The Chris Robinson Brotherhood — CRB for short — has been playing regularly in Santa Barbara since their first tour in 2011. (Click here for a review of their first show in town.)

Back then, it wasn’t clear what the future held for the band — in particular, was it just a way for Robinson to pass time until The Black Crowes got back together?

Fast-forwarding to the present, it’s safe to say that the CRB is where Robinson’s heart and soul is at. The band has three albums out, most recently this year’s Phosphorescent Harvest. And they’re still doing what they arguably do best — playing live shows full of cool original and cover tunes.

The CRB will return to Santa Barbara for a concert on Saturday night at the Lobero Theatre. Tickets are available by clicking here.

Robinson talked to Noozhawk about the band’s history in Santa Barbara. The full interview, including Robinson talking about his cameo on The Kids in the Hall and his plan if he leaves the rock ‘n’ roll world, is available by clicking here.

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Jeff Moehlis: I’m glad you’re coming back to Santa Barbara.

Chris Robinson: Yeah, yeah, me too. We feel we had a great show with Bobby [Bob Weir] at the [Santa Barbara] Bowl, but we were kind of gypped on time, so we want to come and do our whole thing.

JM: I saw you guys at one of the first shows you did as the Chris Robinson Brotherhood, back at SOhO in 2011. Do you have fond memories of those early shows in Santa Barbara?

CR: Yeah, completely. Because, you know, the whole idea when we put the project together, I was really fascinated with how do we get somewhere without having to do it in any sort of more conventional way. You know, like, you write some songs, you demo them, you send them to a guy who says, “We’ll do a deal,” and then you make a record, and then you put a band together. I’m not going to do that. That doesn’t work anymore either, especially for people like us.

So the idea was to do this nine-week California residency tour where we could play Tuesday nights at little places like SOhO for very little money, and kind of hone our s***, man, you know, like get it together. Get the tunes together and see if we’re going to be a band.

Before that pressure is thrust upon you, we would go through that stuff as ourselves.

And as I’m sure you well know, living in beautiful Santa Barbara … [laughs]. So we played Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and San Diego every other week for nine weeks. We must’ve done, I don’t know, four or five nights at SOhO over that period of time. Los Angeles, classically, is always a bummer [laughs]. You know, it’s cool for us now, but we’d play this club on a Monday night, no one’s dancing. It’s like, whatever. It was cool, but then we would pop up to SOhO and it would be packed out, and people dancing and partying all night.

It was, like, wow, know you? Between Santa Barbara and San Diego was where we found our stride, to be honest, especially SOhO. That was when we realized, oh wow, people are here, and people are responding. You know what I mean? It was a great laboratory for us to sort of start to get our s*** together.

JM: I remember you commenting that you were surprised that on a Tuesday night there were people dancing in Santa Barbara.

CR: I know. Well, trust me, man, when you’re out in the rest of America [laughs] … . The only other region where people kind of get down at all on a weeknight is down south. But it’s funny, I always laugh, I’m like, “But they’re drunk. They’re not on other stuff.”

You know what I mean? But it’s true, man. People have a hard time finding a weeknight to let loose and be a part of something, just for a little bit of time.

We played the Lobero a couple of years ago and had a great gig there as well. Santa Barbara looms large for the CRB.

JM: That’s great, we are happy about that! Those early shows were before you had any recordings out. What was it like to “grow up in public” like that as a band?

CR: Like I said, I think, maybe unlike some other people my age who are in the music business, or whatever it’s called now, I think this is a great time. The machine is dead, you know? It’s gone, at least for rock music or whatever you want to call what we do. What I mean by saying that is I appreciate that now I can get to the real essence of the idea. I don’t have to go to dinners with d*****bag dudes from the record company anymore. You know what I mean? I don’t have to do that stuff. You know, when I say essence, it’s the same thing as being as authentic as possible. I want this to be unadulterated music, what’s coming out of our heads and our souls right into your head and your soul.

And I think that in this day and age, we spend a lot of time working on these songs, a lot of time writing these songs, and how do you get them out there, because they’re not going to play old hippie stoner music on the radio or anything. So the best way to do it for people like us, and the kind of concert culture we’re used to, would be to just be recording shows, writing songs, and getting them out there.

And it’s funny because SOhO, the second time we played there, or maybe the third time, I noticed some hard-core fans coming from the East Coast. They were like, “We were just reading the s*** online and heard the tapes, and we had to come see.” It might be a small scale, but that worked in my mind. So you had to get on an airplane? I like that.

You know, I had to really kind of grow up in front of people as a kid in the Black Crowes, so this to us … this is just a real harmonious sort of pursuit. There’s a lot of progression and positivity around our band and our family and our business. And that’s something that we want to maintain and nurture as much as we can. You take care of that and then the music. … As with any other thing. The more we just focus on the music and the gigs, that’s really the only thing we can control, you know? I think that’s what makes it seem that everything is just kind of alright.

— Jeff Moehlis is a Noozhawk contributing writer and a professor of mechanical engineering at UC Santa Barbara. Upcoming show recommendations, advice from musicians, interviews and more are available on his web site, music-illuminati.com. The opinions expressed are his own.