ON THE RISE

With new album ‘High Water I,’ The Magpie Salute, a Black Crowes successor, looks to make its mark

The Magpie Salute got music fans, and particularly Black Crowes fans, excited during 2017.

And this month’s release of the group’s debut album, “High Water I,” only revved things up further.

The group was formed by Crowes guitarist and co-founder Rich Robinson and includes bandmates Marc Ford and Sven Pipien. The Magpie Salute played mostly Crowes favorite during its 77 shows last year, but “High Water I” is the first step in building its own ouvre — with, as the album’s title implies, will grow in the fairly near future.

“High Water I” comes from sessions earlier this year that yielded two albums’ worth of songs.

“We got together in Nashville in January and threw it all out there,” Robinson, 49, recalls by phone. “We said, ‘Look, let’s leaving nothing off the table. If it works, great. If it doesn’t, we’ll put it to the side,’ and that’s how we did it,” Robinson says. “It was kind of an experiment, and it flowed incredibly well. We wound up doing 29 songs in 21 days, two full records’ worth of stuff. We’re all still excited about that.”

“High Water II,” meanwhile, is due out in March, and Robinson says having a backlog of material is “really cool. We’re all still excited about that. We’re not going to be playing that record live so I think it gives us time apart from those songs, but it’ll keep that excitement.”

Robinson adds that the group is most excited about having new music to play in addition to the Crowes material.

“Last year was kind of about celebrating (the band) taking off. It was like a revue, spearheaded towards stepping into ourselves as a band. We started writing on tour, writing at sound checks, and (the album) organically came together from the shows.”

Robinson makes no apologies if there are some sonic similarities to the Black Crowes throughout “High Water I.”

“I write the way I write, and that’s how I’ve always done it — otherwise it would be insincere. Musically we covered a lot of ground in the Black Crowes, but it was Chris (Robinson) and my songwriting that drove the whole thing. With (the Magpie Salute), Marc Ford wrote his own songs. John (Hogg) wrote his own songs. There’s songs Marc wrote with John and there’s a lot of songs I wrote with John. There’s a familiarity to it, but there’s a freshness to it, so it sounds old and new at the same time.”

The Black Crowes effectively ceased to be during 2015, and Robinson says he and his brother are distant and unlikely to overcome their differences.

“It would be cool if we could, but when you’re in a toxic relationship and you give it a shot, and if it’s not working it’s not working. And if every time you get together with people it’s negative, and bad, maybe it’s not working together anymore. Seeing it for what it is is kind of cool, too, to say, ‘Whoa, that’s not working for me. I love you, I respect you, but maybe let’s give it some space.’ That’s kind of the best approach.”

SUBMITTED After a year of playing mostly Black Crowes songs, The Magpie Salute has a good bit of its own material to perform at shows like the upcoming gig at The Kent Stage.