![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/8ced44fbb55456f1e0284a55babacb5db4-blackcrows-horizontal.rhorizontal.w700.jpg\")
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Superlatives<\/a><\/p>\n \n A Vulture series in which artists judge the best and worst of their own careers.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cYou see a lot of kids and they\u2019re like, I canceled my shows because I\u2019m having a mental health issue. And I\u2019m like, Jesus, the whole nineties was a mental health issue for us.\u201d Chris Robinson is a bit bemused at the idea of a column being dedicated to legacy musicians, even if his own band, the Black Crowes<\/a>, released their swaggering debut album 36 years ago and are now eligible for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. \u201cBasically, it\u2019s just for anyone over 40 then?\u201d he asks. \u201cI mean, I\u2019m far older than that. I find it weird looking back. Rock and roll is different from pop music.\u201d The front man even does his best impression of today\u2019s \u201cHot 100\u201d artists to further his point: \u201cThey\u2019re like, I have a billion streams and now I have my own chicken restaurant. Oh my God, I can\u2019t wait until the next album. They must be so busy with biscuit recipes. Or, This is my new energy drink and this is a credit card commercial. Hey, man, it\u2019s capitalism. I dig it. It\u2019s funny because there\u2019s a juxtaposition. It really brings into sharp focus the difference in generations.\u201d<\/p>\n Robinson, together with his brother, Rich, have been the two continuous Black Crowes members throughout their turbulent history \u2014 unapologetic stewards who carried the tradition of American rock music during a transitional period for the genre. (Even if they were, ahem, a bit hard to handle<\/a> for some people.) Now they\u2019re having another big year. The band\u2019s tenth album, A Pound of Feathers, was released earlier this March, and they\u2019ve been nominated a second time for the Rock Hall among a particularly stacked ballot<\/a> of contenders. And like their relentless touring schedules of the past, the brothers will traverse the world for several months in support of the album. Robinson promises, above all else, that the Black Crowes remain one of the best visceral experiences you can find in music. \u201cPerfection,\u201d he says, \u201chas never been what we\u2019re looking for around here.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Rich would probably give you a different answer. I hate to say it, but \u201cCursed Diamond\u201d from Amorica is an open wound of a song. Our balladry is one of our strongest suits. It\u2019s funny that we had a hit with \u201cShe Talks to Angels,\u201d and then as the years went by, people were like, They\u2019re a rock band. They sound like the Rolling Stones. I think some of our ballads get lost in the mix. \u201cCursed Diamond\u201d is funny that way because it starts as a ballad but then moves into this mid-tempo riff. A lot of our songs are romantic \u2014 a dark romance. Certain creatives among us grew up in a time where if it\u2019s not passion to the point of madness, especially with young love, it doesn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cThorn in My Pride\u201d from Southern Harmony. It has to do, simply, with the groove of the song. That song expanded from the record. We were playing it a little bit live before that album was released in 1991, but it extended to where the drums changed the groove and I can play harmonica. It\u2019s anything that makes me want to dance. As the years go by, your crowd gets older. There\u2019s more sitting down at concerts in general, not just with the Black Crowes. People are on their phones looking at other things. I\u2019m like, It must be nice. I\u2019m not great at acting. It sounds New Age-y, but I need their energy.<\/p>\n Especially early in our career, if I was depressed or going through something and the crowd wasn\u2019t with it, I would lash out. It\u2019s not like that now, of course. I found a deeper emotional vocabulary than lashing out. It\u2019s still available if I need it, but I really do need everyone in there. It\u2019s also reciprocal. The cerebral part of rock and roll is not why I got into it. It has to be a full, physical thing. That\u2019s hard to define. I\u2019ve walked off stages going, Oh my God, that was the fucking best, and no one says a word. And I\u2019ve walked off stages thinking that was dog shit, and people would be like, That was amazing. So it\u2019s a hard thing to quantify.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cProfane Prophecy\u201d on our new record. Rich plays all the guitars and bass on that track \u2014 it\u2019s an open G riff. Rich loves Keith Richards, Nick Drake, and Stephen Stills. People who played in open tunings. But Rich alone is a very unique guitar player. We were listening to Mississippi Fred McDowell the other day and having a little blues moment. His slide playing was really important to us growing up. We love that country blues. A lot of people would listen to Mississippi Fred McDowell and then play every note, but Rich didn\u2019t give a fuck about that. Rich took what he liked and how it made him feel. He can incorporate some of it, but he wasn\u2019t interested in playing the exact thing.<\/p>\n It\u2019s the same with all of his influences. Rich didn\u2019t want to play regular blues. We didn\u2019t sit around learning \u201cStairway to Heaven.\u201d We just started writing songs. I think that\u2019s the core of Rich\u2019s uniqueness. You can see things that inspired him, but he always had a singular thing. Also, his right hand is the best drummer in the world. We\u2019ve had a lot of members in the band, but the one thing is if you\u2019re going to be in the Black Crowes, our rhythm section is driving everything. Rich really is the drummer and everyone else is playing to Rich, even our drummer. There\u2019s a few people who can do that rhythmically, but I don\u2019t know if they do it as profoundly as he does.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Three Snakes and One Charm, our fourth record. Maybe people can now start digging deeper into Black Crowes, find that record, and be like, Oh, wow. The band has benefited and suffered from this whole dynamic that it\u2019s not exactly what you think it is. We\u2019re not a \u201csouthern rock blues band.\u201d Those are things that stuck because the average person has a few sentences to write about your life\u2019s work, and they truly aren\u2019t that imaginative and they\u2019re lazy, too. We\u2019re a blues, bass-rock band from the South, and because of the element of roots music in us, it has a southern vibe. That\u2019s the nature of it. Three Snakes was us being young artists \u2014 young musicians who were unaware of the pressures around us to continue to feed the machine.<\/p>\n It\u2019s almost like the movie Quest for Fire. These Neanderthal types of people have to take fire because they don\u2019t know how to make fire unless they have it from lightning. But they keep it in this little thing, and they\u2019ve been chased out of their cave by other people. In some ways, that flame they\u2019re saving, that\u2019s me and Rich in the way we feel about music. We\u2019ve never lost that kind of wide-eyedness. We believe in the magic of it. It should be read like mythology. It\u2019s not a black-and-white narrative. We tapped into it and committed ourselves to this as young people, but we were always searching for that purity. Three Snakes was just where we were at the time. The first six years of the Black Crowes were insane to process. 1989 to 1996 wasn\u2019t a great expansive time, but we did a lot of living. We went from being these kids in our hometown to being out in the world and being in a very adult world in terms of our expectations all meeting the criteria on that record. But at the time, we would get hit with a lot of, \u201cWhere\u2019s \u2018Jealous Again\u2019?\u201d \u201cWhere\u2019s \u2018Remedy\u2019?\u201d I love the record because of that. It was an incredibly fruitful time in terms of where we were creatively.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n It was a real turning point at the end of the \u201990s when we made By Your Side. We had signed with Columbia Records, and it wasn\u2019t a good fit. I thought the people there were horrible, like Donny Ienner. Tommy Mottola thought he was a gangster. They were unimaginably boring. But we were put in a situation to make this record, and I\u2019ll always remember it as being kind of heartbreaking. Up until that point, I was always available to hear things. Oh, you didn\u2019t sing that right. You\u2019re out of key on that. But the lyrics have always been my place. This is what I want to say. To be honest, I don\u2019t take a lot of criticism about lyrics because I feel that\u2019s my domain. When we were working on the title song from the record, I remember sitting in the studio when one the worst people in the music business, John Kalodner, was like, \u201cI don\u2019t like the chorus.\u201d Originally, the chorus was, \u201cIf it ever stops raining, we can dry our eyes.\u201d I repeated \u201cif it ever stops raining\u201d a few times. That was the first time the other guys in the band were like, \u201cYeah, dude, redo it.\u201d And I was like, \u201cOh, okay. Really? You guys are so easily swayed by trying to please the corporate entities of these people who could give a rat\u2019s ass about what we do and what we are if they could just make a little bit of money.\u201d<\/p>\n I get it. That\u2019s the nature of the business. But I liked trying to be more subversive within that. Romantic na\u00efvet\u00e9. These are my themes. But everyone voted me out and made me redo it. So I went home and rewrote the chorus to \u201cBy Your Side.\u201d I had the verses and it was like, When all your friends are fake, it seems like it\u2019s a song to bring us together. I\u2019ll be by your side. It\u2019s completely cynical now. I did it as like a \u201cfuck you\u201d to my partners in the band and my brother. It\u2019s subtle, but in my way. I realized we\u2019ve run aground here in some philosophical way. Again, to a normal person, what\u2019s the big deal? But to me, it was crushing. The only people who benefited from me changing those lyrics was my coke dealer at the time.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n We shied away from the showbiz rock-and-roll thing, and I think that\u2019s why our music and the musicianship got better. I was always pushing toward \u2026 well, we should be in a place as a band where everyone\u2019s more free. That\u2019s what we did. The song \u201cWiser Time\u201d fits that idea well. On the record, the song has a keyboard solo, a Rich guitar solo, and a pedal-steel solo. So it was already a vehicle for something special in the solo section. We play it more like the record version now, but there were certain times where the keyboard player could just be nebulous and play however long he wanted. When you\u2019re done, just look up and we\u2019ll go to the next guy, stop the whole song to kind of reboot, and then let everyone find their way. In the old band, some nights it would be reaching heavenly heights, and some nights maybe we\u2019ll just be at base camp. If you\u2019re not trying, then you\u2019re not getting anywhere. It\u2019s the same thing today. We\u2019re one of the last bands where there\u2019s no laptops on our stage. We don\u2019t play facing mechanical computers. We don\u2019t even have in-ear monitors. That goes back to it being a visceral thing as opposed to like, Oh, well, everyone else is doing it. This will make it neat.<\/p>\n None, never. Those people were so far away from what we were doing and living the life that we lived. Critics never meant anything to me. I mean, if they liked it, then that would be better. If they didn\u2019t, it would just be like, Of course you don\u2019t. There\u2019s no hostility, that\u2019s just the fact. It\u2019s the same thing as today where everyone is so happy and clean. You didn\u2019t come up in clubs where people threw shit at you and said you suck because you opened for somebody. Or the dirty reality of life before becoming liked. No one got a record. I\u2019ll be honest with you, a lot of times in the \u201980s, the bands that were popular that played fraternities and had big followings didn\u2019t get record deals. It was the weirdo kids like us who weren\u2019t great, but we had something cooking. The cauldron was bubbling and people could see the potential. It wasn\u2019t put together by grown adults. It was kids doing it and trying to dig deeper into what it could be. And it\u2019s still the same. I don\u2019t care. Who are you to say you like the food at this restaurant and I should go eat there? The fuck are you? I\u2019ll trust myself and my experience.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n I never think about singing. That\u2019s the one thing I don\u2019t think about. You know what? I\u2019ll leave that up to the critics. Actually, since this has been on my mind a lot lately: With the Live at the Greek show we did with Jimmy Page that\u2019s now out as a box set, one of the nuggets they dug out of the mine was \u201cThe Lemon Song\u201d from a sound check. It was just ferocious. I was like, Wow, that was just from a sound check for a dozen people? When you\u2019re with Jimmy, every time he plays, it\u2019s up to a ten. There\u2019s no mucking around. So I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s the best singing I\u2019ve done, but when I heard it, I was like, That\u2019s getting some work done up there with James Patrick Page.\u00a0<\/p>\n The thing I learned the most from Jimmy was his work ethic. The Black Crowes were famously a lazy-rehearsal band. I want to get up there, see what\u2019s going on, feel my way, and not be so put-together. I like showbiz, but I need a little more. But when we rehearsed with Jimmy, it was like the show. Sweating, working, and digging deep and being passionate and aggressive. He\u2019s physical and intense, and we\u2019re not going through the motions for one second. There was some shit story our ex-drummer said that Rich rejected doing a record with Jimmy. That\u2019s just not real. It would\u2019ve been amazing, but it never got off the ground.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n That\u2019s wild. It would have to be \u201cShe Talks to Angels.\u201d That\u2019s the song really in people\u2019s imagination. One, it\u2019s a very inviting song. It has a gentle and open tuning thanks to Rich\u2019s orated intro. I wrote that song from a dark romantic perspective as a kid who was yet to really be in the world that much. Secondly, I was yet to experience some of the experiences that the song deals with, like addiction. The reason I say that song might resonate longer than any other is because I meet people all the time who say \u201cShe Talks to Angels\u201d means so much to them \u2014 whether they knew someone like that or have been through something similar personally. People share their stories with me about the song a lot, and I always find it to be really poignant and touching. If you\u2019re a songwriter, that\u2019s what you\u2019re shooting for, that soulful connection. It has to exist on some other levels besides just having a nice melody. I mean, when we play the song, we\u2019ll still see people crying. To me, that\u2019s what the song is for.<\/p>\n \n The Robinson brothers, performing 30 years apart. From left: Photo: Mick Hutson\/RedfernsPhoto: Ethan Miller\/Getty Images\n <\/p>\n \n The Robinson brothers, performing 30 years apart. From left: Photo: Mick Hutson\/RedfernsPhoto: Ethan Miller\/Getty Images\n <\/p>\n Finding ways to deal with the boredom. Or rather, accepting boredom as a tool. It\u2019s a lot of waiting around for those few moments you get onstage. When you\u2019re young, you have alcohol, drugs, and all sorts of things that your younger self can take in a day. You have to be comfortable with that boredom. I knew this when we were kids, like, Oh, everyone gets up and goes to work from nine to five, then they come see us, and then our day is from seven at night to three in the morning. We live completely opposite lives. It\u2019s different now too. You see a lot of kids and they\u2019re like, \u201cI canceled my shows because I\u2019m having a mental-health issue.\u201d And I\u2019m like, Jesus, the whole \u201990s was a mental-health issue for us. We just had no choice. Fucking get out. You got to go do the gig. We had schedules and budgets.<\/p>\n Every band documentary you see, they always go, \u201cIf we could just have taken six months off, we could have cooled off.\u201d You didn\u2019t do that. You didn\u2019t get the chance. You\u2019re losing your mind or whatever. You just don\u2019t say anything. It\u2019s so different now. I told some younger musicians the other day that our first tour for Shake Your Money Maker was 350 shows in 18 months. And we did it. We were definitely different when we came home than when we left, but that was for a myriad of reasons. The future seems much more gentle.<\/p>\n
\n Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photo: Paul Natkin\/WireImage\n <\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/f1845f59da1122aa06ccff9019ba493fac-rich-chris.rvertical.w570.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/663b84ddfb5cf7d38ad122e1eac4446a6e-chris-and-rich-2024.rvertical.w570.jpg\")
<\/p>\n