As Rich Robinson reached adolescence, the Black Crowes guitarist remembers one song above all others cutting through the roar of rock and roll in Atlanta in the early ’80s.
“We started getting into punk music, sort of being angry teenagers,” Robinson says of himself and Chris Robinson, his older brother and the Black Crowes singer. “You know, Atlanta had a big punk scene, so we were into a lot of local bands.
“And then we both — I remember the day I heard it,” he continues. “I heard the song called ‘Radio Free Europe.’ It was R.E.M. And R.E.M. cast a bit shadow over the South.
“It just hit me. There was something about the sound of that song that was unlike anything I’d heard. It was amazing, being from the South, hearing someone’s representation.
“R.E.M. was a very Southern band,” Robinson says. “But there was a beauty there that wasn’t represented in what ‘Southern rock’ was.
“That was never our thing,” he says. “We never really grew up listening to Southern rock, but then all of a sudden this band comes out of nowhere, out of Athens, and it just really knocked us out.”
Athens, Georgia, was also home to the new sounds of bands such as the B-52s and Pylon by the time “Radio Free Europe,” R.E.M.’s debut single, was released in July 1981 when Rich and Chris Robinson were 12 and 14 respectively.
“That opened a whole other compartment to just kick open and walk into,” Rich Robinson says of Athens scene. “And what was great about R.E.M. was it informed a lot of what we saw in the music business. We would go see them every year when they played the Fox [Theatre in Atlanta].
“They would play there and do an Aerosmith song and a Big Star song and a Velvet Underground song,” he says. “And nothing was weird about that. It was great. To me, this band from Athens had all these influences. They played them. They interpreted them.
“It wasn’t like, ‘Oh, we can’t play that because that’s that genre.’ They were just kind of free with it.”
The Robinson brothers cofounded the Black Crowes in 1984, still in their teens. By then, Rich Robinson says they’d discovered the Paisley Underground scene in Los Angeles with bands such as the Dream Syndicate, Green on Red, and the Rain Parade. They’d also found the alternative scene in Chapel Hill, N.C., and groups such as Let’s Active, whose singer Mitch Easter had produced “Radio Free Europe.”
“I think all of those things combined kind of informed us where we were going, and which kind of springboard we were going to use to start our music career,” Robinson says. “To me, a lot of it pointed back to what original rock and roll music was, which was the widest tent you could imagine.
“Joni Mitchell was played next to Jimi Hendrix which was played next to Led Zeppelin which was played next to the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan, you know what I mean?”
The Black Crowes debut album “Shake Your Money Maker” arrived in 1990. Now, 36 years later, the band makes its debut as Hollywood Bowl headliners on Monday, Aug. 17 on a bill that includes the Tedeschi Trucks Band and Whiskey Myers.
In an interview edited for length and clarity, Rich Robinson talked about the making of “A Pound of Feathers,” the band’s 10th studio album released in March, how he and Chris Robinson continue rock’s long history of brothers in bands, and more.
Q: I remember first hearing “Radio Free Europe” living in Oregon and thinking oh my God, this is amazing, what is this.
A: Yeah, totally.
Q: Did it influence your early songwriting? Or was it more the idea that we can do anything we want regardless of genre?
A: It’s funny, because my good friend and my drummer from my solo stuff, Joe Magistro, he and I did an R.E.M. tribute for “Chronic Town,” their first EP, a couple of years ago for the 40th anniversary. I had this idea to basically pay tribute to one of my favorite bands. I’m good friends with [R.E.M. guitarist] Peter Buck, so I was like I want to do this for you guys.
So we went to Athens and brought a ton of people in. The people from Pylon were there and a bunch of Atlanta bands. Darius Rucker came in and my brother was there and Hugh [Burnham] from Gang of Four. Mitch Easter came down and played some songs. Even Fred Armisen came and played, which was really cool.
And when I was playing these songs, Joe was like, “Man, I’ve never thought of this, but I can hear Peter in your playing and see it in your songwriting now.” A lot of times you can hear a band and you can be, “Oh, that’s great and I love this band,” but you can’t draw the correlation. And for the first time he’s like, “I hear Peter in how you’re playing.”
The funny thing is recently Peter and I made a record [as the Silverlites, which includes Joseph Arthur and Barrett Martin]. And we kind of forgot who was playing which parts. He was like, “I don’t know, did you play that?” And I’m, “I don’t know, I can’t remember.” That’s how it is, and so I know it’s in there.
Q: That’s very cool that it’s there, but subtle. Nobody wants to be a copyist.
A: Yeah, 100%.
Q: But to know it’s in there somewhere in the mix is really cool.
A: Well, it’s all language. It’s like a writer, you know what I mean? There’s words that everyone uses, there’s timing, there’s phrases. You know, some people write short paragraphs, long paragraphs. Some people’s sentence structures are going to be different. That’s the same thing with music. All of it is going to be a part of it.
I’ve always said that sort of the biggest two influences on me other than Peter are Nick Drake and Keith Richards. If you could somehow squeeze those two people together you would get a song like “Thorn In My Pride” [from 1992’s “The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion”], which for me was kind of the culmination of those two.
Throw Peter Buck in there and throw these other people in there and it kind of creates a uniqueness. People live lives. They build experience. It kind of creates, the way I see it, almost like a stained-glass filter. Every new experience, every new thing that you’ve heard, every new thing that you’ve seen or read, a movie or a book of whatever it may be, can add a new color to that stained glass.
That alters your filter just even the slightest bit, but it gets in there and it adds to it. That’s how I’ve always kind of looked at it.
Q: I’m surprised this is the Black Crowes debut at the Hollywood Bowl. How’s that possible?
A: Yeah, we always did the Greek and we played the Forum. For some reason it never really worked out. But now it’s here and it’s going to be great. We’re really excited.
Q: Will it be similar to the sets you’ve been playing on tour this summer?
A: Yeah, we’re going a little bit deeper in our set list and bringing out songs we haven’t played in a long time. We’re playing a couple of new songs from the new record and we’re playing old songs and covers. Just like trying to touch on everything in the 36 years we’ve been doing this, which is pretty crazy.
Q: You and Chris stopped playing together in the 2010s but since 2024 the band’s released “A Pound of Feathers” and before that “Happy Bastards.”
A: I mean, Chris and I always write. He’s got notebooks of lyrics and I have a ton of pieces of music or songs just laying around that I’ve written and continue to write. So a lot of times we’ll have a foundation to get started. The difference in this record, we decided not to have anything concrete when we went into the studio.
This time around I had about 20 things, bits and pieces here and there, and we went into the studio and kind of fleshed it out there. It was cool to use the studio as that create drive. He and I work pretty quickly when we’re in that mode. We’re like, “Oh, let’s try this, let’s switch these two things around,” whatever it may be.
Chris and I had gone in with Cully [Symington] our drummer. And when we got in there I threw on the guitars and bass and Chris sang over everything. By the end of five days we had nine solid songs done and we continued that path. Three days later we were finished.
When the band was split up for awhile I was always making records. I made four solo records, a couple of EPs, and started another band and made two records with them. And Chris did as well. So we kind of kept up the recording pace. It wasn’t like we haven’t even been in the studio in 15 years.
Q: I like the new record a lot. “Profane Prophecy,” “Cruel Street,” “Do the Parasite!” How’s the new stuff fitting in?
A: We focus on around five of them. Typically we’ve been doing “Profane” and “Pharmacy Chronicles.” “It’s Like That” and “Cruel Street.” We get in there and try to change it up for us and for everyone.
It keeps it fresh and it keeps it new and it keeps it flowing. We have a ton of songs that we’re really proud of and we really love. And our fans who’ve been following us for 36 years are always really cool when we play some of these old songs.
Q: I saw that you covered Pink Floyd’s “Fearless” the other night. You must know a million songs. How do you decide what covers to do?
A: Someone brought [“Fearless”] up the other day, because I sing a song every night. Chris was like, “Oh yeah, I forgot about that.” So we just did it. I’ve been doing a Velvet Underground song and I’ve been doing a Stones song, “You Got the Silver.” I’ll do a Gram Parsons song and I did a song from this band called the Creation, which is a very cool stuff. We just keep it moving, you know.
Q: Tell me about being a kid and deciding you wanted to learn to play rock and roll.
A: So my dad was a musician. He had a couple of guitars around the house that we were always exposed to. He was a huge fan of music and there was always music in the house. Some of my earliest memories were listening to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, you know, “Carry On” or any song off that record.
But had some eclectic tastes too. He was into Mose Allison and he was into Sly Stone and Joe Cocker and Bob Dylan. So we were exposed at a really young age to all of this.
Chris is two-and-a-half years older than me. He was forging his own identity musically and he went off in his direction. I, being his younger brother, would go in and take the records from him that I liked and go and listen to those. As I got to be probably 13 or 14 I would start picking up his guitar and pick out songs.
Q: There’s a long history of brothers in rock and roll — the Gallaghers in Oasis, the Everly Brothers. Both of those were famous for fighting. How’s it worked for you and Chris?
A: You know, it’s all I know. I guess having a second band helps. It gives you a different perspective, and having that band allowed me to see out of the brother dynamic. But for the most part he and I are 100% as opposite as you can get. But we also have a shared background, you know what I mean?
We have a shared way of looking at the world because there were a lot of experiences that shaped us together. We may have looked at them differently from our perspectives, but there’s still shared experiences. The way we experienced our parents, the way we experienced our lives, the way we experienced where we moved. What we listened to. All of those things. That’s a lifelong experience.
Then you put that into a band setting and it’s almost like a second life. We have this thing we created that also creates a family dynamic. It gets a little wonky because we’re dealing with our own [stuff] and everyone else in the band has their own set of [stuff] and there’s a lot of [stuff]. [He laughs]
So it can be frustrating and it can be great. It’s one of the reasons we can go in a studio and make a record in eight days because we we know where we’re going. There’s really pros and cons to it.
Q: Tell me more about that.
A: There’s always that thing about brother voices. The Louvin Brothers, and the Kinks. And the way that Malcolm and Angus played together. I’m not convinced anyone on the planet could play as well as Malcolm and Angus Young [of AC/DC] together, and I think a lot of that has to do with them being brothers.
Sometimes it can come in a lot of emotional turmoil, to put it lightly. But it’s also the hand we were dealt. He’s a quintessential frontman. He’s out there. He loves attention.
I’m 100% introverted. I don’t like attention. I’m happy for him to take it. But I love music and I love when the band is working and firing on all cylinders. It really moves me in that way.
The Black Crowes and Tedeschi Trucks Band
With: Whiskey Myers
When: 6 p.m. Monday, Aug. 17
Where: The Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave., Los Angeles
How much: $70.25 to $198
For more: Hollywoodbowl.com/events/performances