Adam Duritz doesn’t care if you think he’s cool or not
ARE Counting Crows as important as Nirvana? Such was the case put forward, sort of, in respected online journal Grantland recently, with author Steven Hyden drawing fascinating parallels between these two icons of the early 1990s.
“Both bands were signed to the same label, Geffen. They even had the same A&R guy, Gary Gersh. They were both known primarily for songs – ‘Mr Jones’ and ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ – that commented ironically on the entertainment industry. August and Everything After [Counting Crow’s debut] and Nirvana’s Geffen debut, Nevermind, were both pop-oriented smashes that led to noisier, angrier, and less successful follow-ups… Both bands were fronted by singer-songwriters known for their struggles with mental illness and love lives that unfolded in the tabloids.”
The difference, of course, is that Cobain is 21 years dead whereas Counting Crows’ Adam Duritz is still with us — now middle aged and with the sort of up and down back catalogue inevitable if you’ve spent most of your adult life writing songs.
Also, Counting Crows were never edgy; as soon as they broke though with Mr Jones in December 1993, it became fashionable to disdain them as a quintessential ‘jock’ band, one of those lowest denominator panderers all your naff, boorish acquaintances were into (what has been retroactively dubbed ‘Kings of Leon Syndrome’).
Duritz (50) is phlegmatic about Counting Crow’s place in the critical firmament. He knows what it is like to be the least cool guy in the room —and honestly, at this point in his career, is past caring (it was surely a comfort that during his days as music journalist punching-bag he was dating luminaries as Courteney Cox, Mary-Louise Parker and Jennifer Aniston).
“Our new record is receiving positive reviews and I find it hard to feel good about that,” he says, referring to Counting Crows’ acclaimed seventh studio LP Somewhere Under Wonderland.
“You can spend years at the centre of the culture and be critical darlings and struggle to read a single negative review. A year later, you’re a piece of s**t. I get it — music is about cool. We love being in on the cool. Then, one day, the guy across the office is into this band you used to like. And you’re thinking ‘How cool can it be — if THAT guy likes it’.”
We’ve meandered our way on to the thorny topic of Counting Crows and cool via a discussion about Somewhere Under Wonderland and the degree to which it has revitalised the group’s fortunes.
In the media the record has been loudly heralded as a ‘return to form’ . Commercially, it certainly feels like a career highlight, giving Duritz and company their first top ten hit in a decade and yielded a new fan favourite in single ‘Palisades Park’. However, as the singer stresses, he and his band mates are not high-fiving each other in celebration. They stand over all their albums. So they’re a little ‘cooler’ right now. Whatever. This too shall pass.
“Was I excited about the record as I was writing it? Of course. To be honest, I feel that way about every record. I’m sure I thought it about this one. I don’t think it was different. I have noticed a difference in the live shows – people seem to know what is coming next, they know the words to’ Palisades Park’ better than I do.”
He acknowledges Somewhere Under Wonderland marks the end of a spell of creative struggle for Counting Crows. Following 2008’s double LP Saturday Night and Sunday Mornings — essentially a mid-life crisis split across two discs — Duritz was struck down with an apparently terminal case of writer’s block.
Confident in his abilities, he never despaired — however, he did set songwriting to one side temporarily in order to assemble the 2012 covers collection Underwater Sunshine (Or What We Did On Our Summer Vacation). Some reviewers felt that Counting Crows had, at this point, essentially raised a white flag. Duritz believes Underwater Sunshine one of the most important projects he had ever undertaken.
“It really opened the ‘breadth’ of what I can could write,” he says. “I’d always felt that in order to be honest I had to write songs that were very much about me, about how I felt. Making Underwater Sunshine, I realized it was not the case.”
In person, Duritz can come across as mumbly and meandering, a slightly dishevelled conversationalist. His struggles with mental health have been exhaustively chronicled (as the Grantland piece pointed out, here was something else he had in common with Cobain). From adolescence, he has wrestled depression and in his 20s was diagnosed with dissociative disorder — a tendency to see the world as an alternative reality in which everything is fake and shadowy.
“You have to concentrate really hard to feel reality,” he once told me. “I suppose it’s a social anxiety disorder. I’ve always had it. Early on it was really bad. It’s not much fun.”
He now feels he has the condition under control and is looking forward to bringing his new songs to Ireland this week.
God I love Ireland. Back in Dublin for the 1st time in 6yrs, drunk as a lord, & well-fed by Coppinger Row. Thank you
— Counting Crows (@CountingCrows) June 21, 2015
The journey will be somewhat of a homecoming. Counting Crows have performed here from early in their career and the group’s tour manager since 1992 is Corkman Tom Mullally whom Duritz metduring the San Francisco songwriter scene of the early ‘90s. Mullally is also known for being a key member of the ‘Cork mafia’ on U2’s roadcrew from the early days.
“He’s one of my best friends,” says Duritz. “Actually, I’m good friends with all of our crew. We’ve been together since it started. For years, I assumed that was normal. It’s only when you talk to other bands that you realise that, actually, it’s something unique. I remember discussing it with another musician and he was like ‘You’ve had the same crew since the beginning? Wow!’ It didn’t strike me as weird. We’re a very tightly knit bunch.”
As with many Gen X bands, Counting Crows have had a tumultuous relationship with the music business. They fell out with Geffen Records over the company’s insistence that they cram their LPs with potential singles and operated as independent artists for a period.
In interviews during their indie spell, Duritz lamented the industry’s lack of initiative, especially regarding the internet and the potential doors it opened.
Given all of that, it might be considered a surprise that Somewhere Under Wonderland has been issued on Capitol, the most mainstream of mainstream labels.
“We’ve decided never to sign multi-record deals again,” says Duritz. “It’s all one-offs. The label have to prove themselves every time. Some people [in the majors] are quite forward thinking. You can’t depend on it. I wouldn’t want to be locked into anything that puts my credibility in anyone’s hands.”
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