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How The Black Crowes Recorded Their First New Album in 15 Years
Rich Robinson takes us inside the making of 'Happiness Bastards,' the Crowes' first studio album of new songs since 2009
Since the beginning, when they slipped onto MTV in 1990 with a muscled-up cover of Otis Redding’s “Hard to Handle,” and then dropped a roots-soaked second album, Southern Harmony and Musical Companion, in the face of the alt-rock explosion, the band has been proudly out of step with the times. So it’s no surprise that Happiness Bastards offers close to zero reminders that it’s a 2024 album, with the Robinson brothers, plus bassist Sven Pipien and touring drummer Brian Griffin, simply delivering an impressively energetic set of songs firmly in their rock revivalist bag. From the Led Zeppelin III ambition of “Cross Your Fingers” to the funked-out “Dirty Cold Sun” to the wistful album closer “Kindred Friend,” it all would fit even better on Seventies AOR radio than, say, the Rolling Stones’ Hackney Diamonds.
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