It seems like the whole time he was growing up in Atlanta, Chris Robinson, lead singer of The Black Crowes, was in training for a life in rock ’n’ roll.
First, there was the opportunity to dodge water moccasins in Peachtree Creek, near his home on West Wesley and Howell Mill, which was good preparation for dealing with concert promoters.
And the toxic water? Helped him build up resistance to all the other chemicals he dosed himself with along the way.
Finally, the scene that was Atlanta in the 1980s was amenable to being a square peg in a round hole.
“Growing up in Atlanta and being in a local band in the ‘80s, it was all just to keep it weird, it wasn’t any career-driven thing,” said Robinson.
But a career he soon had, when that band – Mr. Crowe’s Garden – turned into The Black Crowes in 1989 and sold 3 million copies of their 1990 album, driven by the explosive single “Hard to Handle.” The tune was written by Otis Redding, who was posthumously inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in 1981.
Robinson, 44, said there’s a special symmetry in Redding’s song helping his band earn the same honor this year. “I find it to be apropos that one of our earliest hits was an Otis Redding B-side,” said Robinson, during an expansive conversation on a tour stop in Boise. It will be a joy, he said, “to be in the same building as the the Big O, Little Richard and James Brown.” Robinson's band will perform at the induction ceremonies Saturday.
The opinionated Robinson, whose intemperate views have gotten him into hot water more than once (including recent comments to the effect that Taylor Swift "may be cute, but she's horrible"), spoke with candor over a wide range of subjects during an hour-long interview. He discussed being part of the tradition of battling musical brothers and why his band looked like they were from the wrong era.
Fitting in wasn’t always easy for Robinson. His parents moved from Buckhead to East Cobb in 1976 and he attended Walton High School until junior year. That year his parents switched him to a “strict” boarding school.
“They thought the only way I could get into a university was to be whipped into it,” Robinson said. “I read too much, I questioned authority,” he said. “It was typical middle-class bohemian stuff.”
He briefly attended three colleges, including a stint drinking a lot of coffee at Georgia State University. “I can’t say I remember going to any classes,” he said. Finally, he dropped out. “I thought I needed to come to grips with who I am. My parents are paying tuition for a university that they think I am attending.”
Rapid success in 1990 helped resolve those issues. "Shake Your Money Maker" propelled The Black Crowes into the big time, where they got immediately into trouble. Robinson helped get the band kicked off their first major tour, opening for ZZ Top, when he couldn't resist criticizing the corporate sponsors whose banners hung at the front of every stage.
He credits Atlanta, an outsider city in the music business, with nurturing that attitude.
"Atlanta gave us a philosophical difference, almost an inner ‘us versus them' outlook in terms of business and art," said Robinson. "One of the things I appreciate about the sound we make, the music we make, is we don’t lend ourselves to the latest AT&T commercial, we don’t sell beer. That’s directly related to where we’re from and how we grew up."
More recently he drew some flak when he dissed Taylor Swift. Blog commenters piled on, including one who offered, "I see he's been attending the same charm school as Gerard Depardieu."
The Black Crowes went through many personnel changes, and many brotherly battles. ("Family knows how to push the buttons," he said of brother Rich.) The band called it quits in 2002, then reunited in 2005.
These days Robinson is, if not more sober, more temperate. In the old days, "my responsibility was to the muse, and my muse was saying ‘let’s get far out.'" Now, "we have babies and divorce attorneys and [stuff] to pay." Robinson is the father of two children, Ryder Russell with ex-wife Kate Hudson, and Cheyenne Genevieve, with current wife Allison Bridges.
"Everything changes," he said. "My six year old [Ryder], he already knows that when I drop him off at school in Los Angeles, he knows ‘My dad’s weird.' I don’t look like the other dads, they don’t look like me. He’s pretty proud."
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