Adam Duritz of Counting Crows interview: ‘People are open to our weirdness’

The Counting Crows’ song “Mr. Jones” put the band into the pop stratosphere in 1993, but if frontman Adam Duritz had his way, he wouldn’t be fielding constant requests for the hit on a nightly basis.

“We just made a whole record [’August and Everything After’], and at some point radio decided to play one song,” Mr. Duritz told The Washington Times of the album that went seven times platinum. “And people know it, but that doesn’t make it any more special to us than anything else on the record.

“I mean, I love ’Mr. Jones.’ I’m really proud of writing it, [and] I think one of the reasons I do love it is that we don’t necessarily play it every night, so I don’t have to hate it.”

Strong words from the 51-year-old songwriter for Counting Crows, whose two-decade journey with fans brings them to the Wolf Trap Thursday evening. But perhaps Mr. Duritz’s keeping the radio hit at arm’s length shouldn’t surprise considering that his approach to recording and performing has been an anything-but-conventional ride.

When record companies first came calling in the early-’90s, Mr Duritz said he and his bandmates left “millions of dollars on the table” in order to sign with Geffen, which promised creative control but a paltry advance.

“For that we had to give up the whole big-money advance,” he said. “I think that was $3,000” for each of the band members. “Which, considering there were millions of records available, was not much.

“But it allowed us from the very beginning to do whatever we wanted, and we’ve been doing that ever since. We’ve literally had no record company interference for 20-odd years.”

The band’s output has been spotty, with only seven albums in over 22 years, the most recent of which was 2014’s “Somewhere Under Wonderland.” One reason for the slow process may be Mr. Duritz’s ongoing battles with mental illness. Last year the New York Post reported he suffered from “depersonalization disorder, a mental illness where sufferers feel disconnected from their own thoughts and body.”

When asked if his songwriting process has perhaps altered over the years, Mr. Duritz said: “Probably, but I don’t know if I’ve noticed it. I’ve never really had a rule about how to write; I’ve just done it when i’ve done it. I’ve done it by myself; I’ve done it with other band members.”

A changing industry

The economic models of the record business have been turned topsy-turvy thanks to the Internet, streaming and the vast decline of sales of physical albums. Mr. Duritz says this begets both the blessing and the curse for contemporary musicians.

“For those of us who are making money in the music industry, we lost 50 to 70 percent of our income without a doubt,” he said. “It’s not a terrible time for the record business, it’s a terrible time for the record companies.”

Of the labels themselves, he reserves little judgment.

“They were largely terrible. We did really well … but the truth is they failed with 99 percent of the bands out there.”

Mr. Duritz said the problem in the early 1990s wasn’t the lack of talented bands being signed to recording contracts, it was the lack of support signed bands then received from their labels — typically leading to a quick rise and even swifter downfall for one-hit and otherwise completely forgotten artists.

“The graveyard for bands was never really bands that were unsigned; that’s a myth,” Mr. Duritz said. “It was bands that got signed and got shelved or stuck. And it was nearly impossible back then to be an independent band” due to the economics of self-producing and -distributing an album.

Enter the digital medium, where anyone with Pro Tools and a website can instantaneously share his or her artistry with the world — if only someone would listen.

“Back when I was younger, there were very few bands that survived more than a couple independent albums. You either got signed by a record company or you got singed by a major,” Mr. Duritz said. “But now I have friends who have made seven records … and they’ve never been signed.

“That means, as a consumer, it’s kind of a golden age for music because there’s so much out there.”

It’s a double-edged sword, he said, because while the ability to write, record and distribute digitally has greatly democratized the music biz, it has greatly limited artists’ earnings.

“From my perspective, it’s killed the business,” Mr. Duritz said, again neglecting a saccharine coat to the bitter pill. “But I’d have to be pretty blind … to the fact is there were very people in my position making money. Most people were just getting screwed. For them, largely it’s a lot better now.”

However, technology also allows Mr. Duritz and his bandmates to record song ideas from the back of the tour bus simply by whipping out an iPhone. “God of All Tide” from “Somewhere Under Wonderland” was first realized in a primitive form with Mr. Duritz doing humming his phone’s voice recorder.

“It’s the middle of the night, it’s like four in the morning, and all of a sudden there’s a record of me singing something,” he recalled of the song’s genesis as the bus trudged somewhere along the Tennessee-Mississippi border. “And then, about two hours later, it’s me singing the first verse of ’God of Ocean Tides’ exactly how it is now, at like six in the morning.

“I must have been laying there in bed humming it over and over and running it over in my mind, and then, at some point, I just composed the whole first verse. And then I just picked up my phone again and sang it into my phone and went back to sleep.”

Growing with their fans

Some of the Counting Crows coterie has been with the band since the early ’90s, while entirely new generations have come to appreciate the moody music in the 21st century. Part of that appeal to the millennial generation had to do with the song “Accidentally in Love” from the animated film “Shrek 2.”

Mr. Duritz welcomes the music-lovers, no matter their calendar age.

“You can really tell when you play a [general admission] show, because the front row is … generally 18-year-olds, 16-year-olds, 20-year-olds,” Mr. Duritz said, “whereas at another type of show they’ll be older because they’ll have bought tickets and made their reservation ahead of time.

“[It’s] a nice thing to see, because you want your audience to constantly rejuvenate itself.”

Coming home

Mr. Duritz was born in the District, and returning back to the nation’s capital gives him a chance to visit with his sister and nephews, as well as longtime friends from his younger days.

When he and his band were coming up, he said the journeymen troubadours would often wander the National Mall at night, hunkering privately at D.C.’s numerous monuments.

“There are some cities that just look great at night — the way they light up the right way at night — and they’re magical to walk around. Paris is that way too, but D.C. is pretty great that way,” Mr. Duritz said. “It’s amazing to wander around those monuments when there’s no one there.

“We used to just go out all [walking] night because you don’t have much time in a city when you’re starting out, because it’s a long drive [to the next show]. But one of the ways to see a city is to go wander around the middle of the night after a show. We did that, and that was great.”

Mr. Duritz says his band has had especially great shows at the Wolf Trap in the past, and fans can expect more of the same come Thursday evening. He entreats fans to come early to catch opening act Hollis Brown and Citizen Cope.

“I [had] never seen them live, but … this summer [I get] to watch a Citizen Cope concert every night,” Mr. Duritz said, “and I hope people will enjoy seeing them as much as I do.”

When it comes time for the main event, Mr. Duritz remains positive the DMV fans of Counting Crows will continue to embrace the band in their own unique way.

“People seem to be open to whatever weirdness we bring to the [the Wolf Trap],” he said.

IF YOU GO

WHAT: Counting Crows’ Somewhere Under Wonderland Tour with Citizen Cope and Hollis Brown

WHERE: Wolf Trap Filene Center, 1645 Trap Road Vienna, Virginia, 22182

WHEN: Thursday, 7 p.m.

INFO: Tickets $45 to $60 by calling 877/WOLFTRAP or visiting WolfTrap.org