'Being dismissed for being different': Adam Duritz on new music with Counting Crows

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More than 30 years ago, Adam Duritz and his band Counting Crows debuted with "Mr. Jones," a song about longing for fame in the music industry. Little did he know that fame was going to be immediate — and a bit scary.

Counting Crows' first album, August and Everything After, eventually sold more than 7 million copies in the U.S. alone and catapulted Duritz into the pantheon of rock 'n' roll storytellers.

He's since tried to manage that fame as best he can. His signature dreadlocks, which made him instantly recognizable, have long since been sheared. He's also slowed his release of new music.

On May 9th, Counting Crows released its first full-length album in 10 years: Butter Miracle: The Complete Sweets!

Morning Edition host Leila Fadel asked Duritz about the lengthy delay between albums — and about the curious title, to which he replied: "It's a secret." (He got more candid after that.)

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Interview highlights

On the delay between Counting Crows' albums:

I was on my friend's farm right before the pandemic. I hadn't written in a while, and I started writing this song, "The Tall Grass." When I was almost finished, I extended the song. I thought at first it was a longer song, and then I realized, No, it's a different song. But isn't it interesting how they flow, right from one end to the other? And I got really intrigued with the challenge: What if I wrote a whole series of songs that flow like one long song with different movements?

We recorded it and we ran right into the pandemic as we were finishing. It came out during that period [as the EP Butter Miracle, Suite One]. As soon as the pandemic was over, I went back to the farm and I started writing another half of the record.

I stopped in London and sang on my friend's record. They're in this band, Gang of Youths. They sent me the finished record, and it was so good! It just made me realize that the new songs I had just written weren't really up to that standard yet. I went back and rewrote a bunch of stuff. I've never done that before.

If I don't think something's really good, I just don't finish it. I had never rewritten something and had that many doubts about it.

I sat on the songs for a couple of years without even playing them for the band. Just not feeling confident about it. And then I wrote "With Love, from A-Z," which is the opening track on the record. I loved it and I thought, okay, this has to go on a record. I've got to figure out what I'm doing.

On the central theme behind the new songs:

There are a lot of people, especially in American society nowadays, dealing with being dismissed for being different from everybody else. Whether that's because you're Black or white or trans or gay or straight, whatever it is. If you're not doing what everyone thinks you're supposed to be doing as a group, there's a lot of ostracization. And that's much harder when you're young; you have less buffer to deal with that stuff.

Leila Fadel: I was wondering if that's what "Spaceman in Tulsa" is about.

Adam Duritz: Yeah, it's very much what "Spaceman in Tulsa" is about. It's things I went through as a kid — friends of mine, all of whom dealt with very difficult, somewhat traumatic stuff in the early parts of their lives. And all of whom came out of it kind of glorious people. The common denominator in all of them was art — finding a way to celebrate who they were, as opposed to just hiding it away.

But there's a lot of trauma in there, too. And I think that's a common thread for a lot of people in the arts because you felt so different as a kid. So it's a serious song about the difficulties and the sadness involved in that, but it's also a pretty celebratory song about finding a place for yourself and a life for yourself.

It's got some things in common with "Mr. Jones" in that sense, which was about dreaming about being a rock star, but also knowing it wouldn't turn out to be what you wanted it to be. But it's still a hell of a dream, you know?

Fadel: When you wrote "Mr. Jones," you weren't a huge famous star yet. It really put you on the map, and it was about dreaming of that exact thing. Did you imagine that this would be the life that you would have? Is it what you thought it was going to be?

Duritz: I definitely imagined being a rock star. I mean, I'd never even had anyone from a record company come and see a band I was in. When I wrote that song, it was just a complete fiction dream, you know? It was just an idea about, like, wouldn't this be great?

But even then, I knew it's not going to make everything wonderful. There's no panacea in life. Nothing solves your world for you. You still have to go do that yourself.

I dreamed about being a rock star because I wanted to play music and make a life out of that. Even though that's not usually what happens. Even if you get a once-in-a-million chance, it's over in a year, for the most part. None of us dream of being one-hit-wonders. But to be here 30-some odd years later, that's almost impossible. So, yeah, it's great.

Fadel: I want to ask about "Angel of 14th Street." You have this line, "The angel of the pavement cries/ If God is dead, why am I here? Did he leave a light on for me? Did he leave a light on for me?" And it repeats.

Duritz: I just felt there was a real callousness in our society towards women — this real arrogant, we-know-what's-best-for-you thought process returning to our culture in the last decade. I mean, obviously it's always been there, but you thought you were moving in a better direction for many years.

Granted, with the MeToo movement, you got a lot of —for the first time — exposing a lot of people who were victimizing women. But at the same time, it also made you realize how prevalent it was. Half of our race as humans messed with and abused and taken advantage of and, quite honestly, raped. And then told what to do by the other half. It's attaching a valuelessness to half the population of the world.

I was trying to imagine what it must feel like to be a woman. When power speaks to you as if you don't matter.

Fadel: As I was listening to this album and reading the lyrics, it felt like you were putting words and melodies to these deep anxieties that so many people are feeling in this uncertain world right now. Did you realize you were doing that?

Duritz: I mean, I thought I was probably putting words to mine.

You go through life with all this stuff inside you. I mean, I remember that so vividly as a kid, feeling like I've got all this stuff pent up inside of me. Where in my life am I going to use all this? Other people have other talents; I just seem to have this bunch of feelings and I don't know where to go with it.

And then the day I wrote my first song, it was like a light bulb going off. I suddenly realized, "Oh, that explains my whole life! I get it!" All of this stuff can go here and all of those feelings make this powerful and moving and beautiful. I'm going to write songs. That's what I'm going to do with my life.

When I wrote a song, I just knew who I was – way before any of the rest of my friends did. I'd been behind, and suddenly I was way ahead.

I fell behind again when everyone started actually getting jobs because getting a job as a songwriter is nearly impossible! But I stuck with it. It took a while, but it was a huge revelation to realize that all those things that were stuck inside me actually had a place to go and had a reason. They were all part of who I was going to become.

The audio version of this story was edited by Olivia Hampton, the digital version was edited by Majd Al-Waheidi.