In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Chris Robinson all but sealed the fate of the Black Crowes, saying “No, never” when asked if the band would ever play together again. The interview primarily focuses on Robinson’s love of psychedelic music, as he’ll be DJing a new program called Chris Robinson’s Gurus Galore on SiriusXM Jam ON radio starting this Monday, April 4th.
After some questions exploring Robinson’s psychedelic and musical tastes, the conversation turned to the musical project that propelled Robinson into the spotlight. When asked about the band’s current state of affairs, Robinson spoke at length:
“It’s just gross now. I think everyone’s laid down their cards. It’s easy to sit back and say, “Oh, well, that guy said that he wanted all my money!” It’s not true! That’s not how it works and I’ve said it before. I don’t think people should discuss their business. But then again, if you’re a child and you’ve been hurt and someone took your toy, you have a temper tantrum, you know? Like I said, man, you’re allowed to just want the money. You’re allowed to just want to be in that kind of band where you go out and play your hits and you don’t have anything else to say or offer anyone. In the same way I’m allowed to not want to be a part of that!
It doesn’t take away from what we did. It just means that I’m not going to spend my life around people who don’t like each other or are all there for the same reason. The reason any of this is interesting at all is because we all jumped into the river, the music. That music starts with us as human beings in our earliest, ancient past, and it will take us to our distant future. That will not change. That’s where we are.”
He also discussed the band’s 2013 tour.
“For me it was great. I was happy. I got to sing those songs one last time to the people who gave me so much. I would be writing these songs and doing all this on any level, whether it was in my garage to friends or whatever. So for the opportunity to be a part of people’s lives and those shows to be important, that never goes without my respect. So that was special. And I’ve wanted to go, you know what I mean? So I wanted that to be the emphasis. And also I think that summer, touring with the Tedeschi Trucks Band was probably the best touring experience. Great friendships were forged on that.
It also opened my eyes to kind of how dysfunctional — and I don’t really want to get into it — how dysfunctional and how disappointed I was with where the Black Crowes ended up. Which hurt. It hurts a person like me who’s very altruistic, in those terms. But you know what? No matter all the ugly shit that people try to say about me … it doesn’t matter. I’m getting to do exactly what I want to do. It makes me happy.
We don’t sit around and have some douchebag pull up in his Porsche and come to the studio and start telling us that the bass isn’t loud enough or that he doesn’t like the lyrics or that he doesn’t like the edit. The same people that basically killed the music business are the same people who are still trying to control it. We’ve just removed ourselves from that and we’re completely happy to be independent of it.”
You can read the full interview here, which talks about the Chris Robinson Brotherhood’s new album and so much more.