And the Band Played On: The Black Crowes

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USUALLY, THE CLOSEST a fan can get to the creative process of a band in the studio is to watch a carefully edited documentary or to read updates on blogs or Twitter. There's always been a barrier between fan and artist when it comes to recording.

With "Before the Frost," The Black Crowes break that barrier down. Foregoing the traditional studio, the Crowes took up residence in Levon Helm Studios in Woodstock, N.Y. for five nights during three weeks, recording the album in front of 200-some fans each night.

It was a jarring process for the fans, but not so much for the band, drummer Steve Gorman said. Just because there was an audience present doesn't mean the Crowes did things differently than the band normally would. There were abrupt stops, flubs, re-starts, arguments and several takes of each song.

"There were times where it turned into a stand-up routine," Gorman said of the between-take banter. The band would brutally crack jokes at each other when members messed up, leaving the crowd to trade amused or confused looks.

At one point, the band repeatedly tried making it through a song, stopping over and over, inciting constant laughter from the audience. When the band finally made it through, the crowd gave The Crowes a standing ovation.

The song's eventual title? "And The Band Played On."

The group recorded 30 songs during the course of the project — 11 of which made the cut. The Crowes are releasing an additional nine songs in a second album, "Until the Freeze," as a digital-download bonus to fans who buy "Before the Frost," which is due on Aug. 31.

"We went in and recorded a bunch of songs and 'Before the Frost' fell together easily," Gorman said. "All these other songs, we liked them just as much. We don't think of it as what's better or worse — it's what holds it together, what makes the album complete. ... ['Until the Freeze'] sounds like a record too, and that was not by design."

What each record does offer, though, is a different side of the Crowes.

"'Before the Frost' is a little straighter rock and roll album," he said. "That's what a casual fan will associate as a Black Crowes-y album."

Not that you could tell from the album's first single. "I Ain't Hiding" is more disco than rock and roll — a stellar, funky, late-night party jam.

"That's the only song that has that kind of vibe," Gorman said. "These days with sales being what they are and where they are, the single is just shooting that up a flare to the air. In my mind, it makes perfect sense to put out something more unusual."

After the song ends, you hear the crowd cheer and Chris Robinson respond. It's a sudden reminder that what you listened to was live, not pieced together like a normal record.

"That's definitely a thread throughout" the album, Gorman said. "As soon as the song ends and you hear applause everyone is shocked."

Gorman said the companion disc, "Until the Freeze," is tailored to the serious fan, as it showcases the Crowes sidling up to different genres, like bluegrass, country and folk.

It's fitting the band's grittier side would come out at Helm's barn studio. The former drummer of The Band is steeped in all things Americana, and his studio isn't far from where the Woodstock festival was held 40 years ago. Gorman downplayed the influence of geography, but said the barn itself had unmistakable character.

"It's like that barn is its own world," he said. "Literally you don't think about the fact that you're in Woodstock. The barn could have been in Tallahassee and it would have felt just as cool."

Helm doesn't play on either record, but he did stop by a few times to watch, even sitting in on an extra kit one night for a few cover songs. The Crowes, which open a leg of their Stuck Inside Utopia tour Tuesday at Wolf Trap, will play a few shows with Helm's band in the coming months, as they also did earlier this summer.

The lengthy tour could give fans hope that the band, which suffered through frosty relations between brothers Chris Robinson, its singer, and guitarist Rich Robinson and spent a period on ice between 2002 and 2005, is firing on all cylinders.

"When one thing is going well everything else follows suit — dominoes in both directions," Gorman said. "When things go well, tensions seem to flow away. Good vibes give good vibes."

Even so, the band's tumultuous history isn't behind it. "I don't think anybody assumes it won't have darker times again," Gorman said.

» GET A FREE MP3 download of "I Ain't Hiding" at the Crowes' Web site.

» Wolf Trap, 1551 Trap Road, Vienna; Tue., Aug. 25, 8 p.m., $42, $25 lawn; 703-255-1868.

Written by Express contributor Rudi Greenberg
Photos courtesy of Matthew Mendenhall and Vermillion Media