Matt Kent/Getty Images)If you're a Black Crowes fan, you may find this news hard to handle.
Lead guitarist Rich Robinson and drummer Steve Gorman say the Southern rock group is breaking up. The former musician announced the news first, on Facebook, citing a financial dispute with brother and band frontman Chris Robinson, who has not commented.
"It is with great disappointment and regret that after having the privilege of writing and performing the music of The Black Crowes over the last 24 years, I find myself in the position of saying that the band has broken up," Rich said in a post published on Thursday.
"I hold my time with the Black Crowes with the utmost respect and sincerest appreciation," he added. "It is a huge swath of my life's body of work. I couldn't be more proud of what we accomplished and deeply moved by the relationships people created and maintained with my music. That alone is the greatest honor of being a musician."
The two have feuded publicly many times over the years, according to Rolling Stone.
"I love my brother and respect his talent but his present demand that I must give up my equal share of the band and that our drummer for 28 years and original partner, Steve Gorman, relinquish 100 percent of his share, reducing him to a salaried employee, is not something I could agree to," Rich added.
Gorman, who performed with the brothers years before they decided on the band's final name, responded to Rich's announcement about The Black Crowes on his FOX Radio show, Steve Gorman Sports!, saying that he knew it was coming. He had hinted about the band's future breakup in an interview with Rolling Stone in 2014.
"I can say the statement's entirely true, entirely accurate," he said on his show, adding, "I can't speak for what's going through his mind. I can just tell you what he did and I can tell you what the response was and therefore, there's no more band."
"It's a mixed bag of emotions that I'm going through," he added. "Bands break up all the time. The Beatles broke up, for crying out loud, R.E.M. broke up."
The Black Crowes formed in Georgia in the '80s and became known for early '90s hits such as "Hard to Handle," "She Talks to Angels" and "Remedy."
The band's lineup has changed several times over the years. The Black Crowes have gone on hiatus and reunited twice, according to Rolling Stone. In the early '00s, Chris and Rich began solo careers and Gorman left the group for several years. The band last released new material in 2009, in their double album Before the Frost...Until the Freeze. The Black Crowes last toured in late 2013. Gorman said on his radio show that the group had planned a 2015 25th anniversary tour.
"I feel like the Black Crowes, we really had a great time," Chris, who several years ago formed a side band, Chris Robinson Brotherhood, told Ultimate Classic Rock in 2014, adding, "My heart and soul is full, it's a full tank on CRB. I don't really know anything about the Crowes right now."
"I've said in the past, 'I know we'll work again' or 'there's no way we'll work again,' and I've been wrong. But right now, the likelihood of us doing anything again is as low as it's ever been," Gorman had told Rolling Stone that year. "We could obviously all see things differently in a year, but I'll be surprised if the Black Crowes do something again. Ever."
Gorman is also part of another rock band, Trigger Hippy, along with the likes of Black Crowes musician Jackie Greene and singer Joan Osborne, best known for her 1995 hit "One of Us."
Greene and the other Black Crowes musicians, Sven Pipien and Adam MacDougall, have not commented about the breakup.
@JimSwain37 Sven is his own empire. No one could ever hope to contain him. But this made me laugh. Cheers!
? Steve Gorman SPORTS! (@SGSFOX) January 16, 2015Gorman posted a photo of a bottle of whiskey on his Instagram page, saying, ""Let's all raise a glass to a great run! Who's with me? TBC. Put a fork in 'em. #goodtimes"