Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Rewind: Chris Robinson

Transcript

Rewind: Chris Robinson · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin. The Black Crows are one of the great rock
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: bands of the last thirty years, and they've just been
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: nominated for the twenty twenty six Rock and Roll Hall
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: of Fame, alongside nominees like Lauren Hill, Phil Collins, Wu
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Tang Clan and Oasis, all acts i'd vote for if
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: I were a voting member, by the way, but instead
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: of voting, we'd figured we'd honor the Black Crows nomination
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: by running back my interview with their singer Chris Robinson
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: from when they released their album Happiness Bastards Enjoy. Sixteen
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: years have passed since The Black Crows last put out
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: an album of all new material. The world's changed a
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: lot since then, and it appears so have the Robinson brothers.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Chris and Rich Robinson are, of course, the backbone of
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: the group. They started together back in Georgia in eighty
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: four as Mister Crow's Garden, before moving to NYC, signing
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: with Death American and changing their name to The Black Crows.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: The band's debut album, Shake Your Money Maker, set them
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: up as torch bearers of Southern rock for the nineties
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: and beyond. As you'll hear in our conversation the brothers
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Robinson have had a competitive relationship for a long time.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: There ups and downs have meant hiatuses for the band
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: over the years, but now they're back united and seemingly
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: in it for the long haul with their new album
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Happiness Bastards. On today's episode, I talked to Chris Robinson
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: about his growing up in Georgia with Rich their dad's
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: rockabilly career, his listening routine that includes Sudanese and Sufi music,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: and how his road habits have changed from indulging in
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: champagne and other substances to reading Herman Melville. This is
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: broken record liner notes for the digital age. I'm justin Mitchman.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: Here's my conversation with Chris Robinson of the Black Crows.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Is that it gun club like the band? Sure that
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: you got on?
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, oh hell yeah.
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: I love gunklow Man, Jeffer Lee Pierce one of my faves.
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: And it's funny because you know, when we started, people
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: would always say we sounded like and we did. We had,
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: you know, there was the Jengle sort of indie pop thing, Rim.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: Of course being the purveyors of that, but let's active.
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: And the DBS and then bands from California, like Game Theory.
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: We kind of were into like this kind of jangly
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: sixties inspired but we really sounded early days a lot
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: like the gun Club, you know, because gun Club and
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: X are very interesting to me, and like early punk
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: scene here in Los Angeles because they were the well,
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: I guess you could put the blasters and the plugs
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: in there too.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Blasters are from essef though, right, oh.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Blasters are LA band too.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: You are they? Okay? Cool?
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: They had those kind of roots seed.
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: Things, you know, and it would be really early on
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: that we would think like, okay, well, Jeffery Lee Pierce
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: is like a punk icon, but he plays a Robert
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: Johnson song on the first record. You know, it doesn't
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: sell Robert Johnson, but needless to say, he found great
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: inspiration and the mythology and the imagery and the vibration
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: of like the blues.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: And stuff, which other punk bands really didn't.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: Whatever music is happening in LA, there's always some subset
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: of it that countrifies it. You know. It's like even
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: with the Birds, like Sweetheart of the Rodeo, like all
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: that stuff, Like the Birds got into that and you know,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: I don't know, you could even feel that with Buffalo
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Springfield and I mean, I know, like Neil from Canada
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: or whatnot. But they're making music here, you know, of course.
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: Of course, well I mean, you know, I mean, while
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: that's going on, Tim Buckley's here, and you know what
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: I mean, And while that's going on, you have bands
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: like the Chambers Brothers and Eric Burden Leaves the Animals
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: and Northern English White Band playing blues music. And then
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: he's the lead singer of War.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: It War is like such a quintessential La Long Beach
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: of fact group, you know.
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think obviously there's subsequent most famous records
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: don't include Yeah, And it's funny. It also just goes
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: to show how that's just how music is, isn't it.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: I mean, I guess you obviously you can make examples
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: of things that seem heavy handed or things that don't
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: contain a certain authenticity. But I mean, that was a
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: big deal when I you know, talking about growing up
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: in a band, being from Atlanta, being like in a
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: arguably the most progressive city in terms of race relations
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: in if not America and maybe globally.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: That's interesting. It probably has to be I mean you
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: might I might have been comping to say New Orleans,
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: but I think when you kind of look at the
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: musical legacy of Atlanta over the last I.
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: Mean New Orleans most definitely, but Atlanta's different because of
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: the black universities, yeah, like kind of concentrated there, and
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: Atlanta having Maynard Jackson as the first black mayor, the
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: first black police chief for the black police force in
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: the Deep South.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: When I first landed in Atlanta, I got to say
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: coming from LAA because I grew up in la When
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: I first landed Atlanta, I'm in the airport, I'm like,
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: with whem, Like, how is the whole airport is black?
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: This is crazy. It was the weirdest experience for me.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: Funny, that's funny.
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: And as I said, I'm a third generation Atlantan and
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: I don't really make the connection and being like I'm
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: a Southern person, but my connection is with Atlanta.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: And so so it's funny because.
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: Maynor Jackson's the guy who when Hartfield International Airport becomes
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: an international airport, He's the one who's like, we're not
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: doing anything unless black business owners are recognized and have
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: a piece in this.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: And what that can mean for the community. Something very
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: subtle like that still reverberates, I.
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: Think, and besides the culture, because you start to see
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: Atlanta also be a city, you know, famous for the
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: musicians and.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: The hip hop and the athletes that I'll move there.
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: But the reason that becomes attractive is because of decisions
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: like that and the hard line that someone like Maynor
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: Jackson would take, and how Atlanta I had been pried open.
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: Of course, having the great Reverend Bee from there, you know,
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: gives Atlanta a different perspective.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: But I do know it's a unique place in that way.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: And it's funny like I.
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: Speak on it from the past, because I really left
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: first check I got into Black Crows, I moved to
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: New York. Being in a band to me was like,
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: you know, shooting an arrow over the mountain, like just
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: I wanted to get out in the world.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Had you been to New York before we moved there?
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Actually, you know our dad, rich andized dad was
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: a singer.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: He had a top.
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: Forty rock and roll hit in the fifties called Boom
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: a Dip Dip.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: You can check it out on Spotify.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: I've listened to some of that stuff good man. It's
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: really good.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a good song. And so I really have
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: been and lit at New York.
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: And he was like, you know, into the theater and
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: music and acting and dance.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: So he wanted that too at a certain time in
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: his life. And he was in New York. And it's funny.
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: My mom was a flight attendant for the old Eastern Airlines,
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: and you know it's funny.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: She told me. She goes, Oh, I served doctor King
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: many times on flights side of Atlanta. Wow, I always
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: really blew my mind as a kid, you.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: Know, of course she did. It wouldn't make I mean,
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: how many flights out of Atlanta musty have taken that.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: All the time, you know? You know.
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: So I moved to New York first, and I still
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: love New York and some of my deepest connections and
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: friendships are there.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: My wife and I just got back from there yesterday.
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: But I came to Los Angeles, and I don't know,
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: it was farther away.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: From Georgia from everything.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: I mean, California has an idea California. Later I would
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: get to know far more about this state.
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: And I lived up north for six years and I
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: was in this little hippie band, and we started.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: We did nine weeks just up and down California in.
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: The van, playing all the little beach towns and hippie towns.
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: And you know, I got a real appreciation for do
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: you remember Hule.
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: Houser, Oh, come on man, California's gold Baby.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: I was like the psychedelic Hule Houser. You know what
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: I mean? You know hil Hauser. I was like, so
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: this was an Adobe. Wow.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: He was amazed about everything too.
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: He's like, so this is a ball of Manuda. I
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: love Juel Hauser, the late great man, the late great
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: Huel Hauser.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: Man, I love.
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: And you know what, he was always so excited. He
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: saw remission from San Diego to like, you know, the
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: Oregon border, so that the mission, You're like so excited.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Everything was ecstatic to him. It was crazy. It was
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: so that was that was a funny show to watch, man.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: I loved it. When I moved here, I was like,
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: what is this? Is this good?
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: I also am lucky that when I'm I'm so I
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: moved here in ninety one.
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: Early ninety two. That was the golden age of public television.
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm the weirdest weirdest of the weird stuff would
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: come on TV man on the couple of public stations
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: on your cable, like Channel six and Channel fourteen or whatever,
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: the most unimaginably, I mean obviously like Tim and Eric.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you ever got into Tim and.
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: Hell yeah, Tim and Eric like take the inspiration of
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: that into their twisted world for the series, which is
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: still some of my favorite stuff. You don't need a
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: Chinese massage, you need an Italian massage.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: It was fantastic, you know what I mean.
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: And you know the other thing about things that were
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: really I've always been interested in outsider culture, you know,
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: when those would be like driven by like this, but
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: because of Hollywood, it made it even weirder.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: Like I'm on TV now I'm famous too, you know
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: what I mean.
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, pre dating the psychoses that has become social media,
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: you know.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: People always describe LA when they come to LA as
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: being closer to the industry, as being closer to things.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: But I also find that you can find your niches
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: and stay way out of the way of the industry
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: if you want.
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: I did it, Yeah, I mean, when I moved to
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: Topanga Canyon at a certain point. I moved to Topanga
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: because I have these romantic notions of what northern California,
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: what I've been to northern California, but what it might
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: feel like not to be in LA, but to still
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: be able to be in LA. For different reasons. I'm
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: of the firm belief that Los Angeles is one of
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: the great cities in the world, and which is also
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: unique because of how new this city is comparatively. In
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: eighteen sixty there's five thousand people living here that's wild
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: ranchers and spread out, and it's just come over from
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: Mexican rule and stuff from that government.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: And they had, you.
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: Know, gave everyone deeds to these massiffincas and ranches and
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: things that were all of California, you know.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: So it's not that old in the big scheme of things.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: But the other.
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: Funny thing is when I game here, I was like,
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: I laugh all the time because it was like growing
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: up in Atlanta or whatever.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: In nineteen I had my first sushi in nineteen eighty nine.
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: My guy ended up being our manager, like, took me
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: and Rich with some friends to get sushi.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: And that place is called Imperial Gardens whatever it was
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: right there on sunset.
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: It's now like a Loco place or something, but it
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: was the Roxbury later. But anyway, we're sitting there and like,
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: of course I know what it is, but I'm you know, standing.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: Nancy Robinson in Atlanta. We didn't see you know what
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: I mean.
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: Like I remember being sixteen and telling my dad, like,
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: coming downstairs one day, I was like, why have we
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: never had Indian food? My dad was like, you're right,
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: we should go get it. And I was like, we
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: all drove to the one Indian restaurant, you know, and
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: it was amazing. Wow, I'm here in nineteen eighty nine,
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: I'm still working on the first album and I'm a
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: kid from Atlanta. But the cool thing is it's a mentality.
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: You get farther away from where you come from, and
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: like anything else, you figure out what's delicious about it
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: and what's special about it, and now it has a
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: place in your culinary like.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: Thing that tonight's sushi we want to go and you
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: know what I mean? And then you can on level.
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: But there was one time where you're you know, I
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: come to La I don't know anything about anything, and
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: I don't even know what this is.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: How far removed from Atlanta. Do you feel now, like
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: do you feel like an atlantin.
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: I mean, not especially, And none of that is to
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: be taken as if Atlanta has feelings. I do love
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: Atlanta more than ever, but it's also I like the
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: remnants of the Atlanta that I remember, so when you
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: go back you don't see the I mean, man, it's changed.
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: There was this thing on Peach Street called the Darlington Apartments,
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: and there used to have this digital thing and it
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: would be like two.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: Million nine U nine, you know what I mean that,
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: you know, and.
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: It was the population and it got older with the
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: population sign and it got bigger and it went to
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: three million in nineteen ninety.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: You know, we used to hang.
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: Around this monthly thing called the mud Shack at this
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: after hours Mexican burrito place, and it was a poetry
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: reading and just the poet would get on stage like
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: I live in a city of three million people, as
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: if it was like you know this Atlanta of this.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: It's almost eight million people now.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, right, that sounds about right. It's huge.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: It went out there.
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: I mean, of course I love it, but most a
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: lot of the Atlanta. You know, the house where we
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: used to rehearse and have parties is now the Federal Reserve.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: The club that we.
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: Based all our rock and roll dreams and mythology on
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: is now at that, you know, a place where people
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: go get stitches.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: Or whatever, you know what I mean, Like all of
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: that kind.
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: Of stuff from back in the eighties, whenever the world
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: was new and music was all our career was ahead
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: of us, that's all kind of gone. Yeah, you can
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: see that the skeleton of it, you know what I mean.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, with more of my interview with Chris Robinson
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: after this quick break, we're back with Chris Robinson. Do
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: you get excited to tour these days? But can you
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: still get excited about it? I do?
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: I do. It was funny.
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: I've done a couple of interviews for this project, and
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: I'm like shocked that the people have said, you're the
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: first musician who says they still find inspiration doing what
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: you do and being on tour, they say is so boring.
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: I'm like, I've never lost the dream. And again I've
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: never been bored, you know what I mean. Even as
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: a kid, like with my mom and go to your room,
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: I'd be like, I'm amazing, That's all I want to do.
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: All my records are in there, the books.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: I'm reading are in there. I can draw, I can dream,
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: you know what I mean, daydream?
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: I mean I was somewhere there's a permanent record of me,
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: and all it says is prone to daydreaming. Not very
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: good at math. But I was saying, I mean, it's
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: just the way it is. I mean, is it tedious sometimes?
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: Fuck yes, I'm fifty seven now. Airports fucking suck.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: Not every gig is a magical experience. But you never
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: know who you're gonna meet, and it could be anyone.
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: It could be the Dianese uber driver who pitts you
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: up in Saint Louis, who's fucking hilarious, an amazing, soulful
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: person who's left a life behind to try to eke
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: out something better, and like it's so brave and courageous,
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: and you know, and you're only with this person eight
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: minutes from the airport or whatever, and you just two
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: people in the world laughing in a car.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: But that little thing that doesn't even necessarily have to
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: be a part of the narrative, It just has to
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: be a.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: Part of that.
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: You still believe that there's dynamic in meeting people and
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: talking and laughing and sometimes crying. But I'm just naive
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: enough to still see it as in the same way
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: that I wanted.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: I picked music.
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: On a lot of levels because I knew it was
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: the one thing that I would travel all the time. Yeah,
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: and then you set up your little thing and then
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: you put your vibes out there.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: You know, that is pretty rare.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: I feel like listening to you talk, the only other
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: person who has had a level of success that you've
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: had and towards as much as you do and travels
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: as much as you do that seems to still love it.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: I got lucky. I met Quincy Jones in Havana maybe
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: ten years ago, and the joy he has to like
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: travel and just talk to anybody. It's like he's like, yeah,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: he'll tell Sinatra stories, and I'll tell the story about
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: like the Cab Driver and like Memphis, and you're like
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: he everything is like new and fun and interesting in
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: every person and everything and every sound and every that's
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: a particular joy that you don't find in a lot
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: of a lot of people.
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: Like I said, I understand, and you know, you get older.
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: It also helps in my life that after all the
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: rock and roll and all the experiences that I found
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: Camille my wife, because I found someone I knewho she
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: understands that some of that is problematic and some of
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: it's a pain in the ass, and some of it's
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: like can't we just.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: Be do normal something?
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: And like, by the way, we could talk about that
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: and do our best. But then she also realizes, like
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: she's an artist and she's Pisc's queen Moonstone child out
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: in the world, you know, who wants to feel these
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: things too. And you know, my thing is the pandemic
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: was such a fucking head trip.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: Personally, I didn't really find it creative. I found it stifling.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: But we were lucky enough to live out in the.
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: Wilds of West Marin and then we were in southwest
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: Colorado amazing, Yeah, which was really really help. But one
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: thing I thought I would really flip out on was
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: it was the first time since I was basically a
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: teenager where I wasn't working and touring and singing and
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: playing and doing the whole spiel.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: And you know what it was, rat really you liked it?
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: Wow, my head didn't fall off, you know, our lives didn't,
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: you know, disintegrate into nothing.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: It was nice.
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: I had time for a lot of other things, and
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: it's funny the travel part of it.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: I was just talking to my manager Mark last night.
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: About how at a certain point it would be nice
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: to bow out from performing the way we perform before.
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: I can't because I love the travel and we fit
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: in the things that we want to But it's different
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: to be in a place for you know, we're going
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: to Paris. I'm gonna see my friends. I know all
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: the restaurants I want to go to, I know all
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: the things I want to do. But you got to
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: leave in two days. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and you have
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: a show. When I was a kid, I didn't care.
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: We would just party, go out, champagne, drugs, this that,
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: two days, do the gig, God, do the gig. You know,
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: like all one thing was so when you're young, you
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: can do it, you know what I mean.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: I don't feel that now.
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: I'm really happy being in the Black Crows and really
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: fulfilling and satisfying and gratifying. But at a certain point,
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: I just want to take my wife and go to
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: Sicily and eat linguini and clams and like you know,
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: drink whie and you know, read Moby Dick for the
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: third time or whatever, you know.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: What I mean.
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: I just want to just be a part of everything
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: going on. There's lots of places I have in traveled.
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: I haven't been to Africa. I've always wanted to go
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: to Africa, you know what I mean. That would be
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: nice to have some time to do that. And because
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: Africa is such a huge thing too, you know, I'm
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: really interested in West Africa. I'd like to go to
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: North Africa. Be cool to see the East Africa and
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: be good, you know what I mean.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: What interest you in West Africa?
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: I think maybe it has something to do just with
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: the I mean, I love North African music, but there's
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: you know, a lot of those West African music could
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: be because of the horrors of mankind and the horrors.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: Of the slave trade.
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: Human beings found away somehow through the vileness of that,
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: to communicate and share things in art.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: And music, cuisine.
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: So many African parts of especially in the Deep South,
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: and people wouldn't they don't even know they're they're under
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: edicated anyway. But with these things, you know, it's like, oh,
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: every Southern person loves the fried Okra, but Okra came
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: over from.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: Africa, you know, right before that, Okrah came from India
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: to Africa.
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: So just dumb things like that, plants and fruits, vegetables,
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: natural things and supernatural things that were brought over that
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: could never be extingued with. And I just have some
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: sort of and I don't even know what it is
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: because I'm not obviously that knowledgeable as other people. But
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: I can put a few things together and realize, you know,
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: so much of the music, singing, rhythm things, guitar things,
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: especially string things come from a West African musical tradition
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: that represents like this African mysticism and magic as well
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: that manifest when people express themselves vocally and rhythmically and
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: with melody and things, you know, like a simple of
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: something like a string guitar. And that is something that
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: would draw me there first, be that in a first
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: person and see what it feels like for me as
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: a real outsider. Yeah, outside your culture is important to me,
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: just because of whether my dyslexia or just whatever my tastes,
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: and where I would find the things in life that
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: are interesting that make me happy, things that I can
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: understand or help me for things that I don't understand.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: To understand, you know, so.
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: A lot of that you have to kind of just
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: vibe out viscerally fine, and I would be curious to
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: see what it feels like.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Wow, we've gone from like psychedelic Q Houser or
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: like psychedelic like Anthony Bourdain or some shit. I've gone global.
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: Now call my agent. I'm down to do this job.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: That's amazing, man. I want to check out like Robert
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: Plant goes to rock O Goo.
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he loves the Sufi music and the North African music.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: And it's funny because I have this app where you
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: can listen to radio stations all over the world. But
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: it's like, wow, right on, man, I want to listen
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: to some like rad Cambodia music, It's like, uh, it's Nicki.
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: Minaj like everywhere else.
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: I know.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: That's that's kind of a bummer about radio.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's like, which is cool.
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: I'm not bagging Nicki Minads, but I'm like, I'm thinking
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna like get hip to some thing I've never heard,
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: some regional vibes or whatever.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: And it's like, oh, it's the same shit they're playing here.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: Is it that radio app like, yeah, oh so cool.
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: But there's some in Morocco. And then there's a certain
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: kind of music that the horrors of things. There was
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: a slave trade in Africa for a long time too,
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: the you know within in Africa, and they're bringing Sub
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: Saharan Africans to North Africa. But a great musical art
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: form is born from it that still exists, and there's
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: whole radio stations that play it and they're basically a
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: living blues. It's the same tradition of like the pain
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: and suffering of the blues that these people brought with them.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: It still lives today and it's now celebrated as rebel songs. Almost.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like those North African like guitar but I
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: don't know how to pronounce.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: Their names, but like or something.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: I saw their first show in New York many years ago.
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: Really, I love that music, and I love Sudanese music,
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: and then you go over. I love Persian classical music,
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: I love from Afghanistan, and I love Turkish music. You know,
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: I really have a lot of diverse interest in things
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: like that.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: After this last break, we'll be back with more of
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: Chris Robinson We're back with the rest of my conversation
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: with Chris Robinson within the Crows. Like maybe, like with
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: your brother, for instance, does he have a similar music palette.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: I think he has an appreciation.
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: I don't think his palette is as wide as mine,
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: and he would admit that I'm not, you know. He
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: always said like growing up, like Chris would bring back
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: way more records than I would listen to, or some
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't be interested in, but I got to he
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: could be able to cherry pick what he liked, and
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: he loves classical Indian music. I listened to like Mesopotamium,
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: sheep Herder music and stuff, you know what I mean.
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: Like I'm really into a lot of different things.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: Do you listen to that stuff more than like rock
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: and roll? Like you'd rather reach for that than a
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: Stones record?
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I listened to all day long.
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: Like I like to start the morning with something mellow.
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: We'll listen to a lot of Indian classical music. Or personally,
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: I like to start my mornings with the group late
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: great Ben Webster or some think Lester Young. I love
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: the pres you know, but we also love rossn Roland Kirk.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: And we love the Loneus Monk, and we love.
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: Bobby Timid, but we listened to a lot of as
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: we listened to a lot of blues, country, R M B, funk, soul,
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: rock and roll, punk music, post punk music, electronic.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: Rossa music.
• 25:21
  Speaker 4: You know, share your Spotify right now, Share that Spotify trying.
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: To I don't have Spotify envy, man, You know, like,
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: I'm just obsessed, you know what I mean? And my
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: obsessions maybe made me way more difficult as a youth
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: in the music business because I also associated a certain authenticity, passion,
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: and purity to my obsessions and what I wanted to say.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: But I also have a waking life with music that
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: has nothing to do with.
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: Me making music or being a musician. Yeah, those things
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: are simpatico. But I'm sure it's annoying. I'm the guy
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: who I get the car to drive down to eat
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: dinner in West Holly and I'm like, hey, man, can
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: I play the Spotify?
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah in the car, dude. I got to stick
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: out of a sushi spot one time because I asked
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: them to change the music, and then they opened the
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: same sushi spot across town. So we tried to go
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: there a year and a half later turned the same
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: lady with something else. She's like, you look familiar. I
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: was like, I don't know. I don't know. No, no, no,
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: I wasn't. So did you ask me to turn off
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: the music? One time? I was like no, no, no, no,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: it must have been my brother. I don't know.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: It wasn't me, Like, hey day, so I saw she's
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: not coming in here.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: You know. They weren't happy, but I was just changed it.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: I could tell. It wasn't like pre pro It's like,
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: it's all you're on serious or some shit. Just just
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: change the station, I sall I'm asking.
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: I'm just always you know what I mean.
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: I've just been adventurous and things I can access what
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: makes things.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: Interesting to me. But I do that with with a
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: lot of art.
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: I do that not with music, but with literature, cinema,
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: most definitely comedy as well.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: So it's all that going through your mind as you're
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: writing lyrics for the Crows or for your other groups.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: I imagine, yeah, I imagine it's something. It's all in there.
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: But I think when it's time to focus, like on
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: writing a lyric or whatever.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: I've written songs with other people. I've written many songs
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: on my own.
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: The thing that is the Black Crows is Rich and
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: ize contribution together.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: You know, Rich, whatever he's coming from, will play me something.
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: There's a lot of psychic energy involved in it as well,
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: and music is a great conduit to open those kind
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: of psychic channels.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: And do you go into it with that intention? Like
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: do you have to set out to do that or
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: is it happen?
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: I think there's other musicians who can do the fucking
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: math and know all the shit and they do another thing.
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: I've only ever been able to access it this way,
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: got it my process because of however, because we didn't
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: learn music, we don't know shit about music.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: I don't read music. Rich doesn't read music.
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: But we know what it feels like and we know
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: what sounds right, and then you keep doing that.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: Of course, through that your vocabulary is bigger.
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: But we maybe are using different words than people who
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: are more knowledgeable about the inner workings and mathematics the
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: arithmetic of music.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that has escaped us.
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: But I think it's also in our that makes it
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: folk and that makes you know what I mean, there's
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: some sort of that's why we look at it more
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: and like it's kind of magic when a song happens
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: out of the blue.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: One minute, there's nothing.
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: One little thing like this, and then I get an idea,
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: and then that changes what Rich is doing, and then
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: it's all dictated by whatever the vibe is that Rich
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: plays me. There's an emotional ingredient to what he plays me,
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: like our probably the most famous song, as she Talks
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: to Angels.
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: He wrote that song.
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: He was very young with the riff, and then we
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: probably didn't get to it till like a year later,
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: when but we would be playing things around mom and
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: Dad's house.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: He's like seventeen when he wrote that.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I would be nineteen.
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: So there's something about the way he pulls that first
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: in and that would just put me in a place
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: to write a song with that kind of dark, romantic,
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: melancholy imagery. But we do that today, and we do that,
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: I think, especially if we get around to where we're
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: going right now with.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: This Happiness Asters record and stuff.
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think that's that's exactly what we've done
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: with this. I mean, there's a lot more rock and
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: roll on it. There's a lot more water under the bridge.
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: We've lived a lot personally, I'm one of those people,
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: and I have two children and we want everything to
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: be the best. But I'm also not afraid of adversity
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: because I don't think you should be afraid of something
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: that you have to find acceptance with, you know what
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: I mean, Because it doesn't matter who you are, what
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: you do, if you do it to yourself, if someone's
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: doing it to you, if you have the means, if
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: you don't have the means.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: No one escapes adversity.
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: And it changes, you know what I mean, how we
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: deal with it. The great energy and power of youth
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: and where we came from in rock and roll was
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: the anger, the fuck you part of it.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, even with each other.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, but that boils into that.
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's like live fire, you know, and like,
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: but it's also a great if you can get that
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: into dude, and you can get this and.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: Get it on there.
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: You know, we weren't clever enough to do the math.
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: We were only clever enough to wear our emotions on
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: our sleeves.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: Did your parents pick up on you guys's tension?
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: Yes, I mean, fuck, I mean even more so probably
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: the older we would get, but they weren't around when
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: it was like for some reason, you know, we he
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: had his own bedroom. I had my own bedroom when
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: we lived in the suburbs, and I had like a
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: twin bed and a desk, stereo whatever.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: Rich I had like a queen size beddings room for
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: some reason.
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: I don't know why we ever got that, but it
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: was funny because when we were kids, and it would
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: be like if we started getting annoyed, we'd have this
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: game where we'd both get on the bed and he'd
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: be like, I'm mad Max and I'm like I'm Snake
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: plisktt and then we would like see who could who
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: would win in a fight, Mad Max or Snake clisk
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: getting like whoever could like fucking throw the other one
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: off the.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: Bed was like the winner.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: Listen. Snake always was in that got a.
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: Batch on the eye, fucking cool outfit. I was like,
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: my motherfucker there, you know, yeah, but like dumb show
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: like that. And then we've said it before, but we
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: fought brothers fight, but we would never punch each other
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: in the face. We would hit each other bodyguards, throws
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: at each other, try to strangle each other nothing from
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: the neck up.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: It was weird.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: I don't know that rule always applied.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: Unspoken, unwritten. Just yeah, as if that makes.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: It like worse than all the other cruel shit.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: I love it, man, I love it. Snake doesn't need
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: muscles though, it's just being a pure badass is sometimes enough.
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they couldn't stop, you know what I mean? The
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: crazies come out from under the street. He gets away
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: from all of them, didn't matter. Great soundtrack to that,
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: amazing soundtrack. John Convererter is always a favorite.
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: One is a movie he made called, uh is it
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: called The Prince of Darkness? You know that movie? I
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: don't know that one part of the trilogy he did that.
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: I think that Escape from New York, Prince of Darkness
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: and maybe they See or whatever.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: I think those are like a trilogy he made.
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: But Prince of Darkness is a really cool movie, like
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: in this weird church in Oakland or whatever it is,
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: like where evil is and like this liquid container and
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: like these people find it's really deep.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: Man.
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: But the sound that one's really I listened to it
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: all the time.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: I missed that one. I like Assault on Precinct thirteen.
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: That soundtracks amazing, very far ahead of his time, actually.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: Way ahead of his time. It sounds like, what's you know,
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: like a lot of like electronic composers would now go
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: for is he from Kentucky?
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: I think originally is from Kentucky. It's like if Tangerine
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: Dream were from Kentucky. Yeah, yeah, right, Tangerine Dream is
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: from Kentucky. Maybe they just call that like Pineapple upside
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: down cake Dreamers.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: How do you feel with the new record? I think
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: it sounds amazing.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're very happy.
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: I think we were really focused on what we wanted
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: the record to be, touring the last few years and
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: doing the Shake Your Money Maker show. At first, I
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: was a little bit I had a little trepidation about it,
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: just because.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: I was like, Oh, isn't that what other bands.
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: Kind of get into sometimes, is playing their most popular
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: record or whatever. Yeah, But once I thought about it,
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: and I thought, Yo, don't think about it, just do it.
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: This is important record to you know, this is where
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: it all begins for us, and let's revisit it.
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: Let's see what.
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: Happens if we remove ourselves from the way of thinking before.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: You know, why did I think that was dumb? Maybe
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: it's not dumb. Maybe there's something there.
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: And I think part of where the Black Crows are
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: today is getting out of our way and you know,
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: don't think it, do it, and then you'll have more
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: information about what works and what doesn't. And it was fantastic,
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: and that was kind of the impetus to get us
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: to like a real focus, up tempo rock and roll
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: record that hits all the notes. I think that we
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: finally didn't have the perspective to know what the Black
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: Crows sound like, and to me, happens Bastards is like
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: an arrow pointed towards the future for us of what
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: the Black Crows could be. And once we work with
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: a guy like Jay Joyce who produced the record, who's
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: very successful, popular producer, We've never really worked.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: With like a super producer like that.
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: And you know, we met so many talented people and
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: had so many great conversations.
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: There's just something about Jay.
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: Well, first off, we felt like this guy not only
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: can we get him, but he could get us, and
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: we're incapable of doing something that we don't feel is sincere,
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: sincere to us of what we want to do and.
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: How it sounds.
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: And of course when he comes on board, he started
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: to help shape the songs as well, like all right,
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: we have a discussion about what I think the record
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: should be. What's the concept in a sense, I mean,
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: you can't do it one hundred percent because it's music
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: and things change. But if that's what we're going for.
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: And so he you know, we have a bunch of songs.
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: He comes in, tells us what he likes about these songs.
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: We go back work on some songs, write some new
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: ones again as we're in the studio making the record.
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: It only took us two and a half weeks to
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: make the record.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: That's quick. Yeah, yeah, it has an energy.
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: It has to be that way.
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: Like I said, we're not the kind of people to
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: what are we doing, you know, and what are we selling?
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: What do we want people to get from this? What
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: are we putting out there in the world. And we
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: haven't made a record long time. Basically you got to, like,
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: you know, put your money where your mouth is and
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: if you're going to say this is what you are,
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: then it.
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: Better fucking sound like that. Yeah, And I've made a
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: record in so.
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: Long and we've been talking about it, we've been proving
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: it every night on tour of like what the presentation is,
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: what the vibes are, what the band sounds like we're rich,
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: and I are, but we're playing old songs and we're
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: playing songs people know, and now to do it with
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: something new. But after all the talk about we're a
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: rock and roll band, this is where we're doing this.
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: We're in a good place, we're creative. But then you
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: have to do it.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, do you think you could go out and play
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: when you go out on tour. You're going on tour,
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: se could you play a lot of this album or
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: do you do you feel you have to do a
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: lot of the old sung?
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: I mean that's the purpose of the tour.
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: And we've gone from bigger venues to a little smaller
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: because we know, you know, there's always going to be
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: someone like this is our new single and they go to.
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: The bathroom or whatever.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well you want to play the new record, like
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: that's the point of this.
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, we feel that it's right there with the
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: best of everything we've done. And as we move on
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: from this new record and being able to focus on
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: it for this period, of course, you know, we have to.
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: Play She talks angels hard to handle, jealous again twice.
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: It's hard during to.
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: My pride remedy, you know, we know there's certain things
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: wiser times, soul singer, whatever.
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: We know there's certain songs. I think when we were younger,
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: we were more arrogant and we didn't want to play along.
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: We wanted to push people more into we're more than
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: just these hit songs, and that was our right and
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: we did it and we felt there was some importance
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: there that wasn't just ecocentric. Yeah, But I think now
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: we realize and that oh we can. We can say
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: the things we want to say, but we also have
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: to respect our audience and know that somebody's going to
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: be mad if you don't play.
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: She talks Danel Yeah. Yeah, And by the way I
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: look at she.
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: Talks to angels or hard to handle or whatever now
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: in such a different light because I realize how special
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: it is to have those songs in your catalog, you know,
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: to have songs that we play for people, but that
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: after almost soon it'll be getting there forty years that
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: are been in people's lives and it's important to them too,
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: and they and they want to hear it, and they
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: want to hear you do the best you can do, yeah,
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: and make it special and have that relationship.
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: With the audience.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you said you feel like this is like an
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: arrow pointing to the future, like you want to do
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: more Black Crows music.
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I mean, I know it sounds weird to, like,
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: you know, start wrapping up my fifties and talking about it,
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: But then again, you know, there's so much about what
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: we are as a band and as artist and as
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: people that looks like one thing on the surface, but
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: it's not underneath, you know, in the same way that
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: it breaks my heart a little bit to hear like
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: people musicians say that they are bored or listless or
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: not inspired, and I'm like, well, I don't feel that way.
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: And this record is really even greater sort of proof
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: that I don't have to give up on my passion,
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: on my creativity. I can put it all in the
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: correct order. Yeah, and we can continue to move on.
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: We don't have the same expectations that you had in
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: nineteen ninety five when you made a record, When you
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: know you're spending a million and a half dollars on
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: a record and they want you to go out and
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: sell fucking ten million records and have four hit singles,
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: and everybody's trying to do that, and the radio is
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: pumping your songs all day long, and that's that's how
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: it used to work. Kids used to they play your
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: records all the time on the radio, and people will
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: go buy your records.
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: How it works.
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So even though that's gone, that doesn't mean we
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: don't see or feel there is still some importance in that.
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: And I don't feel that making albums is that antiquated
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: or archaic or anything. People say, you know, you go
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: to fucking Amiba, man, You're gonna wait in line to
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: pay for your shit.
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: It's not like there's Humble Weeds blowing through a record
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: store or something.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: It's true there are a fewer around, but you know, like, yeah,
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: go to.
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: Freak Beating in the valley. There's people in that way,
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: you know, and they have great records in there. It's
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: like anything else. The media doesn't cover it because it
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: would take too much imagination and interest in something that
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: isn't status driven, in something that is collectively more dynamic,
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: that contains more soulful information, or something of a cultural
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: reality that's not just reality TV and going to the
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: gym or whatever.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And so you do feel like there's an
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: errow pointed in the future. You want to make more music,
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: but you mentioned earlier maybe less touring at some point.
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: It's in deposition. I have to give you a day.
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: No, I'm just curious. No, I'm just scarious. Like it's
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: like I don't know, like why, I'm just trying to
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: figure out where you're at here.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: I mean, answered a grand journey.
• 40:25
  Speaker 4: Play this back to you. Remember you said it I
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: fucking Miranda Rights man. Uh, yes, there will come a time.
• 40:35
  Speaker 4: It's not it's not in the near future.
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: But maybe you know, give me another.
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: It's hard to say, you know what I mean, because
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: getting a bit older is.
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: Weird because I don't feel older. But like, oh fuck
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: my knee hurt or whatever.
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, it doesn't dictate my dreams and passions my age.
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: But no for the near future, and I think, you know,
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: it would be pretty safe to say for the next
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: decade of life.
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: I want to keep doing it while I can.
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that was another thing about the record, like, let's
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: make a fucking rock and roll record while we can
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: still fucking rock and roll.
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: Man, you know what I mean, Because at a certain point
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: it's gonna.
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: Be like you, thank you rock and rolling, But congensity
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: level comes down, which is totally normal and fine, but
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: rock and roll is specific to a certain energy that
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: you need.
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: There's all sorts of.
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: Things that you can be passionate and you can again
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: have that kind of emotion and there's still a smoldering
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: intensity to those things.
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: But I think if you want.
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: To get out, shake your ass a little bit, put
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: it on a rock and roll show. Hopefully people still
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: get up and dance, and that's what it's about.
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: Incredible man. Well, look, man, thanks for thanks for taking
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: the time to talk. I love the new album. Excited
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: to see you play it and fun talking to you.
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: Man.
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: You've got a lot to say. I love it all.
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: I appreciate that.
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Chris Robinson for hanging out and talking about
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: his career along with the Black Crows new album, Happiness Bastards.
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: You can hear it along with our favorite song from
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: Chris on a playlist a Broken Record podcast dot com.
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: Subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: Broken Record Podcast, where you can find all of our
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: new episodes. You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record.
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: is Ben Tollinday. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries.
• 42:32
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• 42:50
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• 42:53
  Speaker 1: Our theme music's by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.