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Crowes drummer discusses battling band, Levon Helm — and Michael Vick?
While they can more than carry a tune, the Black Crowes are not known for harmony off the stage. With the bickering Robinson brothers at the core of the band, a history of lineup changes and a breakup, fans tend to think any tour, album or show could be the band’s last.
And according to a forthright Steve Gorman, the band’s original and current drummer, the fans aren’t too misguided to feel that way.
“In a perfect world, it would’ve been the same guys since day one, but it just wasn’t meant to be for us,” Gorman says in a recent phone interview. “I would love nothing more than to think we have another 10 to 15 years in us and this is the lineup. And you never know, there’s always changes, and it could be like the final straw.”
That said, this version of the Crowes, which recorded 2008’s “Warpaint” and “Before the Frost … Until the Freeze,” which came out this week, is one that the drummer says just might have the chemistry to stay together. So much so that the band — Chris Robinson (vocals), Rich Robinson (guitar, vocals), Luther Dickinson (guitar), Gorman (drums), Sven Pipien (bass) and Andy MacDougall (keyboards) — was comfortable enough with each other to record “Before the Frost … Until the Freeze” in a live setting in front of 250 of its fans. The band captured the tracks over five nights at Levon Helm Studios in Woodstock, N.Y., where Helm, the legendary drummer/vocalist from The Band, holds his intimate Midnight Ramble shows.
“It was fantastic,” Gorman says. “(Helm) has lived there for so long, walking into that barn for the first time — it sounds trite — but you just get this warm sense that there’s music to be made in this place.”
The album has been a closely guarded secret, with no advance copies made available to the media. Last month the band released a free download of the “Before the Frost …” track “I Ain’t Hiding,” an odd, disco-y song you can stream by visiting the online version of this story at www.theweekender.com/music. “Um, that one song is definitely, I wouldn’t say, indicative of the entire record,” Gorman offers, “but it’s an extension of ‘Warpaint’ in that it’s the same band two years later with 200 gigs under its belt.”
PLAYING IN THE BAND
The Black Crowes will play at Penn’s Peak in Jim Thorpe on Wednesday, Sept. 9. It will be the Southern rock band’s second performance in the acoustically robust, cabin-like venue; the Crowes played there last July and seemed to be in renewed form, feeding especially off then-new guitarist Dickinson, known as a founder of the North Mississippi Allstars. Gorman, who says “I remember it well,” adds that the band coalesced into an even more versatile and intuitive unit as that tour progressed.
“It’s no different than any relationship,” says Gorman. “You know each other’s jokes. When one guy says something during a football game, we all get it. … The band has just really opened up. It’s almost these valves in everybody’s psyche that are open.”
That openness has spurred the Black Crowes to record not only the 11 new tracks on “Before the Frost” but also nine more songs, also at Helm’s studio, which were released as “Until the Freeze.” A download code is included with “Before the Frost,” allowing fans that buy “Frost” to also get “Freeze,” which features a cover of Stephen Stills’ “So Many Times.”
The free tunes, as well as the invitation to fans to sit in on the recording process, paint the band as fan-friendly.
“We try,” Gorman says, “but in some ways we don’t make it very easy on (the fans) at all. We’ve not been a band who’s ever thought to or remembered to play all of our popular songs night in and night out. We’ve asked a lot (from) the people who have stayed with us, and in fact we haven’t even been very polite about it.
“But that’s just us being surly people sometimes. But generally speaking, we are very aware of the fact that if not for our fans, you and I wouldn’t be having this conversation. We’re 20 years in because a lot of people have very generously given us their time and their support and allowed us to have our space. Nothing happens without them.”
BROKEN WINGS
Since, 1990, when the Crowes released their debut album, “Shake Your Moneymaker,” they have been an ultimate crossover act, playing a jamming, Southern-flavored brand of hard rock that led to opening slots for everyone from AC/DC to the Grateful Dead. The band was also a radio success right out of the gate, with the “Moneymaker” singles “Hard to Handle,” “She Talks to Angels” and “Jealous Again” saturating the airwaves. Hits like “Remedy” followed, and the band’s fanbase grew, but — cue the ominous VH1 “Behind the Music” narration here —tensions in the band flared. The co-lead guitar slot alongside Rich Robinson became a revolving door, with Jeff Cease, Marc Ford and Audley Freed all doing stints. The bass and keyboard positions were in flux as well.
As 2001 wound to a close, the band effectively ended, and in January of 2002, Gorman — the only non-Robinson in the Crowes since their inception — left the band. The Crowes announced they were breaking up.
In 2005, the Black Crowes reunited, testing the waters by touring small clubs using the band name Mr. Crowe’s Garden, including a show at the now-defunct Staircase Live in Pittston Twp. Gorman, however, decided against getting involved in the re-constituted band at first.
“Like everyone else, I think I probably had a sense of being pushed,” Gorman says. “I didn’t think I was ready to do it. I didn’t trust that there was an opportunity to move forward, and it ended so poorly in ’01, and I had been so disappointed when it was done.”
After about 20 shows, Gorman came back.
“I hated the way it ended before that, and I felt that we should do some shows,” he says. “Let’s at least walk out shaking hands. That’s as much as I wanted to accomplish in ’05.”
POISED FOR FLIGHT
Gorman’s openness — or “big mouth,” as he puts it — helped him land a weekly sports talk show on 104.5 FM “The Zone” in Nashville, Tenn., where he lives. Regarding the embattled quarterback Michael Vick, who served time in prison on animal-abuse charges before signing with the Philadelphia Eagles the night before the interview with Gorman, the drummer was blunt: “If he comes back and wins, no one is going to care about those dogs.”
From dogs back to Crowes, Gorman reiterates that the band is clicking in a way that can’t be planned for — or taken for granted. So the Black Crowes are going to ride with it as far as they can.
“We’re always good,” he says. “Everyone can play, we always know the songs. It’s not a question of, ‘I went to see the Black Crowes, and I didn’t even know what they were doing.’ But there’s an X factor. There’s a whole set of intangibles, and when they’re not there, we certainly know. And when they are there, we really take advantage of it. We just jump on board and let it take us.”
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The Black Crowes
w/ Truth & Salvage Co., Wed. Sept. 9, 8 p.m., Penn’s Peak (325 Maury Road, Jim Thorpe). Tickets: $47 at box office,
Ticketmaster.com