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Some
twenty years after their debut album 'Shake Your Money Maker' introduced
the Black Crowes to the world, the band return with their latest release
'Before The Frost ... Until The freeze'. This ambitious project
spans rhythm n' blues, psychedelia, acoustic country and plenty of
hardscrabble electric ass-kicking for which the band is known and loved.
With special guest Larry Campbell on fiddle, banjo, mandolin and pedal
steel, tracks range from the blistering take on Band-esque Americana
'Good Morning Captain' to the innovative, trancelike instrumental rave
'Aimless Peacock'.
Frontman
Chris Robinson tells us more about this latest release ...
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What
made you choose Levon Helm’s place to make the record?
Chris - That kinda happened after the concept of doing
something different in terms of size, of vastness, and something
that included the live idea in front of our audience. By
vastness, I mean being able to do a lot more songs.
On
the Warpaint tour, we
went back to Woodstock for a little break, and I ran into
someone who works for Levon, at the health food store in town
– if you’re a hippie, you have to go to the health food
store in Woodstock, or the police come to your house and
question your motives. Levon’s Rambles
were definitely on my radar, and we just lucked out that it
was happening that weekend. We went down for the show, and I was
just blown away. I sat in that night. We had so much fun, and
the whole idea of it was something that I felt fit with the
Black Crowes’ aesthetic, on a lot of levels.
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Was
it the intimacy, the vibe in that room?
Chris - A lot of it was just the logistics of what we were trying to
pull off. To me, it was “all these things at once” – it’s a
studio during the day, and then at night they can reconfigure it to have
it be a small concert venue. That was a perfect way for us to learn the
material.
The other aspect that was appealing to me is that it’s off the grid,
in a way. That’s part of who we are and what we’ve always been.
It’s something that feels handmade – Levon built it himself, and he
doesn’t use promoters, and there’s none of the typical inner
workings of the business.
Which is fine, but those are also the things that have diluted the rock
‘n’ roll experience for people. People want to see music, and be a
part of things, and then they go to concerts and they’re burdened by
rules.
The setting, of course, is the third attraction. Because you’re in
this beautiful barn. It’s Levon’s home as well as a place to make
music, and he’s such a unique, warm and generous, one-of-a-kind
musician. He’s also that as a person.
OK,
so it’s a great studio. Why bring the audience in? What does that do
for you?
Chris - The thing that makes this band what it is, is having the
audience there. Because we’re not a pop band, and we’re not a
corporate band, and we have very little presence in the modern cultural,
corporate whatever. That’s the kind of people we are, and that’s the
kind of music we make. It’s going to benefit a group of weirdos like
that.
We made Warpaint in
Woodstock, in a different studio up the street, in a rural place on a
mountain, private, and it was perfect to get our group together on the
same page.
I was definitely inspired to get into even a more rootsy place, in terms
of country, bluegrass, country blues and soul music. Stuff that we’ve
always been inspired by, but I think, in this term, something to really
sink into. Especially with this time and age. Just how we feel about it.
It seems like that’s the best way to express those things.
In our case, I also thought it was good for the band as well, in terms
of the story of the band. Sort of a living narrative or somethin.’
The people that were there, we didn’t have the random ‘Hey, I
haven’t seen the Black Crowes in a while … I got nothing else to do
tonight,’ these were hardcore Crowe people who’ve been to numerous
shows.
So for us, having the audience there doesn’t make it harder, it just
adds a certain level of focus. This was more about immediate
communication and response with these people, who are waiting to hear
what your new work sounds like. You can’t manipulate that dynamic.
And we didn’t want to do something fake. It wasn’t going to be like
some VH-1 TV show.
It’s
been 20 years since the first Black Crowes album. Your thoughts on this
anniversary?
Chris - Even though we’ve been through stuff that on the outside
looks gratuitous or silly or wasted or whatever, this has been IT for
us. We were one group that even as young people, we took responsibility
for ourselves. If we fucked something up, we didn’t blame it on
anything else. And that’s why we always had such problems with the
internal workings of different systematic, corporation-driven,
derivative music.
The tradition that we get to live in is very humbling. The idea that we
have kept an audience that’s a part of our world, and part of our
scene, that keeps growing and changing with us, that’s another thing
that very little times is talked about in the music business. ‘The
pursuit of relevancy’ is like the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard in
my life. That’s just fashion, and keeping up with the Joneses - It’s
product and it’s safe.
The music business is stumbling along these days – you can hear the
death rattle – and for us, that’s kinda cool, because we’ve always
been self-sufficient. And we’ll always have an idea, and always a way
to do it that benefits the dynamic of this group.
I think that’s a little bit of what makes a milestone like 20 years
exciting. At the end of the day, the way we’ve had to do it is the way
we’ve had to do it, and that’s made us stronger. That’s the reason
that we’re here.
'Before
the Frost' is released on 1st September 2009 and is available as an
individual CD, and it includes a unique Internet code allowing listeners
to download 'Until the Freeze'
for FREE. A limited-edition, two-disc vinyl release includes
all 20 tracks. |