New KQRS host Steve Gorman is pumped to join another Minnesota institution: Golden Smog

The main factor, though, was the morning show job itself. KQRS had already been airing his still-rocking syndicated show "Steve Gorman Rocks" — a product of the station's parent company, Cumulus Media — when the station approached him about replacing Barnard. Getting the job capped a career makeover that Gorman said he was content to make after he played his final dates with the Crowes in 2014.

"I'd been traveling in rock 'n' roll bands for a long time," he said (25-plus years). "The traveling part gets harder the older you get."

He didn't give up drumming, though. He formed a Nashville-based band called Trigger Hippy, coincidentally featuring two Minnesota natives, bassist Nick Govrik and singer Amber Woodhouse. He and Govrik also perform in the Bag Men with North Mississippi All-Stars blues-rock scion Luther Dickinson, who served as a guitarist in the Black Crowes from 2007 to 2011.

Steve Gorman, second from left, did not exactly find peace during his 16 years off and on with the Black Crowes. (Matt Mendenhall) Gorman also wasn't entirely done with the Crowes after he split from them. First came his 2019 memoir "Hard to Handle: The Life and Death of the Black Crowes" (written with Twin Cities author Steven Hyden), which recapped the decadence and dysfunction the drummer saw within the group. Then he filed a lawsuit against his ex-bandmates over unpaid royalties that was settled in 2022.

Those two developments prompted the Robinson brothers to speak out against Gorman in the press , a rift that remains unchanged even after the sibling rockers re-formed with mostly new members in 2021. The ex-drummer said he has no opinion or interest in the new lineup.

"The things I loved about the band aren't there anymore," Gorman simply said.