I had previously talked about the time Aerosmith toured with Megadeth
and how Dave Mustaine and company were fired from the tour after only several shows.
The link to that video is below. I’ve also done a video about the time the Black Crowes opened for
ZZ Top only to be fired on that tour. The link to that video is down below as well.
But today’s video were going to look at the Aerosmith Black Crowes tour
that would later result in the band being fired after a handful of shows to being re-hired again
and it resulted in a war of words and bad blood between the bands for several decades
In 1990 Aerosmith was out on the road as part of their Pump Tour. And they had just regained their
title as one of the biggest acts in rock in the world, while the Black Crowes meanwhile were the
new kids on the same out promoting their 1989 debut record shake yer money maker. It seemed
like a perfect match given that aerosmith was a huge influence on the Black Crowes with frontman
Chris Robinson telling Rolling Stone in 1990 To me it’s so obvious I’m a Steve Marriott rip-off
that I never think about Rod. I admit it. Steve Marriott is the guy, him and Paul Rodgers and
Gregg Allman. The thing I do with the mike stand, I picked that up from Steven Tyler. When I was a
kid, I’d see films of Aerosmith on The Midnight Special, and the next day I’d have Toys in the
Attic on in my room, running around like Steven.” His brother and the band’s guitarist Rich would
see parallels between both bands telling the same interviewer “I think we serve the same purpose
the Stones did twenty years ago or Aerosmith did fifteen years ago, Just to slap you in
the face and say, ‘Shut the f up and listen.'” One review i stumbled upon from Philadelphia
drew parallels between a fine oiled machine like Aerosmith and an inexperienced up and coming band
like the Black Crowes. The review would read Last night, about 6,000 rabid fans ranging
in age from their early teens to their early 40s packed Stabler Arena at Lehigh
University to see the band once again in top form. The Black Crowes have come from dive bars,
to mid-size theaters, to the arena a little faster than its stage legs would allow. The band's 35
minutes never connected; crippled by overwhelming guitar volume that obliterated the drums and the
flat vocal delivery of singer Chris Robinson. At Stabler, raw youthfulness did The Black Crowes in.
As Robinson squirmed into a paisley jacket and brandished a whiskey bottle on his way
off the stage, he looked embarrassed. Rightly so. It was several shows into the tour that the Black
Crowes got fired because of Robinson’s behavior as he revealed in this interview. Then we get
to the first gig and of course the most career oriented minded group
in the history of music we like opened the show with a new song we had just written or something.
And If I remember correctly I was crawling around the stage with a big knife stabbing it into the
stage. I don't know what we were doing. I guess the drummer for Aerosmith watched the opening of
our set and I guess immediately went back and contacted their management and had us fired.
The idea of those inspirational things so you're starting you know what I mean? it's new that's the
first time we're in arenas and i guess we bit off more than we chew on the first night, but cooler
heads prevailed and we finished off the tour. About a year after the tour concluded,
Robinson gave an to Rolling Stone where he made disparaging remarks about Steven Tyler saying "If
you're an entertainer and you take it seriously, you entertain with your natural abilities,
You go onstage and take a chance like everyone else. People say to us, 'Man,
I heard some bad notes in your set tonight.' Well, f aright you heard some bad notes. You
saw a real band tonight, didn't you? He'd say. His brother Rich would come to his brother's
defense telling Rolling Stone. All Chris said is, he’s disappointed because great bands he’s
loved all his life were made to resort to using tapes in concert,, "and it bums him
out because he feels they’re better than that. It didn't come off sounding that way,
but it disappointed him and made him look at the world and think, 'Man, things are fucked up;
the music industry is just for shit.'" It would be almost three decades before
Chris Robinson and the members of Aerosmith made up. While the black crowes would break up in 2015,
Robinson would perform with the group the Chris Robinson Brotherhood,
and stared performing under the moniker As the Crow Flies,. He would reveal to ultimate classic
rock how things seemed to heal in 2018 saying "I started out so cantankerous with Aerosmith,""We
went on tour with them and I was still a kid, and I was shocked that they used tapes for [Steven
Tyler's] vocals. I brought it up in my first Rolling Stone interview and got nasty messages
from everyone involved! [Laughs.] 'What are you doing, kid?' I was like, 'Oh, sorry!' I
just was shocked that that's how this went down." Robinson would go on to tell ultimate classic rock
that he found himself in a hotel elevator with Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry in Boston and they
shared a mutual appreciation for each other’s music . This led to Robinson guest starring on
Perry’s solo record at the time Sweetzerland Manifesto & he would also appear on stage with
the guitarist. That does it for today's video guys thanks for watching. Be sure to hit the like
button and subscribe and we'll see you next time on rock n' roll true stories take care.