A new report published in the Wall Street Journal indicates that The Black Crowes are eyeing a reunion in celebration of the 30th anniversary of their debut album, Shake Your Money Maker, in early 2020. The rumored reunion would mark a mending of the fences between famously feuding brothers Chris Robinson and Rich Robinson.
Related: Chris Robinson Says The ‘Dysfunctional’ Black Crowes Will Never Play Together Again [2016]
The Wall Street Journal report cites several sources close to the band. While none of them explicitly confirm an upcoming reunion, none of them completely deny it, either:
Drummer Steve Gorman, a founding member of the band, said he has heard from industry colleagues that the brothers are reuniting but he hasn’t been asked to join. “They are going to move forward with new people,” he says. Former band manager Pete Angelus, who managed the group for 25 years, says: “I’m aware of the deal that the brothers made with Live Nation for a 2020 tour.” He declined to specify who told him; a Live Nation spokeswoman says she doesn’t “have any intel.”
A person familiar with the matter declined to confirm a tour but said: “There might be something in the works.”
The report goes on to highlight the fraught relationship between the Robinson brothers during the band’s tenure, even in spite of their commercial and critical success:
“Literally, nothing could have stopped that band,” former member Mr. Gorman says. “Except for that band.”
When Mr. Angelus, the former manager, first met Chris and Rich Robinson, now 52 and 50 years old, “they argued from the moment we left the curb at the airport until the moment that we arrived at the venue where they were going to be performing,” he says. “I’m not even certain that, from the time we left the curb, they were aware of the fact that I was in the back seat any longer.”
“That’s one of the things that made the band so exciting—that unique brotherly love,” says Heidi Robinson-Fitzgerald, a veteran music publicist who represented the band’s label in the early-to-mid 1990s. “It’s like the old saying about how there’s nothing like having a big fight with your husband and then having the greatest sex ever.”
The Black Crowes initially broke up in 2002. They reunited 3 years later and went on to record a critically acclaimed 2009 live album, Before the Frost…Until the Freeze. The Crowes returned to hiatus at the end of 2013 and announced their second official breakup in 2015 allegedly following a dispute between band members regarding ownership of the band and division of its revenue.
While the brotherly tension led to two separate break-ups over the years, both Rich and Chris have recently shown their desire to play Crowes music—Rich with The Magpie Salute and Chris with As The Crow Flies.
We’ll just have to wait and see, but you can take this as an official go-ahead to get excited about the possibility of a Black Crowes reunion in 2020.
[H/T Wall Street Journal]