No one knows you like your brother. But, oh bro, when brothers snap – you better believe the bruises are deeper, the damage longer-lasting, and the chance of saying something really hurtful much, much higher.
That may explain why, for reasons they prefer not to revisit in minute detail, Black Crowes singer/songwriter Chris Robinson, 57, and brother guitarist Rich Robinson, 54, haven't spoken to each other in eight years. Not a word—resulting in missed birthdays, health crises, the birth of children, marriages and divorces, and the mundane, daily check-ins that siblings are used to doing with each other. They didn't exchange a single syllable after spending over half their lives making music and touring together.
But to hear the brothers tell it today, there wasn't a single incident or behind-the-scenes blowup that broke them up for good. At least neither of them can manage (or want) to remember.
“In the Victorian era, we'd have been considered eccentric,” says Chris of the elusive story of how the Southern blues brothers went from rocking the crowd to a stony, long-term total blackout that seems hard to fathom. . “I'm not sure what you'd call this today, but we decided on it [this reunion] through an intermediary — someone in the middle who could handle the situation with kid gloves.”
“A band is a family dynamic and on top of that we have one [actual] family dynamics… the two frontmen of this band are family and everybody has to deal with that, no matter how toxic it is,” explains Rich, who, in keeping with the brother's preference, spoke to Advertising sign on a separate call from his brother. They also maintain their own dressing rooms on the road. “That creates its own dynamic in the band and it all became incredibly toxic and we split up for a long time and in those years of doing what we do, it allowed Chris and I to really get away from that thing.”
In classic Robinson fashion, this 'thing' also included Chris going solo during their hiatus in the mid-2000s with the impressive Chris Robinson Brotherhood side project. Ouch. The almost-too-perfect story of sibling rivalry continued after the 2001 release Lions and a joint tour with famously feuding brothers Oasis – winkingly called the tour of Brotherly Love – after which the Crowes went on hiatus in 2002. They reunited with a different lineup in 2005 and then embarked on their final tour: the Say Goodnight outing to the Bad Guys in 2010, after which they went on indefinite hiatus again.
Another brief reunion in 2012-2013, a difficult, seemingly final break came in 2015 due to what Rich described at the time as his brother's demand for a bigger share of the revenue pie. Rich says the split was preceded by the Robinsons falling into “the same traps” in the midst of an atmosphere that had become “incredibly toxic”. That break turned into a hellish situation, in which both brothers swear they didn't speak once for nearly a decade — until reuniting around their 30th anniversary. Shake Your Money Makerafter a chance meeting at, of all places, an airport Hilton in Cincinnati.
Back-and-forth, hot-and-cold yo-yoing became a tentative signature of the Marietta, GA-bred duo, who bonded early on over their love of classic Muscle Shoals blues and soul, British folk and southern rock. Rich was just 17 when he wrote “She Talks to Angels” and a year older when the group recorded their debut album in 1990. Shake Your Moneymaker. The division of labor—Chris writes the lyrics and sings, Rich writes and composes the music—worked like a charm, as the band released five more albums throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, scoring hits on MTV and rock radio like “Angels”. “Jealous Again,” “Remedy,” “Thorn in My Pride,” and an iconic cover of Otis Redding's “Hard to Handle.”
After their toughest break to date, the duo finally got back on the same page last year to record their Back to the Beginning album Bastards of Happiness — is due out Friday (March 15) on the Silver Arrow label. The Robinsons' first new album under the Crowes banner in 15 years bursts out of the gate with galloping Stones-y boogie rocker “Bedside Manner” and keeps the sinister, charming beat through the growl of “Rats and Clowns.” the clapping, rousing first single 'Wanting and Waiting' and the aggressive southern blues 'Dirty Cold Sun'. It's a loud, hard-hitting affirmation of the Crowes' signature sound, albeit one flooded with the memories and scars of more than 30 years of hard work.
“It wasn't like I called and said, 'Let's do this, I love you, I want to talk about where I feel like I failed us,'” Chris says of the approach. The hard-earned harmony came after what the singer called years of “greed and avarice” surrounding the band and his own stubbornness and “selfishness” that racked up the works. “We're too Southern for that kind of thing [I love you stuff]with English bulls with a stiff upper lip – t continue.”
While Chris says he couldn't articulate exactly what he missed working with his brother at the time of their split due to calcified, long-standing “real or imagined” resentments he harbored, what he did know was that the music was and always had been. “the shining heart” of his soul. And so, he knew he had to overcome the roadblocks everyone had put up in order to restart his rock 'n roll heart. “We were happy and excited and definitely apprehensive about what it would be like,” admits Chris, saying that the anxiety came in part from realizing they had dug such a cavernous hole in their professional and personal lives.
“The things that I missed that made me feel humbled were, 'Oh Richard's having a medical procedure,' and the human part of being a brother thinking how scary that must have been – and I wasn't there for you,” Chris says. , adding that, yes, it was “very strange” that they hadn't met each other's children: Rich has seven and Chris has two.
Although Rich continued to tour with Bad Company, produce other bands, write and produce four solo records and make three more with his band The Magpie Salute, what would always happen was that he would look to his side and see what he missed it. “I've always written for Chris… every song I write I'm still thinking about how he's going to sing the chorus and give him a platform to sing,” Rich says with no amount of water. dilute. “It's connected in there.”
So after that hotel, Rich says, they agreed to clear the decks, take responsibility for the triggers that set them off, and not let “some outside force come back and mess with us… start from ground zero, bring in new people and put our relationship first.”
The fire this time can be seen through the opening Happiness The salvo, “Bedside Manners,” in which the brotherly sounds fired out of a cannon onto a dance floor, Rich says, came together in a five-minute flash, just as “She Talks to Angels” did three decades earlier. “That king broke out and it was so great, Chris and I were both with him,” he says of the song, which he thunders out on his galloping guitar, atop his brother. it-what-you-will growling lyrics about “what are you doing to me/ Stick a knife in my back and then you want one please/ With friends like those who need enemies.”
Chris says the homage to decadent rock 'n' roll and trashed hotel rooms also has a message about dealing with other people's judgment, as well as an undercurrent of the Robinsons' determination to maintain an “element of defiance in a world that it's dictated by conformity… we can deal with it and we've survived it,” says the singer.
You can also hear Robinson's unique alchemy rekindled in the patented pain in Chris' voice on the chilling “Cross Your Fingers” and Exile on Main Street-like the acoustic ballad “Wilted Rose,” which features backing vocals from country singer Lainey Wilson, a frequent collaborator of the album's producer, Jay Joyce.
Both men say the high-energy first single, 'Wanting and Waiting', came in a flash, although Chris thinks his brother may be under the impression it's a love song, while he sees it as more 'sad'. In another classic Robinson move, they haven't discussed the song's meaning – because of what the singer says is a superstition that if they started to compartmentalize their inspirations, “these things might go away.”
It's also easy to put on your therapist's hat to deconstruct the seemingly sprawling, heartbreaking lines on album-closing Beatlesque acoustic ballad 'Kindred Friend'. On this touching track Chris croons, “Man, where have you been?/ I guess it's been a while/ Through thick and thin/ And many times again/ You always make me smile.” Rich loves that the emotion in the song is “cold but not obvious — it could be that or something else,” while Chris agrees that it could work “on many levels,” recounting his relationship with Rich, a beloved old friend who has fallen. out with an ex-lover or even the band audience.
“The mystery is that as different as we are, he equally believes in that pure heart of things,” Chris says fondly of his younger brother. The singer pointed to the moment that proved it to him: a 2019 audition for new band members that marked the first time the brothers had performed together in years. “It was so powerful,” she recalls. “I can't get over how important one of the most unique guitarists in the history of rock and roll is, and he feels the same way about my talent and what I do.”
Chris Robinson calls it a “soulful” connection, but also a brotherly one – and says the rich tapestry and heartfelt emotion of the new album is also a result of the emotional depth each man developed to deal with each other during of its removal. “What we do is special and we have to nurture that,” he says. “He's given us so much.”
Watch the Black Crowes' first music video in 16 years below.
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/music/rock/black-crowes-talk-happiness-bastards-reunion-album-1235622475/
