As The Crowes Fly

After 16 years, the Black Crowes are back, writes Patrick Donovan.

AS WITH the rootsy music of his band the Black Crowes, Chris Robinson seems to come from another time. You can imagine him writing beat poetry with Jack Kerouac in the 50s, or dropping out and into an artists colony in San Franciscos Haight Ashbury in the late 60s.

But since his band catapulted to stardom in the early 90s, this modern-day bohemian has been caught in the Hollywood machine.

On the eve of the bands first Australian shows in 16 years, their management stipulated no questions be asked about his recent divorce from actor Kate Hudson or fights with previous band members (nine at last count). They can afford to make such requests because for a while there, the Black Crowes were the hottest rock band in the world.

They sold 20 million albums and shared stages with Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, AC/DC, Neil Young and the Grateful Dead, and their live shows earned them the title "most rocknroll rocknroll band in the world".

But that kind of success can spawn excesses, and the Black Crowes lost touch with their roots.

The band struggled to maintain the brilliance of Shake Your Money Maker and The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion.

When they went on an indefinite hiatus in 2001, Robinson released some woeful solo albums that were more Hollywood than Haight-Ashbury.

Then came Robinsons divorce and the blues returned. He started writing songs again with brother Rich, and they reignited the band.

As if to remind themselves of their intentions, the mission statement for the new album Warpaint is "a declaration of our soulful independence". This independence reveals itself on several levels — the Robinsons are releasing the album on their own label, and they sing about people independent of mainstream America; the misfits, forgotten people and mavericks.

"We decided to make a record with a lot of songs about loss. Its about what happens to all of the people who fall between the cracks, about the weirdos and outcasts, artists and bohemians and rocknroll people," says Robinson.

The song Locust Street is a case in point. "There is a Locust Street in every city and town in America east of the Mississippi," says Robinson. "Its a song about the other part of America that is never shown in the media. Its a broken place, a fragment of some weird industrial revolution and the empty lots in cities like New York and upstate New York. Its invisible, and youd think in an election year, they would be talking about it all the time."

The band has also been liberated by breaking away from the major-label machine.

"Part of the real frustration early in our career was we thought the commercial success we had would have given us some sort of power and some respect from the people we were making tens of millions of dollars for.

"But that didnt happen.

"Its a generalisation about the music business — I have met some great individuals along the way — but as a whole, its just a smouldering wreck on the highway."

The catalyst for the reunion came when the songwriting siblings brokered a truce. "Rich and I didnt really speak for three years," he says of the family feud, "and then we were in New York and some friends were going to play one of our songs at an event at the Madison Square Gardens theatre and they asked Rich and I if we would sit in with them.

"It reminded us that no matter what happens, we are very proud of the band and the songs we have written and what they mean to our audience."

The Robinsons formed a new band with Steve Gorman (drums), Sven Pipien (bass), Paul Stacey (guitars), North Mississippi All Stars guitarist Luther Dickinson and Adam MacDougall (keyboards).

Then they moved to the live-in Allaire Studios in the Catskill Mountains outside New York to record.

"It was a really nurturing place for us to get back into making a record," Robinson says of recording Goodbye Daughters of the Revolution, an album that continues the bands love affair with 70s Southern rock.

"When you havent done something for a long time and you have gone through a lot of changes, it can be precarious. So the geography and the land and the vibe added to our level of enthusiasm."

So how does Robinson feel about the Black Crowes being labelled a reformation band, lumped together with other ageing rocker tours?

"It doesnt help that Led Zeppelin ended at a certain time, and came back together many years later. But Neil Young, who is in his 60s, still totally rocks with Crazy Horse. And Jimmy Pages unlimited enthusiasm for music still inspires me," he says.

"Me, Im not obsessed with being young. Impossible things dont interest me at all. Maybe fantastical things do, but thats something else. Our band will always sound and look and taste and smell the way it feels for us, and that will change as we do."

The Black Crowes play the Palais Theatre on March 29.

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