Jumping on the Wimpy Bandwagon

The Black Crowes have become the latest band to take a sabbatical. Anyone else yearn for the days when bands weren't such sissies?

Have you heard? The Black Crowes are going on hiatus.

Known for such hit songs as She Talks to Angels and Jealous Again, the southern-fried rockers announced a few weeks back that they’re taking a break from the grind of recording and touring.

In an interview with Billboard.com, lead singer Chris Robinson said the group might be back in 18 months, or two years, or five.

It’s an indefinite break.

To which, I say: oh, please!

Am I the only one who yearns for the days when bands weren’t this wimpy?

In the old days, musicians didn’t go on hiatus. They didn’t pause their careers. The only way they got time off was if the band broke up – or they died.

That’s when musicians were real men. Not like the Black freakin’ Crowes.

Thirty or 40 years ago, the career trajectory of a typical rock band was more straightforward.

You and your buddies got a five-record deal. You squeezed off album after album as swiftly as possible in a desperate rush to capitalize on your momentary popularity, touring in between with no time for rest or reflection. After the five albums, there was a greatest-hits collection and a live set.

End of story.

No one went on hiatus.

No one left the band to go solo.

No one took on “side projects.”

You pushed yourself to the limit until you burnt out. Typically, at least one guy in the group would die along the way (think Keith Moon or Brian Jones). That was the way it was done.

As former Eagle Don Henley has pointed out, ultimately it was a “self-defeating” process – but what a ride!

The Black Crowes represent a new type of rocker and a different attitude toward life in the music industry.

I blame women for turning them into sissies.

And no, I’m not talking about actress Kate Hudson – Robinson’s ex-wife, who was portrayed as the Yoko Ono figure when the Crowes took a previous break from 2002 to 2005.

No, it’s songstresses like Celine Dion and Sarah McLachlan who have popularized the notion that artists should take sabbaticals in order to have a lengthy career instead of just a few brief years of success. Both took year-long breaks.

Back in the day, however, fear ruled. Musicians would never voluntarily take themselves out of the marketplace a year at a time for fear that their fans would move on to supporting the next big act. The idea was to generate as much music and money in as short time as possible.

Rock acts didn’t think about the future.

Robinson’s approach is different: he’s actually concerned about staying creative in the long run.

How quaint.

“I think everyone's in a good space, and our hiatus is for nothing but health reasons, mental and physical, and to have the freedom to do some projects with other people and raise the kids and stuff like that,” he said.

What the Crowes and their ilk have learned from Dion and McLachlan is how technology – in the form of DVDs, the web and videos – allows a group to have a presence in the marketplace even while they aren’t on the road. They don’t have to tour themselves to death anymore.

It also turns them into wimps.

Look at a singer like Gord Downie, who seems to spend as much time doing solo projects as making music with the Tragically Hip. Or Jack White, who has so many side projects he has fans who don’t even know he founded the White Stripes.

Where are their loyalties?

Don’t these guys care about the greater good? Aren’t they willing to risk it all by adopting a potentially fatal way of generating rock hits?

Doesn’t anyone care about the band, man?

This article originally appeared in the London Free Press.