JPG: The song, “Good Morning Captain,” which opens Before the Frost… sounds like a nod to your host, Levon Helm in the way that it has that swing and feel of the Band.
RR: Yeah, I think that bridge is. I think it’s definitely like a different song. I think the bridge is definitely a nod to the Band or Levon. But there’s a lot of that. We’ve always done that because everything you’ve listened to in your life is an influence. All your experiences are an influence. Everything that you feel and go through is an influence on your music. Things you watch on TV or things that you see in life, traveling… And so, you can either ignore it and pretend that you’re someone that’s actually created something brand new or you can realize that things that are brand new get created through your filter system.
Most people are trying to emulate something that they’ve heard or something that they want to do and they’ve taken it in and then their brain filters it and it comes out through their hands and that difference is what it is. That and fuck up. With all this new technology to try to make music “perfect…” I was producing this band from Canada and they were a pretty big band. I went up there and they had never made a record live. They go in and they cut like five versions in a row, then they quit. And then producer takes the best of the five verses and then doubles them for Pro Tools. Then they do a chorus. Then they do a bridge. Basically, it’s just a Pro Tools building block. I was like, ‘Are you kidding? You guys have never just recorded a damn song as a band?’ You know, they were really into it.
The thing is, you miss with that shit, you miss the fuck ups that are actually special. The thing that makes those things special and sincere are John Bonham’s kick drum squeak in “I Can’t Quit You Baby.” You can hear that squeak, which brings you into the studio, which adds a human element to what’s going on. The beginning of “Celebration Day,” Jimmy explained the whole thing to us, sort of like a studio mess up so they had to come up with a way to do it. Anything and everything. John Lennon’s vocal mic crapping out. They would nix that shit right now. They would take that out. That’s part of what made those albums so special and so different and so sincere.
I don’t think that human beings really are being taught what’s sincere anymore through music or through really any part of their life. I think it’s so foreign to just be in touch with humanity or the human spirit anymore because everything is so fake. Everything is so overdone that you don’t pick up subtlety. I’ve used this analogy. After Hurricane Katrina, I think it was like a year later, some news guy went down there to do a follow-up piece and the National Guard was there, and they were showing this National Guard troop running in line and they cut to their shoes marching on the street. What struck me was this idiot has no idea. He’s trying to create a look or make a statement when all you have to do is turn the fucking camera to the 9th Ward and show it a year later and it hasn’t fuckin’ changed. That’s a statement unto itself. But instead, you’re going to try and fit something into a fuckin’ format on TV that works. It’s so disconnected. So, when you apply that to any creative medium, then you’re going to lose that connection to anything that is the human soul, that is the human touch. And that goes across the board.
Another thing that’s happening is that because of the internet and because of digital radio and all these things, everything is becoming more and more service-oriented to the consumer. You can create your own radio station, you can create your own this. Through Amazon if you buy these things then we create a profile for you and then we’ll do the work for you. Now that’s a scary thing because at the end of the day, what if everyone’s doing that? And then you have no desire to find anything new because you cater your whole world to your liking. But the thing about art and the thing about creative expression is that it’s supposed to challenge you. It’s supposed to challenge you. It’s not a service industry.
I think that there’s very little respect for the creative medium anymore. It’s all about money, and people are more focused on money and people get offended if you play a record above [volume level] 2 [at a store]. How weird is that? I mean, it used to not be that way. Because music is everywhere, people are sick of hearing it. It just becomes white noise. It’s just like watching fuckin’ politics on TV. It’s just white noise. They say the same shit over and over again. It’s just like you’re at this constant barrage of shit that you get throughout your whole day, on the TV, on your phone, on the fuckin’ iPod on this, this, this and this. And so I think people have lost out. I don’t think that they have a lot of respect for music. It’s turned into this consumption. I think people just consume, consume, consume. It’s like, ‘I have a hundred thousand songs on my iPod’ instead of ‘I have one record that moves me.’ And it’s really weird, a weird place to be.
It becomes a shame because music has been with human beings since the dawn of time. It has helped us hand-in-hand to shape who we are because it is something that we can do without instruments, without cameras, without anything. It’s literally one of the most basic things that has walked hand-in-hand with us. Now we don’t show it any respect. It has become this background noise. People just go and listen to this shit. Obviously, there’s still a lot of people out there who love music. There’s still a lot of people who get something out of it., but I think the world, the landscape has changed more in the last 10 years than I think it had in the last 100 years. Joni Mitchell actually said, ‘The minute that the record companies went public was the death of the music industry.” There’s something honest to that.
[Deep breath] I’m sorry I have to go to soundcheck …
JPG: One last thing I’m curious about. Since you mentioned your dislike for the term ‘grunge,” I wonder after the band’s progression from its debut in 1990 through the musical changes, appearing as part of the Furthur Festival and then when you reunited being embraced by the jamband scene. Do you have problems with the ‘jamband’ terms as well because it has grown and become an open definition as to what fits in that category.
RR: Again, I think we’re still an island. I don’t think that we’re a jamband, but we jam. I think that the jamband thing, I think that we’re more a part of that than any other kind of movement, genre or whatever you want to call it. But still, I wouldn’t consider us, quote unquote a jamband. I would consider us more the Black Crowes and that’s what we are. We have jam fans and we have rock ‘n’ roll fans. There is a spectrum of people that come and see us that crosses a lot of boundaries.
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