Up next in 10
Exclusive Interview With Counting Crows' Adam Duritz
600 views
Jun 4, 2025
Counting Crows' Adam Duritz talks to Everything Nash about their new album, Butter Miracle, The Complete Sweets!, their new The Complete Sweets! Tour, which begins in Nashville, the band's lengthy history, and much more.
View Video Transcript
0:01
hey guys it's Gail with Everything Nash
0:02
here with Adam Durretz from Accounting
0:04
Crows i'm so excited to talk to you how
0:06
are you today my friend i'm good i'm
0:08
good yeah where are you i don't even
0:10
know where you are where do you live i'm
0:12
home in New York oh you're in New York
0:14
oh beautiful it's probably not really
0:16
hot there uh I don't I don't think it is
0:19
yet it's 68 right now perfect okay well
0:22
I'm I'm coming up there as soon as we're
0:23
done okay let's talk about your album A
0:26
Butter Miracle The Complete Sweets talk
0:28
about it
0:30
um you know I'm really excited about it
0:32
it it
0:34
uh it's funny it's a weird album for us
0:36
because it's it both took the longest
0:39
time wise of any record we've ever done
0:41
and that it you know took about four
0:42
years but it's the shortest as far as
0:45
actual time spent in the studio which is
0:47
like two and a half three weeks it's
0:50
probably less time than any other
0:52
recording we've done um it's 20some days
0:58
um so like it's weird it was just
1:01
interrupted by first a
1:03
pandemic and then uh me having a lack of
1:06
confidence in the new in the last group
1:08
of songs uh and doing some rewriting on
1:10
them uh but every time we got ready to
1:14
record we were always so excited that we
1:15
went and just ripped through it
1:18
um I don't know it it it feels very
1:21
fresh to me uh and very like very us but
1:26
it doesn't really sound like any other
1:27
records i'm really happy with it okay um
1:31
you had the EP out in 2021 what we're
1:33
going to talk about but this is your
1:35
first fulllength album since 2014 right
1:39
i guess yeah so talk about that why it
1:41
took that that span of 11 years
1:45
uh I just you know wasn't sure we knew
1:48
how to put out records after Somewhere
1:50
Under Wonderland you know I wrote some
1:51
of my best material ever on that record
1:53
and we had a great record company and it
1:55
just kind of disappeared which is
1:57
partially just what happens at this
1:59
point in our career but also partially I
2:02
think a real changing ways of promotion
2:05
it's not just about working a song to
2:07
radio anymore and I felt like we really
2:09
needed to sort of like figure that out i
2:12
didn't want to take a bunch of material
2:13
that I loved and throw it down a hole
2:16
you know where it just disappears so I I
2:18
didn't feel really pressed to make
2:19
anything right then um until I started
2:22
writing the suite I just wasn't really
2:24
motivated to write new songs because I
2:27
didn't want to just throw them away
2:31
because if you don't promote it right
2:32
it's it's it just kind of disappears and
2:34
it's really hard to even play the songs
2:36
in concert you know if you don't get
2:38
them across to your
2:40
fans you know they can be really
2:42
stubborn about only wanting to listen to
2:43
old stuff so it's hard to play new
2:45
material i just didn't want to like be
2:47
frustrated like that okay i'm going to
2:50
get to your longevity in a little bit
2:52
but I'm curious now that you said that
2:54
does it feel like a luxury that you
2:56
didn't feel so motivated or did that
2:57
make you kind of nervous that you
2:59
weren't actively working on new material
3:02
no I don't write very much anyways okay
3:05
not someone who spends a lot of time
3:06
writing all the time i like don't write
3:09
for years and then I'll just write a
3:11
record i don't write a lot of extra
3:13
songs i tend to just write the record um
3:17
and I've never thought of it as writer's
3:20
block i just think I write when I write
3:24
and so it wasn't hard for me to not
3:25
write for a while
3:27
because you know I've I've always not
3:30
written um you know and we tour a lot so
3:33
it's not like I wasn't making music i
3:35
was pretty busy making music we do a lot
3:37
of touring um we play a lot of shows so
3:40
I felt pretty satisfied musically um I'm
3:43
going to get to your tour in just a
3:44
second which I'm super excited about but
3:46
your EP that came out in 2021 um talk
3:49
about that and you did that in 2021 with
3:53
the album coming four years later i'm
3:55
curious about that well we started
3:58
working on that
4:00
and you know I hadn't written for a
4:02
while and I wrote this I got this idea
4:05
to write this suite of songs that flowed
4:07
all together like one long piece of
4:09
music and that was a really interesting
4:10
challenge and at that point I sort of
4:12
stopped caring about whether it made
4:14
sense to put out music or not and just
4:15
got really excited about these songs and
4:19
that idea so we worked on that and we
4:22
were in the
4:23
studio the last couple days you know
4:26
we're watching the news and Trump's at
4:28
the CDC talking about he doesn't want
4:30
people getting off of cruise ships and
4:32
we thought man it's a good thing we're
4:34
almost done
4:35
because the whole country is going to
4:37
shut down in a second and sure enough we
4:40
finished and shipped everybody out and
4:42
the next day the whole country shut down
4:44
um so you know and then there were two
4:47
years where nothing happened uh and then
4:51
when the pandemic was over I went back
4:53
to my friend's farm in England where I
4:55
had written the suite and I wrote a
4:57
bunch of new material but I ended up
5:01
singing on a friend's album on the way
5:02
home this band Gang of Youths they're an
5:05
Australian band they live in London and
5:07
when I got home a little while later
5:10
they sent me the finished record and it
5:12
was so good and I realized
5:16
that my new songs weren't at that level
5:19
like they weren't as good at the stuff
5:21
on their record and I've I think I maybe
5:24
I was just rushing because I wanted to
5:26
finish in the same place I started uh
5:29
and
5:31
uh so I went back to the drawing board
5:33
and rewrote
5:35
uh Box Cars Spacemen in Tulsa and what
5:39
became Under the Aurora uh I left
5:42
Virginia Through the Rain because I
5:44
thought it was perfect um but even after
5:46
rewriting them I found that I had a lot
5:48
of
5:49
like I've never rewritten songs like
5:52
that in my life i've never looked at
5:54
someone else's record and thought my
5:55
record wasn't good enough and so I lost
5:58
some confidence in the songs and I just
6:00
sort of sat for two years without even
6:01
sending them to the band um and then I
6:04
wrote
6:09
uh With Love from A to Z and I loved it
6:12
and it was so good and I thought well
6:13
okay I've got to figure out what to do
6:14
with the other songs now because this
6:15
song needs to be on a record uh and I
6:18
called our bass player our drummer and
6:20
our guitar player and said can you guys
6:22
come over um you know we need to work on
6:25
this stuff i just need to play these
6:26
songs because I can't play them these
6:29
songs are a little more ambitious than
6:31
my ability to play piano and so even
6:33
though I had them in my head and I knew
6:35
the ideas I couldn't really play them
6:38
and that was holding me back from sort
6:39
of knowing if they were good but when
6:41
the guys came out here and we sat in my
6:43
living room for a week and played stuff
6:44
and I was like "Oh that's great that's
6:45
great that's okay fine let's go in the
6:47
studio." And we went right in and
6:49
recorded it but I spent two years just
6:51
sitting on the songs so that another
6:54
between the two years in the pandemic
6:56
and the two years I spent sitting on the
6:57
songs it delayed by four years the rest
7:00
of the record so and now here we are and
7:03
when your album comes out you're also
7:05
launching a tour and I when I got the
7:07
press release about the tour like it's
7:09
not a tour it's a tour like you have a
7:12
ton of dates on here talk about that
7:14
well it's the same i mean we we're
7:16
spending the summer touring in America
7:19
and then uh we'll head to Europe in the
7:21
fall
7:22
um I don't know about after that i
7:24
imagine we'll probably go to the
7:25
Southern Hemisphere in the spring then
7:28
head back to Europe for the beginning of
7:29
the summer festivals next year and then
7:31
maybe uh America again in summer imagine
7:35
uh
7:36
but yeah it's I mean it's a it's a
7:40
normal record year you just love being
7:43
on the road well it's it's more that
7:46
it's just been my life for a long time
7:48
you know like I I I'm very comfortable
7:51
there i think there was a time in my
7:53
life where I preferred being on the road
7:54
to being home i don't think that's true
7:56
anymore um but I still you know the
7:59
touring is a place where I live
8:01
with like say 20 people that I've spent
8:05
my entire adult life with you know the
8:07
band and the
8:08
crew most of us have spent you know the
8:12
band we spent 30 years together the crew
8:15
i mean my tour manager who's in the
8:18
other room of my house right now he
8:21
joined us in April of 94 you know my
8:26
production manager came on board for the
8:28
first gig of Recovering the Satellites
8:30
in 96 you know a lot of us have spent
8:33
our lives together so it's a place I'm
8:35
really comfortable okay um and I have
8:38
four in my life right now so I'm happy
8:39
being home but I love touring too but
8:41
I'm have to say I'm quite excited to get
8:43
out there and and be playing shows again
8:45
do you have any thoughts about starting
8:46
in Nashville some artists I feel love
8:48
Nashville some artists hate performing
8:50
in Nashville because it's such a music
8:51
city
8:54
well I think of Nashville sometimes like
8:57
I think of the music business in general
8:58
which is the land of bad advice um you
9:02
know you're not wrong it's also a really
9:05
cool city because even though I you know
9:08
uh music business establishment is kind
9:11
of crap whether you're rock and roll or
9:13
country but when you have a town where
9:16
it's such a music business town it ends
9:18
up being a town where there's a ton of
9:19
musicians like I have a I have friends a
9:22
lot of indie musicians I knew in the
9:24
last like 15 years uh especially 10
9:27
years ago all moved to Nashville and
9:30
even though they were playing indie rock
9:32
music they knew they were moving to a
9:34
city where the rents were like much more
9:36
affordable than New York or LA and there
9:38
were a gazillion musicians you know I
9:40
know Nashville's gotten more expensive
9:42
in recent years but still a reasonable
9:44
place to live and you know it's not so
9:47
much about the business aspects of it
9:49
but when you have business you have
9:50
musicians and so there are a million
9:52
people to play with write with it's a
9:55
pretty vital music city for a lot of
9:57
people i I love that i mean I live in
10:00
one myself new York's great that way but
10:03
I you know I can see why a lot of people
10:05
love Nashville even if like mainstream
10:08
country is not my thing you know I was
10:10
brought up on a lot of country music
10:11
living in Texas when I was a kid but um
10:14
uh you know it's very different from
10:16
Nashville country but I you know I like
10:18
Nashville um I didn't for years until I
10:21
realized how great it was to be around
10:23
that many musicians you know yeah it's
10:26
very energizing so let's talk about your
10:28
longevity that I keep saying we're going
10:29
to talk about 1991 you formed could you
10:32
have ever Adam imagined then what it
10:35
would be now oh I definitely imagined it
10:38
i mean everybody does well yeah because
10:40
you don't dream of like having mid-level
10:44
success and lasting two years in your
10:46
band even though that's what happens um
10:49
you dream about spending a life playing
10:51
music it's just not very realistic i
10:54
mean this is exactly what I dreamed
10:56
about it's just impossible for it to
10:59
have turned out but it did you know i
11:01
mean it did we really worked at it and
11:03
we're still here but yeah this is
11:05
exactly what it's exactly what we all
11:07
imagined everybody dreams of spending
11:10
your life doing this you know just
11:13
doesn't work out usually i've asked a
11:14
lot of artists that question i don't
11:16
think anybody's answered that way i love
11:18
that answer was there a moment when you
11:20
realized "Oh my gosh this is working
11:22
like we're doing this."
11:25
Yeah I guess it
11:28
was
11:31
well there was this moment where Dave
11:33
Bryson and I went down to LA to talk to
11:35
this lawyer because we realized we
11:37
needed a lawyer um we had just started
11:40
the band but we had there had been
11:43
versions of Counting Crows for a while
11:44
before that and so we had this big demo
11:46
full of a lot of songs and the lawyer
11:49
was flipping out over it and he he was a
11:52
pretty big-time lawyer he was like Tom
11:54
Petty's lawyer and he was Warner Chapel
11:56
Publishing's lawyer he said "If you want
11:58
to stick around till Monday," because it
11:59
was a Friday afternoon uh I also
12:02
represent these managers and they they
12:04
really would like to meet with you and
12:05
we went and met with them on
12:07
Monday
12:09
and they had heard the demo and they
12:12
wanted to sign us and they represented
12:15
uh Joe Jackson the B-52s
12:20
uh Tony Childs
12:24
um Danzig
12:27
uh you know a few other bands all their
12:29
bands were signed like everyone they
12:31
represented had record
12:33
contracts and they told us straight out
12:36
they wanted to sign us you know and as
12:39
we left that day I realized oh wow you
12:41
know
12:42
like we're we're going to get a shot i
12:46
mean we're not going to be wandering
12:47
around in obscurity anymore you know in
12:50
the Bay Area wondering if anyone's ever
12:51
going to see us
12:53
like we're going to get a chance and
12:56
either be good enough or not because
12:59
these guys can walk into any record
13:01
company in America and so they're going
13:03
to be able to take our demos to
13:05
everybody
13:06
and either they'll want us or they won't
13:08
but it's not like we're going to have to
13:09
be wondering if anyone's ever going to
13:10
hear our music like and that day was
13:12
like wow that's a life change right
13:15
there you know I just realized we were
13:16
going to get a shot right
13:18
then what we do with the shot you know
13:21
who knows but that was the moment where
13:22
I thought all right that's all you
13:25
really want you know you just want an
13:27
opportunity the rest is up to like the
13:30
be how well you can do and you know and
13:33
just the whims of the world if anyone's
13:35
going to care but like the shot is what
13:37
you need you know because that's the
13:39
thing it's really hard to get just an
13:41
opportunity you know and that day I knew
13:43
we were going to get an opportunity
13:45
so that was kind of a big change it was
13:48
way before we got signed or anything you
13:50
know but I just knew that was it that
13:52
day well you didn't squander the
13:53
opportunity okay last question i'm gonna
13:55
let you go um what's next i know you're
13:58
doing the tour you talked about doing a
13:59
tour into next year are we going to have
14:01
to wait 11 years for another album i
14:04
don't know
14:06
you might be my favorite interview i'm
14:08
just saying well it's the future i mean
14:10
I don't know about the future you know
14:12
like what are your plans i write when I
14:15
write i mean I'm gonna spend the next
14:16
two you know year or two on the road so
14:18
there won't be much of a chance to write
14:20
but you know I'm pretty excited about
14:23
playing right now and and the recording
14:26
went so well for this uh but you know
14:29
it's funny like in the years before this
14:32
everyone was telling me just yammering
14:34
on to me about how we don't need to make
14:36
records anymore no one listens to
14:38
records anyways you just you know we we
14:40
should be better off making singles
14:42
because no one listens to records and I
14:43
always thought well it doesn't matter
14:45
whether anyone listens to records the
14:47
thing we do well is make records so it
14:50
doesn't really matter it's probably the
14:51
best thing we can do um but then when I
14:54
started writing the suite I thought well
14:56
you know it's a four song thing I guess
14:58
does it since no one cares whether you
14:59
make a record anymore it doesn't matter
15:02
whether I make something that's an hour
15:04
or 40 minutes or just this 18minute
15:05
thing I'm writing right now but then as
15:08
soon as we released it everyone's like
15:09
why are you making an EP why aren't you
15:10
making a record and I was like "Oh my
15:12
god the the mixed messages of it all."
15:15
Uh you know I don't know about the
15:16
future you know I I imagine we'll do
15:18
what we've always done which is tour for
15:21
a while make another record tour some
15:23
more you know we we still feel very
15:26
creative uh you know none of us are
15:28
tired of this at all
15:30
um you know our career feels this record
15:33
got nothing but good reviews it got
15:36
great great reviews across the board uh
15:40
I don't know whether anyone will hear it
15:42
but if they do that'd be great and you
15:44
know but either way I suppose we'll just
15:46
keep doing it i mean I I don't have a
15:49
lot of other plans i'm not busy other
15:52
than doing this you know well we like
15:56
what you do thank you so much thank you
15:58
good to talk to you my friend you too
16:01
and best of luck thanks very much have a
16:04
good one you too bye bye thanks
#Concerts & Music Festivals