Rich Robinson
Roaring Like Lions: Rich
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They’d found themselves on their third parent record label in less than a decade, after Columbia swallowed up Rick Rubin's American imprint just in time to release the Crowes' 1998 set By Your Side. For Robinson, it was frustrating enough for a band of the Crowes' ilk to have to start fresh again.
But when Columbia failed to put what the Crowes considered adequate promotional weight behind the album, the band -- owing no further studio albums to the label -- couldn't grin and bear it any longer. The Crowes left Columbia and began to charter a brave new world of independence.
They had so much fun playing with Page that the tour spawned a concert document, Live At The Greek, which the parties agreed to release exclusively on the Internet through Musicmaker.com. By late June, Page and the Crowes were on tour throughout North America, mixing Zeppelin favorites with a handful of Crowes originals and some blues covers. Page's back injury derailed the tour before it really gathered steam, but the Crowes had bigger things on the horizon: a new label deal with V2 and a new studio album to write.
That album is Lions, which delivers the Crowes' signature rock'n'roll with a few new twists. As he prepared to hit the road for "The Tour Of Brotherly Love" with Oasis in tow, Rich dished the dirt on the Crowes' recent past with NATN Associate Editor Jonathan Cohen.
NATN: Well, how is the band dynamic these days?
Rich Robinson: It's really getting annoying for us to have to fuckin' change people all the time. [Former bassist] Sven [Pipien] was good. He was a guy in Atlanta who we knew. [Drummer] Steve [Gorman] had been in a band with him before. [At the time he joined the band] he was making pizzas in Atlanta! But we'd known him for a long time, and he was the first guy we called. He was in the band, and we'd just lost [former guitarist] Marc Ford because of drugs, and we told him, "We don't want to deal with that again. We'd like you to be in this band for a long time, and I really don't want to deal with it." He knew that coming in. He was in the band for like two years. But around Christmas of 1999, I was writing the record with Chris. We had Steve up here, and Sven up here, just so we could get some songs down on tape. And [Sven] was just acting really weird.
We had a radio show booked in Charleston, the first one we'd done as the Crowes since October. His wife lives in Atlanta, so she drove him. Right when we landed, we only had a couple of hours before the gig. And we all leave at a certain time, and he says he's coming with his wife. We go to the gig, and he didn't show up until 15 minutes after we were supposed to start playing. Nobody knew where he was. He didn't have a phone, he wasn't at the hotel, nobody knew what the fuck was going on. [Guitarist] Audley [Freed]’s friend who plays bass was there, and we were actually trying to show him how to play our songs!
That just put us in a really bullshit situation. We have never been late for a gig. Never pulled any of that shit. So even with all that in mind, we weren't going to fire him over that. He finally comes walking up and it's someone else's fault, everyone but his. The next day he wakes up and blows off the flight we'd booked for him. It's like, "Okay, you just wasted money. Not only did you piss us off, but you wasted money."
Then the next day, he's gone all day. If I'd fucked up like that, I would have called first thing and been like, "I'm sorry, I don't know what happened. I promise it won't happen again." We didn't hear a word from the guy. We had to track him down. So, we get on the phone, and the first thing our manager says is, "Sven, we're not going to fire you, but this is a serious problem. This isn't the Pizza Hut, or whatever. This isn't a club band. We've played 1500 shows or more over the last 10 years, and we have a certain amount of professionalism, and this is fucked."
Before he could get a word in edgewise, he was like, "You guys don't want to hear the truth! John Lennon knows your name!" He started freaking out and saying how he speaks to John Lennon. Oh yeah. So I was like, “Well, all right, see ya!” I don't have time for that shit. If we had our druthers, Marc and [former bassist] Johnny [Colt] never would have left. But we go on, and it's fine, and that's cool and whatever. But we can't be held hostage by some fucking schlep because he's an asshole. So we had to let him go. So that's it.
The new bass player is Andy Hess. When we tried everyone out after we let Sven go, it was between him and Greg Rzab. The only reason we chose Greg is because he'd been on tour for a long time. It just didn't really work out. Our next choice, and the only reason we didn't choose Andy then is because he was a little younger and hadn't toured as much, and we were so freaked out by the Sven thing, like "man, what kind of bullshit is this?" It was something Sven did to himself, and to us, really. He fucked us. The story is completely unbelievable. We didn't want to take any chances. Greg has been around for 20 years, but it just didn't work out. Andy, so far, is a great bass player. He plays really well with Steve and us, and with Steve especially. He seems to have such a great mentality about everything. I hope it will work out forever. We hate changing members. It sucks. It's really hard to get to a level with people in the band where you feel comfortable onstage. We hope it will last.
NATN: In the summer, you told me you had 22 songs written. How did you whittle it down? Was anything else written in the later stages?
RR: Yeah, we wrote a couple of songs in the studio. I don't know, we just.. in the midst of making a record, you can sort of see how the record is shaping, you know what I mean? You can pretty much tell which way it could go. I think when that happens, you look at the songs as a whole, and see what's better going to suit this one thing. We still look at these as albums. Every song on the record is really important, and we feel like it should "cohese," so to speak.
NATN: Do you feel there were any that set the tone from the outset?
RR: That's a harder question. I haven't really thought about it. A lot of times I go away from it and then look back, and I'm better able to figure out what it is, you know what I mean?
NATN: Which ones were the first in sequence?
RR: Some of the first ones we had were "Cypress Tree," "Miracle To Me," and "Losin' My Mind." And so, I guess those were some of the three earlier ones. We just sort of took it from there.
NATN: Would you agree that those three kind of represent the various styles of this album?
RR: Yeah, I think they do. "Soul Singin'" was another one. I had that one a long time ago.
NATN: So, who is exactly playing on this record? If I’m not mistaken you guys were minus a bass player during recording.
RR: I played bass on like 90% of the record. We didn't need someone to come in and take that off my hands. I like playing bass. I mean, it's fun for me. It's just a different approach, and I have things in mind that I hear as well. [Producer] Don [Was] played bass on "Come On" and "Lay It All On Me." I play piano on that one. We cut it live, and Don was on bass.
NATN: Was this the first time it was just you, Chris, Steve, and [keyboardist] Ed [Harsch] in the studio?
RR: Audley played on a couple of songs. Yeah, I guess this was the first time. On the last record we had Sven. It was great. It was really cool, because it gave Ed an opportunity to really pick his moments, and his moments were great, I think. I think the songs are pretty intricate, but sonically they're simplistic. It's not just loaded up. A lot of times, you can create a wall of sound and it's really hard to distinguish what everyone is doing. I think it's really cool that it's not bogged down. It has space, with these parts that aren't of the norm, you know what I mean?
NATN: How did you decide to work with Don Was?
RR: Well, we talked about working with Don on By Your Side. We sent him demos for a lot of the songs on By Your Side, and Don goes, "I'd love to produce your record, but as far as I'm concerned, these demos are great! This is the record." And of course, that wasn't good enough for Columbia, so we went with Kevin Shirley. But this time, Don said he'd love to do it, so Chris and I met with him in L.A., and we really liked what he had to say as far as how he liked to work, and how we liked to work. We played him some songs, and from the reaction that he gave us, he seemed to be thrilled with them. We've done these things to get up to this point, where now we are ourselves. Only the Black Crowes could have made this record, and then we move forward from here. Don went back and listened to every record, and he thought there were a lot of really cool things there. But he said, “this one is really what you guys are about.” He wanted to make the record we wanted to make. He just wanted us to be creative. Make the record you want to make. It was refreshing.
NATN: Does you share this outlook?
RR: Oh, totally. I think so. I think for us, it's a really ambitious record. It sounds like us, no matter how hard it is to get out of people's heads -- everyone always wants to draw comparisons -- but it's still us.
NATN: Of the material you had to choose from, did everything get recorded? What was left over?
RR: I think we had like five songs. Those will maybe turn up as b-sides, or as bonus tracks. They're all really cool tracks, but we didn't want to put out a double record.
NATN: "Lickin'" is the first single, and it seems to be doing really well on rock radio so far.
RR: We talked about using something else, but we just didn't know. We made the record and we like all the songs [laughs]. We decided "Lickin'" is pretty forward and rockin'. We love the song. The effect is just a really loud guitar, and I'm using the toggle switch. You turn one pickup down, and one up, all the way. It sounds really cool. It's pretty weird.
NATN: In your mind, how does By Your Side compare with Lions?
RR: I don't really think there's any comparison. The recording of By Your Side was a bit more structured, by our choice. We thought, "we've been doing this for nine years, and maybe we should listen to someone once [laughs], so let's listen to what people have to say." We'd never done that before. We listened to the producer, and we listened to the people at Columbia. There are some really good songs on By Your Side, I think. But the way it was recorded, and some of the songs they chose for singles, just totally turned us off of those songs. "Kickin' My Heart Around" was the first single, I think "By Your Side," the song, was great. I really love that song. I thought "Diamond Ring" was a great song, and "Welcome To The Good Times." The other single turned out to be "Only A Fool." We made one shitty video, and one for a song they decided not to work. We haven't done a video for "Lickin'" yet, but we will.
NATN: Well, let's talk about this tour with Oasis. Is this a match made in heaven, or what?
RR: [Laughs]. I'd always liked Oasis. I thought they had really cool songs, and I like Liam [Gallagher]'s voice. This last record, I think they made a huge leap musically. We've sort of been distant fans. I've always really liked what they do, but we never really thought about it before. We played in London last year and Noel [Gallagher] came down to the show. He was a really cool guy and we really hit it off. Chris had met Liam a couple of times. The more we hooked up, the cooler it was. Our manager brought up the possibility of doing the tour with their manager, and it worked out. We will play last each night but it's a co-headlining tour.
NATN: Does that mean the sets will be shortened?
RR: No, we'll both play the same amount of time.
NATN: It’s no secret the Crowes have an interesting touring track record.
RR: Yeah, we have. We don't want anything to go awry, but you never know [laughs hard].
NATN: Oasis has had a spotty touring record also. There’s no built-in rivalry, is there?
RR: Not with us and them, no. I don't think it's that at all. To me, I don't think it's an issue. It's a co-headlining tour, you know. It us and them.
NATN: I understand the Crowes are playing with Stereophonics at some stadium shows in England. Has it been awhile since you guys played in front of huge crowds like that?
RR: We've played in front of half-a-million people in Russia. It's not a huge deal. In '99, we played at Wembley Stadium with Aerosmith. There are also some dates with Neil Young this summer. We've played with him on some festivals in Europe, when he was with Booker T and the MGs. It was amazing. We're going to Japan after Europe.
NATN: It’s too bad the Jimmy Page/Black Crowes tour didn’t make it that far.
RR: Well yeah, shit. It would have been great to go to Japan with Jimmy, but shit happens. It's the first time we've ever had to cancel a tour. We've always been able to make our tours happen.
NATN: What, if anything, can you say about the lawsuit the Crowes filed against Lloyd’s Of London?
RR: I don't know how much I can say, but I do know they didn't pay us. It was a lot of money for us. It was four more legs of touring with Jimmy in front of 20,000 people a night. I feel bad because Jimmy was really bummed out. He was excited too. It's been over seven months, and we haven't seen a dime. We've had to pay all these people: truck companies, lighting companies, our crew. You have to pay for these things. We've had to front all these bills, and we haven't gotten paid. It's a big strain on us financially.
NATN: How far was it into the American tour when Jimmy got hurt?
RR: We did one leg, and he got hurt on the first show of the second leg. I have no idea what happened to him. I just know what they told me when he saw the doctor. Something happened with the discs in his back. He was complaining about it, and that's what happened.
NATN: Would you ever consider doing that tour again?
RR: Um, I don't know. If we ever run into him again, it'd be great to get up on stage. We designated that year to do stuff with Jimmy, but we also have our own career, and I'm sure he has stuff planned too.
JONATHAN COHEN | Jonathan Cohen co-created Nude As The News with his Indiana University mates Troy Carpenter and Ben French. When not traversing the globe for business and pleasure, he holds down the fort as a senior editor for Billboard in New York. Stop him and he just may ask, "what for lunch?"