I promised myself I wouldn\u2019t make Steve Gorman talk a bunch about The Black Crowes. That didn\u2019t last long.<\/p>\n
The drummer is currently on tour with his soulful rock outfit Trigger Hippy, which plays at High Noon Saloon on Nov. 13<\/a>. They have a new album called Full Circle & Then Some<\/em>, and it\u2019s very good. But Gorman is also a bonafide rock legend who recently released a book about his old band, Hard to Handle: The Life and Death of The Black Crowes<\/em><\/a>, a memoir written with Wisconsin native Steven Hyden. And there are few rock \u2018n\u2019 roll stories more enthralling than those of The Black Crowes.<\/p>\n Formed in the early 1980s as \u201cMr. Crowe\u2019s Garden,\u201d The Black Crowes became one of the most commercially successful groups of the \u201990s. They sold millions of records and spawned timeless singles like \u201cRemedy<\/a>\u201d and \u201cShe Talks to Angels<\/a>.\u201d But like The Kinks or Oasis, the group was derailed by the never-ending fights of its sibling songwriting duo Chris and Rich Robinson. The band called it quits<\/a> in 2015 after an acrimonious breakup (though a reunion<\/a> may be on the horizon, sans Gorman<\/a>).<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s never been a documentary or book that\u2019s told the Black Crowes story before now,\u201d Hyden said in an email. \u201cAs much as Chris and Rich might hate this book, I feel like Steve has done them a huge favor by writing it.\u201d<\/p>\n If the Robinsons have been \u201cterrible stewards\u201d of the Crowes\u2019 legacy (as Hyden says), Gorman is the opposite. He\u2019s an original member of the group, having been around since the Mr. Crowe\u2019s Garden days. (It was only the second band he\u2019d ever been in, in fact.) And he\u2019s a charismatic guy with a wealth of cautionary tales about one of rock\u2019s hardest living bands to tell.<\/p>\n Ahead of Trigger Hippy\u2019s Madison stop, I spoke with Gorman about his new band, his old band, and that time he tried to fight my favorite band. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.<\/p>\n