Black Crowes back together and heading to Australia

Like other feuding brothers in rock and roll, Rich and Chris Robinson of The Black Crowes have had breakups and make-ups. Find out why this could be the best revival yet.

There’s a rich tradition of feuding brothers in the world of rock and roll.

From the Everly Brothers to the Kinks, and Creedence Clearwater Revival to Oasis, sometimes the close bond and creative tension between siblings that can drive a band to success and acclaim can also be its downfall.

Rich Robinson of The Black Crowes can relate. The friction between the lead guitarist and his older frontman brother, Chris, made the Atlanta blues-rockers one of the biggest bands of the ’90s, selling more than 30 million albums, but it came at a cost.

“I’m sure it did (contribute to our success), but it also made it a miserable,” Robinson says over a Zoom call from Berlin, where the re-formed band is on tour. “It made it so miserable that we kept splitting up. So, there’s a push and a pull.”

Part of the problem for the band’s dysfunction, says Robinson, was its stratospheric rise. Debut album Shake Your Money Maker was released in 1990, powered by hits including Jealous Again, She Talks To Angels and a stomping cover version of Otis Redding’s Hard To Handle, and rose to No. 4 on the US charts, finishing the year at that country’s third top-selling record.

They soon found themselves playing stadiums opening for the likes of Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin and AC/DC, and living a thoroughly rock and roll lifestyle – for better or worse. It didn’t take long for internal band tensions, exacerbated by Chris’ hard partying ways and eventual substance abuse issues, to surface, leading to blazing rows and even physical altercations.

Jimmy Page (fourth from left) and The Black Crowes in 2000.

“We were kids,” says Robinson, reflecting on the band’s early days. “I mean, I was 19 years old and then this thing kind of fell in our laps and we never expected it. We sold over 7 million albums worldwide when I was 21 and Chris was 22 or 23.

“And there’s no manual that said, ‘Well, this is how you do it’. Over the years, a band is like a family and family can create a group dynamic, let’s just say. And like most families, there’s some dysfunction. And then you fuel travel and exhaustion and drugs, money and all of this other stuff, and it just kind of adds up and adds up and adds up.”

The Black Crowes released seven more albums after Shake Your Money Maker, although none proved to be quite as successful. The 1992 follow-up, The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion topped the US charts and was home to hits including Remedy and Sting Me, and the most recent was 2009’s Before the Frost, Until the Freeze. In between, the band went on hiatus several times, with the Robinson brothers pursuing solo careers and side projects, and then regrouping with shifting line-ups for new albums and tours. But, by 2015, it looked like they might be done for good, after a blow-up over the ownership of the band name.

“Those bad dynamics, really kind of tore us apart,” says Robinson. “There was a lot of negativity, there were a lot of people in that band back then – in 2013, the last year we toured – that were pushing to keep Chris and I separate, so they could push their own agendas, and it was all really toxic.”

But after a few years of not speaking, Rich and Chris each separately made contact with a mutual friend at the same time. Both had been working on new music and each wondered what it would sound like if the other was playing on it. They mended their fences and revived the band – but this time decided that a completely fresh line-up was needed to avoid past mistakes and flashpoints.

Chris Robinson and Rich Robinson of The Black Crowes onstage during the 2022 Stagecoach Festival at the Empire Polo Field in Indio, California. Picture: Amy Sussman/Getty Images for Stagecoach

“We wanted to be able to get together and have our relationship be healthy, and not go down this petty, bullshit road of people trying to get a little power or money or whatever’,” says Robinson. “And so the only way we figured we could do that is by sort of wiping the slate clean. Chris and I can be accountable for our own selves and our own triggers – but we can’t account for anyone else. And so we did it and it’s been great.”

Now the brothers have a bank of more than 40 songs that they are whittling down for a new album to be released next year, but they were able to ease back into being in the band together by playing a run of shows to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their first album. Covid, sadly, had other plans and after successful shows in the US and Europe, the much-delayed Shake Your Money Maker tour is only now reaching these shores.

Robinson says he’s been pleasantly surprised by the age range in the audience for the shows so far, and puts it down to parents bringing their teenage and 20-something children who grew up with the album, as well the timeless appeal of a kick-arse rock band that can actually play.

“There’s a whole scene in America right now of people shunning the corporate pop world and really getting back to playing their instruments live, learning how to write songs and singing without auto-tune,” he says. “It’s been ... it’s really cool to see.”

Robinson thinks the album struck such a chord at the time because, sandwiched between hair metal and the rise of grunge, the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin-inspired blues-rock didn’t sound like anything else on the radio. The brothers were raised on a diet of Crosby Stills and Nash, Joe Cocker and Sly Stone but, in their teens, discovered the punk rock sound of bands such as The Ramones, X, The Cramps and The Dead Kennedys.

Impressed by the way fellow Georgia band REM could be a rock band from the South without being a “Southern rock” band of the Lynyrd Skynyrd variety, The Black Crowes felt free to blend all their influences into a brand of blues-rock that stood out from the prevailing hair metal sound of the mid to late ’80s.

“That umbrella of rock and roll music was so cool and inviting because we felt it was still valid,” says Robinson. “And that was at a time when Poison and Skid Row, and all of those heavy metal bands that were all about their hair and painting faces on their guitars.”

The Black Crowes played Challenge Stadium, Perth, in 2008.

Robinson is personally looking forward to getting back to Australia for the first time in 14 years. Not only was he a regular visitor thanks to his ex-wife’s family being from Albany and Perth, he has also been a long-time admirer of Aussie music, from stadium rock veterans right through to rowdy rising stars.

“We love The Chats,” he says. “Obviously we love AC/DC and we grew up listening to the Church. My guitar tech worked for INXS for years, so we listened to those guys growing up. There’s so much music out of there. It’s amazing.”

The Black Crowes, Enmore Theatre Nov. 13 (sold out), 14; Fortitude Music Hall Brisbane, Nov. 16 (sold out), 17; Harvest Rock, Adelaide, Nov. 19; Palace Foreshore, Melbourne, Nov. 20. Livenation.com.au

Originally published as Black Crowes back together and heading to Australia