premeditation. This is music for the sake of music, unconcerned by videos, radio play or any of the other industry trappings that cloud genuine invention. For better or worse, this is The Black Crowes at their purest.
“If we worried about that other crap then we would have been shortchanging the creative part. Then we would be like all the other bands worried about those things,” says Chris. “I’ve always ever worried about one thing, and that’s raising the bar as much as we could with our talent, our musicianship, our writing, and getting out on the road and giving it to people.”
“The thing is either this band goes away or it goes on for another 20 years. Truly. This record is the crossroads for us in terms of what it means to be playing music in the world right now. At the end of the day, it’s kind of where we started,” concludes Chris. “I do this because I love it. I don’t do it because it’s all there is to do. That’s why we’ve chosen this path as opposed to anybody else’s path. That’s why we’ve put it all on our shoulders and accepted the responsibility of our fuck-ups and our successes, our pain and our pleasure. When it works it sounds like Warpaint.”
Check out The Black Crowes’ video for “Daughters of the Revolution” on YouTube…
To find out where the Crowes fly next, check their tour dates here…
JamBase | United States of Amorica
Go See Live Music!
