The Black Crowes have explained their decision to leave founding drummer Steve Gorman out of the band's reunion tour.

"Steve was one of the incredibly negative and manipulative forces in the band that we really didn't want to deal with,” guitarist Rich Robinson declared to the Long Island Weekly. “In order to get back, we really had to do this very specific purge where we focus on the two of us and let this be something that will be positive.”

It was late 2019 when Rich and his brother Chris announced that they’d be reviving the Black Crowes for a reunion tour in honor of the 30th anniversary of their debut album Shake Your Money Maker. The two determined that none of the group’s previous members would be invited back. “It's still precarious between us – you throw a bunch of that old shit around, entrenched patterns of behavior, and it's just gonna trigger again," Rich explained at the time.

The guitarist echoed similar sentiments when recently discussing Gorman’s absence from the reunion lineup.

“We can be in charge of our own triggers, but if you have other people around that have an agenda, which a lot of the older people around did, it’s just going to crash and burn,” Rich explained. “We didn’t look at this as a one-time thing. We want to focus and do it right for ourselves as human beings. For ourselves as brothers. For ourselves as writing and creative partners as well as the other reasons."

Originally planned for summer 2020, the Shake Your Money Maker tour will instead start on July 20, 2021. The trek begins in Nashville before winding across America over the course of 37 performances.

 

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