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E23: James Campion Interview
393 Plays5 months ago
Music Journalist James Campion joins the show!
Crows fans probably know James best from co-hosting "The Underwater Sunshine Podcast" with Adam.
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/underwater-sunshine/id1342102809
He also helps organize the Underwater Sunshine festival in NYC every year (held this year October 18/19).
https://underwatersunshinefest.com/
Join us, as he talks about all things Underwater, what makes the Crows special compared to other rock and roll bands, his history in journalism, and...yes....even gives us an update on "the (legendary) Crows book".
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Transcript
Introduction to Sullivan Street with Special Guest James Campion
00:00:16
Speaker
Welcome to Sullivan Street, where we have a very special guest today, James Campion. But first, let's say good afternoon to my co-host, Chris Miggs. Chris, what do you think about today?
Tribute to Jesse Malin and Counting Crows' Involvement
00:00:28
Speaker
Today's good. um Actually, just as as we're as we're recording this, I think they announced that Counting Crows are going to be on the Jesse Mallon tribute record, which is ah a great cause. And if anyone is listening who hasn't heard of Jesse Mallon, you should go check that out. I think it's coming out in a couple months, but ah very excited. Actually, don't I don't think they've announced yet what the track list is, what Counting Crow song they played, but ah Jesse Mallon, a wonderful New York musician who had a um a really kind of tragic um ah physical issue over the last year, um a spinal stroke that's basically you know prevented him from performing. And there's been a lot of ah
00:01:02
Speaker
ah chair work done for him, and this is this tribute album is coming out shortly. A lot of other great people on the album too, Bruce Springsteen, um the first song that was released was by Bleachers, I think Lucinda Williams is on it. It's a murderer's row, but thankfully Counting Crows as well, because Immy was a member of ah Jesse Mallon's band for a period of time. I actually saw them together ah ah like Maybe 2021, I think at City Winery. But um yeah, anyway, that's that's the news for the day. I don't know much else to...
James Campion's Connection to Counting Crows
00:01:30
Speaker
Yeah, and I had one other news, but I think this will tie into one of the things I'm going to ask James about, which is that someone put on Reddit today that a video was released by Fantastic Cat. it's The song is called So Glad You Made It, and it features Adam prominently in the video and in the song.
00:01:45
Speaker
and a lot of Sha Na Na's, which we were just talking about how great that is, because I do want to talk about Adam ah guesting on other songs. But let's get right into, wow, I'm so honored and was so happy when he decided ah yes to say yes to join the podcast. James Campion, who Cannon Crow's fans knows most prominently ah for being the co-host of the Underwater Sunshine podcast, also one of the leaders of the Underwater Sunshine Festival, working on a book about Cannon Crow's Renaissance man, ah author, music journalist, author James Campion. James, thanks so much for joining us on the podcast.
00:02:19
Speaker
Thank you both for having me. I am a fan of the show and the Counting Crows Band. So this is a perfect opportunity for me to geek out with you guys on Counting Crows. Yes, thank you. And I was you and i was wondering about that. um I guess a little bit you can talk about how you met Adam, which I was trying to piece together, seemed to be around 2008. But also I didn't know for sure if you were a fan of the band before getting to know Adam really well. So maybe you talk about that a bit. I will. Yeah, just real quick, I want to a shout out to Jesse Malin, a friend of the Underwater Sunshine Festival. He played it. He was on our podcast. ah Owner of the Bowery Electric, um where we host our festival every fall, and nearly every fall. We did a couple at Rockwood. And also, he owns the Berlin Club. ah Great singer-songwriter, as you guys mentioned, huge New York ah staple, almost like the little brother of Lou Reed.
00:03:13
Speaker
We all miss Jesse very much and much love out to to him. And yes, the day that we're we're recording this, Fantastic Cat's record just came out and I'll be going to their release party this evening. I might see Adam down there ah in Brooklyn and he is on the video and and sings on on the single. So ah that's really cool, Fantastic Cat. Also, ah fan friends of the ah the podcast and they they um headlined the underwater of sunshine. ah festival in 2022. So shout out to both of those. oh Cool. Thank you. um Okay.
Becoming a Fan and Early Interactions with Counting Crows
00:03:45
Speaker
So my Counting Crows, I go all the way back to ah the first record. My girlfriend at the time had heard it in a record store. I was in a band at the time that did similar kind of lyric centric music and she ran home and was like, you will love this. And she played it and I did love it. And I remember her asking me and through the first listen, what Anna begins is about.
00:04:09
Speaker
And I had a theory about it. And luckily, many years later, about 15 years later, I was able to ask Adam what it was about. And he told me the full story, which you know in my time, as you guys know, I am working on a book with Adam that started in really in earnest in 2017. um But prior to that, so I became a big fan right away, went to see, seat we used to bootleg, get bootlegs of them, ah went to see them, you know, scalp tickets to see them front row for recovering the satellites in Jersey. It's the first time he he sang um ah the Springsteen song in the middle of Ring King. I i remember that vividly.
00:04:45
Speaker
And around 1999, I got to know Lisa LeBar, who was running at that time a Counting Crow's tribute site. Lisa now runs the Counting Crow's website. And Lisa was a huge part of the Underwater Sunshine ah podcast. She used to post them all and deal with all the spotifies of the world and all this other stuff. So she was great. She worked with me a lot in the post-production. I told her I wanted to send her my first published book, which is called Deep Tank Jersey, about the New Jersey club scene and to Adam.
First Interview with Adam Duritz and Building a Connection
00:05:13
Speaker
So I did, and I never heard that, that was the last time. So fast forward to, you're correct, Eric, um I think in 20,
00:05:22
Speaker
2008 I was given the opportunity interview Adam prior to The Sunday mornings Saturday nights and Sunday mornings Adam was doing a lot of I found out later on a lot of independent Papers as opposed to the Rolling Stones and the spins of the world. We felt kind of like we're jerking County crows around and When he gave me the interview that day I was chatting with you guys before we started the show I I we both realized that we're around the same age and that our first record that we ever owned was Maybe Tomorrow by the Jackson Five. and From there on in, just we dovetailed into a million subjects to the point where the publicist finally had to get on the phone and be like, you guys have to stop um because you know you only usually get 15, 20 minutes, maybe a half hour at somebody. and This was like two hours into this conversation. It was a great opening ah you know ah salvo to our relationship.
Collaborating on a Book with Adam Duritz
00:06:16
Speaker
And during that conversation, he stopped in the middle and was like, wait a minute, you're the James Campion wrote Deep Tank Jersey? And I'm like, yes. He goes, oh, thank you for sending me that. But he remembered like nine years later that i i that he got this book from me and and read it. and And I was on cloud nine from that point. I told him how much the reason why I sent it to him is how much I listened to that first record while I was writing that book. and how much that, you know, I wrote that that book in 95 and on the shore, that's all they played was Mr. Jones and Round Here and Sullivan Street and, you know, the cover bands were playing it. So it was kind of nice to pay it back. So from that point on, Adam would always ask me to write pieces ah about County Crows and they had new records. So, you know, the somewhere under Wonderland and then this live thing they did in the interim and I wrote pieces and did interviews with him And each one seemed to be longer. So I think around 2016 2015 I compiled all these and I and through Lisa I was able to get get them ah the transcripts to Adam and He contacted me and said what do you think of these? This
Adam Duritz's Personal Struggles and Music Influence
00:07:22
Speaker
is pretty cool. I'm like, well I think there's a book there and So he wanted to come down to to my apartment and we'll just you know hash it out. So I figured I came down, there were a whole treatment and a pitch and I sat there and he quietly listened, didn't say anything. I had never met him before, like shook his hand and was in a room with him. It was always over the phone. It was always through email and he was like, run tape.
00:07:43
Speaker
I'll never forget, like it was yesterday, he said, run tape without any, I had no questions, but I said, screw it. I'm like you two guys. I'm like every kind of chorus fans listening to this. I'm like, let's go. So we started you know talking about Saturday Night Live, talking about ah you know ah Maria, talking about you know his situation. Now, I was about to mention to you guys prior, and there's a long answer, I know, I'm sorry. I tend to- I love it. If you listen to the podcast, you know that we go. but We love it. That last thing I'll say is, Adam was the first, I believe I was the first journalist that Adam told me about his dissociative disorder. A piece came out in Rolling Stone about two months later, or maybe a month later. I don't know if they quoted from my piece. I can't remember what it was, but I remember him telling me right there that that, Saturday nights and Sunday mornings was just very much a deep dive into that.
00:08:30
Speaker
Yes. And then as we worked on the book, we went back and we started to notice him too, maybe for the first time, like there's stuff on recovering the satellites, which is supposed to be his I'm afraid of fame or fame has not been what I thought or like, this is really scary. But it really was about, and he's talked about this publicly since, about people being having a dissociative disorder and being out in the public eye and people knowing. you know I remember that first conversation we talked, to and I don't want to give up too much of the book, but we talked about him being on the cover of Rolling Stone, and he said, absolutely not. I'm not doing it. And everybody's head exploded. Everybody in the band, his management, the record company. And his thoughts were, I'm going to be on, this is it. like I'm going to be on the cover. all these They're going to know there's something wrong. you know And that was deep seated in the music, deep seated in his personality and how he saw himself through fame.
00:09:18
Speaker
and i was Absolutely fascinated. Every conversation we had from there on in, which was about three hours every Thursday or Friday afternoon, and it would start, especially in the fall and winter, it would start and there'd be light out. And at the end, we forget to turn the lights out because he's got these beautiful windows all around his apartment. And you could see as it gets darker, he would kind of get darker and get deeper into some of his thoughts and things he he was dealing with. And I would just be dead quiet. No follow-ups. I just let him go. And nobody, as you guys know, tells stories better than Adam and to be three feet from him and listening to these stories and that's why you know i hope one day we finish this damn thing because everybody should read it it's a great it's what i wanted which is a which is a.
00:09:58
Speaker
ah Portrait of an artist and nobody gives more in my estimation in my experience than Adam has in he's always Painfully honest whenever he's speaking and in his his writing so I I am forever grateful for that whether this book comes out or not just being in that room and be able to talk to him and ask him all those questions right from the beginning without any kind of I Need to know your credentials. I need to see what you're gonna do I did he just said run tape and from that moment moment on we were working on the book and Interesting. I would say it's it's one of the things I think really works about recovering the satellites is that people say, oh, it's a record about fame or whatever. It's not really, it's about record about feeling disconnected from yourself. And it's in Adam's case, the literal facts in 96 are about fame, but it's really, it could be about anything. It's the dissociative disorder, right? I mean, it's a really, it's about
00:10:47
Speaker
filtering himself through there, and that could apply to lots of people for lots of different reasons in a lot of different ways. whether I think that record still, and when we talked about that record, I think it it holds up incredibly well, especially our current like times. like It's one of the records that really feels like current in a lot of ways.
Evolution and Risks in Counting Crows' Music
00:11:05
Speaker
It's hard to describe exactly why, but it really just kind of connects to all these weird feelings, I think, that the modern, the last like five, 10 years have really brought out. you know Yeah, and they they were very brave, as everybody in the band will tell you. you know they They did a right turn. First of all, they did a right turn when they when they made the first record after you know their demos. There was there was a ah bidding war for their demos, which kind of sound like modern 80s rock music with gated drums and you know effects on the guitars. Dave Bryson did such a brilliant job producing them that, as you guys know, bidding wars, then they get it they get in there with T-Bone Burnett and they're like, we're not doing that.
00:11:40
Speaker
we're gonna get rid of all the the electric keyboards, we're gonna get rid of all this stuff, we're gonna get mandolins and ah you know ah Hammond organs, and we're gonna strip this thing down, and the band home is mutiny, but they had to hang in there, and they did a brilliant job creating Counting Crows, and then immediately in the second record they become ah an alternative rock band for the nineties and then they make another sharp turn and they put a live album out with two records and then, you know, and then they strip all these songs down for storytellers or whatever it was that they were on. What were they on? Unplugged or story? Storytellers.
00:12:14
Speaker
They they spent months and months, you know reconstructing those songs re-imagining those songs Rearranging those songs and to me that's bravery right out of the shoot and remember these guys were not 21 Adam was 29 when he got signed I believe all those guys were in the late 20s They've been in dozens of bands in the Oakland, you know Bay Area Circuit they had seen people come and go and so they and they were right in the deep end right away as a band and you know so satellites is very, very underrated. and And while I was working with Adam,
Legacy and Influence of Counting Crows
00:12:45
Speaker
I i learned to really adore that record more than i I have in the past. It's funny that that tension that you were just talking about, about the Rolling Stone cover, I mean, that goes back to Mr. Jones, which in a way might also go to the ah the book that you're writing with him, which is that he wants to put himself out there in some ways and wants to be a star, but also knows that it increases
00:13:09
Speaker
spotlight on him and kind of crystallizes things and dealing with the repercussions of putting yourself out there because yeah I'm sure he wants to leave a legacy but then if he puts too much personal stuff people could over analyze it and yeah this kind of thing. Well to his credit he never he and I wanted it to be a Q and&A like our interviews that was the impetus for this oh so he never wavered from that Even ah my publisher didn't want to do it. They wanted me to work on a memoir. they did now and and and I remember walking in the street one day to get something to eat. and i said so I remember because I was taping. I always ran tape. and I asked him, you know maybe you should write a memoir. and He goes, isn't that what this is? so He didn't want to just do something from I, me, I, me. He wanted it to be a discussion. and The really cool thing about it was
00:13:54
Speaker
Yes it's taken us forever to finish this book and i apologize to all the kind of cose fans who are listening to james campy right now and tells when the hell is this damn thing coming out it's really up to adam in a way because i finished my part of my part cz that's his story and so when he started working on the chapters in earnest with me as a writer. it became different than the Q and A's because it became a legacy like it's on paper and because he's a lip major and he understands what that means and he's a voracious reader and he enjoys my work and he's the first person to give me thumbs up or thumbs sideways if he doesn't think what I'm doing he doesn't like it and I ah value that whether it's books I've written since we've met personally and professionally or anything else that he sometimes he would send me back ah after a chapter just
00:14:36
Speaker
WHEW I would get in my email with the thing. So it's tough for him to go through this stuff and be that Painfully honest, but that's what makes him him and that's what makes counting makes counting crew so great for all of us who are fans You know, there's an unblinking quality and I wrote a book about actually about Warren's Yvonne called accidentally like a martyr and I say in that book and that Warren was an unblinking artist. He he never looked at a subject and ever backed from it. Once he was in, he was in all the way. And I think that's true of Adam and Kamikaze. Wow. That's actually one of my favorite episodes of the podcast is one of the ones you guys did talking about all those Zevon songs. um Because it really hones in on how devastating like some of those songs you listen to them
00:15:18
Speaker
and then And this is what I loved about the podcast. I love to talk you guys talk about how you guys decide to do a podcast. But sure ah you know diving into those songs, you really kind of, you guys both together kind of come at those songs from angles where it really lets you get deep. And like Zevon specifically, because you realize like, oh, these these songs are devastating. Like if you're not like focusing on like exactly some of these details, these are wild and like emotional and heartfelt songs that if you like is is pretty crazy. I think because you in the book you tell me like how that um the daughter of the person the French inhaler is about uh sorry it's the son right and that she still listens to that song which is incredibly I mean like that's the meat one of the meanest songs ever written whatever it's beautiful but yeah like you know
00:16:07
Speaker
Yeah, the mother of his son, Jordan, who's still a friend, and he was a great supporter of that book. And that's why the subtitle is to The Tortured Art of Warren Zevon. He would say that she would listen ah to this song, and it's a devastating deconstruction and really teardown. and every level really horrifying but it's so beautifully written and he presented so well that she would listen to it and drink you know wine and just weep that she's like but it's so good mom why are you listening to it's just so beautiful and that's kind of and that's what Jordan said to me about Warren's work it's it's a it's a it's look at that crack in the sidewalk but look there's a flower growing through it you know there's something in there and
00:16:48
Speaker
Yes, that was one of my but I was one of my favorite because it's when my book came out and he was helping me promote it which was really endearing but yeah, I I I think that's what we did best in that podcast if I may say so myself was when we really like we stumbled on um, you know that paul simon record uh hearts and bones that he did after yeah simon agarfickel's was to do a record and that's one of my favorites and one of his favorites and until we started talking about it live to tape We didn't know each one of us. It was a favorite. There was a few moments like that in the podcast where I'm a huge fan of the laws. He's a huge fan of the laws. And Steve Lillywhite worked on Hard Candy and we were talking about that. He goes, oh, when I got near Steve Lillywhite, I didn't ask him about you too. I asked him him about are the Rolling Stones. I asked him about the laws. And then all of a sudden we were playing laws songs. So that was the beauty of that podcast. It was very reminiscent of
00:17:36
Speaker
some of our afternoons, when I would interview him, we would veer off into these discussions about film or or music, other people's music. so yeah That was the fun part of that. How did you guys decide to do that? ah was that coming out of the um I assume coming out of the interviews, but what sort of made you guys go like, that we
Origin and Depth of the Podcast with Adam Duritz
00:17:52
Speaker
got to do a podcast? That was all Adam. ah that From the very beginning, it was all Adam's idea. he so I stopped working with him early 2018. When back and started writing i put in with him and you know what kind of crows management to go on the road with them for a week in late august early september of twenty eighteen whether that's where you they went on with matchbox twenty so i had already known i want to go on the road just to talk to the other guys kinda see how they work be there backstage see them the routines before they went on and.
00:18:20
Speaker
So, but from that period of late 2017, early 2018, I didn't talk to Adam. I figured I'm done. Let me run back right so he sees I'm serious. Send him sections of, you know, get them get the interviews transcribed, which I was sending to my assistant at the time. She was doing them in real time. So I started to gather them together in sections, his childhood, his influences, stuff about the first record, the second record, on and on, dissociative disorder, all these different things. writing you know His writing, his performing ideas, how he performs, how he gears up to perform. So I was doing that and he just started calling me out of the blue.
00:18:57
Speaker
And he never did that even when we did what you know i would just email me like are we go for friday at two yes and a story and we would get together and and and then i would hear from her again for a week. Now all of a sudden he's calling me zima he's like hey and i just got the feeling because towards the end we became very friendly we watch basketball games together we go to dinner together as parents his sister his family's great his friends other musicians and artists would come over. I met Adam Schlesinger, the late, great Adam Schlesinger from Fountain's of Wayne at one of his events. ah you know When I say events, just people coming over to watch a movie you know that I just think he missed our camaraderie, I would hope. And so i he's like, let's do what we did, but do it as a podcast, but not about me and not about Counting Crows. Let's do it about the stuff that really jazzes me. Because we would get off on these tangents about things we loved. And he knew that I was pretty steeped in music history and and and and authorship and journalism. so
00:19:47
Speaker
We tried the first couple of them in late to think mid-late January of 2018 and they were terrible. There's an interview with Adam that's on it was it's on my YouTube page. He was on this TV show. Yeah, I just watched that yesterday. Yeah, because it was terrible. I crack up every time I see that. But it's true. We both hated it. And we thought, what are we doing? We're trying to be broadcasters. Let's just do what we did. And if you listen to the very first one, I came to the to his apartment ready to go, and I had visited my kid at that time. My daughter was maybe in fourth or fifth grade, and at that time, I remember I was talking to all the kids, and this one kid was really sad, and I just asked him why, and he said, because I have to move next week. And I moved a lot as a kid, and I knew Adam moved all the time as a kid. So if you listen to that first podcast, I just brought it up, and we were off and running, and then we started playing songs that reminded us of traveling and moving as a kid. and
00:20:43
Speaker
the rest is history. so And we did 96 episodes and it ended with the with the pandemic. And as I was telling you guys before we started recording, it's been so hard between our schedules and my book writing and publishing and his music and they've got new music coming out and they had the new one in 2020, 2021, but a miracle. So it's been really hard for us to get down to doing this because it's a lot of work. And you know once we start, It's weekly, you know, we would record two out of spate and then we would you know We start to compile them up in case they had to go on the road, but that's how the podcast started Yeah, thank you. I was just looking at just you kind of said it But just to get the stats for those that don't know as you said over two years So yeah, you recorded much more frequently than we did in one year. We've had about 20 episodes ah you from january 2018 to march 2020 You said 96. I saw 97 either way. Uh, so almost 100
00:21:32
Speaker
um ah Chris had a question, but just just because you were talking about Warren Zivon in your book in 2018, the author of that ah Rain King book that came out, Jeff Harkness, he actually we told him we were going to have you on and he had one question and it actually had to do with that book. so just timely, I'll bring it up. He said that, um ah yeah, first of all, he loved the book. And he said that, um oh, we and he said, oh, as you know, the that Adam Dirts did a cover of one of his songs. Yes, he did. car right yep And he just said, as a journalist and as someone who is who knows both ah very well, what do you think they might share in common, either musically, artistically, personally, et cetera?
00:22:19
Speaker
Oh, that's great. Great question. And I do i mean i want to say this publicly, I do mean to to read your book, buddy. ah Thank you for doing it. us Conning for those fans. And I hope ah my my book will also see the light of day, but very happy that you did it. and I definitely owe him a ah note. um But anywho, getting back to Warren really quick and and Adam, Adam said, I think in that podcast that Warren was a great influence on him. I did not know that until we started. And we talked about, he said he met him at the at the ah
00:22:52
Speaker
but somewhere in LA. A the viper room when he was part of it. A viper room, right. He met him at the viper room. And this was later in his career. And um so he talked very, and i and I quote him in my book. And um yeah, I think the biggest Adam likes the fact... See, I heard you guys talking about this in your inaugural episode, how the thing that makes Cannon Crow's song so personal and so interesting is they do they do what all great songwriting is, and that is they're universal and personal. So by putting things like like locations and women's names and and things like that in there, it makes you feel like it not only happened,
00:23:31
Speaker
But it's happening to you. And that's what Warren did so beautifully. And he did it with LA. And I think that LA connection, because even though Adam grew up in the Bay Area and he grew up everywhere, as I mentioned, excuse me ah he moved to LA to kind of escape that early unfucks of you know just incredible fame that that that came from that first record. And, but it also was a two-edged sword. There were a lot of people who were very negative towards him and would say stuff like, how come, you know, you you guys got signed. You're not as good as my banner. and You're not, you know, whatever. So, you know, it was too much for Adam to hack. And it was, you know, it was the guys who were down at the Viper Room, like Johnny Depp and those guys who invited Adam to go down there and tend bar and hang out. And he embraced the LA scene to the point where he lived there for years and wrote beautifully about LA. So I remember, and I think I put it in the Zevon book. He said, the thing I love about Warren the most
00:24:19
Speaker
And Taylor Goldsmith told me that from Dawes 2, is that he's got this beautiful hangover. This, oh no, not another beautiful day in paradise. Kind of like openality to it. and i And I hear that in some of the County Crow songs specifically from this Desert Life on. you know I know that Hard Candy's kind of the return to New York-y kind of record, but that's the beautiful beautiful thing about these County Crows records, too, is that they have their geographies. I think that's the connection to answer that question. Great. Thanks so much. That's going to make sense. in this you know and It's even interesting, even the house on the hill thing, right because that desert life was made like a house on a hill, looking down at the city. all's like It's like Desperados under the eaves, sort of.
00:25:00
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, every everything like say in a long December is something that happened. But as Adam told me, it's never a memoir. It's never getting back to him not wanting to write. like It's never a biography. It's not he's not a reporter. So there is I know he hates this. ah comparing him to a poet, but there's a sense of real imagery and symbolism and metaphor in there. There's a way to say something that is interesting to the listener and also is important for him to sing because you know the the syllables and the way he's a singer.
00:25:37
Speaker
And he's a great one and has sung in background vocals and he's sung in several bands of different styles and he appreciates great singers uh soul singers and uh, and so He writes to sing the way I said earlier. I write to be read I think about the audience I think about who's reading this and what they're going to get out of it And I think he does too. I think we have a little bit. I don't consider myself an artist. I think a writer is a craftsman But I think that's that's one one of the many things that he and I share that really connected us. um and And yeah. You know, just because you brought that up, one thing I've always that I don't think I've ever heard him, I've heard heard him talk about his songwriting um and his his lyric writing, right, that maybe it's a comment, of course, combination of ah natural talent, hard work, maybe you know things like studying English at Berkeley, all all those kinds of things. and And so maybe certain parts of it that were in him as a kid. The one thing I've never heard him talk about or you is his, um because I think his singing ability is amazing in some ways, I i think andapp unappreciated by the general public. Was that, was he always a natural singer or did he have to work a lot towards that or a combination? That, that because I think that's one thing that's hard to maybe
00:26:52
Speaker
you know, get that right. Just like some people have certain speaking voice. so In some ways, you're you're given a certain singing voice. And I never heard him talk about that. That's true. ah He tells us better than me. So I'll give you the general thing. He credits David Immick, look, his roommate at the time and a guy who had been in, you know, camper van paint, Beethoven and different bands had kind of made it for him and kind of motivated him. ah He was recording something and he needed Adam to do vocals for it. And he pushed him and pushed him and pushed him. And he said, you know, it was that night. And again, I'm butchering this story. And if Adam's also listening to this, I apologize, buddy, because I put it in the book and the way he describes it is fantastic. Just going for it. And he became, ah at least if he didn't become a singer, I might be too dramatic here. But if he didn't become a singer that night during that two, three, four hour session, he understood what he needed to do to develop that thing.
00:27:46
Speaker
um But if you listen to the Himalayas stuff, you listen to Sorted Humor, you listen to any of that early stuff. Adam had those chops. He he he played for me several early, early things that he did. ah He worked for a studio. He worked like setting up equipment in a studio ah in the Berkeley area. and he They would give him time, you know, some of the bands would come in to sing, you know, and and come he was humming melodies and they're like, why don't you sing a melody over this? And he sent me those tapes and you listen to those and you hear the origins of this guy. You hear him. develop So, yes, it's a combination. The answer to that question is a combination in my estimation. And again, he'd have to answer this. And he does in my book, in our book, that there is a combination of really discovering it, developing it.
00:28:31
Speaker
and I love the fact that he always says he likes to keep the mistakes in there. you know He doesn't go for the perfection. He likes those happy accidents. And it's funny because he always, he pointed out to me where there are accidents, like pitchy accidents and little things. And I would never notice it in a million years, but then once you hear it, you know, like the edit in Strawberry Fields, you can never unhear it. But it just goes to show you that I would much rather hear that in a song. And you could say this about hundreds of artists, hundreds, especially in the rock and roll idiom, ah that you go for that
00:29:04
Speaker
that feel. you know i just I just read Barbara Streisand's memoir, which is brilliant, and she always, to me, when I was a kid, was the pristine singer, like perfect pitch, all those things. And she said she really struggled with that in the studio. And and because she was a perfectionist, she felts like if she felt like her first couple of record records, she was trying to be perfect, and then she discovered that later. Same with Aretha. Aretha didn't know what the hell she was doing there in Columbia. They misused her. They tried to make her a torch singer. But then when she got to Atlantic and started singing from her soul and playing the piano with it, she became Aretha. Same with Sam Cooke. There's so many stories about that. And Adam was you know no different, for sure.
00:29:42
Speaker
All right, great. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. ah Yeah, that's what I thought. So going back to the podcast, ah we're kind of good co-host in this way, which is that ah Chris told me that he listened to every episode, which I didn't know. And I listened to a huge podcast guy, but just I have so many podcasts I listened to. um I listened to, I want to say like 10 to 12. ah So what I want would like you to do for those Crows fans like me that only listened to a couple and maybe didn't listen to it all, now that we have you on, let's get them listening. What are a couple episodes that you that either love doing or you think, right, that Crows fans would love and maybe Chris can comment on on them as well? Okay, that's a good idea. All right, let's do that. All right, so it might right off the top of my head, I know you dropped this in an email and I completely forgot to think about it, so this is off the top of my head.
00:30:28
Speaker
Uh, I always say we did a, the first big one we did blowing up, I think was the five part four or five part series we did on punk music in the seventies. That was really fun to do. And Adam did his yeoman's job researching that. And I, I knew a lot of that stuff, but I learned stuff. I always, we both said when we were done every episode, we both learned something from each other, which was kind of really cool. Especially coming from him. And ah I loved the... This is only because it's a memory. I have a memory of coming to his place, setting up the equipment as I always did. We kept the microphones in there, but I brought the recorder and and and we'd set up, get get our water. He'd have his laptop and all his research.
00:31:07
Speaker
But at this time, he just looks up at me and goes, you want to do a podcast series of podcasts? I'm Rod Stewart and and Ron Wood. And I'm like, yes, I do. And we sat down and we did it. It was like a three-part series from like the late 60s all the way through the faces to the last things that they did together. And man, that was fun. It was just totally off the top of our heads. So there's those. And then there's the ones like the punk one, where we really we went back and forth. We were on the phone. We went back and forth on email. We have to play this. We have to play that. Don't forget this. And then I do love, and this was my idea. Maybe that's why I love it, is I love the ones. And I heard you guys mention this as well in your inaugurable in your inaugural podcast.
00:31:44
Speaker
I love the ones we did where we compared background singers that you don't know sing background, but are lead singers. And then Adam remembered all the songs he sang on, but wasn't either credited on or was credited and kind of got lost in the and the thing. We know the bigger ones, right? you know And the Wallflowers and the you know the the Ryan Adams record and lately a lot of my friends, like he's on the Sousa record, he's on Kellogg's record, he's on the Fantastic Cat album, as I mentioned earlier, ah Sean Barna. But these were earlier, these are things I hadn't heard. so And it was cool stumping him, you know that Cher sings on you know an old- Oh yeah, yeah. yeah Whatever, you know i mean or that there's ah What's Her Face is on an Elton John song. So things like that was was really fun.
00:32:33
Speaker
to do and i could see his face just light up during those so those those are probably my my favorite episodes and then the ones like i said like when we just stumbled on a record that we both love in real time and then start playing stuff from it and uh and also one last thing if you listen and as you know uh if you listen to the whole thing um we did one episode in which towards the end they had just re-recorded august and everything after or they recorded it for the first time in london he just got the stem from it and he goes let me call them and see if we could play it and i had not even heard it so let me tell you there's been many there was many chills over the years sitting with him and talking music or his career his writing style whatever but that day when he played it and we both sat there and listened to the final mix of it and then put it in the podcast and talked about it was super super cool i forget what episode that was but yeah
00:33:23
Speaker
I guess you have to listen to them. Yeah. Christy, do you have any questions about some of the ones that you listen to? Well, first of all, I will. It is one interesting. i think the The song August and Everything After is such an interesting thing because I remember like the first time when they played that on piano in like 2003. late 2003 and just like the wave if like if you could like gauge the the excitement of people reading a message board together um like the idea that he played it you know like ah what it's and then of course the fact they recorded it so beautifully um
00:33:54
Speaker
At least the backing vocal one I think is incredible. I think it's really, it really, it's kind of one of those things that as a music fan, you hear all sorts of different things. You hear Adam's take on things. And again, it's also, that's one that's really interesting because, I mean, all of this is his take and his perspective on things. But as a backing singer, that is something where his take on those other songs is so fascinating to hear from a sort of professional and who's done it to to break down these classics or maybe lesser known songs. um That's what I always recommend to people um if they're looking for for something to start with. Yes, by the way, it taught Dusty Springfield is the person that's signed. That bothers me. I couldn't remember her name. and Also, I loved his breakdown of Jagger singing on Your Sylvain is just yes amazing. It's great insight. That's what I'm saying. Once you get him to start talking about singing,
00:34:43
Speaker
you know Or even songwriting, we talk about how brilliant bridges are, certain you know harmonies that are used and why they're used. We did a whole episode on The Cars when What's the Face Died, at Rick O'Casey died. And you know ah we did a whole episode on, which he didn't really want to do at first because it's a tough one. It was about mental illness when Daniel Johnston died, but he loved Daniel too. And that was a tough one for both of us. I think we we were you know fighting the emotions during that, but I like those tribute ones too. Yeah. Um, I also realized that there's, there's a record, you know, uh, that banned the blue Nile is one of those because I learned a lot of these about, you know, newer artists and write who Adam's been listening to and through the Outlaw Roadshow too in the past. So it's always interesting to hear like what new artists are doing. But that was one where I was like, how have I never heard this record before? Um, and it's also interesting hearing cause I was talking to Chris Porterfield. He's a huge,
00:35:37
Speaker
Blue Nile fan, he's like, I had no idea Adam him was such a, you know, like this is, um, actually the really interesting thing there is that I just want to connect from the earlier. Cause you said it was thinking about the the gated drums and stuff on the original demo. It's kind of the Blue Nile, right? And it's like, that's also an influence in a lot where a certain way. It's like that it's almost, you you could trace that demo back to influences that were kind of getting shed, but they're all but Anyway, just thinking out loud. about No, it's true. yeah Yeah. I remember the first time I asked, you know, I asked that general questions like, well, what are your favorite albums? And he said, I always like to say, uh, blue by Joni Mitchell, kind of blue by Miles Davis and the blue Nile, whatever record that is. Cause I want it to all be blue. It's a great line. Um, yeah, that was, ah and I remember one of the things we did was we put out a note cause he couldn't, he he couldn't find his gnarled bootleg version of something and we ended we ended up finding it for him.
00:36:30
Speaker
Yeah, it's kind of cool. I'll have to try to find the title of that episode ah with the with the background one for the Underward Ascension. Yeah, there's three of them. but I think we did it three times. i We loved it, yeah. ah He named them all these weird, he would always name them. So he named them all these weird things. so And we didn't number them either, because back then we didn't know, like it's more important that you number them, like episode 128. Because people ask me, what what episode ah episodes are are the punk ones? Because every year for this Pingree School and in high school, in private school here in New Jersey, I do a tour of the East Village. They do this music, history of music in the 1970s, so I do this tour of the East Village. And you know i I said, you really you guys should play that for the... You should make that part of the course is to have them listen to this because we go through everything. And they're like, okay, what episodes? And I'm like, ah the episodes where we did the punk... It says punk in the title, maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Well, I'll use one of Chris's comments as ah as you gave me a good segue, Chris, which was that we did interview Chris Porterfield.
Nurturing New Musical Talent and Festival Insights
00:37:30
Speaker
And one of the reasons we did that, I mean, of course, they you know, he toured with them um since we had some memories and stories about that. But one of the reasons I wanted to do it was I think one of the Cannon and Crow's legacy among bands, right, maybe the general public will not think of this, I don't think, but is
00:37:51
Speaker
obviously like mentoring, ah you know getting so great. He's into supporting other acts and trying to get other people to, whether it was when he started his labels, um whether it's that I told someone recently, I said, he comes out, I think basically every time, right? Before opening acts. and says, hey, I'm Adam. Listen to this. This is really good. I've selected this. I love them. yeah um And of course, the other and where I'm segueing into is what you're very involved in is the Underwater Sunshine Festival. So ah please maybe talk about that legacy. And then also, please, I want to plug the Underwater Sunshine Fest, which is going to happen this year, I saw. so Yeah, 17th and 18th of October, I believe. Yeah, we're going to announce it soon, but I guess I just did. um Yeah, I think we're going back to ah to the Bowery
00:38:36
Speaker
ah electric there in in the Village. so yeah so a couple of things weird One of the things that Adam told me right off the bat, one of our first conversations is the very first tour when they started to blow up and they brought all these people on. He was really brokenhearted because the people that used to see them before you know Mr. Jones hit or the album started to sell ridiculously. is that he loved the fact that they would bring you know the audience the kind of audience they would get were open to new things. And Counting Crows were doing new things. they were They were extemporaneously changing things and alt lyrics and you know and and expanding songs. and And it was great, you know and and he loved that. and And then as they became bigger and bigger, people were not interested. they They were not only not interested in the opening bands, but they weren't interested in hearing anything but Mr. Jones. And that's like a real revelation, part of the whole, wow, we're in a different world right now.
00:39:27
Speaker
Um, but Adam has always said and it's so true when your music geeks like us and we almost started like this music geek, uh, club where I was going to, you know, do this website and put all this stuff that we were trying to promote. And that's essentially, I mean, when you think about underwater sunshine, just the title of it, which is the title of a covers record where he covers all these songs by people who respects people he knew or people he, he respected or influenced by. And he wanted to get it out there as opposed to just covering like a stone song or a Beatles song. And. So he immediately wanted to call it that. It it grew out of the Outlaw Roadshow. So when I first met Adam in late 2016, he invited me to come hang out and Rob Thomas played it and he got on stage and the two of them, it was hilarious. They were drinking and singing songs. It was fantastic.
00:40:11
Speaker
and it was And I met a lot of the people I would go on to meet for Underwater Sunshine, so that kind of fell ah by the wayside. And in the interim, while we started doing the podcast, everybody who produced it went to our producer barber's wedding, and Adam was in the wedding. And during that wedding, they decided, why aren't we doing a festival? I'm like let's call underwater sunshine and we'll play all the music and promote it so that was very organic that way and It the real shame of it the real heartbreaking shame of it. It was in 2020 We were gonna expand to two at least two venues because the first couple of years was wildly it was so So successful we did two of them
00:40:51
Speaker
I think we did two of them in 2018. We did one in 2019. We did one in the fall of 2018, then we did two, one in April of 2019 that Cindy Lauper sang in, and she came on stage, and then we did one in the fall of 2019, and we were going to expand to 2020, and Countie Crows was going to kick off the week by playing the end of their tour, and they were going to play like another venue, but they were going to promote it, and it was going to be all about underwater. It was just huge. Frank Turner was going to play, and then he was going to headline. All this stuff was happening. And then, bang, the world shut down. The world shut down when I was in the studio with Counting Crows, when in Brooklyn, when they were recording Butter Miracle. I'll never forget, it was my mother's birthday, it was March 12th. And we were sitting in there and the guys in the band were trying to get the hell out of there because they wanted to get to the airport before it was shut down. I remember them grabbing their bags and saying, goodbye, I got to get out of here. um And me and Adam and their managers are like going over their phones, going, Pearl Jam just canceled their entire tour. Blah, blah, blah, just canceled their entire tour. It was just like everything was
00:41:49
Speaker
just completely imploding from the time I showed up at like 11 a.m. to the time I left the studio at 4 p.m., the world was different. It was like I walked into that studio with those guys, listened to them do some playbacks, a couple of, you know, Adam sang a song, and then I left and the world was different. And that was really the end, we thought, of the festival. But to Barbara's credit, to Adam's credit, to everybody, I'm going to miss people Ehud and Lindsay and everybody who works on the damn thing. Diego Felipe Molina who did some County Cross covers all of them work so hard to Rectify to get this thing resurrect this thing Zoe everybody and I I I'm proud to be friends with those people and to do that festival every year and we do as you guys know free everything's free and Adam lets his apartment be used for sort of like a band hang and people do these garden sessions that go on YouTube so you get to see the bands interact acoustically. We used to record the podcast from there, but since we're not doing the podcast, we didn't do the last couple of them. And then Jesse Mallon let us use Berlin one year to do the garden session. So it's a really a big family and we buy all the merchandise for the bands and they play and it's free. I mean, what are you going to do for, I mean, the New York City free? Those things never go together. It's incredible. Yeah. That's one of the things is it's a, it's completely free. You can go and grab some merch. If there's a CD, you can go have it and put it in your car and drive around with it. I've done that many times. It's a real, it's a very, very cool. If someone's never gone before, it's a, it's a very, very cool thing.
00:43:27
Speaker
um Have you guys been there? Have you guys? Yeah, I went to a ah a number a number of outlaw road shows and a number of underwater sunshine festivals. um I miss, obviously, there is a different air in the room when the crows do show up and and play together. That is something in a room that small where everyone's like compact and tight against each other. yeah It is something to see, having seen them in obviously the biggest possible venues, you know, to be like in a room that tiny. um those are some of the most memorable shows and then and really like the lineups right because especially when the lineups hit and it really hits you um we all go through phases but you'll have a night where it's like oh shoot it's Daniel and the Lion and Fort Francis and and you're like wow I i both like saw a band I loved and learned about a band I loved and like fell in love you know all these different things where you just develop these relationships because you're I think in your Titan
00:44:18
Speaker
It's hand-picked. Everyone's good. Everyone's at the very least of ah worth seeing. um Some you'll connect to more than others. um but yeah I saw Fort Francis there for the first time when I've seen Fort Francis a dozen times since then. Yeah, and David was nice enough to play that. I was telling you guys before we went on there, he was nice enough to to play Hey Jude at the event I did with Adam and Rob Sheffield from Rolling Stone. and Stephen Kellogg was there and Matt Sush was played and he got everybody singing The Nine Miles at the end. It was great. And if you have a chance, anybody, check it out on YouTube. It was from Rockwood. It was from late 2022 and Adam is fantastic. He's hilarious on that. And we we talk about music and songwriting and Paul McCartney. He tells great Paul McCartney stories.
00:44:57
Speaker
It was a lot of fun. David's great and I love Fort Francis. They're fantastic. Do you have a favorite? It's probably strong, but anyone where you're like of the underwater sunshine artist in the last couple of years, you like you got to go hear them. Oh, that's not fair. That's not fair. um Because you love them all. no I love them like my children. yeah Well, you know I've come become very close with Sean Barna over the years. he and I went to go see Counting Crow's during the lockdown when they played in Austin a few years back. And you couldn't get it backstage, so I couldn't see them. I remember I went to the soundtrack and Adam just waving for me and it just felt so weird. But Sean and the band, we all went out drinking and and hanging out. I love Sean. ah Matt Sousage, like I said, he did me the the greatest favor playing for my my event at Rockwood.
00:45:48
Speaker
um ah i Really adore pedal, you know, I got to I got to bring in Elizabeth in the catapult. I love Elizabeth Zeeman We've done some things together. I got to bring my friend Eric Hutchinson there to headline one year ah Eric and I go all the way back to 2006 So I got my Gina Royale this year is somebody I discovered there's so many different Yeah, it's just hard to do. you know this They're all great in their own way. and they're it's like You're right. you're You're absolutely right, Chris. It's very diverse. You'll get funk, you'll get pop, you'll get folk, you'll get you know female singers and you know macho singers and you know rock and all that stuff. It's all in there, man. It's cool. Yeah. it's Actually, I think it would it's an interesting prism for Counting Crows fans because for those who've gone, right we'll all talk and everyone has a good time and then you'll find out. You're like, oh, man, I love that band. You're like, oh, that band?
00:46:39
Speaker
Oh, they were fine, but I really love them. You're like, you look, OK. And it's like this interesting like divergent point of like which, because in some ways, it's like the lens on everyone's, the crows bring so much of it together, right that it's like your lens on how you take and and ah and get into music, right what parts of it you love and what parts move you. It's kind of an interesting way to have that conversation, to be like, oh, we've got all these bands that are all good. But like what what about this moves us? you know True. yeah and just Yeah, I definitely want to get out there. I've been on the West Coast since you started the Underwater Sunshine Fest. So just so you know, Chris is not morally superior. He lives in the New York metro area, so it's easier for him to go. But I do. In fact, I made a joke that I said maybe we should do a Sullivan Street meet and greet. Maybe not this fall, but the next fall. But yet for the for those just to give it another plug, um Underwater Sunshine Fest, yes, it was already announced.
00:47:30
Speaker
um James on on social media. There is a website underwater sunshine fest one word dot.com that actually says 18 to 19. You can put your name in for updates. There's also Instagram account, Facebook account and an x account. So lots of social media to keep track of the of the festival. But I definitely want to go. Now that I'm all in and counting crows because of the podcast, now I have like an obligation to go to these things. Good. good and Adam's there. He hangs out. He sees all the bands. He announces some of them. The two of us, I think we did like a 20-minute chat.
00:48:04
Speaker
ah and that ended up online somewhere uh before it happened and then you know we both introduced different bands and everybody's there it's it's a real community in the in every sense of the word it it truly is uh and it all emanates from the the crows and and what adam puts in but all the people i named and i hope i didn't leave anybody out does it do a great job way better than me. I'm just hanging on by, you know, ah hanging on the tiger by a tail kind of thing. In some ways it kind of reminds me, which I wasn't, I didn't go to any of those shows either, but when they used to do the shim sham shows, it was like an annual thing that involved, yeah, that yeah, involved other artists and everything like that. Less tequila. Right. Less tequila. A little less tequila. yeah and An additional age. Well, let's use this time to at least give some plugs to, you know, for people that are fans of yours, James, or want to know more or want to read more of things that you've done.
James Campion's Achievements and Creative Collaborations
00:48:55
Speaker
I told you in the pre-show that ah that your Amazon
00:49:00
Speaker
Web pages seem to be or author pages seem to be split into not by your choice. But yes, it's the same James Campion. And they seem to segregate you different. But if you looked it up, you can see them all. But in musically, we'll just talk about the music books and you can add if I'm missing some. But in 2015, You had Shouted Out Loud, The Story of Kisses Destroyer and The Making of an American Dream. And then 2018, like you already said, Accidentally Like a Martyr, Warren Zivan book. um And then the most recent book, Let's Plug That, Take a Sad Song, The Emotional Currency of Hey Jude. So it's a book of just one song. And this is this was named one of Rolling Stone's top books about music in 2022. So it don't just take our word for us for it. don Take Rolling Stones, still available in hardcover.
00:49:47
Speaker
And in fact, as the irony I know was not lost on you, of course, that in their review, they said um they kind of I think they did this on purpose, I'm guessing, but that Hey Jude has, ah you know, you know, why does it deserve its own book? Well, one reason is that it has like, you know, the most memorable na and nana nana chant since the long December. yeah so So that was great. And you are working on a book about Prince and the band. It's called Revolution and currently due in 2025. It could be wrong, but I, and maybe you can tell me the timing. I actually thought what one of the podcasts that I did listen to in Underwater Sunshine, just kind of they were released when I was available, was you did I think three or four more episodes on Prince.
00:50:30
Speaker
We did. After his passing. And I don't know what the timing was if you started writing that after, but certainly the homework you did for that but those episodes helped write the book. um so Yeah. I mean, it helps when you've lived through it. Adam and I are both huge Prince fans. We had the experiences similar of being introduced to him and then him blowing up and different things. So we did, yeah, I think we did a four part three or four part ah series on early Prince. So we start with the second album. yeah thepo is titled prince And then we end with 1999. We were planning on, you know, eventually going through his other canon, you know, as we rolled along in the podcast. But of course, as we say, um you know, COVID hit and we sort of truncated. I think that 97th episode was we did a live stream.
00:51:18
Speaker
It's one of the last things I did in other people's houses before we've everybody just couldn't even leave your house. we did ah We were joking about touching our face and our ears and being too close to each other. It was very weird. um but yeah um Thank you for naming all those. Those were all my music books. um Revolution Book will probably come out in spring, hopefully. ah There's a little bit of a you know corporate takeover. There's different publishers now involved with this book. so We'll see how that affects it. But just for Counting Crows fans and Adam's fans out there, Adam lends his voice a little bit too accidentally like a martyr he and I met or started working together on the book and then the podcast towards the end of my writing that. But he's all over, take a sad song. i i know My idea with that book is to interview during the pandemic, I interviewed
00:52:03
Speaker
um professors of different disciplines sociology musicology history philosophy psychology and songwriters of different genders and and eras and all the beetle biographers or you know beetle writers biographers of Paul McCartney getting them all in sort of a room if you will like we're doing right now through zoom and Discuss why that song I just picked that song because I loved it as a kid why it works and Why Paul McCartney seems to tap in because he's done it more than any person in the history of popular music like into what we want to hear, what the ear wants to hear, like how the Beatles did it. And of course, Adam gave great insights to that. And he's he's in that book as well, which is one of the reasons why. And so is Rob Sheffield from Rolling Stone. And that's one of the reasons why I'm sure yeah it got to the attention of Rolling Stone and that those guys helped me to to promote it together. But yeah, that was a lot of fun and and
00:52:57
Speaker
I probably won't do a book like that again because one of the complaints even Adam had was like, there's not enough of you in it. And I was like, that's kind of true. I'm kind of like the ringleader in that. Okay. What do you think? Okay. What do you think? You know, and so, uh, but I thought that book, a book like that needed to be written about why songs work, you know, and who wrote more popular songs than the Beatles. I do think, um by the way, I know this is a Counting Crows podcast and a music podcast, and you talked about music in your podcast, but maybe briefly talk about some of your non-music books. I actually think this is one of the purposes of the podcast, to get a little deep dive in Counting Crows related. Sure. Just a little bit, if someone wants to to know what you've done or write or just um if there's so a certain thread or theme to your other authored work.
00:53:38
Speaker
No, there is no thread until I got a ah music publish or publisher who that was interested in my music writing. i you know I just wrote whatever jazz me at the time. I have two compendiums of my published work. One is called Fear No Art, which has a connection to Adam because he apparently had a t-shirt when he was in Sorted Humor. When he saw that before we met, he knew about it and he was like, I can't believe it. And my handle on Twitter is at fear no art. And he was so jealous of that. He was like, I can't believe you got a fear in no art. And that's another thing that we connected on. It was very weird, very serendipitous. And then there's another one called Midnight for Cinderella. And then in the interim, I wrote a book about my ah my travels to Israel. In 1996, I called Trellion Jesus. So I went through and I found all these places where the historical historical Jesus was. And interestingly enough, I was there for a month. um And during that time, it was the first time that Netanyahu was elected.
00:54:32
Speaker
So before that, no one knew who the hell he was. And I'll never forget that. And obviously today he's a major figure on the world stage. so um ah So that's what that book's about. And I wrote one novel called Why that came out prior to my work with Backbeat Books. and Another book that Adam got a huge kick out of that we talked about, because it's really about what art is. You know, how do you define art? But it's it's a novel. It's funny. I try i try to be funny. It it suffers from from first novel ideas. It's got too many is ideas in it. But you might get a kick out of it. Some people have. But I'm not a fiction writer. Go ahead. Is there a thread is is there a thread you know with your music? you know You said maybe not so much a thread with the non-music stuff, but where the writing about Counting Crows fits in with
00:55:19
Speaker
the rest of your music writing? is there sort of Is there something that kind of pulls that together in your mind? just that And one of the things that Adam and I talked about from the very beginning is, ah unlike maybe other podcasts, and I don't begrudge in this, We decided if we didn't like something, we wouldn't play it or talk about it. We didn't play something and go, what the hell is this crap? You know what I mean? We would never do that. ah we We grew up, that's one of the things that connected us again. We grew up in the in the early 70s when our radio stations, for him it was K-SAN out and you know in the bay, and for me it was WABC Radio here in New York where they played everything.
00:55:50
Speaker
back, to back, to back. You could hear Deep Purple and the DeFranco family. You could hear the Partridge family and the Rolling Stones. You could hear Stevie Wonder and the Jackson Five. It was one after the other, after the other, after the other. We were steeped We were bred with this idea of every, if it's good, it doesn't matter what the genre is. There was no deconstruction. You know, that's what we talked about in the Prince podcast. Okay. This is black music. This is rock white music. This is this kind of music, prog music or punk music. We talk about in the punk podcast. Oh, all of a sudden punk became, it was supposed to be free and express yourself any way you want. Then it became, if you don't have the right haircut, you can't be part of this. So, you know, we've always been very open-minded about that stuff. so
00:56:34
Speaker
It's one of the things I try to bring to my music writing and I never try to stay in one decade or one style or one thing. I really wanted the Adam book to be the book that ah followed the Zevon book. But because of everything that's happened, not only the ah pandemic, but also you know just the the the process of putting this book together, it's so vast. And him putting his two cents in that I've now written two book books since. And so you know it would be my one nineties book, because so far I've covered something in in almost every decade. Yeah, that that's really, the connection there is the kind of thing that I love about Counting Crows.
00:57:11
Speaker
they play good music. You can't really pinpoint it. You want to call it roots music. you want like have you know it's it's It's got a little bit of Van Morrison. It's got a little bit of the band. It's got a little bit of the soul. um but it's got a little bit of Dylan, but it's in the final moment of the sense where it's just good music. And so that's why they're my favorite band. And yeah, I just love talking about them. So thanks for that. I was curious about that. That's interesting that you actually said your favorite band, right? Because they could be in your top 10 or that you just love them. But yeah, I didn't hear you say that before. So that's interesting you looked down. Yeah, well, I have, like all music writers, I have an Oscar. Right. And that is, so I had this thing, the Rolling Stones are my favorite band of all time. Like if you put a gun to my head or I'm on the way to some island, you're going to dump a bunch of records. I'd probably pick Stone's records.
00:58:01
Speaker
but There was a period in my life, as we all, when you're younger, you're like, this is my favorite band right now. And that was like U2 and then REM, you know what I mean? These periods, you know, ah the the public enemy and then Green Day. So I remember at one point, the last, this is my favorite band was Counting Crows. I think it was probably after this Desert Life, around that time when I was like, you know what? Holy crap, this is my favorite band. and And I've never not seen them when they came around. I wrote about them even before I met Adam, and I extolled their virtues to everybody. And that idea of serving the song, you know every one of those guys. And I've gotten to know them personally, and even the new guys in the band. you know And they're just
00:58:47
Speaker
great musicians that love songs and music and melody. And like I was telling you guys, my relationship with Imer has reached epic proportions now, which is dangerous and fun all at the same time. yeah Maybe you'll write that yeah the David Imer-Gluck ah Encyclopedia of Music with him. just where just because immer just like every Once a year, there's just like a dump and it's like Imer's favorite records from this year and it's like 50 entries. Oh, I get i get that. yeah I get it. And I have to listen to them all. Otherwise, I get i have a text from i can't on my phone I have a text from him like yesterday. He he just did this project. I'm going to plug it. He just did this project for another band, and they covered a Little Feet song. I think it's it's supposed to be a tribute record to Lowell George. I heard something about that record. I didn't realize him. He was on it, actually. Yes. so Here we go, Immord Look. He sends me the links, and he says,
00:59:47
Speaker
This just came out. I did two trains coming with my buddy, Chris Seifried. Check it out. Two trains running. It's from Long Distance Love, a sweet relief tribute to Lowell George. okay so i'm just you know um Then we go in a series of texts back and forth. and then i just After I listened to it, I said you know i i wrote... Let me see. I know this is really deep insights. so so i said it's I totally love it. It's that little it's it's got that skunk Baxter sleeves, excellent work. and Then I wrote, is that on a Little Feet record? and He writes, you don't know the Little Feet album Dixie Chicken? Essential.
01:00:28
Speaker
and That's probably why Adam and Imi buy. Although you can joke with Adam that if if you don't get the podcast started again, you might have to do underwater Imi for a while or something. I tried to get Adam to get these things under two hours and he'd be like, it's as long as it's going to be. And then like we had Imran one time and it was like six hours. It's insane. It would never end. And they'd be drinking during it. So that would be fun. I had a very long commute at the time. It was perfect. i You know, I had like an hour each way. And so together, you know, the whole day. I'm glad to hear that. idea Thank you for listening to all 97. It's really interesting. When you're telling your story about your other ah books, I i just thought it really is such a cliche, but sometimes true how that traveling, ah especially I don't know when you went to Israel in your 20s or whatever and that can really change your life.
01:01:12
Speaker
To me, it was Eastern Europe. And Adam, of course, traveling to Europe a couple times changed him. It was you know how we met Anna, right? Fran begins. And I think even Post, when they first got signed, he talked about some right tour around Europe that changed him because that's when he came back. They were superstars. So it's just, and by the way, going to Europe is what helped him write Butter Miracle, right? He said he might never even write again. So it goes to show you fra um out there. Yeah. I like what you show my advice from from the Sullivan Street broadcast. Yeah. travel And if I know that people listen are in their 40s and 50s, so to get your children maybe to travel in their 20s, it would be good. And I agree with you, by the way, ja I actually think the the band ah is more of a ah cast of all stars than people realize. I just think the talent. Oh, my God. It's just, yeah, but that that, yeah. Charlie's amazing. And
01:02:02
Speaker
You know they that all the guitar players everything that they do, you know All those guys are great and they all do their own music and they played him some of it for me and it's it's excellent it's got tinges of counting crows, but other things other influences and You know, they just sound so good They work every the the weaving of melodies and counter melodies in there and adam is so great at writing it for the spatial quality of it And then you know his rhythmic ah his sense of rhythm and singing is just non-parallel So all those things are in there is why I love them and by the way, I apologize the guys decided now to mow my lawn so oh that's right i can't hear and the harmonies of course that that's all over hard candy so speaking of which i did tell you ahead of time or request this and say tell you requested that if you could list your top five uh in backward order favorite counting crew songs now
01:02:48
Speaker
Now, James, now, ah hopefully you noticed that I didn't say what do you think their best songs were or they're, you know, that I said, what are your five
Favorite Counting Crows Songs and Personal Stories
01:02:57
Speaker
favorite? I didn't care how popular, unpopular the songs are. So there you go, please. I do want to hear. OK, so thank you. That is a good demarcation, especially for a music writer. I have my favorite 200 top 200 songs on my website, top 200 albums on my website. My favorite album of all time, if anyone cares, is Captain Fantastic and the Dirt Brown Dirt Cowboy by Elton John. that's my favorite album of all time record and a lot of people know that record i absolutely adore it and still do to this d
01:03:23
Speaker
ah um great record okay thank you yeah someone saved my life tonight is one of the All oh my great songs forever truly is um, so I what I did because I couldn't I don't want to be a wimp Like I can't pick my favorite acts or artists from the festival. I picked out my favorite song in each record Great. Can we do that? Yes. Sure. that Okay. All right, so we have time. All right, so um, so reigning in baltimore is one of my favorite songs ever written ever and I love the story behind that and it'll be in the book and i'm sure he's talked about it before but it's stunning and
01:03:56
Speaker
yeah That got me through one of the darkest times in my life and I was able to tell him that and we talked about that song Maybe except for mrs. Potter's and maybe two other songs. We talked about that song it kept coming up in some way shape or form Throughout the year of us talking and probably because of me, but I absolutely adore that song I know it's just him on they are except for I think his little accordion on it later on but it's just stunningly beautiful and Raining in Baltimore. Yeah, but I did want to tell you go ahead. Please go ahead I was just saying, we talked about that that song for a half hour in episode 20. That was the first episode we focused on like only on two songs. and We did about 30 minutes on Daylight Fading and 30 minutes of Raining in Baltimore. so or Bravo. All right, good. I feel like I'm i'm among friends here. so yes I did want to tell you this, my Sullivan Street story, since the name of the podcast is Sullivan Street, and that's probably right up there on that record. ah There's not a bad song on that album, obviously. but so I'm on tour with these guys, and I'm in the last day, and it's my birthday.
01:04:52
Speaker
So it's 2018, September 9th is my birthday. So it was the last day I was on the tour with them. We were in Syracuse and I invited all my wife's family because my wife's from Syracuse. And it was great. They treated them like a million dollars. It was excellent. And we had a great time. It was the last day. And the entire time I was with them for about two weeks, I kept asking them, can you guys play Sullivan Street? And no one would tell them they say yes or no. They just kept ignoring me. And I would sit in with Emmer and and Adam, and I open my book, or our book, with the two of them sitting, planning a Counting Crochette. And that's like the first 20 pages of the book. And that is amazing. Like the two of those guys, they never play a song. They played the last time they played the venue. They never played the song that they played the night, the day before, except for the pockets, right? They got to play, they got to play Rain King. They got to play certain things along December. But
01:05:37
Speaker
Yeah. So the two of them back and forth and every time I would say, an streets, can we? nothing not even like a wink or maybe next week or whatever it was that in mrs potter's but finally The last day of the tour, if you've ever been on a tour before, you see they they put up all the times, like at 5 o'clock you eat, at 5.30 you do the soundtrack, at 5.45 you have to be here, at 6 o'clock you have to be there. So everything is mapped out. And every here's the songs, because every song has different tunings of guitars and different mics and everything. So they got everything down to a T. They put up
01:06:11
Speaker
For my birthday, Emmer and Adam planned this whole thing. They put up all the fake, a fake set list. The inside they had the lighting guys, the the the guitar techs, they all looked at him a fake thing so they could open with Sullivan Street. And all Emmer said to me before I went out to sit with my family, he's like, you better be in your seat when we start this show. And when they started playing Sullivan Street, I swear to you, you know, the tears, you know, it was just amazing. They didn't mention anything about me or anything. And it just it was a really great gift. Great birthday gift. That is that is awesome. All great stories with their all time great openers as a song like that. That song opening a show is.
01:06:45
Speaker
like a really spectacular experience. So good. Very perfect. I will share with you guys.
Emotional Connections to Songs and Influences
01:06:50
Speaker
Like I said, Adam sent me all the ah or the guys that were on the board. They sent me all the every show that I was on that tour. And I'll send you a copy of that show so you can hear that. That was really cool. man um And then, of course, they finally played Mrs. Potters and my daughter was there and she had to go to the bathroom. So I left to go all the way backstage to take her to the bathroom. And I missed like half the song. And that song is like 12 minutes. um i Moving on I'm not sleeping is my favorite song on recovering satellites and when I when I tell you this is another Adam story We were doing the book and I just looked at him I said this might be be my favorite song on the record He goes I knew you were gonna say that and I was like why he goes. I just know I knew you're gonna say that
01:07:27
Speaker
yeah That's he would never tell me why so apparently he knew that was my favorite song But it's always been my I love the lyrics to the song. Certainly. I love that beetle esque thing That's going on in there. I love the crazy weird strings in the midsection the you know, like the bridge and You know just him getting Just weird about like his dreams and his visions and again very much a dissociative disorder ah song and it's beautiful. I love that song I don't know what you guys feel about him. it And him him knowing that about you actually is ah a sign that you're good friends, right? that That he knows enough of your personality to know that you love I'm not sleeping, which would, for most people, not be the number one song on that album. So that's great. Yeah, it was early in our relationship and working on the book, but later on, he used to make the joke, and I think he probably made it a few times in the podcast. I love Brian Wilson.
01:08:17
Speaker
I got to interview Brian Wilson years ago. I'm a huge fan of the the Beach Boys, you know, that mid period, the smile stuff. So is he an emmer that we talked about that all the time. But anytime I had a chance to jam Brian Wilson, it's like anytime I can jam Joe Namath into a football discussion, I'm going to do it. ah Yeah, I love Brian. So he always makes fun of me. And that's very, much of that period, that kind of Beach Boys, Brian Wilson style of like, what is going on with the baseline here? You know what I mean? It's completely different from what's going on in the guitar parts. So good. I can see that now that's sort of like a heavier pet sounds kind of.
01:08:51
Speaker
Yeah, all that crazy, crazy shit he's doing in Smile. Have you heard the Smile stuff that released? And it's funny, when I interviewed Brian, he said that he prefers he put out in the early aughts his own version of Smile, the way he heard it in his head. And then they released the Beach Boys version. So they cobbled them all. They they had put versions in different You know, Smiley Smile and Flowers and a couple of these records, Surf's Up. But they put them all in. It's fabulous. i That's one of them. As Emma would say, it's a mystical document. um Mrs. Potter's Lullaby is my favorite song on an album that I might be my favorite county cross record is This Desert Life.
01:09:31
Speaker
um Yeah, that was that was our unanimous number one when we reviewed the album with some other fans. We didn't. oh Yeah, it's the yeah episode. We didn't release it yet. But it's the fans fan, right? It's the fan fan record. It's weird that way. And people just say their best. Yeah, exactly. It's fan fan's record. Mrs. Potter's was our number one choice. of Basically, everybody agreed. And we just said it's it's the iss his best lyrics. You know, probably the band is smoking. It's the first record. Yeah, it's it's gorgeous. um I love everything on on on hard candy as well including the title track which just is one of the great pop sounding songs of all time but i'm gonna i put down here carriage you guys have me on because i' i'm working you know i've worked with adam and and i know him so it's it's a nice connection so i'm trying to bring some stories to the table here and he talked very deeply about carriage
01:10:20
Speaker
very deeply about it. and we haven't He hasn't gotten that far. I put everything he said in there about it, and I hope it makes it to the final book. But that was one of those days where we got deep into you know his thoughts and and his ah memories as a child the idea of becoming a father or the idea of understanding what a woman goes through in in childbirth, it's just so Gorgeous that song in every possible way and I think it's one of his faves to Heart song to do live. I think he's mentioned so I love carriage for that reason. great Thank you And beautiful and the trumpets all of them and listen. Oh, yes, and that's what that's one of those things, too.
01:10:59
Speaker
the um I brought up a song from the from the live Amsterdam record, which I absolutely adore. I love the version of Goodnight Elizabeth, where he stops singing and everyone's just singing, and they're German. It's fabulous. um so or you know it it's It's that kind of...
01:11:18
Speaker
the song that transcends languages. That's why I was trying to say in Hey Jude, you know, whether it's Dutch or German or whatever. He did a song called Hazy. Oh, I love that song. it talk Love it. And there's a whole story behind that. And I'm not giving that away. That's staying in the book. But it's about a relationship that he had a very toured, strange, painful relationship he had with a woman that he was very much in love with, who was also an artist and That's every line of that song is their experience. And if you listen to it again, just picture that and try not to get emotional. It's amazing. Oh, thank you. Yeah, I love that. I love that song. Yeah. And he hates to play the piano by himself. He hates it. yeah So for him to do that, there's a lot of courage in there. And I think about that when I when I listen to it. Watching Square, because the first thing I asked him when I interviewed him for that record,
01:12:09
Speaker
I said, have you ever read Henry James Washington Square? And he said, no, no, I haven't. And he was he played it off. But then later on, he was like, Did you have that key yeah you know teed up because you know i I'm a lip major and I read a lot and and I said, no, I i honestly hear tinges of James's work in that. and Since then, he doesn't see it. But but then again, later on, well first of all, Washington Square Park is my favorite place on planet earth. I want my my um like ashes to be spread there where I used to take my daughter when i was a kid when she was a kid or I used to go when I was a young man.
01:12:44
Speaker
and um It very much is a awakening of New York song. And I just love what Emmer's doing on there. And whenever they play that live, it just kills me every time. Yeah. <unk> i was there actually one of the i think I think it's the first time they played it. It's like the first or second night was in Jones Beach in 2003. And three and that that song's always kind of stuck with me. It's stunning. Beautiful song. It really is gorgeous work. Sort of about the same thing as Hazy, right? Sort of? well well Connected to a little bit.
01:13:15
Speaker
Yeah, you know, I think that is true. That would have been at the far end of what that situation was happening. But yes, very good. Yeah. I remember him saying he was walking around Washington Square and he had a conversation with her and you know he was kind of coming to grips. I love the idea that he just went to New York. He had never been to the East Coast for that amount of time, except for when he was a kid and he lives in Baltimore and Boston, certainly, but and to write about the awakening of that. you know That record is silly with all that stuff and I love it. um ah God of Ocean Tides, another conversation that he and I had breaking down that bridge part where he talks about the memories of a faded birthday party with ah with the melted candle wax and the paper plates. That's my favorite line on that in that song. It's it's genius. yeah It really truly is.
01:14:02
Speaker
um and Yeah. So I hear these, that's what I'm trying to say. This is why I want to get the for the world to to read this book, because the stuff that I got out of him and the stuff that I learned and the stuff that I thought was that, and it was, and then other stuff that I didn't know that comes out really does add to listening to the music. That's what I got out of Graeme Marcus when I was a kid. That's what I got out of Robert Christigal. That's what I got out of Dave Marsh. That's what I got out of all these people who wrote about music and interviewed these people and and they gave you an idea. They didn't give the full song away because once the song's out there in the zeitgeist, it's yours. you know You get to interpret the way you want it to be. But there's stuff in there that they wanted you to know you had to figure out. And and peeling that onion with the songwriter, i do it I didn't just do it with Adam. I got to Adam by doing that for a living.
01:14:48
Speaker
So when it got to him, it was, I was, you know, I was in my, I don't want to say prime cause I hope I still got some fastball gone, but I felt like ah when we met, it was time to get down to business and you know, for him to tell me these stories and I, I don't even, if you read, if you look up all my County Crows pieces, it's on my, I have a website, jamescampian.com, but you could also find them just Google James Campian and County Crows or Adam Jordan. and james yeah And there's, you know, the piece I wrote about, um, I interviewed him right after um Somewhere Under Wonderland and he talks about ah that song and I think I put that conversation in the book So I think it's from that so you could easily read that without it coming out um And I love all of ah the butter miracle I love the whole he meant it as one whole thing and I think it's very hard I didn't hear it that way because I was in the studio So I heard like the third song first and the the rats one and then I heard this so but now I just hear it as one whole thing and it's just so great and And I'll plug that you did a, I forget how many episodes, maybe 20, 30, you actually did a under, there's the under there's underwater sunshine festival artists spotlight podcast. You had a a bunch of them. I did one of them, you interviewed Adam and it was basically about butter miracle. So if they want your thoughts about it, please listen to that. I agree. I liked the, what Adam said, you know, one of the songs of course is, is from the artist perspectives, ones from the fans perspective. That's why I can't believe that people that the hardcore fans and
01:16:12
Speaker
Maybe there's not enough but but don't get totally in the Bobby and the rat kings because that's the whole point right that you go to the show and you're Watching one of your favorite bands and you kind of hope that this moment lasts forever Because it's escapism and it's one of the few things you that keeps drawing you back to the band, right? So um Yeah, yeah, and and it's everything that Adam loves about songwriting and see, you know building worlds and and building myths and creating vibes, whether it's Palisades Park or you know the great references to to amusement parks and Ferris wheels in his songs. And then, of course, that childlike wonder of the world, seeing it with just a slanted head, as he used to say about you know listening to Talking Heads or Revolver by the Beatles, if you just tilt your head a little bit, you'll get it. you know
01:17:00
Speaker
And that's why I feel about his songs. And I feel that when you listen to you know Bobby and the Rat Kings or some of the stuff that's on there, you're taken right to the second side of um you know East Street Shuffle. you know his His worship of Springsteen and how he builds ge geography and myths into his songs, or what he loves about Van Morrison, or what he loves about Dylan, or what he you know he's been able to gather from all these people that he you know thinks. you know We talked about Lou Reed. David Bowie and that whole glam period. And that's what one of those songs is about. It's about that whole period of just like, you know, this androgyny, this getting lost in in different personalities um and letting the music take you away. And um Bravo, if you can capture that in five minutes.
01:17:45
Speaker
Thank you. um i don't I want to just i'm go to wrap things up fairly soon, partly because I want to partly i want to ah leave it in a way that you'd want to come back on again. I could talk to you forever. I did have one somewhat indulgent question to ask. ah the the um part Part of this is a music hypothesis, and also I have, you know, it' some personal because I like this other. Now you mentioned that, ah and again, I didn't listen to all the episodes of Underwater Sunshine, and I will at some point, um that you don't like the bad mouth, any any bands, and right, you keep things ah positive.
01:18:21
Speaker
Sometimes i I've heard Adam interviewed a lot and on your podcast about his influences and all these 70s and 80s and even 60s influences on his work and and he has such great takes on it. Sometimes I feel I don't i haven't heard enough about his takes about his 90s contemporaries. Um, and certain, and I'm not talking about Pearl Jam or that kind of thing. and So, so one that I always wanted to know, because when you mentioned some things that you like particularly about Adam is kind of why like Billy Corgan, I always wanted to hear what his thoughts were on the smashing pumpkins because I see a lot of.
01:18:54
Speaker
personality similarities um which is like like even this week uh because it comes up in my feed now i don't i like the crows more i'm more of a crows fan but just this week um billy told his fans like do you realize how good taylor swift is like he issues an amazing right and adam got into that like a year ago about how great taylor swift was they've both wrestled with like they didn't just want to be a greatest hits And we're kind of resentful of the fans for a little bit. And now both of them have a nice balance where they say, OK, we're going to play some of the greatest hits. We're going to play some deep cuts for hardcore fans. And we're also going to introduce new songs. And not a lot of bands do that. I remember seeing Fleetwood Mac when they were kind of in there like post boom. And they basically only played greatest hits and maybe one new song. Right. That's one thing I like about them. Both are pretty stubborn and done that have done a lot of hard right.
01:19:43
Speaker
Turns like Adam's like yeah, I could keep making August, but I want to challenge myself He wanted to challenge and and so anyway, I just uh, anyway I don't I don't know if you've ever made but but I kind of maybe if you do the podcast again I'd love to hear or even I don't know Dave Matthews band which is not, you know, the jam band But I've just never heard him talk now, of course They couldn't influence him as much because they were contemporaries. But anyway, I don't know if you have any thoughts about that I do one thought and uh, I will say that if you ever stumble on the conversation of Kurt Cobain with Adam. Yes. There's a nerve there for soon. They were on the same label. They had the same management or agency or something to that effect. I could hear him correcting me now if he's listening. um you know They had the same battle with you know some
01:20:32
Speaker
mental issues of wanting to be famous or how they'd be famous. They wanted their music to be heard, but there's a lot of stuff that goes with that. Yes. And the couple of times that he did meet Kurt and what he felt about him and that music was seminal to ah him I don't think there's any question about it. I think it was very influential and it was very inspiring. And also it lent itself to sort of a cautionary tale for him. ah so ah but ah but And i there's many more, you know, he's talked about Radiohead and wanting to get, you know, the guys who worked on Radiohead to come and work on stuff. Obviously he loved Cracker and and um and' true they loved Camper Van Beethoven and and so many of the artists that he had open for them.
01:21:21
Speaker
Um, you know, obviously he's a huge big star fan. Uh, first thing he gave me was a collection of big star stuff I think we were working together for about two weeks and he just hand he bought it for me and handed it to me So that's what we do You know people like he and I or other people that we call ourselves music geeks We just want to turn people on to the stuff that we're listening to and that's all we've tried to do with that podcast and yeah that's really been our bond beyond working on the book um and Even now it's very rare. I'll ask him about counting crow stuff to specifically unless I want to get you know into the show or see everybody backstage or something But I it's very rare. We're always talking about other people's music. Have you heard this? Have you heard that? I I just sent him the st Vincent record the new one I linked to that which I think is just great Uh other stuff that's come up which I think are you know, ah very important records rosie tucker. I just did a piece about rosie tucker
01:22:10
Speaker
And uh, they're a binary artist that I just reviewed in brooklyn. I'm gonna go see fantastic cat right when we're done here tonight. Yeah Yeah, and uh, he might be there so because he supports all the music but chris I I would say probably nirvana top notch. Yeah, that's funny And I have yeah, but and I did hear him talk about that a couple of chris uh any uh last questions for james for this uh particular episode No, I think we've we've covered a lot of ground. and i ah Thank you so much for for doing this and um we'll we cover more ground hopefully in the future.
01:22:42
Speaker
Yeah, and now that we got all my Michigash out of the way, I'm hoping that we know we'll be able to, the next time if you'll have me on, we could just dive deep into kind of gross stuff and just talk about like the songs and break down lyrics and have fun with that. I'm still at the at the core, a huge fan. And I think thank you guys for doing this. I'm always bopping around my podcast and finding out, is there a Rolling Stones podcast? Is there a... delanpa you know And there's a thousand Beatle ones that I know because I was on like 150 of them because you know I was promoting my book. But yeah, thank you for doing it. It's a great listen. You guys are super cool laid back And you love the band and you could tell just by listening and i'm gonna listen to all the episodes I will make a tanteen with eric. He listens to the underwater sunshine I'll listen to 20 he listens to 97. Okay, that's right fair that that that's but No, it's funny you said that because I actually I think I use Dave and I don't know if they're still all going on but I think as a random I just thought of oh Dave Matthews and I googled and they had like six podcasts and I was actually thinking about some other creative outlets and then I thought and I used to do some radio and then someone even kind of hinted they said is there a kind of I said I don't think there is and then I got ahold of Chris and we just knew that we would have good chemistry and we said let's do it let's jump at it. So more than enough to talk about.
01:23:57
Speaker
Very cool. Absolutely. With that band, yeah, you guys got a lot of work to do. Scratching the surface. Please have me on again. Thank you so much. Thank you for everybody listening to the podcast. I'd read my work and everything, and I hope to see you at the festival in October. Thank you. Of course. Thank you, Dave. We'll definitely have you back down here on Sullivan Street. Thank you, brother. See you next time. Peace.
01:24:30
Speaker
you