Black Crowes Chris and Rich Robinson have spoken about the apology by Chris that started the ball rolling towards their reunion, and culminated Monday in their first show together in almost six years.
In a Rolling Stoneinterview, Chris explains that when the band split he'd been "angry" and said things that have since come out via Rich and other former bandmates "about money and everything." He admits that what they've said in the past about his demands is "for the most part true," and that it was his way of "being cruel" to Rich.
So Chris has apologized to Rich for his "anger and negativity." He says that "underneath it all, [he] would like to think [he's] a very kind person and that it was unfair" for him to attack Rich. But he offers that he was "in a negative place" at the time, "with a marriage [to actress Kate Hudson] that was failing."
Chris adds that it was while he was in his band As the Crow Flies, which he put together mostly with ex-Black Crowes to perform the band's songs, that he began to think that something was missing. That thing, he later realized, was his brother.
Rich says he accepted Chris's apology because he knew what Chris was going through. He adds, "All of it comes from sadness and stress and hurt, and that’s life; when people behave the way they behave, a lot of time, they’re going through a lot of [stuff]. You have to cut people slack. I could see what was happening and I understood it, and there was really nothing I could do about it, and it was something he had to go through on his own."
The Black Crowes will play their second reunion show Thursday at the Troubadour in L.A.