'Everyone Puts On A F**king Great Show': The Black Crowes Are Resolute Ahead Of Their Latest Australian Tour

Tyler Jenke

As The Black Crowes touch down in Australia, co-founder Rich Robinson discusses their latest record, the Melbourne/Sydney coffee wars, and their second Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame nomination.

The Black Crowes(Credit: Ross Halfin)

The Black Crowes

When The Black Crowes last year announced their Australian return as part of the 2026 edition of Bluesfest, fans were undoubtedly thrilled.

After all, it would be the band's first visit since 2022, and with a new album on the way, and the seventh year of their latest era just around the corner, things were shaping up for a positive experience all-round.

Unfortunately, there was some understandable fear about the status of the group's upcoming local tour when Bluesfest announced its cancellation in mid-March.

Thankfully, The Black Crowes were resolute in their desire to return to our shores, keeping their sideshows and announcing an additional date in Sydney with the help of promoters Live Nation.

"Look, it is what it is," co-founder and guitarist Rich Robinson tells The Music about the situation. "There's no need for us to harp on it. It's a cool festival, we've done it before, but it's not happening.

"So luckily we added a second Sydney and we're just gonna come down and still do our tour, which will be great," he added.

"Things happen like that more frequently than I guess you would imagine. And we just typically go with the flow. We're like, 'Oh, all right, well, we still want to come down and play, so it's gonna be great.'"

Initially plotting their run of sideshows to feature two dates in Melbourne, and one each in Brisbane, Sydney, and Newcastle, the necessitated reshuffling has seen that Newcastle date swapped for another Sydney show.

But as The Black Crowes ready themselves to launch their latest trek to Australia, Robinson explains that the group weren't engaging in conversations about not coming to our shores. Rather, they were eager to go with the flow, keen to make their planned trip work as best they could.

"I mean, I get it," he explains. "A lot of bands will use a festival as an anchor date that kind of helps them financially deal with the rest of the country. But we're fortunate enough to be able to come down and make it work. And Live Nation was really cool to step in and help us out.

"We have a great relationship with those guys everywhere. We've worked with them in the States forever, and worked with them in Europe, and so it's kind of cool to be down there and work with them this time again. And they really facilitated us coming down."

When The Black Crowes first adopted their famous moniker in 1989, they'd been together for five years. The following year saw the release of their acclaimed debut Shake Your Money Maker, though it wouldn't be until the arrival of 1992's The Southern Harmony And Musical Companion that Robinson and his lead vocalist brother, Chris, would visit local shores.

By the time they returned in 2008, The Black Crowes had endured their first hiatus. With the band on ice for three years, their 2005 reformation was followed by an Australian visit for the Bluesfest festival. By 2015, the band had split once again, this time owing to disagreements between the Robinsons.

Thankfully, the brothers mended their relationship, and their 2019 reunion brought with it another trip to Australia in 2022 – with Robinson clearly expressing a fondness to always return to our shows.

"I remember writing the chorus to this song HorseHead when I was in Australia the first time," he remembers of that 1992 tour. "We really always loved Australia. My ex-wife's family is from Australia. They grew up in Perth and Albany, so we spent a lot of time out there every winter, and we would take my older kids down there, go to Margaret River, and go all over the place.

"We're really excited about coming down," he enthuses. "It's the birthplace of AC/DC, like, what's not to love about Australia? And especially now that I've learned that there's coffee wars going on between Melbourne and Sydney, so that's a whole other thing that now we have to figure out."

This Australian tour will be the first place that The Black Crowes have the chance to give their latest album, A Pound Of Feathers, a strong showing.

Ironically released on the same day as Bluesfest announced its cancellation, A Pound Of Feathers has gone on to become the group's best-performing record in Australia in 30 years. Debuting at No. 34 on the ARIA charts, it's their highest-placing release since 1996's Three Snakes And One Charm hit No. 23.

"It's going to be fun to play," Robinson teases. "It's always cool to add new songs to the rotation and see how they work. [2024's Grammy nominated] Happiness Bastards worked really well – those songs worked really well within our older songs, which is kind of cool.

"So it'll be interesting to see how these go when we put together a set and we're pulling it out."

As Chris Robinson told Billboard recently, the new record was crafted in the studio with a real air of spontaneity, allowing the band to craft an album which was fresh and unabashedly them.

"That's how we chose to make the record, to kind of flush everything out while we're in the studio, and what it does is it forces you to rely on your instincts – it forces you to kind of not overthink something," Rich explains.

"We have a producer who we both really like and trust, and he can hopefully see things from 10,000 feet and we're like, 'Okay, cool – let's do it.' This time around we were going to get in the studio and work things out for about a week before we brought the band in, but at the end of the five days, we had nine songs done.

"We would arrange the song, and then I would throw bass and a couple of guitars on it, and it was like, 'Oh, well that sounds fucking great,'" he adds. "And trying to kind of reverse engineer it when things are working and flowing like that can be more harmful to what you're doing than helpful."

It's this sort of high-quality, meat-and-potatoes approach to their work that has allowed the Georgia outfit to become so well-regarded in the world of rock music.

In fact, a lot has changed since the last time the band visited Australia. Namely, they received their first nomination for the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2025.

Ultimately, they were not inducted in the class of 2025 (instead, Cyndi Lauper, Chubby Checker, Joe Cocker, Soundgarden, OutKast, The White Stripes, and Bad Company made it in), though they finished in eighth place in the fan vote, with 165,000 votes from the general public.

This year, they're in contention again, with their second nomination seeing them go head-to-head with other notable luminaries, including INXS, Wu-Tang Clan, Iron Maiden, Joy Division/New Order, and Oasis – the latter of which being a group who (along with The Black Crowes and Spacehog) comprised one-third of the knowingly-titled Tour Of Brotherly Love in 2001.

Speaking on Jimmy Kimmel Live! recently, Chris Robinson revisited his 2017 quotes about he would not attend the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame ceremony if inducted, admitting he used to be "negative about the whole thing."

“Things definitely changed,” he explained. “I wasn’t in The Black Crowes at that time I made that salacious comment. But it is true, The Black Crowes were kind of more famous, my brother and I, for hating each other than the songs and the music.

"It worked for Oasis. I don’t know why it didn’t work for us.”

Reflecting on their nomination, Rich Robinson admits his brother has "changed his tune," explaining that he's diplomatic about the nomination and has no real strong feelings either way.

"I know it sounds kind of corny, but the same with the Grammy last year – it was really cool to be nominated," he explains. "You're recognised by your peers and you're recognised by some sort of institution, I suppose. And it's cool.

"It doesn't affect our day to day. It doesn't affect how I write records, or how we tour, but it would be nice if we got in, but if we don't, it's fine with me too.

"It is definitely an honour to be nominated and there's a tonne of great bands that we're nominated with, so we'll see what happens," he adds.

Given the occasionally-combative, but ever-impressive history of The Black Crowes, Robinson doesn't look at their nomination as a well-deserved honour, but rather an almost surreal notion given the calibre of acts who were inducted into the inaugural class back in 1986.

"I was 19 when I made my first record, and I don't remember when the first one was, but I remember it was like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones," he explains. "And I remember thinking, 'Oh, this is cool, but they seemed like old bands to me.'"

"Those guys, I think at the time The Stones were around for 25 or 30 years, so it was great because I'm a fan of those bands, but I never thought about myself in any context like that."

While we'll have to wait and see if The Black Crowes receive a well-earned induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, in the meantime, all Robinson is thinking about is their upcoming Australian visit – an event he's eager to showcase for eager fans.

"We play a lot of our old songs, we play new songs, we play covers, we play deep cuts – songs that maybe weren't released – and we change the set a a portion every night," he teases. "Then there's a portion of songs like Hard To Handle, She Talks To Angels, or Remedy that we know people want to hear.

"We still get to be creative, bring in these new songs, and we still get to play these songs that people still want to hear. So it's cool, the band works really well together.

"The whole band has been together for several years and we now are like a machine," he adds. "And that's what you want to be. No one's thinking, we're just up there doing.

"Everyone puts on a fucking great show, Chris is singing better than ever, and the band's sounding better than ever, so it's great."

Tickets to The Black Crowes' Australian tour are on sale now.