It’s early evening in New York as Counting Crows singer, songwriter, and self confessed music lover, Adam Duritz talks about the making of the band’s sixth studio album, Underwater Sunshine (Or What We Did On Our Summer Vacation); explaining how the departure from tradition provided the band with a chance to pay respect to some really great music.

“We’ve always liked the idea of doing [an album of covers]” says Duritz. “As a band, we’ve got a long tradition of interpreting other people’s songs and we like doing that because the truth is, there is lots of great music out there.”

Among the tracklisting are tributes to Gram Parsons (“Return of the Grievous Angel”), Travis (“Coming Around”), Big Star (“The Ballad Of El Goodo”), and even the mighty Dylan and The Byrds (“You Ain’t Going Nowhere”).

“I don’t think the only music you can feel like playing is your own all the time. We’re still music fans, we love listening to and playing other people’s music”.

Duritz reveals the making of Underwater Sunshine had some unexpected benefits too, “it was a really good experience for us as a band in ways that we hadn’t even considered or imagined. We played our asses off on the record and it felt great! But we didn’t really realise how great until we got back out on the road and started to play concerts.”

“We’ve always been a really good live band, but all of a sudden, we were just killing it on stage every night,” enthuses Duritz.

“People were saying ‘man, I’m so glad I came tonight because this was the best show you’ve played in years!’ and I’d be thinking ‘well, yeah, but it wasn’t as good as last night’!”“…saying ‘man, I’m so glad I came tonight because this was the best show you’ve played in years!’ – I’d be thinking ‘well, yeah, but it wasn’t as good as last night’!” – Adam Duritz

The frontman attributes the band’s rediscovered energy to the work that went into playing the songs for the album.

“The band really stretched out with this record in a way that we wouldn’t have if the songs were just my songs,” he says, “and that really paid off, not just in playing the covers, but [also] in the re-interpretations of our own songs,” the result being an album and ensuing collection of live performances that really hit the mark.

A truly collaborative effort, the gathering of potential songs for the album yielded some brilliant and unexpected finds, and also, quite fortuitously, provided the opportunity for some new music to make an appearance on the record.

“Immy (Guitarist, David Immerglück) bought in 5 or 6 songs, and one of them was a demo by Coby Brown for a song called “Hospital”, and all it really had on it was acoustic guitar and bass,” says Duritz.

“As I listened to it, I had an idea for how we could do it, so we worked on that song and it actually came out on Underwater Sunshine before it came out on Coby’s own record.”

Speaking with Duritz, the energy and desire he exudes to connect and share with people is palpable. An avid and prolific user of social media, Duritz embraces the opportunity it provides to engage and communicate directly with fans.

“[It’s] not a new thing for me. I remember being on my computer back in the mid-nineties and I found AOL (America On Line),” recalls Duritz.

Noting it “had message boards for all these different bands, including a forum for Counting Crows. So I wrote a couple of things on there and people responded and it occurred to me ‘wow, you could talk directly to your fans, you could get a dialog with your fans right here whereas before, you always had to go through someone like your record company or a radio station.”

“The thing about this media was that it changed the dynamic because it allowed the chance to communicate directly, and that made sense to me,” concludes the singer.

Ever since the mid-nineties, Duritz has actively engaged with social media as a means of connecting with people and to discover new music, striking up friendships with other musicians, bloggers, and fans right across the globe.

Hailing music bloggers as “the last bastion of people really talking about music,” he offers, “for the last 10 or 15 years, a lot of the magazines were writing very ironically and cleverly about what they really hate, and while that’s a lot of fun to read, it doesn’t really help you find good music,” he says.

“The last 10 or 15 years, a lot of the magazines were writing very ironically and cleverly about what they really hate… it doesn’t really help you find good music.” – Adam Duritz

“But I found out there was this whole indie underground of musicians and bloggers, who were all talking about music they really love, which is what musicians are like.”

Discovering new music is an important aspect of Duritz’s online experience, with he and close friend Ryan Spaulding, developing and touring “The Outlaw Roadshow” – a platform for showcasing emerging bands, predominantly discovered online.

Duritz and co-host Spaulding also prepared the Roadshow for Austin, Texas as part of South by South West (SXSW) festival.

Together, the two hand picked over 30 new and emerging bands to perform during the festival, sharing the music discovery experience with a global audience.

Buzzing about the opportunity, Duritz notes, “[we] get to spend the week hanging out and watching bands, listening to new music, it’ll be awesome!”

Australian fans will soon get the chance to see Counting Crows play some of the songs from Underwater Sunshine at the Byron Bay Bluesfest later this month, followed by a national tour.

The band will then head off to Europe where they will finish the international leg of their tour in the U.K., before heading home to the States.

Speaking candidly about what’s in store for the rest of 2013, Duritz says, “I really want to write this year.”

How so? “I’ve got a number of pieces of music that are not finished songs yet, but they’re in progress, and so I want to come home from this international tour and finish writing those songs and get ready to write a record in the (northern) summer and fall.” Great news for the fans who can’t wait to hear it!

Underwater Sunshine (Or What We Did On Our Summer Vacation) is out now via Collective Sounds.
Counting Crows play the 24th Annual Byron Bay Bluesfest this Easter weekend, set times here and details below. They also play headline shows around the country in March/April, dates and details below.

Counting Crows 2013 Bluesfest Sideshows

Tickets on sale from www.countingcrows.com orwww.livenation.com.au

Brisbane – March 27th 2013
QPAC Concert Hall

Melbourne – March 30th 2013
Hamer Hall

Melbourne  – March 31st 2013
Hamer Hall

Perth – April 3rd
Concert Hall

Adelaide – April 6th
Her Majesty’s Theatre

Sydney – April 9th SOLD OUT
Sydney Opera House

Sydney – April 10th
Sydney Opera House

Also appearing at Bluesfest, Byron Bay, on Thursday March 28

Bluesfest 2013 Tickets & Dates

Tyagarah Tea Tree Farm, Byron Bay
Thursday March 28th – Monday April 1st, 2013
Tickets: www.bluesfest.com.au
ph: 02 6685 8310

For more scheduling details head to: bluesfest.com.au

Download the program app here


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