Hey I'm Brian Hyatt and this is Rolling Stone Music Now. Not long ago I sat down in the studio with Steve Gorman,

the former drummer of the Black Crows, and this was right before the Black Crows announced the reunion.

Steve wrote this book called Hard to Handle, The Life and Death of the Black Crows, a memoir.

He co-wrote it with Steve Heiden, a friend of the show.

This book is wild.

Even if you don't care about the Black Crows, it's a hilarious and genuinely

gripping account of a band that just seems determined to self-destruct.

It's one of the most jaw-dropping and entertaining rock memoirs I can remember reading for a long time,

so I'm excited to have Steve here and let's go right into that

interview. Man I don't even know where to start and I think I think it's a good sign

yeah exactly and I think we'll jump around we're not going to tell the story chronologically but

separate even from the madness of the black crows I couldn't get my head around one

detail at the beginning which is that you must be some kind of weird drum prodigy because you basically jumped into what became a

nationally famous important excellent band with barely any drum experience. I didn't get it.

How did you do that? I did it by being pretty obsessed with drumming and just not ever doing anything about it from the time I was six.

I mean, one of my older brothers Tom handed me some

Beatles albums when I was six so they were mine so that meant they mattered and I

put on help and the first time I ever heard tickets a ride I started air drumming

and I didn't know what I was doing I was like my arms are flailing and I'm like what is that thing that guys doing on those drums it started that day and it never went away I just I felt such a connection to first of all Ringo Stars drumming

but then drumming beyond that and then just as my record collection grew and I became

obsessed with the idea of being in a band it was an assumed thing from a very early age.

I'm going to be in a drummer in a band one day.

...