If you go
› What: An Evening with Chris Robinson Brotherhood› Where: Walker Theatre inside Memorial Auditorium, 399 McCallie Ave.› When: 8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 18› Admission: $25› For more information: 423-757-5580
While Chris Robinson found enormous commercial success alongside his younger brother, Rich, in The Black Crowes, personal dynamics within the band, coupled with the expectations fueled by corporate music industry interests, had the Crowes fracturing and coming back together before announcing their dissolution in 2015.
For the elder Robinson, the Chris Robinson Brotherhood was a musical backup plan that he’d been happily toiling away with since it formed in 2011.
“I think you have to be sensitive when you’ve had commercial success. How I feel in my soul has nothing to do with the thanks and gratitude to the gift I’ve been given because of that. But the other part of it is that as you get older, you start asking yourself who you’re working for. I’m still passionate about music and life, and part of music to me is if there is any spiritual practice to be found in it, it’s [got to be] a place where you’re trying to live in the present as much as you can,” he said.
“As time goes on, I’m super-happy and comfortable with the CRB. I’m writing all these songs that don’t sound like what I’m famous for singing. They’re not hard-rock riff-oriented songs and it’s not a band with this rigid [approach] where everybody was wanting to suck as much money out of it as possible, which was really disappointing to someone like me.”