Black Crowe Chris Robinson Sees Break As A Positive
Imminent split is a good thing, he says
Black Crowes frontman Chris Robinson sees the band imminent indefinite hiatus as a good thing.
In an interview with Billboard Magazine Robinson revealed that he was wary of overkill after three albums and two live DVDs in five years.
"The real story is it's been five solid years of touring and three records and DVDs, and it's more about having a little bit of space and taking a breath away from the thing," Robinson explains to Billboard.com. "This has easily been the most fulfilling and progressive time in the band in 20 years. I think everyone's in a good space, and our hiatus is for nothing but health reasons, mental and physical, and to have the freedom to do some projects with other people and raise the kids and stuff like that."
But this won’t be the end of the Black Crowes, as some naysayers have predicted.
"It might be 18 months, it might be two years, it might be five -- I don't know," he says. "We'll get back together when we feel it's right. There's no end or beginning; it's, 'Let's just do some other stuff for a while, and we'll get back together when we feel it's right."
The band are about to undertake a final tour before the break, and each show will be a three hour, two part affair with a 90 minute acoustic set and a 90 minute electric set.
"I know our band can be self-indulgent -- that's just our right," Robinson, who's hoping to produce other artists and record another solo album during the Crowes' hiatus, says with a laugh. "We kind of thought, 'Oh, it would be nice to do something different for the 20th anniversary'...and so songs we play acoustic on one night can be something else in an electric mode on another night. We can cover a lot of material in a lot of different formats, and it'll be cool for the fans; it's celebrating that these people have been coming to see us for so long. We don't take that for granted. Having a career is a privilege, it's not our right."
The band also release new double acoustic album, Croweology, in the US on 2 August (no UK release date as yet, but you can expect it at the same time).