All they want to do is sell, sell, sell. They don't really care about anything else. They'll keep finding subgenres and keep trying to name things. when the media and the record companies start throwing money around, it becomes something, but it doesn't last very long usually, as far as I can see.
As the frontman of The Black Crowes I had to represent all of these different personalities and things.
Celebrity... that's part of a machine that you have to bow down to. You sort of have to lie down with the dogs in that sense in terms of corporate entities and that's nothing I'm really interested in.
I could care less about marijuana laws. I have no desire at all to rally behind something like people that want to smoke herb. We all know the reasons why it's illegal and I don't think that any government in charge is going to change that, not in America.
I didn't want to be told what to do. I don't want to water down my music to fit into their formats. I know what rock and roll is to me, but everything's turning into one big commercial.
I don't think that people who write about music are purists anyway.
I hated seeing people in the music biz not tell the truth about the way they lived, just so that they could make more money, or fit in, or whatever.
I like the idea of improvising a lot. I go into things with a certain overall view and feeling of what I want the record to be, but when I get in there I really take it song by song and see where the song leads us.
I like the way we're doing it. I'm not really concerned so much with ticket sales right now. I wanna have my time now to experiment. I've got this band together and I couldn't be happier.
I make decisions based on my work, not based on meetings with my business managers, who I don't like to meet.
I mean, my wife is a bona fide movie star, so that's gonna be part of it. But to me and her it's not that big of a deal.
I think fearlessness and the courage to be intimate and independent in a world that you're only validated by how much money you make is the theme.
I want to stay away from making a record and touring and making a record and touring. I want to live my life the way I want to live it. Tour when I want, and make records when I want. And if people dig it, cool.
I was happy that the Black Crowes managed for as long as we did to have a career. There were a lot of bands that came and went-and many more bands who came and went and didn't even go out their own way. They went out trying to be something they're not.
I was sick of hypocrites and people in bands that lied about their lifestyle.
I'm going to start gigging and I'm about nine songs into the next record, so hopefully we can tour and make records.
I'm not a big fan of Robert Plant's lyrics or his singing.
I'm now in a band with two identical twins from London.
I've always had somewhat of an English aesthetic without ever really knowing it, I guess.
If I made the record with American musicians, it would have been more Americana, definitely. Making it with English musicians brings in an entirely different aesthetic.
If you're working in a studio in LA, someone can eventually find you.
It's funny because we've been married for over two years now, and there's no news stories. It's only important to people when you get divorced.
It's more about me and my brother... we don't really speak. I mean, I speak to him, but there's no real plans. It's more about the kids and mom and dad, you know, family oriented stuff.
It's tender enough just to be out there and to have people judging you all the time on every little thing. She deals with those things much better than I ever did when I was on MTV all the time.
My wife and I live in Malibu, but I made the record in Paris, in a funky little place. We were living there while she was working.
Obviously I left my stamp on music I made with my brother. But it's my music now, so it's going to be fairly different.
Our live band is definitely more energetic than the record. It's really electric and we can take it in so many directions. I couldn't be happier with the people I'm playing with.
Paris is in a great place right now. All the great cities have something to offer, but sometimes they go through phases. We mixed the record and finished it up in Toronto, where I was living while my wife was finishing another movie.
Part of being in our position is making decisions based on each other. Each other's schedules and each other's feelings.
Part of what the Black Crowes was about was the drama involved.
People buy what they are told to buy at a certain level, especially since about 1973 onwards when people realized how much money there is to be made. It all becomes a big equation. A plus B equals C. I'm not interested in any of that.
People think being famous and making a lot of money is the end-all. It's even easier to fool kids, because kids just want to be cool. But the time for being so cool and pretentious will run its course and you'll see the machinery starting to crack. The money is not there like it used to be.
People want to buy music and take it home and be a part of it and connect with artists and feel a part of something.
Starting over with a new band, new management and this whole bunch of songs with a new direction, in a sense, I didn't really want to be in New York or L.A.
The guys I worked with are immersed in jazz and blues and rock music, which are American music forms, but the English have a different way of approaching it. The record was mastered in England. That part of it I really liked.
The one thing about where we are in the music business right now, everything is validated solely by its commercial appeal, so you're missing a lot of content. Everyone is trying so hard to water down everything just to sell, that you're missing so much emotion and so many other things.
These corporations have to sell something new and they find these bands. Just because people in offices haven't heard this music, doesn't mean that other people haven't. It's a little insulting to the bands and to the kids.
This project comes from a singular place. If it's a melancholy sound, it's going to be melancholy because of me, not because I'm trying to translate somebody else's piece.
To move into a new phase of my music and career, I definitely wanted something that was understated for my first foray. I wanted something that was intimate. I definitely think that's a side of me.
We definitely plan our lives around each other's schedules. That's why we got married.
We won't drink any other kind of tea. We go through a few boxes of P.G. Tipps every week.
We're the luckiest people in the world, because as long as there's a studio somewhere I can work, and I can always drag a guitar along. We have both traveled all of our lives, so it's not too straining.
What my wife does is much different than what I do, but she also conducts her life and makes her decisions based on her soul. If people take our picture when we're walking down the street, some people see a movie star and a rock star. I don't look at things like that.
When I commit myself to something that's where I am and that's where I wanna go.
When you break it down to a man and a woman and when your wife is in a car by herself and two cars are following her, that's scary.
Why limit yourself? You never know how you're going to feel and it all really dictates to the audience. If the audience wants to go to these places with you, that's the thing that takes you.
Without going through some of the things I've gone through and the choices that I've made, I wouldn't be here.
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