Interview Leftovers: Steve Gorman of The Black Crowes
Written by: Matt Wardlaw
I saw The Black Crowes for the first time in 1991, opening for ZZ Top at the Richfield Coliseum. It was a "complicated" tour for the band (that's the term I used to reference the tour during my recent conversation with BC drummer Steve Gorman) and truthfully, they weren't very good, which was disappointing to me, as Shake Your Money Maker had been one of my favorite albums of the previous year. But they came a long way in a short period of time and quickly found their sea legs as a band, becoming a unit very worthy of the tag bestowed on them by Melody Maker as the "Most Rock 'n Roll Rock 'n Roll Band in the World."
20 years later, they're doing what every band does to celebrate a 20th anniversary - they're calling it quits - at least for now. They're calling it an "indefinite hiatus," and I'd say that they've earned the break - leaving us with some good music to enjoy while they're away. Croweology is the band's current project - a 20 track trip through the looking glass of the band's career output to date, performed acoustically, although to call it an acoustic album would be deceptive - at many points on the album, it flat out rocks (as my buddy Tony "TNT" Tilford would say). Give honorable mention as well to Before The Frost, the album that preceded the release of Croweology - any way that you'd like to look at it, they're punching out on top.
The chat with Gorman for the Riverfront Times was a lot of fun and 30 minutes of 86 mph conversation that left me with way more material than I needed for the final piece. The first part can be found here with additional "outtakes" here, including a very cool story about his experience working on Warren Zevon's final album The Wind. The rest of everything that was left follows below, and I think you'll find that there's some very tasty stuff. After the interview, I quickly remembered why Gorman is the guy that does a lot of the Black Crowes press - he has a limitless number of good stories and a great personality - it was a really enjoyable interview!
Early on in your career, the band had a couple of complicated tours with Aerosmith and ZZ Top. As a member of the band during that time, what was your takeaway from those experiences?
Aerosmith was a drag - it was something that we went into thinking that it would be a lot of fun, really great and exciting. It was our first introduction to the real business of big time rock. And that's nothing against the guys in the band, it's their machine was just sort of, we were just a bump on their ass for that tour. But that was fine because it wasn't the Aerosmiith that we grew up listening to, it was Aerosmith 1990. Which was still a very good band, [but] it wasn't something we were really enamored with personally. We decided to keep telling ourselves that "well, we're getting in front of a lot of people."
We weren't very good yet either - we were playing really fast and we were just trying to get noticed. We came off that tour and then did a tour with Robert Plant which was the exact opposite. That was a great professional environment to hang in. He was a very constantly creative and interesting person to hang out with and did make himself completely available to us constantly. So that was way more what we kind of thought being on tour with a big guy would be like. By the time ZZ Top rolled around, we were very confident and we figured out how to do those big shows in arenas and all of that shit was going on.
When all of the shit started where they wanted to fire us, we honestly - people think it was a big setback, we could not have possibly cared less. We never even discussed it. When they did fire us, we thought "well fucking great, now we can finally do some of our own dates." We saw the value in it because you can't help but notice "wow, everyone's talking about this." Beyond that, we didn't care. But again, that's not even the guys in ZZ Top - Billy Gibbons has always been awesome to us and with us and we're friends. That didn't have anything to do with anything, that was just business and so that's why it didn't bother us, it was like "well this isn't our business, this is their business."
I had just seen the band in Cleveland, and you left the ZZ Top tour shortly after that show. Pre-internet, when you would hear about something like that on the radio, it was really shocking. But I think you're right, you definitely got some good mileage out of the incident, because it was all that anybody was talking about.
Well it was funny because they actually fired us in Atlanta, so that's our hometown. We were doing three nights at The Omni and we walked off stage after the second night and they said "you're off the tour." It was amazing because that night at midnight, Chris went on [syndicated rock radio call-in program] Rockline [laughs], which you remember, used to be a big deal. And then two days later, David Fricke came to Atlanta to do the cover story for Rolling Stone. It couldn't have been more "really, you guys just fired us? Awesome! Great, thanks!" We threw together a six week theater tour, which was our first headlining tour outside of clubs and we were just elated. We couldn't have been happier, like "oh fucking right on, we can go play a full show now." We brought out Jellyfish to open, which we loved their record - we'd never been happier.
Touching on Shake Your Money Maker a little bit, it was fun for me to pick out the band's influences while listening to that album. The band had a sound that was instantly classic and yet not a clone sound of the bands that had come before.
It's funny, for all of the Stones comparisons, you can't say on any level Chris ever sounded remotely like Mick Jagger - not voice wise, phrasing or lyrically - it's a whole different thing. If you want to say Rod Stewart, well our band, truth is that we don't play anything like The Faces. If you A/B our music and The Faces, it's pretty hard to find. It's not to say that we don't love those records - we listen to The Faces, The Stones and we listened to Nirvana when that came out. We listen to everything, but those people were sticking those things on us, which truth be told if you're going to say I sound like a band, I'll take the Stones - that's hardly a problem.
As a live band, we took way more cues from Led Zeppelin, how they played live, [and we] took way more cues from Little Feat and The Grateful Dead, I mean we certainly tried to. That's the bands that we were emulating with how we did things live. Truth is, because we're all pretty much self-taught musicians, we weren't good enough to do covers for the first three years that we were a band - we had to write our own songs. But our playing style, the reason we have our own sort of style is because we only know playing with each other and how we interact with each other and everyone's individual things they do. At this point obviously it's years since it's made sense to compare us to another band.
I definitely saw the progression from that first show that I saw on the ZZ Top tour and the next Black Crowes show that I saw a few years later.
Oh yeah. The Shake Your Money Maker tour, we were just in school for two years. When we started the Southern Harmony tour in the summer of '92, that was like okay, this is where we're getting to now. By the time our third record came out in the fall of '94, that's when it was no longer like we're trying to get somewhere, that felt like ok, we're here, this is where we're at now. We started playing together in 1987 and I had owned a drum kit for two years when we made Shake Your Money Maker.
It was amazing to see the reaction because I remember thinking “wow, you people are reviewing us and critiquing us like a real band.” It didn't dawn on me that we were a real band. It's like I guess if you put a record out, you're jumping in the big shark tank. I'm sitting there going “man, we've only been together three years, this is going to take a while.” It was six or seven years as a band before we really felt that everything we've learned, we're able to apply it in a way that's making a lot more sense.
It's like anything, you gotta start at the bottom and work your way up. The commercial success of Shake Your Money Maker thankfully didn't deter us from what we always wanted to be, which was to just get to be a really great live band. You know, that record sold that many copies because of a lot of elements – promotion sells records and your live show sells tickets, and we were always more focused on the ticket part. We love making records and we love our records but the idea that you're going to go spend a year talking about one album as opposed to the band, we were always promoting The Black Crowes, not just one record.
I think that you certainly had a bit of foresight, focusing on touring instead of record sales, because these days, bands are obviously making the bulk of their money touring, because they're not making that money off of album sales.
Oh, totally. That was always the thing with us. It's amazing to talk to people now and to remember in the '90s that we used to get royalty checks [laughs]. It's like "wow, that was great!" You know what I mean? You're sitting at home and every three months a check comes for record sales, that's shocking. It was about an hour and half after some kid in a dorm room figured out Napster, that was the last check that we ever got. It was like "man, that kind of blows." But that's just what it is - thankfully we were always doing the live thing, because it is an amazing thing for technology to end so many careers. It built so many careers, but it certainly ended just as many.
The Black Crowes are on tour for the rest of the year, a tour that appropriately is called "Say Goodnight to the Bad Guys." Their new album Croweology is in stores now. Visit their official website for all things Black Crowes including the latest tour dates.
View Comments30 Years of Don’t Say No: An ATV Interview with Billy Squier
Written by: Mark Zander
I had the pleasure of running a brief radio interview tour last week with Billy Squier. During the course of the morning's slate of interviews, the interview that my friend Mark Zander (host of the syndicated rock radio program The Rockin' 80's) did with Billy stuck out as one of the really good ones. I asked Mark if I could use part of his interview here and he happily agreed, so I'm pleased to share with you the following discussion regarding the new Shout Factory! 30th anniversary reissue of Don't Say No.
Spring of 1981, finishing freshman year in high school. Girls on the radar, big time. Then all of the sudden, two of the biggest albums to shape my rock n' roll life came out in the same month of April?? No way!
Way!
Along with Van Halen's Fair Warning, Billy Squier's Don't Say No is a hard rock soundtrack to a life lived by me in that very important year of growth and change. Lead off unassumingly by "In The Dark," the record tracks (even today!) right through to the finish as a carefree time capsule of rock fashion and attitude. It was my pleasure to talk with Billy about his (ours!) masterpiece...
I have to ask you this regarding the process heading into Don't Say No when you were recording it, which came after Tale of the Tape was released the previous year in 1980. After spending time with Piper in the '70s, Tale of the Tape was no doubt a respectable solo debut, but I'd say that it probably didn't make the impact that you were looking for initially. Once Don't Say No was written, recorded, released and it became a smash, can you honestly say you were ready and were you expecting it?
Actually I think I was pretty well prepared. Going back to Tale of the Tape for a second, I actually was quite happy with Tale of the Tape. It moved me up a notch on the ladder and it got a lot of airplay. "You Should Be High, Love" was the number one top requested song for almost two months in the country on rock radio. It really increased industry awareness a lot. I had a real good tour in support of that record with Alice Cooper. So I felt when I went to do Don't Say No that Tale of the Tape had really positioned me very well for what I was going to do next, if I could deliver - but I really felt good. That was my initial solo album and I felt real good about where I was after that.
So I went into Don't Say No with a lot of confidence and I did feel that it was in a sense, my time. It was my time if I chose to seize it. You know, that I did have people paying attention, that people would be looking for my next record to some degree and that if I delivered, I really had a chance of making a big impact. You know, that being said, what do you do? I decided to more than ever, hone my material and get a body of songs that really hung together [and] not try to do too much. I have a lot of musical influences and I tried to eliminate some of the influences that were on the extremes of the spectrum, so to speak. Try to think about who is Billy Squier - what do you want people to hear of you and where do you really sit in the musical sort of pantheon. I was kind of fine tuning it that way and obviously if you listen to Piper or things like that, there's a lot of times more of a pop influence - you're hearing me go back and forth between my influences.
Don't Say No, although it still has pop sensibilities, I was aligning myself more in the hard rock camp. I said, "that's really who I am." The bands I grew up with that I really liked the most, what do I want to play when I strap on a guitar - I'm playing rock music. I'm not playing Herman's Hermits, I'm playing the Rolling Stones [laughs]. Those factors contributed to how I approached doing the record and I had confidence to go out and do what I felt good about doing. I think there's always a tendency when you're trying to make it and even when you have made it sometimes, you might be aware of what's going on around you and you wonder what you should be doing. If something else is successful, should you be doing that? You're sort of, if not imitating, you're being affected by what's going on around you.
With Don't Say No, I didn't do that. Don't Say No, I really felt like "nope, I'm going to trust myself and I'm going to write the way I want and structure my lyrics the way I want." I'm not going to worry about what else is going on around me. When it was done, before it came out, I felt that this was the record that I had been spending my whole career to this point getting ready to make. I was totally happy with it. I remember saying to people before it came out - I didn't say "if it doesn't sell five million copies," I said "if this record isn't successful, I'm out."
Really?
Yeah, because there's nothing more I can do. I'm not making it up - I remember clear as day, this is the best I can do. If this doesn't cut it, I'm gone. Fortunately, I didn't have to do that [laughs].
A lot of people don't know this, but you approached Brian May [of Queen] about producing Don't Say No.
Brian was going to produce Tale of the Tape and then they got drawn out - that was around the time that they were doing The Game and "Flash" and stuff like that. He got a little bogged down and couldn't do it, but he said, "I think you should use Mack, if you can get Mack to do it. I think that Mack would be great for you." Because [Reinhold] Mack was working with Queen as well [as co-producer of The Game]. So although Brian didn't work on the record, he was pretty instrumental in forming that union between Mack and I - Mack was a big part of the success of that record - the sound of that record and the way he put it together, it was definitely important. I could not have done that record without him.
Let's talk about the reissue - there are a couple of live bonus tracks on this 30th anniversary edition that were recorded last year. Were there any initial discussions about going back in the archives to get something that was done around that time, maybe on the initial tour for the album?
We talked about it, but it was my choice to put on the tracks from last year because I felt that to me, I get some artistic prerogative, you know? I felt like that a lot of the stuff that was recorded back then had come out one way or another, either on radio shows or King Biscuit releases, or we had used stuff. I thought that I approached the songs from Don't Say No that I did last year quite a bit differently than I did back then and I thought that it was more interesting. I thought, let me put something on it that's a current reflection of what I did back then. So that was purely a decision that I made and Shout Factory! was magnanimous enough to let me do it.
I really got involved in the process kind of late. They had licensed the album from Capitol and they were going ahead and doing it. They actually contacted me to see if they could get a couple of bonus tracks and that's how I found out about it. When I found out it was Don't Say No, I thought, well this is such an important record to me, I'd like to try to get involved as much as I can. So I sort of jumped in at the end and got the remastering engineer who had done such a great job on the Tale of the Tape remaster. Then I got a friend of mine [former Creem editor Ben Edmonds] who's a great rock writer to do the liner notes, the guy who knows me better than probably anybody. So we were able to at the last minute, put together a pretty good package with those tracks and the liner notes. We got some pictures out of the archives that hadn't been seen before, so that's new. I think as far as reissues go, it's worthwhile. Because by now, everyone should have worn out Don't Say No and you should get a new one. That's a cheap plug [laughs].
What's the story behind “My Kinda Lover?”
Actually when I was writing that one, I was thinking about Tom Jones. Don't ask me why, I have no idea - Tom Jones is not that big of an influence on me, although we certainly would see him on Ed Sullivan and stuff like that. I got the beginning of the song and I don't know why, I had that melody and I was thinking, "God, if Tom Jones did this, it would be like," [imitating Tom Jones singing voice] "You've got me running bay-bay." [laughs] I had this image of him in my head, thinking this would be a great song.
Wow, that really gives it a different spin for me.
But yeah, when I did it, of course I wasn't trying to be Tom Jones, I wasn't trying to do it as a Tom Jones song, but I just remember thinking, "man, this would be great." I remember meeting his manager a couple of years later, I think we were in Tahiti or some place like that, in a bar. I cut this song and he knew who I was and he actually knew the song. At that point unfortunately, Tom had made his foray into country music, so he never did it. That was a strangely Tom Jones influenced track, which you would obviously never hear! [Laughs].
The 30th anniversary edition of Billy Squier's Don't Say No is available now. Click here for more information about the reissue and Billy's upcoming activities.
View CommentsHere’s an update on that Full House reissue
Written by: Matt Wardlaw
It looks like it's canceled, at least for the moment.
View CommentsTake that reissue of the J. Geils Band's "Live -- Full House" off your shopping list. Peter Wolf tells The Insider that the group has scotched Rhino Records' plans to put out the two-CD set, which was slated to feature both of the April 21-22, 1972 shows at Detroit's Cinderella Ballroom from which the original 1972 album was culled. Wolf says that the new release "wasn't authorized by us. What we did was pick the best stuff of the two evenings...They were calling it 'Full House,' and we responded by saying, 'Wait a second. First of all, it would be nice if you'd contact us for consideration, artistically. Second of all, it's not 'Full House.' This is not even the original album; it was just from those evenings. To call it 'Full House' is extremely misleading. And to not even ask for our participation and move forward without our participation is just very artistically insulting. So it's been nixed." Neither Wolf nor Rhino would indicate if negotiations are continuing to release the package.
Vinyl Lust: Speaking of “cheap vinyl,” here’s a few rekkids that I picked up last night…
Written by: Matt Wardlaw
Hanging out at The Winchester + picking up cheap vinyl = two of my favorite things to do!
Luckily, you can do both at the same place!
Last night, I walked away with the following titles for a buck each...
After watching the excellent Do It Again documentary (I know that Geoff Edgers is still out there somewhere), I decided that I need to have more Kinks in my life...
I assure you that there's no compact disc logo on the actual album...
Probably the score of the bunch (and again, along the lines of what I said about the Hooters album, you can also remove the Collector's Choice logo - it's not on the vinyl).
Hmmm. What to say about this one? Go read my Richard Page interview...
View CommentsCheap Vinyl: R.E.M. “Document” for $3.99 at Amazon
Written by: Matt Wardlaw
Kudos to the kids at Slicing Up Eyeballs for alerting me to a cool deal for R.E.M.'s classic Document album, which you can score for the very cool price of $3.99 right now (plus you receive a dollar credit for a free MP3 download at Amazon MP3). We can assume that the price (cut from the regular price of $20.98 will be limited and perhaps even gone soon after you read this, so you might want to act fast.
I'll consider this an unofficial apology for the time I spent this evening trying to get the Amazon UnBox video player to work with Vista and my PC.
Score: Vinyl: 1 Amazon UnBox: 0
Celebrating 20 Years of Cowboys From Hell: A conversation with Philip Anselmo
Written by: Chris Akin
I'm pleased to welcome ATV friend Chris Akin back for another post, this time featuring a conversation recorded this past week with Pantera vocalist Philip Anselmo. With the pending release of the 20th anniversary deluxe edition of Cowboys From Hell, the opportunity to speak with Anselmo came around and I knew that Chris would enjoy the chance to sit down with Phil again.
During the 10+ years that Chris and I spent doing a metal radio show together, we spoke with Pantera many times for conversations that were always memorable and highly quotable. Our interviews were often with Anselmo himself and we spoke with him many times beyond that during his stints with both Down and Superjoint Ritual. Listening to the interview audio, it's very obvious that Anselmo is in a much better (and lucid) state of mind these days. Here are the results of that conversation for your enjoyment.
It's been twenty years since Pantera burst onto the scenes with their instant classic "debut" release, Cowboys From Hell. In that time, the Texas foursome redefined what people considered to be American Heavy Metal. Yet, surprisingly when considering how amazingly successful this band became, their history has been equally as turbulent. Drug addictions, band breakups, a band member's murder and the ultimate blame on frontman Philip Anselmo this murder by surviving drummer Vinnie Paul has made these twenty years both memorable and forgettable for the surviving players in the band. For vocalist Philip Anselmo, the two decades that took him to the highest of highs have been bittersweet to say the least. Catching up with Addicted To Vinyl, Anselmo reflected on the good times as a hardworking unsigned band went from the smallest of clubs to the biggest stages in the world on the strength of their blood, sweat and tears.
Philip, what's going on man?
What's happening, big brotha!
When they pitched this project to you, I'm sure you probably thought the same thing that I did, like "damn, has it already been 20 years since this record came out?"
Yeah man, I'm feeling it, don't think I'm not. It's unreal! This may be as generic as it gets, but when people say, when all of them old timers say "life goes by so fast," man, they ain't joking - they're not lying to you.
View Comments12/1/74 at Richfield Coliseum….
Written by: Matt Wardlaw
.....who was on stage?
That's the stumper of a question posed by the ticket stub below.
ATV reader "Cynthia" shot me an email with a question about the stub - would I be able to help? I reached out to all-knowing Bear of Cleveland Rock and Roll and we put our heads together with no results. I also shot a few emails to "people that would know" and they also had no answers. So I'll put the picture up here and invite you to reach into your ticket stub collection, look at 1974 and let me know.
View CommentsFor Springsteen fans, Christmas comes in November
Written by: Matt Wardlaw
Leave it to Bruce to make sure that the holidays are just a little bit more special this year with today's announcement that you can celebrate the legacy of Darkness on The Edge of Town with six (!!!!) discs overflowing with more Darkness related material (three CDs and three DVDs) than we possibly could have hoped for!
Conversing with fellow Springsteen author and aficionado Lawrence Kirsch earlier tonight, he remarked that with this project, "Bruce is absolutely delivering on this one - he's been listening to his fans."
My pals over at Blogness have done a great job of collecting many of the news links that have been posted so far regarding the pending release of the set, which will hit stores on November 16th. The box has a retail price of $119.98 and you can pre-order it right now at Amazon for $95.99, with an additional choice of a Blu-ray edition dropping day and date with the regular CD/DVD version. (And there will also be a version coming out on vinyl!)
Dave Lifton has additional thoughts and a look at the trailer for the box right here.
Me? I'll just be over here counting the days until November 16th. You know what I mean, right?
Box set image via Backstreets
View CommentsI actually kinda liked those ’90s VH tracks with Roth
Written by: Matt Wardlaw
Lately, it seems like I might have been one of the few that enjoyed "Me Wise Magic" and "Can't Get This Stuff No More."
Tonight, while searching for a few Van Halen III tracks (by somebody else's request, no less!), I came across the following "open letter" which addresses the 1996 material and a series of related points:
An Open Letter To Van Halen: Please Do Not Make An Album
I'm not opposed to VH making a new album with Roth - I just hope that the resulting material will be better than "Up For Breakfast."
'Nuff said?
On a side note, would you pay $.10 for Van Halen III on Amazon?
View CommentsMichael Been Dies at 60
Written by: Kevin Brennan
We at ATV are very sad to report that Michael Been, bassist/vocalist/writer for The Call, has died of a heart attack at the age of 60.
Known for writing anthemic and thoughtful songs often sourced in the age-old conflicts of right versus wrong and man's ongoing fight against himself, The Call was well-respected if under appreciated during the 1980s and 90s. Fans and colleagues included Peter Gabriel, U2, and Garth Hudson of The Band.
Known best for 1983's "The Walls Came Down" from Modern Romans and "Let the Day Begin" in 1989, The Call's last release was Live Under the Red Moon in 2000. Been also released an outstanding solo album in 1994, "On the Verge of a Nervous Breakthrough."
Been's son is Robert Been, bassist for the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. The elder Been was on tour with BRMC acting as their sound engineer. The band was performing at the Pukkelpop Festival in Belgium at the time of his death.
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