Chris Robinson | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #645

TL;DR

Black Crowes founder Chris Robinson opens up about his philosophy, seven-year estrangement from brother Rich, and the creative obsessions behind his new album.

Key Points

• 1.Chris Robinson, 59, is the lead singer and co-founder of The Black Crowes; his new solo album *A Pound of Feathers* drops March 13th
• 2.He lives by a quote from French artist Jean Cocteau: "Living is a horizontal fall," which he discovered around age 23–24 and calls his core philosophy
• 3.Robinson is dyslexic and says that's a direct reason he ended up in rock music — his brain processes the world differently and art became his outlet
• 4.He was drawn to poetry before music, getting into punk and hardcore shows in early-80s Atlanta when he was too young for mainstream venues
• 5.The Black Crowes were originally called Mr. Crow's Garden, named after a book a girl had in her University of Georgia dorm room; they kept the "E" as a nod to the original name
• 6.Robinson and his brother Rich went seven years without speaking after the band's last run ended in 2013; he admits he "was ugly and mean" and should have reached out sooner
• 7.He now sees Rich's guitar talent more clearly than ever, free of ego and resentment, calling him uniquely special among all guitarists he's ever worked with
• 8.Rich Robinson played all bass and guitars on the new record, recorded together in the studio for the first time since around 1987
• 9.Robinson says he's not nostalgic — he hears old music and notices the guitar tones, not a trip back to his childhood — unlike Theo who self-describes as a "nostalgia junkie"
• 10.He explains why teenage music hits hardest: adolescence is the first time identity forms on "fresh" ground, so music gets imprinted deeply
• 11.Robinson says he never used drugs specifically to write — psychedelics influenced his worldview but weren't a writing tool; he was a cocaine user but says he "always kind of knew what was going on"
• 12.He describes the muse as a "jealous entity" that will leave you if you don't give it its proper place, comparing it to the primal fire-guarding instinct in the film *Quest for Fire*