Twenty years have passed since the Black Crowes hit the rock scene, bringing with them a mixture of American roots rock and British Invasion blues. The Crowes have ridden a wave of success that has been marred by the rough seas of inner turmoil and brotherly fighting. They hit it big, went away for a few years, came back and jammed with Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page and have now released a CD of all acoustic versions of their music titled Crowology. The album features new twists to old classics and fan favorites. Where most bands would not be able to pull off a project like this, The Black Crowes make it look easy.

Classic Rock Revisited sat down with founding member and drummer Steve Gorman to discuss the new album, the upcoming hiatus the band it taking and if this is indeed the end of the band or if Brothers Robinson & Company will come back refreshed in a few years, ready to do it all again.

Steve: We have been pounding it hard for last six years. We have done this long enough that we can tell when everyone is starting to get a little frayed at the edges. We feel like we are really in synch right now but we know we would not feel like that if we worked another year.

Steve: It was for the 20^th anniversary. We were sitting around thinking about how we can celebrate and acknowledge the fact we made it two decades. We're not the kind of band to set off a confetti bomb and talk about how the first time we were in Topeka we got drunk at the museum. We just play music. We just thought that people probably want more music from us for the anniversary.

Twenty years is just a way that we use to mark the time period, not just about Crowes music. When we were doing this album I was actually thinking that the first time I played a particular song I had never heard of Bill Clinton, the Berlin Wall was still in place and Tiananmen Square had not yet happened. It means different things to different people but we knew that our fans would want another album and more shows from us so that is what we gave him.

Steve: Labels tried to pigeonhole us. What labels have been good at doing are shortening careers and killing artist development. People are always going to attach labels to you. It has been very important for us to not allow people to label us and even more important for us to not label ourselves. It would be very easy to go around and say, “We are the 'Hard to Handle' band, lets do a whole lot of songs just like that.”

In 1987, when we were unsigned, unpopular and, truth be told, not very good at all, we were still changing every month. We would write one song and get rid of another one. We were never very good at fitting in. We didn't go out and try to get a record deal. We just figured we would do it our way and eventually we would get a record deal and see what happens. Even now, if I am doing a session as a drummer in Nashville, there is usually a mindset that you wonder who you are doing this for and who will be doing this with you. We never thought about those things at all on any level. We never thought that Geffen was signing rock bands and we never even thought that MTV was playing rock videos. We just did what we did.

Steve: It’s funny because we weren't even growing. There is a lot to be said for having focus and having goals but in our case there is a lot to be said about having none of those. Once we made Shake Your Money Maker – once we stayed in the studio doing demos and made the record we always wanted to make – then we had a bit of a focus. We threw everything at that thing and we had a producer who helped us in every way possible. We made that record two months before we had a contract to sign. We would talk to guys at the record company and they would tell us that we needed to build a regional fan base. We said, “Screw that. Just put us on tour with someone.” We didn't have a regional fan base. No one in the clubs in Atlanta wanted to hear that kind of music; they wanted to hear new wave or hair metal. We knew there was a bigger playing field out there and we just knew we had to get there. It was like we hit a single in A ball and we said, “Let's go to the big leagues.” We were able to get on a couple of national tours and that helped us. Rock radio also used to mean something and we got a lot of support from them. We did the opposite of the Dave Matthews Band, which had a huge fan base, regionally, before they had a deal. We didn't have anything like that at all.

Steve: Acoustic doesn't need to mean introspective. To me, and I have said this for twenty years, the one song, if I was told that I could only listen to one song for the rest of my life, would be “Every Picture Tells a Story” by Rod Stewart. There is not an electric guitar on that track but that song encapsulates everything a rock song should have. You can also talk about The Stones Beggars Banquet and Led Zeppelin III.

Steve: There were a few songs that we tried that didn't work but it was a fairly easy ride. When you are in the studio you are usually recording new material and you go, “I think I know where this song goes. I think I remember this new arrangement.” This time around we knew the songs backwards and forwards. We also knew that people already liked these songs. The trick was to make interpretations of these songs that people would find interesting. It was really easy to tell if things were going to work or not. We didn't have to think about how a song would go, we would just have to think about what flavor we wanted to add to it.

Steve: “Remedy” is funkier than the original. When you take away the electric guitar then there is room to fill in with other things. I am not playing off of the tone of an electric guitar so it is going to change. If this song is on in the background then one will go “Oh, I like that song” but if you want to dig deeper and see all the differences then there is plenty to do on that level too. These are not things we discussed in a liner fashion but they were subconsciously on our minds.

Steve: We wanted to do a retrospective but it had to be current too. It had to be something that we dug and I think we accomplished it.

Steve: I would say that. In a lot of ways it is crazy that we are still here. People ask us what the secret is and I really have no idea. When Rich and Chris and I started playing together I was the old man at age twenty-one. Most guys that age are in the army or they have a job or they are in college. The first experience after your home life is at that age and you set some pretty strong bonds at that time.

At a time where some kids are pledging allegiance to a frat house or other guys are asking where you want that refrigerator, we were in a band. We can't compare what we do with the army but we had each other’s back and we wanted to be a great band. We took for granted a lot of the success that we had because it was just not that important to us. Don't get me wrong, I would like to make a lot more money than I do because it would help me sleep better at night. I don't want a new car or new stuff; none of that had ever been that important to us. Chris had a very high profile marriage for a while but you didn't see him celebrating life on the red carpet at night.

We are totally the geeks who want to listen to records and play music. You can have fun along the way but nothing every became more important than the band. Even the fights were never more important than the band. After all of these years we know each other’s stories better than the guy who actually lived the story. I am the youngest of eight kids. Chris and Rich know my family very well. You get to know each other so well that you start to get in each other’s pockets and you can drive each other crazy. This break that is coming up is because we don't want to drive each other crazy. We can go away for a couple of years and make people want to come see us again. We actually have people who come to see us year after year and I think even they need a break from us for a while.

Steve: We have not discussed in any way, shape or form when we will want to come back. We don't want to look ahead. We want to make sure that if we do come back in a few years that everyone comes back on the same page. It might be three years, it might be six years and it very well might be the end. If everybody gets focused on other projects then it can be very difficult to get six people back together on the same mindset. I don't think its the end but the truth is that if you could look ahead in a crystal ball and see that these are our last shows then I wouldn't be stunned. I hope it is not but at this age, and with this many years in, I am very grateful for all we have done. I am just going to focus on what is going on now and not what is going on with the Black Crowes.

Jeb: What are you going to do next?

Scott: I do a sports talk radio show online as a podcast. It is called Steve Gorman Sports.com. It is me with musician friends or professional athletes. We are actually getting busy with that. I have a musical project in Nashville with some friends of mine. We have been just doing it here and there but with the Crowes out of the picture then I want to get it up and running and get out on the road. The band is called Trigger Hippie.

Steve: That was the best of all worlds. We had been out doing our thing for ten years and we were a good rock bands and we had an attitude that we could do this. Then we would go home and say, “Holy shit I just played with Jimmy Page.” I got to be a total pro and a fan at the same time. People tell me it must have been a dream come true but I never even dared to dream it. Who would have ever thought that I would get to go play Led Zeppelin songs with Jimmy Page?

www.blackcrowes.com