Steve Gorman Talks New Black Crowes Book, What Moment Broke Up the Band
Steve Gorman served as the drummer for The Black Crowes for over two decades, and in his new book, Hard to Handle: The Life and Death of the Black Crowes — A Memoir, he explores the band’s tumultuous history.
In an interview on Talkin’ Rock with Meltdown, Gorman said, “There was always a line around the Black Crowes world for years. Everybody would always look at me and go, ‘Man, you’re gonna have to be the one to write the book one day.’ And I would go, ‘Yeah, I would, but nobody would believe it!’ It was like a joke.
Gorman would continue and detailed the cause of the band’s breakup.
“…The band blew up in 2014 in a manner that will never be anything short of disgusting,” he said. “[Frontman] Chris [Robinson] demanded all of the money after 27 years from not only me but from his brother. ‘If we’re going to continue, I’m going to need all of the money,’ is what he demanded. And of course, [guitarist] Rich [Robinson] and I said no, and that was the end of the Black Crowes. It was an insane thing for him to have done right when we were about to do a 25th anniversary/farewell tour. We were going to wrap it up and say this is it, and we just wanted to thank our fans and thank each other and go out on a high, for once. That wasn’t possible, and the narrative he’s spun ever since, it never sat right. When it did happen, it was so over-the-top that it was laughable, and Rich and I literally did laugh. We were like, ‘Oh, my God…are you kidding?’ And he was dead serious, and that was the end of the band.”
Gorman also touched on the Robinsons’ feelings about his book saying, “I know they were both very upset that I was writing the book. They don’t even care what’s in it; they hate that I would have the audacity to establish a narrative because, in their mind, it’s all about them.”
While The Black Crowes broke up in 2014, Gorman alluded to the fact the band isn’t necessarily over.
“And they’ll probably be on the road soon together with a whole new band calling it The Black Crowes, and that’ll be fine if people want to go and hear ‘Hard to Handle’ every night,” he said. “That’s totally cool, but that’s not the band that I gave my life to for 27 years and that a lot of other people did, too. That’s just two guys in their 50s who painted themselves into a corner going out and playing music. And again, they have every right to do that, but my book is about a band, not a brand…I don’t think either one of them wants to do it. In a perfect world, I don’t think they’d ever be in the same room together again. I just don’t think they have a lot of options right now.”
Hard to Handle: The Life and Death of the Black Crowes — A Memoir is available now on Amazon.
