Johnny Colt is the kind of person who’s at rest while in motion. Having sold more than 10 million records, Colt thrives on challenges and vibrates with an infectious energy that pulls everyone around him along for the ride. It’s easy to see why; Colt was the bassist for one of the coolest bands on the planet. He had it all: the cash, the credibility, and the celebrity. He wanted more.

 

“I felt like the lifestyle started to eclipse the art,” he says.

 

So, Colt quit using drugs and quit the Black Crowes after eleven years.

 

“After I got sober, the commercial success became so formulaic that for me the environment became completely devoid of creativity,” he says. “I had other parts of myself that needed to grow. It was time to redefine myself.”

 

Colt decided he would make a go as a businessman. He turned his attention to the company he helped start while still with the Crowes, a company that rented stage equipment and instruments to touring musicians.

 

Later, he financed the opening of an Oakland tattoo shop, an endeavor all his business confidants thought was insane. (In just eight short years, Temple Tattoo is one of the premier tattoo shops in the country.) Colt also dove head first into the high-risk world of real estate and started a commercial real estate development company.

 

If Colt’s business involvements seem random, they are.

 

“The only thing they have in common is that they’re all relationship based,” Colt says. “I get into business with talented and creative people.”

 

Colt’s business investments have all proven profitable. His real estate development company Benevolent Empire has built several successful, cutting edge, mixed-residential and commercial products in Atlanta, Charlotte and Las Vegas. While his rental company Avatar Events Group has thrived with locations in Atlanta, Orlando and Pittsburgh.

 

But don’t worry; Colt didn’t quit his day job. Currently, he plays bass for the Grammy-winning rock band Train and the super group Rock Star: Supernova, a product of CBS’s hit TV show that aired in the fall of 2006. Fronted by Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee, Colt joins Guns & Roses guitarist Gilby Clarke and winning vocalist Lukas Rossi on the road through the Spring. Adding another platinum album under his belt, Colt and his fellow Rock Star: Supernova band mates just went platinum in Canada.

 

In February, Colt will get a chance to pursue his other artistic love, photography. A collection of his photographs, from the upcoming book titled Lessons Never Learned, taken while on the road with the Black Crowes, will debut in Chicago.

 

"Music is a creative living but photography is a passion that feeds me,” he says.

 

Not bad for a kid who left high school in the Atlanta suburbs when he was 16 for the breezy shores of Los Angeles. Colt says he worked in a sex shop and as a telemarketer in L.A. to pay the bills while he attended a music program. These days the self-made, animated bassist is back in Atlanta and finally at ease and in his element maintaining a schizophrenic schedule that pushes him in just about every direction.

 

What is the secret to his success?

 

“You gotta have the strength and the nerve to make some big decisions and take high risks in business,” Colt says. “You gotta hustle and have the courage to listen to your intuition and follow your gut. No matter what anyone tells you.”

 

Risks like leaving high school, departing the Black Crowes, searching for stability outside the music industry or starting a business?

 

“I’m in a band with Tommy Lee,” Colt says. “That’s the biggest risk yet!”