Steve Gorman Calls Black Crowes Rock Hall Nomination Genuinely Humbling

Standing in a record store in February 1990, Steve Gorman filed his own band's debut album into the general "B" section bin alongside Badfinger, Big Star, and Black Flag. There was no dedicated Black Crowes tab yet, just the open alphabetical sprawl of everyone who wasn't famous enough for their own divider. But Gorman remembers thinking it anyway: "I'm next to THE BEATLES. I'm next to the BEE GEES. I'm next to BLACK FLAG... I made it."

Thirty-six years later, the band's second consecutive Rock Hall nomination brought that memory back. Gorman, who served as The Black Crowes' drummer intermittently from the band's founding in 1989 until 2015, spoke to Cris Cohen of Bands To Fans about the reaction.

"The nomination, this is the second year in a row, and I say this sincerely, I was really surprised," Gorman said. He was characteristically direct about what he could and couldn't control: "It's great, because of all the things in life that I have no control over and no say in whatsoever, this is the easiest one to just not even think about."

The 2026 ballot lists seven members of the band's classic era: brothers Chris and Rich Robinson, who remain the only current lineup members on the official ballot, alongside Gorman, early guitarist Jeff Cease, classic-era bassist Johnny Colt, two-stint guitarist Marc Ford, and the late keyboardist Eddie Harsch. The nomination arrives as the band returns to activity with "A Pound of Feathers," their tenth studio album, released in March 2026.

"Shake Your Money Maker," the debut Gorman was stocking that February morning, went five-times platinum and earned the Black Crowes the title of Best New American Band from Rolling Stone that year. The band split twice, in 2002 and again in 2015, before the Robinson brothers reunited the group in 2019. They became eligible for the Rock Hall a decade ago.

For Gorman, the distinction between nomination and induction is clear and, apparently, uncomplicated. "If we don't go in, that's great... the nomination is the nicest part," he said. That's not resignation. It reads more like the settled perspective of someone who already won the argument he was having with himself in 1990, standing in the bins, next to the Beatles.