After 24 years together, The Black Crowes are calling it quits.
On Thursday, Jan. 15. founding member, guitarist and songwriter Rich Robinson announced that the rock band was breaking up on his Facebook page stating, “After 24 years Rich Robinson says The Black Crowes are no more.”
“It is with great disappointment and regret that after having the privilege of writing and performing the music of The Black Crowes over the last 24 years, I find myself in the position of saying that the band has broken up,” the musician said in the statement.
“I hold my time with the Black Crowes with the utmost respect and sincerest appreciation. It is a huge swath of my life’s body of work. I couldn’t be more proud of what we accomplished and deeply moved by the relationships people created and maintained with my music,” continued Rich. “That alone is the greatest honor of being a musician. I love my brother and respect his talent but his present demand that I must give up my equal share of the band and that our drummer for 28 years and original partner, Steve Gorman, relinquish 100% of his share, reducing him to a salaried employee, is not something I could agree to.”
Before concluding: “There are so many people who have helped and supported us along the way. I want to give a heartfelt thank you to all of our fans, our friends behind the scenes, and to everyone who was a part of The Black Crowes.”
Fans of the rockers will be sad to see the men disband after first being formed in 1989. The Crowes reached commercial success in the early nineties and separated for the first time in 2002. They went on to reunite in 2005 only to go on hiatus in 2010 and return three years later.
According to reports The Black Crowes last show together was back in 2013 in San Francisco and Chris Robinson, co-founder and brother of Rich, is currently busy with his new side project, the Chris Robinson Brotherhood.
In an interview with Smashing Magazine, Chris commented on his time with the Crowes stating, “I don’t do frivolous things with music. The Black Crowes, to be honest, became a very tedious scenario. I…I know the Black Crowes are not going to turn around and be something that I think is super amazing again and fun and vibrant with the energy I’m looking for.”
Over the 24 years that they have been together they have released nine studio albums, with their first “Shake Your Money” being certified five-times platinum since its debut in 1990.
While this may be the end of the rock group, The Black Crowes will live on through their hits “Hard to Handle,” “She Talks to Angels,” “Sting Me” and many, many more.
