Speaker 1: Pushkin. Sixteen years have passed since The Black Crows last
Speaker 1: put out an album of all new material. The world
Speaker 1: changed a lot since then, and it appears so have
Speaker 1: the Robinson brothers. Chris and Rich Robinson are, of course
Speaker 1: the backbone of the group. They started together back in
Speaker 1: Georgia in eighty four as Mister Crow's Garden before moving
Speaker 1: to NYC, signing with Death American and changing their name
Speaker 1: to The Black Crows. The band's debut album, Shake Your
Speaker 1: Money Makers set them up as torch bearers of Southern
Speaker 1: rock for the nineties and beyond. As you'll hear in
Speaker 1: our conversation, the brothers Robinson have had a competitive relationship
Speaker 1: for a long time. Their ups and downs have meant
Speaker 1: hiatuses for the band over the years, but now they're
Speaker 1: back united and seemingly in it for the long haul
Speaker 1: with their new album Happiness Bastards. On today's episode, I
Speaker 1: talked to Chris Robinson about his growing up in Georgia
Speaker 1: with Rich, their dad's rockabilly career, his listening routine that
Speaker 1: includes Sudanese and Sufi music, and how his road habits
Speaker 1: have changed from indulging in champagne and other substances to
Speaker 1: reading Herman Melville. This is broken record liner notes for
Speaker 1: the digital Age. I'm justin Mitchman. Here's my conversation with
Speaker 1: Chris Robinson of the Black Crows. Is that a gun
Speaker 1: club like the band? Sure that you go on?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, oh hell yeah. I love gun Club man.
Speaker 2: Jeffrey Lee Pierce one of my faves. And it's funny because,
Speaker 2: you know, when we started, people would always say we
Speaker 2: sounded like and we did. We had, you know, there
Speaker 2: was the Jengle sort of indie pop thing, Rim of
Speaker 2: course being the purveyors of that, but Let's Active and
Speaker 2: the DBS and then bands from California like Game Theory.
Speaker 2: We kind of were into like this kind of jangly
Speaker 2: sixties inspired but we really sounded early days a lot
Speaker 2: like the gun Club, you know, because gun Club and
Speaker 2: X are very interesting to me, and the like early
Speaker 2: punk scene here in Los Angeles because they were the well,
Speaker 2: I guess you could put the Blasters and the plugs
Speaker 2: in there too.
Speaker 1: Blasters are from esp though, right.
Speaker 2: Oh, Blasters are a LA band too, you are they?
Speaker 1: Okay? Cool?
Speaker 2: They had those kind of rootsyed things, you know, and
Speaker 2: it would be really early on that we would think like, okay, well,
Speaker 2: Jeffery Lee Pierce is like a punk icon, but he
Speaker 2: plays with Robert Johnson song on the first record, you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, it doesn't like Robert Johnson, but needless to say,
Speaker 2: he found great inspiration and the mythology and the imagery
Speaker 2: and the vibration of like the blues and stuff which
Speaker 2: other punk bands really didn't.
Speaker 1: Whatever music is happening in La, there's always some subset
Speaker 1: of it that countrifies it. You know. It's like even
Speaker 1: with the Birds, like Sweetheart of the Rodeo, like all
Speaker 1: that stuff, Like the Birds got into that, and you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know you could even feel that with Buffalo
Speaker 1: Springfield and I mean, I know, like Neil from Canada
Speaker 1: or whatnot. But they're making music here, you know, of course.
Speaker 2: Of course, well I mean, you know, I mean, while
Speaker 2: that's going on, Tim Buckley's here and you know what
Speaker 2: I mean. And while that's going on, you have bands
Speaker 2: like the Chambers Brothers and Eric Burden Leaves the Animals
Speaker 2: and Northern English White Band playing blues music. And then
Speaker 2: he's the lead singer of War It.
Speaker 1: War is like such a quintessential La Long Beach of
Speaker 1: fact group, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think obviously there's subsequent most famous records
Speaker 2: don't include Eric Burdon. Yeah, And it's funny. It also
Speaker 2: just goes to show how that's just how music is,
Speaker 2: isn't it. You know what I mean? I mean, I
Speaker 2: guess you obviously you can make examples of things that
Speaker 2: seem heavy handed or things that don't contain a certain authenticity.
Speaker 2: But I mean that was a big deal when I
Speaker 2: you know, talking about growing up in a band, being
Speaker 2: from Atlanta, being like in a arguably the most progressive
Speaker 2: city in terms of race relations, and if not America
Speaker 2: and maybe globally.
Speaker 1: That's interesting. It probably has to be. I mean, you
Speaker 1: might I might have been coming to say New Orleans,
Speaker 1: but I think when you kind of look at the
Speaker 1: musical legacy of Atlanta over the last I.
Speaker 2: Mean New Orleans most definitely, but Atlanta is different because
Speaker 2: of the black universities, yeah, like kind of concentrated there,
Speaker 2: and Atlanta having Maynor Jackson as the first black mayor
Speaker 2: the first black police chief for the black police force
Speaker 2: in the Deep South.
Speaker 1: When I first landed in Atlanta, I got to say,
Speaker 1: coming from LA because I grew up in La. When
Speaker 1: I first landed in Atlanta, I'm in the airport, I'm like,
Speaker 1: with a whim, like, how the.
Speaker 2: Whole airport is black? This is crazy. It was the
Speaker 2: weirdest experience for me. Funny, that's funny. And as I said,
Speaker 2: I'm a third generation Atlantan and I don't really make
Speaker 2: the connection of being like I'm a Southern person, but
Speaker 2: my connection is with Atlanta. Yeah. And so so it's
Speaker 2: funny because Maynard Jackson is the guy who when Hartfield
Speaker 2: International Airport becomes an international airport, He's the one who's like,
Speaker 2: we're not doing anything unless black business owners are recognized
Speaker 2: and have a piece in this and what that can
Speaker 2: mean for the community. Something very subtle like that still reverberates,
Speaker 2: I think, and besides the culture, because you start to
Speaker 2: see Atlanta also be a city, you know, famous for
Speaker 2: the musicians and the hip hop and the athletes that
Speaker 2: I'll move there. But the reason that becomes attractive is
Speaker 2: because of decisions like that and the hard line that
Speaker 2: someone like mayn Or Jackson would take, and how Atlanta
Speaker 2: had been pried open. Of course, having the Great Reverend
Speaker 2: Bee from there, you know, gives Atlanta a different perspective,
Speaker 2: but I don't know. It's a unique place in that way.
Speaker 2: And it's funny, like I speak on it from the past,
Speaker 2: because I really left first check, I got into Black Crows.
Speaker 2: I moved to New York. Being in a band to
Speaker 2: me was like, you know, shooting an arrow over the mountain,
Speaker 2: like just I wanted to get out in the world.
Speaker 1: Had you been to New York before we moved there?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, Actually, you know our dad, richardized dad was
Speaker 2: a singer. He had a top forty rock and roll
Speaker 2: hit in the fifties called Boom a Dip Dip. You
Speaker 2: can check it out on Spotify.
Speaker 1: I've listened to some of that stuff.
Speaker 2: Very good, man, it's really good. Yeah, it's a good song.
Speaker 2: And so I really happened and looked at New York
Speaker 2: and he was like, you know, into the theater and
Speaker 2: music and acting and dance, you know. So he wanted
Speaker 2: that too at a certain time in his life, and
Speaker 2: he was in New York. And it's funny. My mom
Speaker 2: was a flight attendant for the old Eastern Airlines, and
Speaker 2: you know, it's funny she told me, she goes, Oh,
Speaker 2: I served doctor King many times on flight side of Atlanta. Wow,
Speaker 2: I always really blew my mind as a kid.
Speaker 1: You know, of course she did. I would make I mean,
Speaker 1: how many flights out of Atlanta? Musty have taken that
Speaker 1: out all.
Speaker 2: The time, you know? You know. So I moved to
Speaker 2: New York first, and I still love New York and
Speaker 2: some of my deepest connections and friendships are there. My
Speaker 2: wife and I just got back from there yesterday. But
Speaker 2: I came to Los Angeles, and I don't know, it
Speaker 2: was farther away from Georgia, from everything. I mean, California
Speaker 2: has an idea California. Later I would get to know
Speaker 2: far more about this state. And I lived up north
Speaker 2: for six years, and I was in this little hippie
Speaker 2: band and we started. We did nine weeks just up
Speaker 2: and down California in the van, playing all the little
Speaker 2: beach towns and hippie towns. And you know, I got
Speaker 2: a real appreciation for do you remember hughle.
Speaker 1: Houser, Oh, come on, man, California's goal.
Speaker 2: Baby. I was like the psychedelic hule Houser, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean, you know hil Hauser. I was like,
Speaker 2: so this is an atobe.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: He was amazed about everything too, He's like, so this
Speaker 2: is a ball of Manuda. I love hul Hauser Lake
Speaker 2: great Man, the late great hutle Hauser Man. I love
Speaker 2: and you know what, he was always so excited he
Speaker 2: saw mission from San Diego to like, you know, the
Speaker 2: Oregon border, so that the mission like so excited.
Speaker 1: Everything was ecstatic to him. It was crazy. It was
Speaker 1: so that was that was a funny show to watch.
Speaker 2: Man. I loved it.
Speaker 1: When I moved here, I was like, what is this?
Speaker 2: Is this good? I also am lucky that when I'm
Speaker 2: I'm so I moved here. In ninety one early ninety two,
Speaker 2: that was the golden age of public television. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: the weirdest, weirdest of the weird stuff would come on
Speaker 2: TV Man on the couple of public stations on your cable,
Speaker 2: like Channel six and Channel fourteen or whatever, the most unimaginably,
Speaker 2: I mean obviously like Tim and Eric. I don't know
Speaker 2: if you ever got into Tim and Hell. Yeah, Tim
Speaker 2: and Eric like take the inspiration of that into their
Speaker 2: twisted world for the series, which is still some of
Speaker 2: my favorite stuff. You don't need a Chinese massage, you
Speaker 2: need an Italian massage. It was fantastic you know what
Speaker 2: I mean, And you know the other thing about things
Speaker 2: that were really I've always been interested in outsider culture,
Speaker 2: you know, when those would be like driven by like this,
Speaker 2: but because of Hollywood, it made it even weirder, Like
Speaker 2: I'm on TV now I'm famous too, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean, pre dating the psychoses that has become social media,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. People always describe LA when they come to
Speaker 1: LA as being closer to the industry, as being closer
Speaker 1: to things. But I also find that you can find
Speaker 1: your niches and stay way out of the way of
Speaker 1: the industry if you want. I did it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean when I moved to Topanga Canyon at
Speaker 2: a certain point, I moved to Topanga because I have
Speaker 2: these romantic notions of what northern California, what I've been
Speaker 2: to northern California, but what it might feel like not
Speaker 2: to be in LA, but to still be able to
Speaker 2: be in LA for different reasons. I'm of the firm
Speaker 2: belief that Los Angeles is one of the great cities
Speaker 2: world and which is also unique because of how new
Speaker 2: this city is comparatively. In eighteen sixty there's five thousand
Speaker 2: people living here. That's wild ranchers and spread out and
Speaker 2: it's just come over from Mexican rule and stuff from
Speaker 2: that government. And they had, you know, gave everyone deeds
Speaker 2: to these mass affincas and ranches and things that were
Speaker 2: all of California, you know. So it's not that old
Speaker 2: in the big scheme of things. But the other funny
Speaker 2: thing is when I came here, I was I laugh
Speaker 2: all the time because was like growing up in Atlanta
Speaker 2: or whatever. In nineteen I had my first sushi in
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty nine. My guy ended up being our manager, Like,
Speaker 2: took me and Rich with some friends to get sushi.
Speaker 2: And that place is called Imperial Gardens or whatever. It
Speaker 2: was right there on Sunset. It's now like a Loco
Speaker 2: place or something, but it was the Roxbury later. But anyway,
Speaker 2: were sitting there and like, of course I know what
Speaker 2: it is, but I'm you know, standing Nancy Robinson in Atlanta.
Speaker 2: We didn't, you know what I mean. Like I remember
Speaker 2: being sixteen and telling my dad, like coming downstairs one day,
Speaker 2: I was like, why have we never had Indian food?
Speaker 2: My dad was like, you're right, we should go get it.
Speaker 2: And I was like we all drove to the one
Speaker 2: Indian restaurant, you know, and it was amazing. Wow, I'm
Speaker 2: here in nineteen eighty nine. I'm still working on the
Speaker 2: first album, and I'm a kid from Atlanta. But the
Speaker 2: cool thing is it's a mentality. You get farther away
Speaker 2: from where you come from, and like anything else, you
Speaker 2: figure out what's delicious about it and what's special about it,
Speaker 2: and now it has a place in your culinary like
Speaker 2: thing that tonight's sushi, we want to go and you
Speaker 2: know what I mean, And then you can on that level.
Speaker 2: But there was one time where you're you know, I
Speaker 2: come to La I don't know anything about anything, and
Speaker 2: I don't even know what this is.
Speaker 1: How far removed from Atlanta do you feel now? Like
Speaker 1: do you feel like an atlantin?
Speaker 2: I mean not especially, And none of that is to
Speaker 2: be taken as if Atlanta has feelings. I do love
Speaker 2: Atlanta more than ever. But it's also I like the
Speaker 2: remnants of the Atlanta that I remembered, so when you
Speaker 2: go back you don't see the I mean, man, it's changed.
Speaker 2: There was this thing on Peach Street called the Darlington Apartments,
Speaker 2: and there it used to have this digital thing and
Speaker 2: it would be like two million nine nine, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean that, you know, and it was the
Speaker 2: population and it got older. With the population sign it
Speaker 2: got bigger and it went to three million in nineteen ninety. Wow.
Speaker 2: You know. We used to hang around this monthly thing
Speaker 2: called the Mudshack at this after hours Mexican burrita place,
Speaker 2: and it was a poetry.
Speaker 1: Reading and just the poet would get it on stage, like.
Speaker 2: I live in a city of three million people, as
Speaker 2: if it was like, you know this Atlanta of this
Speaker 2: it's almost eight million people now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, right, that sounds about right. It's huge went
Speaker 1: on there?
Speaker 2: I mean, of course I love it, But most a
Speaker 2: lot of the Atlanta you know, the house where we
Speaker 2: used to rehearse and have parties is now the Federal Reserve.
Speaker 2: The club that we based all our rock and roll
Speaker 2: dreams and mythology on is now at that you know,
Speaker 2: a place where people go get stitches.
Speaker 1: Or whatever, you know what I mean, Like all of
Speaker 1: that kind.
Speaker 2: Of stuff from back in the eighties, whenever the world
Speaker 2: was new and music was all our career was ahead
Speaker 2: of us. That's all kind of gone. Yeah, you can
Speaker 2: see that, the skeleton of it, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Yeah, wellcome back with more of my interview with Chris Robinson.
Speaker 1: After this quick break, we're back with Chris Robinson. Do
Speaker 1: you get excited to tour these days?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: Can you still get excited about it?
Speaker 2: I do? I do. It was funny. I've done a
Speaker 2: couple of interviews for this project and I'm like shocked
Speaker 2: that the people have said, you're the first musician who
Speaker 2: says they still find inspiration doing what you do and
Speaker 2: being on tour, they say is so boring. I'm like,
Speaker 2: I've never lost the dream. And again, I've never been bored,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, even as a kid, like
Speaker 2: with my mom and go to your room, I'd be like,
Speaker 2: I'm amazing. That's all I want to do. All records
Speaker 2: are in there, the books I'm reading are in there.
Speaker 2: I can draw, I can dream, you know what I
Speaker 2: mean daydream? I mean I was somewhere there's a permanent
Speaker 2: record of me, and all it says is prone to daydreaming.
Speaker 2: Not very good at math. But I was saying, I
Speaker 2: mean it's just the way it is. I mean, is
Speaker 2: it tedious sometimes? Fuck yes, I'm fifty seven now. Airports
Speaker 2: fucking suck. Not every gig is a magical experience, but
Speaker 2: you never know who you're gonna meet, and it could
Speaker 2: be anyone. It could be the Guyanese uber driver who
Speaker 2: pitch you up in Saint Louis, who's fucking hilarious, an amazing,
Speaker 2: soulful person who's left a life behind to try to
Speaker 2: eke out something better, and like it's so brave and courageous,
Speaker 2: and you know, and you're only with this person eight
Speaker 2: minutes from the airport or whatever, and you just two
Speaker 2: people in the world laughing in a car. You know.
Speaker 2: But that little thing that doesn't even necessarily have to
Speaker 2: be a part of the narrative. It just has to
Speaker 2: be a part of that. You still believe that there's
Speaker 2: dynamic and meeting people and talking and laughing and sometimes crying.
Speaker 2: But I'm just naive enough to still see it as
Speaker 2: in the same way that I wanted. I picked music
Speaker 2: on a lot of levels because I knew it was
Speaker 2: the one thing that I would travel all the time. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and then you set up your little thing and then
Speaker 2: you put your vibes out there. You know, it is
Speaker 2: pretty rare.
Speaker 1: I feel like, listening to you talk, the only other
Speaker 1: person who has had a level of success that you've
Speaker 1: had and towards as much as you do, and travels
Speaker 1: as much as you do. That seems to still love it.
Speaker 1: I got lucky. I met Quincy Jones in Havana maybe
Speaker 1: ten years ago, and the joy he has to like
Speaker 1: travel and just talk to anybody. It's like he's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: he'll tell Sinatra stories, and I'll tell the story about
Speaker 1: like the cab Driver and like Memphis, and you're like
Speaker 1: everything is like new and fun and interesting in every
Speaker 1: person and everything and every sound and every that's a
Speaker 1: particular joy that you don't find in a lot of
Speaker 1: a lot of people.
Speaker 2: Like I said, I understand, and you know, you get older.
Speaker 2: It also helps in my life that after all the
Speaker 2: rock and roll and all the experiences that I found
Speaker 2: Camille my wife, because I found someone who she understands
Speaker 2: that some of that is problematic and some of it's
Speaker 2: pain in the ass, and some of it is like
Speaker 2: can't we just be do normal something? And like, by
Speaker 2: the way, we could talk about that and do our best.
Speaker 2: But then she also realizes, like she's an artist and
Speaker 2: she's Piss's queen Moonstone child out in the world, you know,
Speaker 2: who wants to feel these things too, And you know.
Speaker 2: My thing is the pandemic was such a fucking head trip. Personally,
Speaker 2: I didn't really find it creative. I found it stifling.
Speaker 2: But we were lucky enough to live out in the
Speaker 2: wilds of West Marina and then we were in Southwest
Speaker 2: Colorado amazing, Yeah, which was really really help. But one
Speaker 2: thing I thought I would really flip out on was
Speaker 2: it was the first time since I was basically a
Speaker 2: teenager where I wasn't working and touring and singing and
Speaker 2: playing and doing the whole spiel. And you know what,
Speaker 2: it was rad really you liked it. Wow, my head
Speaker 2: didn't fall off, you know, our lives didn't, you know,
Speaker 2: disintegrate into nothing. It was nice. I had time for
Speaker 2: a lot of other things. And it's funny the travel
Speaker 2: part of it. I was just talking to my manager
Speaker 2: Mark last night about how at a certain point it
Speaker 2: would be nice to bow out from forming the way
Speaker 2: we perform before. I can't because I love the travel
Speaker 2: and we fit in the things that we want to.
Speaker 2: But it's different to be in a place for you know,
Speaker 2: we're going to Paris, I'm gonna see my friends. I
Speaker 2: know all the restaurants I want to go to. I
Speaker 2: know all the things I want to do, but you
Speaker 2: got to leave in two days. Yeah, yeah, and you
Speaker 2: have a show. When I was a kid, I didn't care.
Speaker 2: We would just party, go out, champagne, drugs, this that,
Speaker 2: two days, do the gig, go do the gig. You know,
Speaker 2: like just all one thing was so when you're young,
Speaker 2: you can do it, you know what I mean. I
Speaker 2: don't feel that now. I'm really happy being in the
Speaker 2: Black Crows and really fulfilling and satisfying and gratifying. But
Speaker 2: at a certain point, I just want to take my
Speaker 2: wife and go to Sicily and eat linguini and clams
Speaker 2: and like you.
Speaker 1: Know, drink whine and you know, read Moby Dick.
Speaker 2: For the third time or whatever. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2: I just want to just be a part of everything
Speaker 2: going on. There's lots of places I haven't traveled. I
Speaker 2: haven't been to Africa. I've always wanted to go to Africa,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. That would be nice to
Speaker 2: have some time to do that. And because Africa is
Speaker 2: such a huge thing too, you know, I'm really interested
Speaker 2: in West Africa. I'd like to go to North Africa.
Speaker 2: Be cool, to see the East Africa, be good.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean, what interest you in West Africa?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I think maybe it has something to
Speaker 2: do just with the I mean, I love North African music,
Speaker 2: but there's you know a lot of those West African
Speaker 2: music could be because of the horrors of mankind and
Speaker 2: the horrors of the slave trade, human beings found a
Speaker 2: way somehow, through the vileness of that to communicate and
Speaker 2: share things in art and music, cuisine. Yeah, so many
Speaker 2: African parts of especially in the Deep South, and people
Speaker 2: wouldn't they don't even know they're they're they're under educated anyway.
Speaker 2: But with these things, you know, it's like, oh, every
Speaker 2: Southern person and loves the fried okra, but okra came
Speaker 2: over from Africa, you know, right before that, ochra came
Speaker 2: from India to Africa. So just dumb things like that,
Speaker 2: Plants and fruits, vegetables, natural things and supernatural things that
Speaker 2: were brought over that could never be extinged with. And
Speaker 2: I just have some sort of and I don't even
Speaker 2: know what it is, because I'm not obviously that knowledgeable
Speaker 2: as other people, but I can put a few things
Speaker 2: together and realize, you know, so much of the music, singing,
Speaker 2: rhythm things guitar things, especially string things come from a
Speaker 2: West African musical tradition that represents like this African mysticism
Speaker 2: and magic as well, that manifests when people express themselves
Speaker 2: vocally and rhythmically and with melody and things, you know,
Speaker 2: like a simple as something like a string guitar, And
Speaker 2: that is something that would draw me there first, be
Speaker 2: that in a first person and see what it feels
Speaker 2: like for me as a real outsider. Yeah, outside your
Speaker 2: culture is important to me just because of whether my
Speaker 2: dyslexia or just whatever my tastes and my where I
Speaker 2: would find the things in life that are interesting that
Speaker 2: make me happy, things that I can understand or help
Speaker 2: me for things that I don't understand to understand, you know,
Speaker 2: So a lot of that you have to kind of
Speaker 2: just vibe out viscerally fine, and I would be curious
Speaker 2: to see what it feels like.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Wow, we've gone from like psychedelic qal Houserd to
Speaker 1: like psychedelic.
Speaker 2: Like Anthony Bourdain or some shit.
Speaker 1: I've gone global.
Speaker 2: Now call my agent. I'm down to do this job.
Speaker 1: That's amazing, man, I want to check out like Robert
Speaker 1: Plant goes to rock O Go.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he loves the Sufi music and the North African music.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And it's funny because I have this app where you
Speaker 2: can listen to radio stations all over the world. But
Speaker 2: it's like, wow, right on, man, I want to listen
Speaker 2: to some like rad Cambodia music, It's like, uh, it's
Speaker 2: Nicki Minaj like everywhere else. I know.
Speaker 1: That's that's kind of a bummer about radio.
Speaker 2: I mean it's it's like, which is cool. I'm not
Speaker 2: bagging Nicki mi nuts, but I'm like, I'm thinking I'm
Speaker 2: gonna like get hip to some thing I've never heard,
Speaker 2: some regional vibes or whatever. And then it's like, oh,
Speaker 2: it's the same shit they're playing here, is it that
Speaker 2: radio app?
Speaker 1: Like yeah, oh so cool.
Speaker 2: But there's some in Morocco. And then there's a certain
Speaker 2: kind of music that the horrors of things. There was
Speaker 2: a slave trade in Africa for a long time too,
Speaker 2: you know that within in Africa, and they're bringing sub
Speaker 2: Saharan Africans to North Africa. But a great musical art
Speaker 2: form is born from it that still exists today, and
Speaker 2: there's whole radio stations that play it and they're basically
Speaker 2: a living blues it's the same tradition of like the
Speaker 2: pain and suffering of the blues that these people brought
Speaker 2: with them that still lives today and it's now celebrated
Speaker 2: as rebel songs. Almost.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like those North African like guitar but I
Speaker 1: don't know how to pronounce their names, but like or something, yeah, right.
Speaker 2: I saw their first show in New York many years ago. Really,
Speaker 2: I love that music, and I love Sudanese music, and
Speaker 2: then you go over. I love Persian classical music, I
Speaker 2: love music from Afghanistan, and I love Turkish music. You know,
Speaker 2: I really have a lot of diverse interest in things
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 1: After this last break, we'll be back with more of
Speaker 1: Chris Robinson. We're back with the rest of my conversation
Speaker 1: with Chris Robinson within the Crows. Like maybe, like with
Speaker 1: your brother, for instance, does he have a similar musical palette.
Speaker 2: I think he has an appreciation. I don't think his
Speaker 2: palette is as wide as mine, and he would admit
Speaker 2: that I'm not. You know. He always said, like growing
Speaker 2: up like Chris would bring back way more records than
Speaker 2: I would listen to, or some I wouldn't be interested in.
Speaker 2: But I got to he could be able to cherry
Speaker 2: pick what he liked, and he loves classical Indian music.
Speaker 2: I listened to like Mesopotamium, Sheep the music and stuff,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. Like, I'm really into a
Speaker 2: lot of different things.
Speaker 1: Do you listen to that stuff more than like rock
Speaker 1: and roll? Like you'd rather reach for that than a
Speaker 1: Stones record?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I listened to all day long, Like I like
Speaker 2: to start the morning with something mellow. We'll listen to
Speaker 2: a lot of Indian classical music, or personally, I like
Speaker 2: to start my mornings with the late great Ben Webster
Speaker 2: or some think Lester Young. I love the pres you know,
Speaker 2: but we also love Rossan Rolling Kirk, and we love
Speaker 2: the Lonius Monk, and we love Bobby Timm bud Path.
Speaker 2: We listened to a lot of jazz. We listened to
Speaker 2: a lot of blues, country, R M B, funk, soul,
Speaker 2: rock and roll, punk music, post punk music like tronic music,
Speaker 2: rossa music.
Speaker 1: You know, Share your Spotify right now, Share that Spotify
Speaker 1: trying to.
Speaker 2: I don't have Spotify envy, man, you know, Like I'm
Speaker 2: just obsessed, you know what I mean? And I my
Speaker 2: obsessions maybe made me way more difficult as a youth
Speaker 2: in the music business because I also associated a certain authenticity, passion,
Speaker 2: and purity to my obsessions and what I wanted to say.
Speaker 2: But I also have a waking life with music that
Speaker 2: has nothing to do with me making music or being
Speaker 2: a musician. Yeah, those things are simpatico, but I'm sure
Speaker 2: it's annoying. I'm the guy who I get the car
Speaker 2: to drive down to eat dinner and West Tli and
Speaker 2: I'm like, hey, man.
Speaker 1: Can I play the spot? Oh yeah, in the car, dude.
Speaker 1: I got to skicked out of a sushi spot one
Speaker 1: time because I asked them to change the music. And
Speaker 1: then they opened the same sushi spot across town, so
Speaker 1: we tried to go there a year and a half later.
Speaker 1: Turned the same lady with something. She's like, you look familiar.
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't know, I don't know. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: I wasn't. So did you ask me to turn off
Speaker 1: the music one time?
Speaker 2: I was like no, no, no, no, it must have been
Speaker 2: my brother. I don't know. It wasn't me, Like, hey, hey,
Speaker 2: so she's not coming in here.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: They weren't happy, but I was like, just changed it.
Speaker 1: I could tell it wasn't like pre pro it's like
Speaker 1: it's all you're on serious or some shit.
Speaker 2: Just change the stage.
Speaker 1: I saw a mask.
Speaker 2: I'm just always you know what I mean. I've just
Speaker 2: been adventurous and things I can access what makes things
Speaker 2: interesting to me. But I do that with with a
Speaker 2: lot of art. I do that not with music, but
Speaker 2: with literature, cinema, most definitely comedy as well.
Speaker 1: So it's all that going through your mind as you're
Speaker 1: writing lyrics for The Crows or for your other groups.
Speaker 2: I imagine, yeah, I imagine it's something. It's all in there.
Speaker 2: But I think when it's time to focus, like on
Speaker 2: writing a lyric or whatever. I've written songs with other people.
Speaker 2: I've written many songs on my own. The thing that
Speaker 2: is the Black Crows is Rich and ize contribution together.
Speaker 2: You know, rich, whatever he's coming from will play me something.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of psychic energy involved in it as well,
Speaker 2: and music is a great conduit to open those kind
Speaker 2: of psychic channels.
Speaker 1: And do you go into it with that intention, like
Speaker 1: do you have to set out to do that or
Speaker 1: does it happen?
Speaker 2: I think there's other musicians who can do the fuck
Speaker 2: in math and know all the shit and they do
Speaker 2: another thing. I've only ever been able to access it
Speaker 2: this way. Got it is my process because of however,
Speaker 2: because we didn't learn music. We don't know shit about music.
Speaker 1: I don't read music. Rich doesn't read music.
Speaker 2: But we know what it feels like and we know
Speaker 2: what sounds right, and then you keep doing that. Of course,
Speaker 2: through that your vocabulary is bigger. But we maybe are
Speaker 2: using different words than people who are more knowledgeable about
Speaker 2: the inner workings and mathematics the arithmetic of music. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and that it's escapes us. But I think it's also
Speaker 2: in our that makes it folk and that makes you
Speaker 2: know what I mean, there's some sort of that's why
Speaker 2: we look at it more and like it's kind of magic.
Speaker 2: When a song happens out of the blue. One minute,
Speaker 2: there's nothing, one little thing like this, and then I
Speaker 2: get an idea, and then that changes what Rich is doing.
Speaker 2: And then it's all dictated by whatever the vibe is
Speaker 2: that Rich plays me. There's an emotional ingredient to what
Speaker 2: he plays me, like our probably the most famous song
Speaker 2: as She Talks to Angels. He wrote that song. He
Speaker 2: was very young with the riff, and then we probably
Speaker 2: didn't get to it till like a year later when
Speaker 2: but we would be playing things around mom and Dad's house.
Speaker 1: He's like seventeen when he wrote that, Yes, I would
Speaker 1: be nineteen.
Speaker 2: So there's something about the way he pulls that first
Speaker 2: inn and then that would just put me in a
Speaker 2: place to write a song with that kind of dark, romantic,
Speaker 2: melancholy imagery. But we do that today, and we do that,
Speaker 2: I think, especially if we get around to where we're
Speaker 2: going right now with this Happiness Bastards record and stuff.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think that's exactly what we've done with this.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's a lot more rock and roll on it.
Speaker 2: There's a lot more water under the bridge. We've lived
Speaker 2: a lot personally. I'm one of those people and I
Speaker 2: have two children and we want everything to be the best.
Speaker 2: But I'm also not afraid of adversity, because I don't
Speaker 2: think you should be afraid of something that you have
Speaker 2: to find acceptance with, you know what I mean, Because
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter who you are, what you do, if
Speaker 2: you do it to yourself, if someone's doing it to you,
Speaker 2: if you have the means, if you don't have the means,
Speaker 2: No one escapes adversity, and it changes you know what
Speaker 2: I mean, how we deal with it. The great energy
Speaker 2: and power of youth and where we came from in
Speaker 2: rock and roll was the anger, the fuck you part
Speaker 2: of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, even with each other.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, but that boils into that. Yeah. I mean
Speaker 2: it's like live fire, you know, and like but it's
Speaker 2: also a great you know, if you can get that
Speaker 2: into the dude, and you can get in the studio
Speaker 2: and get it on there. You know, we weren't clever
Speaker 2: enough to do the math. We were only clever enough
Speaker 2: to wear our emotions on our sleeves.
Speaker 1: Did your parents pick up on your guys's tension?
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean, fuck, I mean even more so probably
Speaker 2: the older we would get, but they weren't around when
Speaker 2: it was like, for some reason, you know, we he
Speaker 2: had his own bedroom. I had my own bedroom when
Speaker 2: we lived in the suburbs, and I had like a
Speaker 2: twin bed and a desk, stereo whatever. Rich had like
Speaker 2: a queen size Bendings room for some reason. I don't
Speaker 2: know why we ever got that. But it was funny
Speaker 2: because when we were kids and it would be like
Speaker 2: if we started getting annoyed, we'd have this game where
Speaker 2: we'd both get on the bed, and he'd be like
Speaker 2: I'm mad Max and I'm like I'm Snake pliskt and
Speaker 2: then we would like who could who would win in
Speaker 2: a fight? Mad Max or Snake clisktting? Like whoever could?
Speaker 2: Like fucking throw the other one off the bed? Was
Speaker 2: like the Winnersten Snake always win in that got a
Speaker 2: batch on the eye, fucking cool outfit. I was like,
Speaker 2: it's my motherfucker there, you know, but like dumb show
Speaker 2: like guy. And then we've said it before, but we
Speaker 2: fought brothers fight, but we would never punch each other
Speaker 2: in the face. We would hit each other bodyguards, throws
Speaker 2: at each other, try to strangle each other, nothing from
Speaker 2: the neck up. It was weird. I don't know that
Speaker 2: rule always.
Speaker 1: Applied, unspoken, unwritten, just.
Speaker 2: As if that makes it like worse than all the
Speaker 2: other cruel shit. I love it, man, I love it.
Speaker 1: Ye Snake doesn't need muscles though, just being a pure
Speaker 1: badass is sometimes enough.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they couldn't stop, you know what I mean? The
Speaker 2: craziest come out from under the street. He gets away
Speaker 2: from all of them.
Speaker 1: Didn't matter. So great soundtrack to that amazing soundtrack. John
Speaker 1: Comber is always the favorite one is.
Speaker 2: A movie he made called, uh is it called the
Speaker 2: Prince of Darkness?
Speaker 1: You know that movie?
Speaker 2: I don't know that one part of the trilogy he
Speaker 2: did that. I think that Escape from New York, Prince
Speaker 2: of Darkness and maybe they See or whatever. I think
Speaker 2: those are like a trilogy he made. But Prince of
Speaker 2: Darkness is a really cool movie. Like in this weird
Speaker 2: church in Oakland or whatever is like where evil is
Speaker 2: and like this liquid container and like these people find
Speaker 2: it's really deep. Man. But the sound that one's really
Speaker 2: I listened to it all the time.
Speaker 1: I missed that one. I like, I like Assault on
Speaker 1: Precinct thirteen.
Speaker 2: That soundtracks amazing, very far ahead of his time, actually.
Speaker 1: Way ahead of his time. It sounds like what's you know,
Speaker 1: like a lot of like electronic composers would now go for.
Speaker 2: Is he from Kentucky? I think originally is from Kentucky.
Speaker 2: It's like if Tangerine Dream were from Kentucky. Yeah, yeah, right,
Speaker 2: Tangerine Dream is from Kentucky. Maybe they just call that
Speaker 2: like Pineapple upside down cake Dreamers.
Speaker 1: How do you feel with a new record? I think
Speaker 1: it sounds amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're very happy. I think we were really focused
Speaker 2: on what we wanted the record to be touring the
Speaker 2: last few years and doing the Shak Your Money Makers show.
Speaker 2: At first, I was a little bit I had a
Speaker 2: little trepidation about it, just because I was like, Oh,
Speaker 2: isn't that what other bands kind of get into sometimes,
Speaker 2: is playing their most popular record or whatever. Yeah, But
Speaker 2: once I thought about it, and I thought, Yo, don't
Speaker 2: think about it, just do it. This is important record
Speaker 2: to you know, this is where it all begins for us,
Speaker 2: and let's revisit it. Let's see what happens if we
Speaker 2: remove ourselves from the way of thinking before. You know,
Speaker 2: why did I think that was dumb? Maybe it's not.
Speaker 2: Maybe there's something there. And I think part of where
Speaker 2: the Black Crows are today is getting out of our
Speaker 2: way and you know, don't think it, do it, and
Speaker 2: then you'll have more information about what works and what doesn't.
Speaker 2: And it was fantastic, And that was kind of the
Speaker 2: impetus to get us to like a real focus, up
Speaker 2: tempo rock and roll record that hits all the notes.
Speaker 2: I think that we finally didn't have the perspective to
Speaker 2: know what the Black Crows sound like, and to me,
Speaker 2: happens Bastards is like an arrow pointed towards the future
Speaker 2: for us of what the Black Crows could be. And
Speaker 2: once we work with a guy like Jay Joyce who
Speaker 2: produced the record, who's very successful, popular producer. We've never
Speaker 2: really worked with like a super producer like that. And
Speaker 2: you know, we met so many talented people and had
Speaker 2: so many great conversations. There's just something about Jay. Well,
Speaker 2: first off, we felt like this guy not only can
Speaker 2: we get him, but he could get us, and we're
Speaker 2: incapable of doing something that we don't feel is sincere,
Speaker 2: sincere to us of what we want to do and
Speaker 2: how it sounds. And of course when he comes on board,
Speaker 2: he starts to help shape the songs as well, like,
Speaker 2: all right, we have a discussion about what I think
Speaker 2: the record should be. What's the concept in a sense?
Speaker 2: I mean, you can't do it one hundred percent because
Speaker 2: it's music and things change, but if that's what we're
Speaker 2: going for, and so he, you know, we have a
Speaker 2: bunch of songs. He comes in, tells us what he
Speaker 2: likes about these songs. We go back work on some songs,
Speaker 2: write some new ones. But again, as we're in the
Speaker 2: studio making the record, it only took us two and
Speaker 2: a half weeks to make the record.
Speaker 1: That's quick.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it has an energy. It has to be
Speaker 2: that way. Like I said, we're not the kind of
Speaker 2: people to what are we doing, you know? And what
Speaker 2: are we selling? What do we want people to get
Speaker 2: from this? What are we putting out there in the world.
Speaker 2: And we haven't made a record a long time. Basically,
Speaker 2: you got to, like, you know, put your money where
Speaker 2: your mouth is and if you're going to say this
Speaker 2: is what you are, then it better fucking sound like that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And I made a record in so long and we've
Speaker 2: been talking about it. We've been proving it every night
Speaker 2: on tour of like what the presentation is, what the
Speaker 2: vibes are, what the band sounds like. We're rich and
Speaker 2: I are, but we're playing old songs and we're playing
Speaker 2: songs people know, and now to do it with something new.
Speaker 2: But after all the talk about we're a rock and
Speaker 2: roll band, this is where we're doing this. We're in
Speaker 2: a good place, we're creative. But then you have to
Speaker 2: do it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, do you think you could go out and play
Speaker 1: when you go out on tour. You're going on tour soon.
Speaker 1: Could you play a lot of this album or do
Speaker 1: you do you feel you have to do a lot
Speaker 1: of the old stuff.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's the purpose of the tour. And we've
Speaker 2: gone from bigger venues to a little smaller because we know,
Speaker 2: you know, there's always going to be someone like this
Speaker 2: is our new single and they go to the bathroom
Speaker 2: or whatever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well you want to play the new record, like
Speaker 1: that's the point of this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, we feel that it's right there with the
Speaker 2: best of everything we've done. And as we move on
Speaker 2: from this new record and being able to focus on
Speaker 2: it for this period, of course, you know, we have
Speaker 2: to play she talks angels hard to handle, jealous again twice.
Speaker 2: It's hard during to my pride remedy. You know, we
Speaker 2: know there's certain things wiser times, soul sing and whatever.
Speaker 2: We know there's certain songs. I think when we were younger,
Speaker 2: we were more arrogant and we didn't want to play along.
Speaker 2: We wanted to push people more into we're more than
Speaker 2: just these hit songs, and that was our right and
Speaker 2: we did it, and we felt there was some importance
Speaker 2: there that wasn't just ecocentric. Yeah, but I think now
Speaker 2: we realize and that oh we can say the things
Speaker 2: we want to say, but we also have to respect
Speaker 2: our audience and know that somebody's going to be mad
Speaker 2: if you don't play. She talks dandel yea And by
Speaker 2: the way I look at she talks to angels or
Speaker 2: hard to handle or whatever. Now in such a different
Speaker 2: light because I realize how special it is to have
Speaker 2: those songs in your catalog, you know, to have songs
Speaker 2: that we play for people, but that after almost soon
Speaker 2: it'll be getting there forty years that are been in
Speaker 2: people's lives and it's important to them too, and they
Speaker 2: and they want to hear it and they want to
Speaker 2: hear you do the best you can do. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: make it special and have that relationship with the audience.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you said you feel like this is like an
Speaker 1: arrow pointing to the future, like you want to do
Speaker 1: more Black Crows music.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I mean, I know it sounds weird to, like,
Speaker 2: you know, start wrapping up my fifties and talking about it,
Speaker 2: But then again, you know, there's so much about what
Speaker 2: we are as a band and as artist and as people.
Speaker 2: It looks like one thing on the surface, but it's
Speaker 2: not underneath, you know, in the same way that it
Speaker 2: breaks my heart a little bit to hear like people
Speaker 2: musicians say that they are bored or listless or not inspired,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, well, I don't feel that way. And
Speaker 2: this record is really even greater sort of proof that
Speaker 2: I don't have to give up on my passion, on
Speaker 2: my creativity. I can put it all in the correct
Speaker 2: order and we can continue to move on. We don't
Speaker 2: have the same expectations that you had in nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: five when you made a record. When you know you're
Speaker 2: spending a million and a half dollars on a record,
Speaker 2: they want you to go out and sell fucking ten
Speaker 2: million records and have four hit singles, and everybody's trying
Speaker 2: to do that, and the radio is pumping your songs
Speaker 2: all day long. And that's that's how it used to work.
Speaker 2: Kids used to they play your records all the time
Speaker 2: on the radio, and people will go buy your record.
Speaker 2: That's how it works. Yeah, So even though that's gone,
Speaker 2: that doesn't mean we don't see or feel there is
Speaker 2: still some importance in that. And I don't feel that
Speaker 2: making albums is that antiquated or archaic or anything. People say,
Speaker 2: you know, you go to fucking Amiba, man, You're gonna
Speaker 2: wait in line to pay for your shit. It's not
Speaker 2: like there's Humble Weeds blowing through a record store or something.
Speaker 1: It's true there are a fewer around, but you know, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: go to Freak Beating in the valley.
Speaker 2: There's people in the way, you know, and they have
Speaker 2: great records in there. It's like anything else. The media
Speaker 2: doesn't cover it because it would take too much imagination
Speaker 2: and interest in something that isn't status driven, in something
Speaker 2: that is collectively uh more dynamic, that contains more soulful information,
Speaker 2: or something of a cultural reality that's not just reality
Speaker 2: TV and going to the gym or whatever. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so you do feel like it's an arrow
Speaker 1: pointed in the future. You want to make more music,
Speaker 1: but you mentioned earlier, maybe less touring at some point.
Speaker 2: It's a deposition. I have to give you a day.
Speaker 1: No, I'm just curious. No, I'm just curious.
Speaker 2: Like it's like I don't know, like I'm just trying
Speaker 2: to figure out where you're at here answered a Grand
Speaker 2: Journey played this back to you. Remember you said it
Speaker 2: you Miranda rights Man. Uh, Yes, there will come a
Speaker 2: It's not in the near future, but maybe you know,
Speaker 2: give me another. I don't know. It's hard to say,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, because getting a bit older
Speaker 2: is weird because I don't feel older, but like, oh
Speaker 2: fuck my knee hurt or whatever. Yeah, okay, it doesn't
Speaker 2: dictate my dreams and passions my age, but no for
Speaker 2: the near future, and I think, you know, it would
Speaker 2: be pretty safe to say for the next decade of life.
Speaker 2: I want to keep doing it while I can. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that was another thing about the record, like, let's make
Speaker 2: a fucking rock and roll record while we can still
Speaker 2: fucking rock and roll. Man, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: Because at a certain point it's gonna be like you,
Speaker 2: thank you rock and rolling, but intensity level comes down,
Speaker 2: which is totally normal and fine, But rock and roll
Speaker 2: is specific to a certain energy that you need. There's
Speaker 2: all sorts of things that you can be passionate and
Speaker 2: you can again have that kind of emotion and there's
Speaker 2: still a smoldering intensity to those things. But I think
Speaker 2: if you want to get out, shake your ass a
Speaker 2: little bit, put it on a rock and roll show.
Speaker 2: Hopefully people still get up and dance, and that's what
Speaker 2: it's about.
Speaker 1: Incredible man. Well, look, man, thanks for thanks for taking
Speaker 1: the time. To talk. I love the new album, Excited
Speaker 1: to see you play it, and fun talking to you. Man,
Speaker 1: you got a lot to say. I love it all right.
Speaker 2: I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: Thanks to Chris Robinson for hanging out and talking about
Speaker 1: his career along with the Black Crows new album, Happiness Bastards.
Speaker 1: You can hear it along with our favorite songs from
Speaker 1: Chris on a playlist at broken record podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: Subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash
Speaker 1: broken record Podcast, where you can find all of our
Speaker 1: new episodes. You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record.
Speaker 1: Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with
Speaker 1: marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer
Speaker 1: is Ben Tollinday. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries.
Speaker 1: If you love this show and others from Pushkin can
Speaker 1: are subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast
Speaker 1: subscription that offers bonus content and ad free listening for
Speaker 1: four ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on
Speaker 1: Apple podcast subscriptions. And if you like this show, please
Speaker 1: remember to share, rate and review us on your podcast app.
Speaker 1: Our theme Music's back Anny Beats. I'm justin Richmond,