Robinson brothers credit kids for end to feud
Black Crowes co-leaders writing songs, but focus is on album anniversary
The intense and extended acrimony between such famous musical siblings as Dave and Ray Davies of the Kinks, Liam and Noel Gallagher of Oasis, and Chris and Rich Robinson of the Black Crowes is the stuff of rock ’n’ roll legend.
But the Robinsons — unlike the still-estranged Davies and Gallagher brothers — have buried the hatchet and reunited.
Their current reunion as co-leaders of the Black Crowes follows a 2015 split that lasted nearly five years. They credit their children for bringing them back together, after several years in which the Robinson brothers rarely spoke and regularly traded insults with each other in their respective interviews.
“My daughter, Chyenne (now 11), was like: ‘What’s the deal with you and
Uncle Rich, and why don’t I know my cousins?’ ” singer Chris Robinson, a father of two, said. “Those are the kind of questions that will make you think and reflect.”
“Definitely. Kids are honest and curious, and they don’t have issues like Chris and I did,” said guitarist Rich Robinson, a father of seven, speaking from Nashville, Tennessee, in a joint interview with his brother.
“And kids are literal,” Rich said. “They are like: ‘Who’s that singing in that video with you? What’s going on?’ So, as Chris said, that opened a door (to reconciliation).”
With the bad blood of past years between them now dried and put aside, the Georgia-bred Robinson brothers are back on the road with their band for the first time together in six years.
The tour belatedly celebrates the 30th anniversary of the band’s 1990 debut album, the 5-million-selling “Shake Your Money Maker.” The coast-tocoast concert trek follows the January release of the multiformat reissue of that album. It is available as a four-vinyl and three-CD box set that includes previously unreleased rarities, demo recordings and a
1990 Atlanta homecoming concert.
The recently launched tour was pushed back from last year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The new tour marks the first time the brothers have performed all the album’s songs, front to back, as a piece and largely as they recorded them.
With the Robinson brothers at the helm, the Black Crowes burst onto the national scene with the band’s debut album in early 1990. Two of its songs became hit singles: the moody “She Talks to Angels” and a high-octane, hard-rocking version of the 1968 Otis Redding B-side “Hard to Handle.”
Delivered with infectious vigor, the Black Crowes’ retro-steeped sound set them apart from other young music acts in the early 1990s. The band’s energetic concert performances helped seal the deal.
Since reuniting, the siblings have written more than 20 new songs together. But there are no firm plans, at least not yet, to record a new album, especially when the focus of their current tour is to bring the Black Crowes first album back to life in full.
Granted, their band also earned acclaim for its second and third albums, 1992’s “The Southern Harmony and Musical
Companion” and 1994’s Latin-tinged “Amorica,” as well as for 2000’s “Live at the Greek” collaboration with Jimmy Page. But the Black Crowes’ 1990 debut album remains its most successful, as the Robinson brothers are well aware.
“‘Shake Your Money Maker’ is the purest example of our love of rock ’n’ roll music,” Chris, 54, said. “What’s funny is that when we made that record, we weren’t great musicians. But we used every bit of talent, fortitude and luck that we could, and one other element: soul.”
“Chris and I have always based our songs on our hearts, not our minds, and that has served us well,” said Rich, 52.
“It hasn’t helped us get an Apple commercial,” Chris quipped, “but it has served us well.”
After the Black Crowes’ debut album took off,
the Robinson brothers embraced fame, fortune and — at least in Chris’ case — drugs. With fame came pressure and with pressure came fights, mainly verbal, but sometimes physical as well.
Even so, the brothers stress, their fights were never about the music they made together. And the bumps and potholes they encountered were, at least in hindsight, as inevitable as they were imperative for growth.
“I believe any bumps were necessary,” Chris said. “We’re here on this earth, right now, in this lifetime, to learn. And if everything goes great all the time, you won’t learn much! … I had to go through those things to be able to stand in this spot now and play again with my brother.”
Both brothers have led their own bands. Starting in 2002, Chris fronted
New Earth Mud, followed by jam-band favorites the Chris Robinson Brotherhood. Rich led Hookah Brown, followed by Circle Sound and the Magpie Salute.
But neither sibling fared as well on their own, commercially or artistically, as they did together as the Black Crowes. Why, then, did they split up?
“Really, there is no good answer,” Rich replied. “Just saying, ‘Oh, that guy sucks,’ or, ‘He did this,’ that’s not an answer.
“So, it forces you to look at things in a different light, and ask: ‘What did I do? What did I bring to this situation? How can I change this and make it better, for my kids and for me?’ ”
Chris agreed, adding: “I think we split up because we are sensitive people and being together in a band is like being in any relationship. We were so lucky to get to experience the first 10 years of this band when rock still (meant) something, and when getting a record deal and being successful in this industry seemed like just a dream.
“We were able to do that and to let our talent and imagination guide us through that first decade. Then, you find yourself in the next decade. How could we have learned without the mistakes?
“The end result is that no matter what the fighting or negativity was about, you feel used and abused . ... We’re lucky to have those bruises and to have those scars. And that paid off, in the long run, for Rich and I to mend our relationship as brothers and songwriting partners, and to put this band back together. My goal for 2021 is not to step in the same (expletive) twice.”