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Rain King: A Conversation with Author Geoff Harkness
254 Plays2 years ago
Graeme is joined by author Geoff Harkness to discuss his latest book, and one that immediately becomes the definitive Counting Crows text, "Rain King: The Life & Music of Adam Duritz & Counting Crows". The discussion hits on Adam's early years, the band's place amongst other iconic American bands/superstars, the Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame, as well as a chance encounter with Adam at the recent 6/13/2023 concert in Omaha, NE.
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Transcript
Introduction of 'Crawling Around My Brain'
00:00:10
Speaker
Hey everybody and welcome to the Crawling Around My Brain podcast. I am your host, Graham Brown. And yes, that's correct. You heard it right. The podcast name is now called Crawling Around My Brain because while it is a Counting Crows lyric and we have been doing a lot of Counting Crows on this podcast, we will be expanding to other things and I wanted to change the name to kind of broaden the scope of things that we will discuss
00:00:33
Speaker
I want to thank everyone again. The listenership for the first two episodes has been really surprisingly good and surprisingly high, so appreciate everyone's support and literally looking forward to things to come here on this pod. But today,
Jeff Harkness and His Book on Adam Duritz
00:00:47
Speaker
we are not going to diverge from the path that we have set out on. As we have a very special guest, we have author Jeff Harkness, who wrote the book on the County Crows literally.
00:00:58
Speaker
The book is called Rain King, The Life and Music of Adam Duritz and Counting Crows. And let me just tell you, while I'll share my thoughts further on the pod, it's a great read if you're a Counting Crows fan or if you're just a music or like culture of the 90s fan, cannot recommend it enough. So you can go to Amazon and you can find that book. Again, it's Rain King, The Life and Music of Adam Duritz and Counting Crows. I'm super excited to have Jeff on. Stay tuned. We'll be right back with Mr.
Jeff's Background in Music Journalism
00:01:26
Speaker
Jeff Harkness.
00:01:41
Speaker
Welcome to the program, Mr. Jeff Harkness. He's the author of the book Rain King, The Life and Music of Adam Duritz and the Counting Crows. Jeff, really excited to have you on the podcast. We have had a few
00:01:59
Speaker
earlier podcast talking about the County Crows, but when I read your book, I realized that we have to get the man on who literally wrote the book on the County Crows. So welcome to the program, Jeff. Hey, thank you so much. I'm really happy to be here. Thanks for having me.
00:02:14
Speaker
Absolutely. And I could have introduced you as Dr. Jeff Harkness, as you do hold a PhD, as well as an MBA, and you have a very impressive CV. But do you want to just share a little bit about your background with the audience? And I know that you spent some time as a music journalist. And so whatever you think might help folks understand why you're really the authority on this subject. Okay, thanks. Well,
00:02:42
Speaker
You know, my background is someone who I kind of grew up immersed in music in some interesting ways. I had a little bit of an almost famous childhood. My mother got into concert promotion when I was, I don't know, 10 or 11 years old. So I spent, you know, my early teen years attending every single concert that I could see going off and backstage or sitting on the side of the stage. I met a lot of different,
00:03:09
Speaker
famous people, I mean, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Joe Strummer and Annie Lennox and just interesting folks who were doing great things at the time. I also, when I was 13, got a job at this legendary record store in Kansas City called The Music Exchange. A million pieces of vinyl in stock and every person working there and an expert on a different type of music. So it's a real education. Wow.
00:03:36
Speaker
That's crazy. Yeah, right. It was fun. I also played in bands, too. And so I was playing in bands around town when I was like 15. And when I was 17, I moved to Los Angeles and spent four years living there and working in record stores and playing in bands and just sort of having the time of my life. So came back to Kansas City. I spent some time as a college radio DJ. And my first job upon graduation was as a music journalist, which was a dream job.
00:04:06
Speaker
The first interview I ever did was with Questlove from The Roots. And during the time I was a music journalist, I just interviewed an amazing group of folks. I mean, I can think of like Geddy Lee and Lil Wayne and Joan Baez.
00:04:24
Speaker
You know, one of the one of the people I interviewed during that time was Charlie Gillingham from the Counting Croats. So I saw that still have that interview, still have the cassette old school and dug that out and transcribed it and use some of that material in the book.
00:04:40
Speaker
So, yeah, sort of fast forwarding, I also have this sort of fusing that my interest in music and music journalism with my academic stuff, I ended up going to Chicago where I did a six year study of the underground hip hop music scene.
00:04:55
Speaker
And I wrote a book about the relationship between gangs and rap music in Chicago. That was my first
The Motivation Behind Writing the Biography
00:05:00
Speaker
book. And this ranking is actually my fourth book I've written. This is the fourth book I've written. But my other three books were scholarly. Two of them are specifically very much about music, but scholarly monographs with university presses. This was
00:05:17
Speaker
in some ways kind of a return to the music journalism side of my writing. So I've had this, you know, life where I've done a lot of, you know, had a lot of experiences with music. And during the time as a music journalist, I think I published about a thousand pieces. So I certainly do have a background in music writing and music journalism.
00:05:37
Speaker
And what they say about, you know, writers is you should write the books that you want to read. And to me, it's just was incredible that there wasn't a biography of Counting Rose. This amazing band sold so many albums, still touring. You hear them everywhere.
00:05:52
Speaker
You know, Springsteen, Prince, Rolling Stones, they all have a thousand books. Everybody's got a book. How could there not be a book about Counting Crows? Just literally for 20 something years, I've been waiting for this book. These are the books that I read. So finally I decided that I was going to write that book. And yeah, it's amazing. I mean, as you can tell, just by your description, you've had this this life, you know, around music and meeting interesting people and
00:06:22
Speaker
You know, I want to read your other book about the underground hip hop scene and the relationship to gangs and like that's all very interesting stuff. And what's what's it's impressive too, because I feel like out of all of these opportunities and all these different
00:06:36
Speaker
you know, choices that you had about where you were going to lean in. As you just said, you decided, here's a band that hasn't had that story told. And the episode preceding this one on my podcast, my friend and I did a kind of a deep dive into their background. But I mean, it was just scratching the surface.
00:06:56
Speaker
with the amount of information that you were able to compile in this book. So I guess you explained why you chose the Counting Crows, but was there any personal reason? Are you a big Counting Crows fan? Besides just the fact that there wasn't this book, what was your personal connection to the band?
00:07:14
Speaker
Huge fan from the beginning. I was working at a bookstore when I think it was November or December 93 issue of CMJ, College Music Journal came out. And it always included a CD in it. There was like one of those magazines where they gave away a CD in every issue.
00:07:33
Speaker
So the employees would get the free ones at the end of the month, and I would always take that CD home because I was such a big music fan. And Mr. Jones was, I think, maybe the second song on that disc. And I just remember playing it. And immediately, like many people who love that song connecting with it, but I've played it, you know, 20 times that night or something.
00:07:53
Speaker
I had no idea who the band was. This is prior to social media, so you couldn't just dial it up and find out. But it's like, wow, this is an amazing song.
Adam Duritz's Reaction to the Biography
00:08:02
Speaker
And then, of course, I eventually got the album and fell in love with it like everyone else.
00:08:08
Speaker
I've been a fan of theirs for the very beginning I think in some ways there are two types of fans broadly speaking there are those who loved the first album and thought that the band never topped it and then there are those who loved the first album and also think that the band is
00:08:26
Speaker
Grew and did very interesting things after that and I'm in that second group of fans As much as I love August and everything after I also Followed and loved their other albums for the most part But I'm also I think a critical fan if you read the book, it's not a fanboy take on the band at all. No
00:08:46
Speaker
you know, I bring in critical voices from those who wrote about the band, those who are in the band, and also I introduce my own critiques of, you know, where I thought the band maybe could have done better. Yeah, no, it's actually have a couple quotes from your book that I was going to ask you about that are
00:09:06
Speaker
that kind of fill that whole spectrum that you're just talking about. And I know I've said it a couple of times already here in the first few minutes, but for those people that are interested in the Counting Crows, you really just captured so many nuggets. I had started taking notes on the various sources that you were referencing. I mean, it's a really wide range. At some point you've got something called Pop Dose, you've got River Cities Reader, you've got the Harvard University School Paper,
00:09:33
Speaker
I mean, it goes deep. You've got, you know, things that I had read before that were maybe some larger publications and then some other ones I'd never even heard of before that have really, really good insights to them. So it's really an impressive list. And plus, as you describe in the book,
00:09:49
Speaker
you take it kind of in eras, right? So all the research and all the things you're quoting and the documentation is coming from that time. So it's not someone looking backwards and saying, Oh, here's what I thought it's what was actually happening in the moment. And so I think it's, it's really, it's really incredible. But I wanted to ask you before we get into the specifics, what's the reaction been? Have you gotten reactions from the public or, you know, even maybe from the band? Have you got any feedback on the book?
00:10:18
Speaker
Yes. I mean, the feedback from Counting Crows fans has been extremely positive. They're waiting for this book forever. We've all been waiting for it. The thing is, I knew that everyone was waiting for this book and I knew how serious the Counting Crows fans are about this band and every little detail. It was very important to me to try to
00:10:46
Speaker
A, get all the details right, which is never totally possible with this type of story. But also, as you say, it was super important to me that even the most hardcore fan would learn something from this book and go, oh my God, I have no idea. Where did he get this? I went to the ends of the earth to find the deepest things that I could find, things that no one else would find.
00:11:11
Speaker
So the reaction so far, you know, preliminary, it just came out from the fans has been very positive. But I was in Omaha for the opening night of the. Oh, nice. And I knew a while back. I mean, part of it was I had this sort of goal that I wanted to get this this book out. And then I thought,
00:11:32
Speaker
Oh, the band's coming to Omaha. I could just drive up there and see the show. That would be fun. I've been done that drive before and I've seen them in Omaha before. So when I looked, I was like, wow, wait a minute. They have these like whatever VIP tickets you can get. And you can actually maybe possibly like hand a copy of this book to Adam. Would that be possible? So this was all done a while ago, but long story short, you know, now now here comes the show. And I went and
00:12:02
Speaker
talked to the sort of concierge who said, yeah, yeah, I'll take a copy of this book to Adam right now and give it to him. So I wrote an inscription to him and I gave it to their folks who then took it to him. And they said he's got the book and he knows that you're going to be at the soundtrack. Wow. So so then we go to the soundtrack. There's maybe 10 of us there.
00:12:30
Speaker
And the band's on stage, and they're warming up and talking amongst themselves. And we're all just sort of watching. And I think maybe they played a song or something like that. And then Adam comes up to the microphone, and he says, insider information. And then he starts telling us his take on why
00:12:58
Speaker
Matt Malley and Ben Mize and the other members of the group who have departed, why in his opinion, they were no longer in the group. Oh, wow. So it was like he wrote your book backstage briefly and then came on to speak about it. I mean,
00:13:18
Speaker
So he starts sort of telling us, but I was like, he's talking about things that are in the book. Is he talking about the book? And then I thought, no, whatever. So then somebody says to him, no, no, no, no, Emerglock says something to him. And he says, no, no, no, that's in chapter five. You got to read it to chapter six and see what he says. And I said to my friend, he's talking about the book. That's awesome. He's definitely talking about the book.
00:13:47
Speaker
So I said, well, we were talking about Matt, they were talking about Matt Malley and why the bass player left the band. And I said, well, was it something to do with the letter that was written in Rolling Stone? And so Adam comes over and starts talking to me and explaining, you know, he was saying, well, you know, we didn't want to fight on the tour bus. But my friend starts to videotape and Adam's like, don't don't film this, you know. So I'm not going to go into too much detail about exactly what he said. But basically,
00:14:15
Speaker
You know, the conversation was around those sort of things. And he said, are there any other questions? But he did sort of go into a long thing. I did. I had some other questions about Matt Malley. I asked if the yoga and his yoga stuff has something to do with it. And to clarify, Adam said, no, that stuff was all really good for him. As I wrote in the book, he was into that long before the group. And Adam said in his estimation that
00:14:45
Speaker
They had not taken advantage of him or steered him in the wrong direction. All of that had been very positive.
00:14:52
Speaker
Wow. That's amazing. I mean, it's a little corrective or if you want to say Adam sort of take on on the yoga thing. But he did have some other things, his his sort of reasons. And I'll leave it to him to say those. But as to why Matt is not left to bend. But, you know, we had a little conversation about this. And then he said, are there any other questions? And I said, well, are you going to do an interview for the revised second edition of the book? Get him on the record. There you go. Yeah. Let's sit down and talk.
00:15:23
Speaker
And, you know, he was like, ah, you know, whatever. But then he turns to me and looks at me and he said, thank you for writing this book.
00:15:33
Speaker
Wow. And I mean, I'm done, you know, I'm good. I'm right there, you know? Yeah. Wow. I feel like we buried the lead. We're 14 minutes in. Yeah, I'm sorry. No, that's fine. I knew I was coming today with this story that no one's heard because this just happened. Anyway, that was extremely exciting. And then, shall I continue?
00:15:57
Speaker
Unbelievable story about you meeting Adam and handing him the book having him I've been to those Those kind of pre-show activities when you sign up and you can hear the band do their their warm-up check and all that kind of stuff to have him be Actually talking about that stuff is very unusual in time I've seen him do it where he stands with his back to the audience during that part and seems very Disinterested so obviously getting his hands on your book
00:16:23
Speaker
having enough time to read through some of it and then coming over and having a conversation with you. That's just incredible. I mean, I guess, how do you feel about that? Was it like validation for this work that you put in? Absolutely. Very gratifying.
00:16:43
Speaker
In some ways, it's hard because I didn't want to pull any punches with this book. I wanted it to be honest, and I don't just mean in terms of the critical stuff, but just it's an honest account of what's going on in his life.
00:16:57
Speaker
That's not necessarily fun to be a subject of a book that has that sort of material in it. And I tried, you know, I was coming from a place of respect and I was really focused on the music. And I hoped that he would see that and not just think that it was a salacious sort of take on his life story, because that was not my intention. And I think he could see, you know, hopefully that it's coming from a place of, you know, really respecting the music and centering the story around the music.
00:17:28
Speaker
Yeah, so I had a bunch of different questions for you, but just based upon this conversation, I want to kind of go in a slightly different direction here. But for those that haven't read the book yet, and again, this is just one of the many nuggets, is that so bassist Matt Malley at some point writes a letter or an email to Rolling Stone, correct? And he basically
Matt Malley, Rolling Stone, and Band Politics
00:17:52
Speaker
says that George W. Bush,
00:17:57
Speaker
you know, actually did a good job and stood up for the values of our country and things like that, right? It took kind of a positive spin and you can explain this in a little more detail. And so that you thought may have been one of the reasons why his political views maybe had diverged from the rest of the bands. That's like kind of the basics story, right?
00:18:20
Speaker
Yeah, so I found in the darkest archives of the web, and I remember when this happened too, because I was a fan and also a subscriber to Rolling Stone magazine, but it was the week of the 2004 election between John Kerry and George Bush.
00:18:37
Speaker
And Matt Malley printed this had this letter that got published in Rolling Stone magazine that week. John Kerry was on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine that week for the week of the election. Here comes in the letters section, this letter from the and he says, I'm the basis to the Counting Crows. And I think, you know, you've sort of your magazine has done a disservice to George Bush and not sort of presented the whole picture here. He did. You know, he's done a lot of good things. And I think it says like he was a great president. I quoted it word for word in the book.
00:19:06
Speaker
And I actually had to get tracked down. You can't find it online. I had to track down a copy of the magazine itself because they don't publish the letters necessarily online. I think the band wanted to bury this. But I found that and published it, and I wondered because not long after that was the Oscars where Accidentally In Love was nominated for an Oscar, and he wasn't there. He was out of the band at that point. He's gone from the band.
00:19:32
Speaker
You know, this is November 2004. He was gone by the end of the year So well, I I said my theory in the book was that that was kind of the last jar something that that was it They said using the band's name like that going against what we wanted to do. So that was kind of my theory in the book. So Let me bring this story back to Omaha real sure. No problem. So
00:19:57
Speaker
I say, Charlie Gillingham is on stage. And I say, Charlie, I've got some copies of the book. I want to give one to everyone in the band. So Charlie comes over and hops off the stage and comes down. And Charlie and I are now just face to face having a conversation. And I had copies of the book with me. I wanted to make sure everybody had one. And so I said, here's whatever, six copies. Because I gave one to Adam. Here's one for everybody else. He said,
00:20:24
Speaker
We've already got two backstage. We probably need five. So this is what I knew. Adam already had the book. He had the book. Incredible. He already had the book and had read it. And this is why they were talking about it. They had a copy of it. That's amazing. That's incredible.
00:20:41
Speaker
Right. So Charlie says, I only need five. But he takes them. And then we talked for a long time. He said he loved the cover, which I've heard a lot of great things about the cover. I'm so happy to hear that. He loved the cover. He thought it was beautiful. And Charlie said the same thing. What he said to me was,
00:20:57
Speaker
This is his term. That was great reporting. So Charlie had really, really nice things to say about the book. He said he loved the cover, which was great to hear. I was really happy about that because I love the cover image too.
00:21:12
Speaker
And what he said to me about the Matt Mally letter was he said, that was really good reporting. That was really kind of great reporting that you found that, kind of his take on it. So that made me feel like, yeah, there was something to this. It was maybe the tipping point for Matt Mally, because he was gone shortly after. So Charlie and I, I'm sorry, Charlie and I talked for,
00:21:39
Speaker
probably, I don't know, five minutes or something like that. And unfortunately, there was one of those things where someone came to ask him something and the second his back was turned, the, you know, folks stepped in. Okay. Okay. Come on. Come on. Hold us away.
00:21:55
Speaker
Right. Well, that's, I mean, so again, just coming back to the book, you know, as someone who's been a fan, and I've been a fan for 30 years, like first show I saw was in, I think it was 96, but I was supposed to see him in 94. I've seen him over 50 times. I've met him multiple times in meet and greets. I've met him at, you know, after shows randomly at hotels. The first show I saw, he was hanging around the side and then the band let us stay there and meet him. And I've had all these opportunities, but A, I always
00:22:21
Speaker
kind of get choked up about it. And two, if I was writing it, I would probably just do it from such a fan perspective. And that's what I love about the book is that, to your point, I was trying to see if I could see you through the writing. And so maybe one thing that I saw, which I'm going to ask you about, but for the most part, it's really just factual, actual quotes from all the band members. And I had not heard about
00:22:47
Speaker
the Rolling Stone. So it also made me question like, am I actually a huge fan? I hadn't heard about that. There's a couple other ones I'm gonna throw at you and we can take it whatever direction you'd like. I had not heard about the Eddie Vedder Coca-Cola disagreement, had never heard about that. I'd never heard about this incredible note, which I thought, which ties into some other themes I wanna ask you about, but you have a story about how
00:23:13
Speaker
the producer for covering the satellites thought it was very notable that at the breakfast table when they were recording the album the band was talking about trading stocks and things like that during breakfast. That was an incredible nugget. I don't want to go through all of them because I couldn't anyway but there are so many good ones but those really surprised me and then also
00:23:35
Speaker
the Madonna connection I had no idea about. So there were, I mean, there's a bunch of other things in there, but do any of those, were any of those really surprising to you when you were writing it? I had not heard any of them.
00:23:48
Speaker
Every single one of them. Every single one of them. And the
Counting Crows: Manufactured Image and Backlash
00:23:51
Speaker
same thing. I thought I was a huge fan. And every time I dug into the story, I kept finding these little gems and nuggets. And to me, that was what was so fun because I said there's no way everybody knows all this stuff because I've been a fan. I've been following this fan. I thought I had the story pretty much down the parameters of it.
00:24:12
Speaker
But I kept finding these little gems and even things like the thing about the private schools that he went to when he was in high school. He went to this private school in Connecticut for a year. He went to the reunion. He talked about it on stage. There's a whole sort of story there that all these just pieces of his life that I didn't know. So I didn't really know the
00:24:36
Speaker
you know, the sort of differences between Jennifer Aniston and Courtney Cox, a very sort of different experiences that he had with those two, right, two women.
00:24:47
Speaker
And even things like the Coca-Cola commercial, I knew parts of, I certainly knew about the commercial, but there was so much more to it that I maybe didn't understand. So I wanted it to be something that the fans would really just love and love those little nuggets and finding the little things.
00:25:08
Speaker
But also at the same time, I didn't want it to be so totally obsessive and overboard that it was impenetrable. There's like, for example, a lot of stuff about the types of microphones that were used on the August and recovering the satellites. There's a lot of details about the types of microphones, the specifics of
00:25:28
Speaker
And I thought, most people just don't care that much, you know, about it was the such and such and such. I know that the the superfans and the audio files do. I find those details kind of interesting. But to me, I wanted to make sure that I wasn't alienating people who didn't, you know, weren't superfans, I guess.
00:25:49
Speaker
Well, you do mention, which I also thought was interesting about like how much money, I don't know if you quantify it necessarily, but you basically, they spent a ton of money setting up these houses to be recordings to use to get the right sounds. And you also detail across all of their albums, essentially like how place
00:26:05
Speaker
and producer and also contributes to what the output is. So I think those things are all very fascinating. And I even in the intro, I agree with you. I think the book is for super fans, of course. Yes. But also just people who are like maybe music fans or 90s, like late 90s, 2000s fans, like you can you can get into this even if you're not like the most diehard Counting Crows fan. But there's something that there's kind of a through line. And I want to ask you about it because
00:26:34
Speaker
It's a take that maybe because I'm too deep into the Counting Crows that I have never really considered. I might have heard it back in the day, but there was a quote that you had, and I'm just going to read it. But at some point in your book, you say, in the minds of critics, they were fat, coke-shilling, Sun City playing corporate hacks who'd do anything for a buck.
00:26:58
Speaker
Even self-described devoted fans such as Paste magazine's Kate Kiefer viewed the triple play Torah as a new low. Her quote was, I tried to justify it, but I eventually faced the facts. Opening for a washed up grunge pop band at the Blair County ballpark in Altoona, Pennsylvania, can't really be construed as a good thing. And I thought that that it was a take
00:27:18
Speaker
where you kind of talk about this throughout, even the genesis of the band with Adam's dreadlocks and the outfits, and then it kind of through line to, you know, certain people's perspectives that this was like a manufactured band, which I'd never thought of, because to me, it's just been such an organic relationship through all these years. But I guess like, how do you feel about that in general? I mean, is that a take that you think
00:27:49
Speaker
there's some truth to that, or do you think that that's more just people being overly critical of a band that's been around for 30 years and has had a lot of different twists and turns? Like, where do you stand on that? Well, it's a great question. Sorry, I want to just take, I want to kind of take a minute because I want to make sure that I kind of make my, let's say the wrong thing.
00:28:16
Speaker
No, no problem. I can pause this too. I was just... No, I think it's a good question.
00:28:27
Speaker
Again, I asked this question because you have this unique perspective and you brought forward some of these things that maybe as like a diehard fan, I just avoided the critique, right? Like a friend of mine's older brother used to give us a hard time about it. And I'd be like, you don't understand, you know, while this might not be our generations like Beatles per se, to me they were. So I kind of avoided the negative takes. Although if you listened to my first podcast with my review,
00:28:55
Speaker
of the Troubadour show they had recently. I am critical about some of their song choices and creative choices, but I never questioned the integrity of the band. And I think what's interesting about your book is that I don't think that I started to, but it did make me aware of some of the machinations, what was happening behind the scenes in the band and how
00:29:18
Speaker
You know, for better or for worse, Adam has looked at this like this is a business. Like we're going to do this. I have a lot of people that are employed due to my songwriting abilities in our band. And so that balance of like our artistic, you know, artist, artist, creative, creative stuff, but also business, um, was just interesting. That's why I asked the question.
00:29:40
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good question. So two things. One is that this is abandoned. This came out a little bit more to me when I was writing and researching their story. This is a band where there's always been a backlash. As soon as they were successful, there were critics who were decrying all of these things, the way that he sang and the way that he looked. Often, they were very personal critiques directed towards Adam. So there was always this backlash at the same time.
00:30:08
Speaker
It didn't like come later. It came at the same time as the success, which was odd because he had to sort of negotiate being very famous and also having people who really didn't like the band a lot, you know? Right. So I think that that was interesting. And also to me, the story itself is just in his story is interesting because he was 29 years old when this all happened. So this isn't the typical story of the 21 year old rock star
00:30:37
Speaker
you know, and all of that, right at the same time. So there was this sort of business element, I think to me, two things came out in the in the researching of the book, one, I didn't realize the degree to which behind the scenes figures did help
00:30:53
Speaker
to put together the band. I think Gary Gersh, I think T-Bone Burnett. I think there were these key figures who got very involved in what that first album became. And then the band kind of took it from there. And Adam said this too in some interviews that he always saw that first album as kind of the most manufactured because they had to really change what they were into being something else.
00:31:18
Speaker
By the second album, they've been on the road and they know who they are. They've gelled as a band and it's a whole different experience recording it. I think it's an interesting story and part of what is interesting is that to me, and I thought this is a fan too,
00:31:34
Speaker
that the band, you know, made some maybe questionable decisions even early on, like associating so heavily with VH1 and MTV. And certainly the Coca-Cola commercial was hard to defend as a fan. And I remember, you know, one of my friends coming to me, a big Counting Crows fan, have you seen this? And I'm going, oh, man. Right. You know, it's really hard to kind of watch. Right.
00:31:57
Speaker
I thought MTV and VH1 was a problem because that really was the center of pop culture. Now, it might not have been like on the bleeding edge of whatever was hip. But I mean, I actually thought that the storytellers piece, which you noted some critiques of that within the I always thought that was like untouchable. I always thought that everyone just had assumed that that was like the greatest thing ever done. So that was interesting for me to see that there are some people who thought, no, that wasn't that cool. Because to me, I was like,
00:32:25
Speaker
That was an iconic double album that everybody seemed to have back in the day. Even non-Counting Crows fans seemed to have that album, you know?
00:32:35
Speaker
there was a sense that this band is too new to be putting out a live album. That was sort of like, you're overstepping your boundary here. You don't know your place. You have to wait until your four albums in or whatever, whatever the rule is. I think that that is interesting because of the, so again, kind of talking about
00:32:58
Speaker
the band being this kind of machine or this kind of corporately put together group and me not having that impression. And I feel like in some ways, you know, people's backlash used to be that the band would make these new versions of the songs and be like, I want to go to a concert. I want to hear the same song. And I was like, I don't. I want to go to the concert and hear him off the top of his head say something interesting, which is why
00:33:21
Speaker
I gave the band a hard time on the first episode because I was like, how could you get me in the Troubadour iconic place and then play me all of Butter Miracle? No disrespect, but out of all of your songs, you know, I'm not sure I need all four of those in a, you know, 15 song set list. And then also,
00:33:39
Speaker
You know, with him giving speeches and these things, I always thought that was so unique. And I know other performers have done that over the years, but like for my generation, that was the first band that did that. And I thought that's taking a chance. That's taking a song and you're going to do something different. And you might see him do an acoustic set on this day and maybe they're going to play some weird instrument on the next day. And like, I don't know, I thought that was all interesting. And to your point,
00:34:04
Speaker
What's funny about the history of the band is that to your quote you just had about August and Everything After that Adam in some ways looks at like August and Everything After was actually, you know, they stripped away their instruments. They made them play in this house. They made them live together. They took these songs that might have been more like progressive rock style and like made them more like folksy. And so even though that one is the one where I think like, oh, that's the band's true sound.
00:34:31
Speaker
really that was their sound and other people's creative influences coming together. And so it's almost the opposite where now maybe as they've gone through their trajectory, they sound more like themselves, you know, what they really wanted to sound like. Does that make sense? Like it's almost the reverse progression.
00:34:49
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that time on the road to for them and many bands is really important. You know, look at how great the second Black Crows album was, for example, because at that point they had been out on the road for all this time at jail, written songs, road tested songs. There is a lot of them on that second album. So, right. Yeah, I think
00:35:13
Speaker
It changed a lot. One of the things that to me was very interesting about their story was each album had something totally different going on. Because I wondered, is Desert Life going to be as interesting as Recovering the Satellites? But each one, there was a whole bunch of different things. Hard Candy was the Coca-Cola stuff. During Desert Life, Geffen basically
00:35:41
Speaker
Folds and becomes inner scope and now now their label meets with Eminem and Limp Bizkit and they want to release like an eight and a half minute single right which I thought was interesting. You you also I wanted to ask you this is a little bit more of a I guess a personal question but
00:36:01
Speaker
You know, in terms of the, you just saw a show, which I will tell you that we almost did an emergency podcast when I saw the set list for the Omaha show. Cause I was like, that's the set list I would have loved to see at the Troubadour. It was like, I thought it was pretty, pretty awesome. But I guess one, um, you know, your thoughts may be on that. And then two.
00:36:21
Speaker
It felt like to me when I was reading the book that you had a soft spot for Saturday nights and Sunday mornings as an album, but I guess how have your feelings evolved on the band's progression through their different albums and their different periods?
Unique Concert Experiences
00:36:38
Speaker
Are you as big of a fan of Butter Miracles as you are of August and everything after? You don't have to rank them all, but how have you felt about how they've progressed as they've gone through?
00:36:48
Speaker
Well, to your earlier point about the Omaha show, what was so great about that show was that because Dan Vickery was not on hand between the sound check and the performance, he was gone. So they had to throw out the set list that they had planned and scramble to come up with a new one. What can we all play?
00:37:09
Speaker
And suddenly Dave Bryson's playing lead solos. And I mean, it was very interesting because you're seeing something that was unrehearsed and like, we're just going to kind of jump in here and play the songs and figure out who could do what. So Emmy was amazing and Dave Bryson really stepped up and they had to change things around and do things differently. And it was very exciting to see them do that.
00:37:33
Speaker
Now, what was so disappointing was to see them then go play the same darn set list over and over and over again the last several nights in a row. It's like the Twilight Zone. Yeah. And to me, it's like you telling me you can't go do walkaways, that that's not possible with Dan Vickery out. There's so many songs like, go play title track for August is everything after.
00:37:55
Speaker
bust out the piano, let's get really creative here. That's what the fans like us want to see. And they won't give it to us. And, you know, for years, I said they were, you know, I got turned off of them because I thought I used to say they were a really lazy band. Right.
00:38:11
Speaker
Even though I love them, they were very lazy and they've only put out six albums in 30 years. They are lazy. But I realized in writing the book that it's not that they're lazy, they're just on the road all the time.
00:38:27
Speaker
always on the road. So I thought these guys are just sitting around in their massive New York apartments, but they're touring and keeping the whole thing afloat. So maybe that's to their credit. So to me, I'm like many of the big fans. I always want the deep cuts, the interesting things. I want to see the band stretch creatively. But I'll also say this.
00:38:50
Speaker
You know, the superfans see them over and over again and are disappointed. I hadn't seen them in years. And so to me, I don't care if they play any whatever, you know, go ahead and play around here and all that kind of stuff. I'm going to enjoy it because I haven't seen it five times in the last two years. And, you know, I'm rolling my eyes at the set list. I know I am one of those fans. But if you don't go all the time, it's it's it takes away some of it, you know, it's better.
00:39:18
Speaker
As for the band's trajectory, I was somebody who hated Saturday Nights and Sunday Morning when it came out. That was kind of the end of the road for me as a fan. I was not feeling that album. When I came back to it for the book,
00:39:37
Speaker
I was intrigued because I thought this is going to be interesting to listen to this again and really immerse myself in the album and the shows that were going on around that time. I came to have a different opinion of it. I came to like it a lot more than I did originally for sure. Found a lot of things that I liked about it.
00:40:00
Speaker
But, to me, that's an album where it doesn't have those classic cuts, one after the other. It's got a lot of BB plus material to me. Even still, that would be my take. Although, hey, a great band doing B plus material, why not?
00:40:19
Speaker
And I do. I mean, I love, you know, Michelangelo and come around and, you know, there's many songs on there. I think Insignificant is very cool song. I like that album a lot more than I ever did. But most of that came from writing this book. Before that, I hadn't spent very much time with it because I thought, you know, this is not that great. So it's funny. Maybe I have a new soft spot. Yeah, I forget. It was just some part of the book I was reading and I was like, it seems like he might like this one better. I'm with you, I think.
00:40:49
Speaker
look, I mean, one of the quotes you have in there is basically about, hey, look from Adam was like, people are still coming to our shows. We're not the center of culture, but a lot of those bands, you know, who are the center of culture for five seconds don't even exist anymore. And it's like,
00:41:03
Speaker
Yeah, hats off to this band, this guy, this group of people, right? They've been doing it. I've been going. I've spent thousands of dollars and tons of time in travel order because they are so good live. And even when they play songs that I don't necessarily like, I think they're great, you know. But another, it's interesting because about the albums piece, I almost have thought that in some ways what you wrote validated
00:41:27
Speaker
my impression of the band and what they could have been. I felt almost like when you have someone who's such a strong performer and artist like Adam and all these guys like Charlie all these guys are really good at what they do that you sometimes need someone who's like another strong voice like a Gary Gersh
00:41:47
Speaker
or a T-Bone Burnett to say like, hey, you know what, what you're doing is awesome. But here's something that like I do that's awesome. And when those two things come together, it's difficult. And maybe you go through that dip. But what comes out on the other side is even more incredible. And I feel like as they had gained more artistic control throughout their like discography, if you will,
00:42:10
Speaker
I almost feel like you get good songs, but I feel like they can be a little like sloppy. Do you know what I mean? Like that there was someone who was able to push back and say, hey, you know, Scarecrow is a good song, but we could try it this way or whatever. It could be an amazing song. And I think Saturday nights and Sunday mornings is kind of where that starts because I think Insignificant actually is one of my favorite deep cuts. Like I think it's an awesome song. I think that album is great. I saw them perform it like the Yahoo
00:42:39
Speaker
a live show at the Sony Studios, a couple hundred people. They played the whole album through and it was really good, but a lot of those songs are kind of forgotten. And then as each progressive album has come out from there, I felt like, you know, I wish someone could help rein it in a little bit. But then, kind of like you,
00:42:57
Speaker
If I see it live or I start listening to it again, I find myself, I actually find myself, I can't believe I'm saying it's listening to like some wonder under wonderland a lot. And I'm like, what am I listening to? I don't even like this album. I don't think, but I keep listening to it. So I do think maybe, uh, as, as I've mentioned previous on the podcast, a, my expectations are probably too high.
00:43:17
Speaker
But B, seeing everything compiled in the way that you've compiled it made me realize, like, I'm even just more impressed that they've made it this long and continue to put out new music. Does that mean I want to see, you know, Bobby and the Rat Kings again in concert? No, I don't want to see that song again in concert. But, hey, hats off to them for continuing to churn out
00:43:43
Speaker
turn out good material, irrelevant material and bring people in. Every show I go to for the most part has been pretty well attended. So obviously they resonate with folks. Do
Favorite Lesser-known Songs and Concert Memories
00:43:56
Speaker
you have a favorite album or song? You're a fan. Wow. Yeah. You can tell us. That's so funny. I was trying to think about this. I think that I would have said
00:44:08
Speaker
This Desert Life probably as my favorite album. I would say that I was thinking live at the Heineken Music Hall actually as a live album. My friend said, you can't really say that's not an album, but like they released it. You can buy it in a record store. I think that's a pretty good compilation of some of my favorite stuff. So I like that.
00:44:29
Speaker
What I like is similar to you is like, and you touched on stuff that I'd never heard of around like the deep cuts. So like barely out of Tuesday, I think is a great song. And I wish that we would hear that more. Baby, I'm a big star now. Like that's a good one, right? That's a really good one. And you and you talk about a lot of those things in here. And I wish that there would be
00:44:53
Speaker
I don't know. I don't know how they can weave them in. August and everything after, I've heard that played live. Some of these songs where I just think that, even Einstein on the Beach, I'm not a huge fan, but people always ask me, they're like, you're the Crows guy, why don't they play that song? And I'm like, well, Adam kind of thinks it's this trivial pop song that he wrote and they put it on, he doesn't really think. And I'm like, yeah, it's a good song.
00:45:13
Speaker
like people would like to hear it. So some of that creative integrity, or not wanting to play barely on a Tuesday, maybe because you wrote it with Courtney Cox, or whatever the reason is, you know, don't take that on me. Let me hear it live. It's a great song. You know, I like that kind of stuff. But
00:45:31
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, again, I touched on tried to touch on those deep cuts and outtakes and, you know, things that were recorded for, you know, this album or that album that people might not have heard, but there is you can go so much further, you know, there's there's just
00:45:48
Speaker
There's all the live stuff and the way that things change live and the things that he talks about in concert too. You could have a book twice as long. But again, I was trying not to overwhelm the people who are kind of new to the story. I was so impressed by his ability to
00:46:08
Speaker
I don't know if you call it right on command, but decide, OK, I'm going to write a song for Shrek. And I mean, he nails it. I'm going to write a song that, like, we're a live band that everybody sings along with in concert, you know, and he writes hanging around. Right. Which is one of my very least favorite counting card signs. And of course, they always play it. You're welcome.
00:46:29
Speaker
Yeah, right. But he writes a song that achieves that goal exactly. And it's a hit, too, and everyone loves it. So who am I to say? His ability to sort of be strategic in his songwriting was impressive to me when I put it all together and saw the different points in his career when he was doing that. And then also, I mean, back to the integrity thing, this was a group that prided themselves so early on on we won't lip sync. We're not going to be on top.
00:46:58
Speaker
you know top of the pop right you know we're not gonna you know play mr jones first on saturday night live right and um i think one of the reasons that they got such pushback for you know things like the coke commercial or aligning so heavily with
00:47:14
Speaker
with MTB and VH1 was because that earlier stance of almost like a Pearl Jam like credibility, resisting the corporate forces. And I think that that was part of the reason for that they got nailed. Yeah. Well, I could, I totally agree with you and I could talk to you about this for hours. I have one final thing that I wanted to ask you because I know that
00:47:41
Speaker
we are coming up on time here. But I wanted to just ask, because you had a quote in there, and I thought this was an interesting one, and I thought this would be a good way to sum up our discussion today. So there's a quote in the book that you have, and it says that Adam was unconcerned about his legacy. Quote, do we get the respect we deserve? I don't know what we effing deserve. I think there are always going to be bands that are critical darlings.
00:48:05
Speaker
I started off my career playing at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as an unknown band. I don't know that I would even show up if we got into it now." End quote. I guess my question for you is, do you believe that? Do you believe that Adam and specifically Adam, but Adam and the Counting Crows are not really concerned about their place in rock and roll history and their place in music at this point in their career or
00:48:35
Speaker
you know, alternatively, do you think that they actually really do care and they're always striving to be kind of a relevant band? I think Adam rightfully feels that the band has not been given due credit. I mean, I think it's insane that they're not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and like the go-go's are, you know, like
00:48:57
Speaker
And that's, I love the Go-Go's. They should be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but are you telling me that the kind of, your kind of cars are not in the Hall of Fame and the Go-Go's are, you know, I mean, put them up song for song, album for album, career for career, whatever. To me, that's just, that's wrong, you know? So I think that Adam feels like the band has, has not been, you know, given their, their respect or their critical view. And
00:49:22
Speaker
I would agree with that you know i agree with that so i think that his stances is probably you know to some degree a justification of the fact that they. You know haven't been given their rightful critical claim right i just think you know this is one of the great american bands to me they're right alongside like.
00:49:40
Speaker
you know, whatever Tom Petty or REM or, you know, Bruce Springsteen or, you know, you can you can sort of go on and on Pearl Jam. These great American bands, you know, with a deep catalog of great songs. It's amazing how many members of the original group are still intact, still playing together, still seem to get along. You know, I mean, they do deserve some credit. I mean, us fans, yes, we knocked them for the playlists and the song selections and and not, you know, really not
00:50:10
Speaker
The band's lack of respect for its own catalog, I think, is where it comes from. How can you not play these songs? You know we'd all love them. We're all super fans who are coming to see these shows. But something that amazed me is I was in LaGuardia Airport a couple of months ago, and Elevator Boots is playing over the intercom system. And I'm like, there's the new, it's not the old Counting Crows, it's not Mr. Jones, it's their new song. It's playing at the LaGuardia Airport.
00:50:37
Speaker
And then I'm with my kids in Branson, Missouri. It's, you know, Carnival Ride and Mr. Jones is playing. And then I met something else the other day and their cover of Big Yellow Taxi's on. The grocery store, I think it was. And I'm thinking, everywhere you go, this band is still, their music is still playing. Their old stuff, their new stuff, their cover songs are playing. Everywhere I go, I hear this band and they're still out touring and still playing. So, you know,
00:51:02
Speaker
Yeah, I can see why Adam feels that way. And I think, honestly, he just at some point kind of gave up a little bit on the whole thing and just said, here's what I'm willing to do.
00:51:18
Speaker
Take it or leave it. Yeah, I'll give it everything I can. I do think, though, my take after writing the book is that he still means it. He is and was an artist. He made
00:51:34
Speaker
very artistic choices when he did things like This Desert Life. He was trying to do something different and kind of reverse course, but he did it in an artistic way. He never repeated himself and said, well, he could have gotten T-Bone Burnett to do the second album. But he said, no, we're not going to do that. And to me, I always respected the band so much for those choices.
00:51:57
Speaker
And I guess I wanted to make sure that you saw those parts of the book, too, you know, because they deserve a lot of credit for, you know, the artistic choices that they've made along the way and not just saying, OK, we're going to do a bunch of accidentally and love Einstein on the beach type of songs.
00:52:14
Speaker
I totally agree and people can't see, you can see me, but people won't be able to see me. I have a big smile on my face, especially as you go through someone with yourself who has the acumen and the background knowledge and the understanding of music to place Counting Crows along these other icons of American music. And as I said, I think I always felt like
00:52:36
Speaker
You know, I was just in this corner with like this small group of people that thought this band was great.
Counting Crows' Legacy and Impact
00:52:41
Speaker
But really, there's just there's just no denying their impact on the American music scene, especially for the longevity and the creative output, your point. And I think I feel the same way. And I think it's it's when I'm giving him a hard time about stuff, it's more like, I just want to see up all night. You know, can you just do it for me?
00:53:00
Speaker
But what does come across in your book is that this is a band that
00:53:07
Speaker
you know, has a very strong personality at the center of it, but they've got great musicianship around him and they made creative choices intentionally to be true to themselves, but also with the foresight of knowing that bands that just did the same thing over and over again, there's some mentions of like Hootie and the Blowfish or some others maybe won't last as long. And so they really challenged themselves to provide kind of new music and new takes and even new instruments and all this stuff. But the one consistent,
00:53:37
Speaker
thing was a real quality craftsmanship of writing and playing and then also touring constantly and so every year I line up to buy tickets because I keep saying this could be the last year and fortunately for me it hasn't ever been that and I assume they'll go until a
00:53:54
Speaker
You know, they just can't do it anymore. And so I feel very fortunate with that. But I wanted to go. I got to ask you, what was the best one? You've seen all these shows. You've seen more shows than anyone. What was the best show? Yeah. Wow. That's a great question. I think there's a couple that stand out to me. One, there was a slate. They did three in a row at the Wiltern. This was basically right after this desert. This was like the hard candy tour. And so they really couldn't play.
00:54:24
Speaker
a bad song at that point, in my opinion, like every album was awesome. So it was like they couldn't make any wrong turns. And that was we were in the front row. And that's where we ran into Adam after the show. And he was like, I remember you guys were in the front row and we got to talk to him for a little bit. That was great. And then recently they played with Matchbox 20. And I'm also a Matchbox 20 fan. And they both played like 20 songs plus front row again, did the meet and greet, got to spend some time with them. And and that was that was really cool. I'd say those are probably
00:54:54
Speaker
the two best that I can remember from recent times. But I wanted to thank you. Again, we could have you back and we could do this again for another hour. But seriously, it's not just the fact that you're a fan, as we've pointed out, and as the band confirmed to you,
00:55:12
Speaker
It's like, it may have been a labor of love to start out with, but the way that you approached it, the professionalism, the research, the way you set the book up, it's a great read, but it's also super informative, and it's not just a hot take from a fan or something. So I wanted to give you
00:55:31
Speaker
just again thank you because I've been wanting this my whole life and I'm sure people listening to this will feel the same way after they read it. So thank you very much for the book and I appreciate you coming on. Where can people get this book? I mentioned Amazon in the opener but is there a place that they should be directed to to get the book?
00:55:52
Speaker
Yes, just go to Amazon and get it. Right now, it's Amazon because that's where we all buy books. I wanted to get everything finalized with it, make sure everything was correct, make sure there was an error that I got a typo that I got it fixed.
00:56:12
Speaker
so now i'm gonna widen the distribution a little bit so that you'll be able to get it other places but right now you can get it on as an e-book or as a paperback on amazon and yeah i wanted to also just say thank you for your kind words on the book because coming from a true fan like yourself that means everything you know that's
00:56:33
Speaker
and i i did i wrote it for all of us all of us fans who love them so much and also like they deserve to have a book like this they deserve if all these other bands have books out you know that talk about their albums and you know here the great you know warren zane's book on the new springsteen the new springsteen book
00:56:51
Speaker
Why doesn't Counting Crows have a book? So I agree. And I do hope that the fans will read it and love it. And I hope that someday Adam will do that second follow up interview. I was just going to say, I'm sure the fans will love it. And I absolutely hope Adam takes you up on the offer to write it, because that would just be amazing. I think you've clearly demonstrated that you're a serious writer and, you know, he could help maybe unlock even more kind of mysteries about the band. But
00:57:21
Speaker
Thanks again, Jeff. Really nice meeting you. Everyone, make sure to check out the book. It's a great read, and thanks again for your time, Jeff.