A chat with ... Counting Crows' Adam Duritz

Whitney Matheson | USA TODAY

Get ready to feel old: This year marks the 20th anniversary of Counting Crows' platinum-selling debut, August and Everything After.

And while thousands of bands have come and gone since 1993, interestingly, this one has never stopped recording and touring. Right now they're on the road with another act popular in the '90s, the Wallflowers. On a break between shows, singer Adam Duritz called me to chat about the old days, music bloggers, his influences and other stuff:

Hey, Adam.

Hi, Whitney. Sorry I'm late — we were out on the bus, and I suddenly realized I had no idea where to go. We were parked in a parking lot miles away from the hotel. We're at some kind of resort ...

Oh, no problem. So you're touring with the Wallflowers right now. Your history with those guys must go back pretty far, right?

Well, I met Jake (singer Jakob Dylan) when I was bartending at the Viper Room ... 1995, '96? We did some tours together back then, but I hadn't seen those guys for awhile.

Wait a minute. You were bartending after your album became huge?

Yeah. The only people I knew in L.A. were the people who worked at the Viper Room, so that's where I would hang out. It was fun.

Wow. Well, I know the Wallflowers took a few years off, but Counting Crows have been together all this time. That's a pretty impressive.

I don't know. I mean, it's a job. It's such a weird lifestyle; for months at a time you're on the road, and then there's nothing to do for a month, then you're writing. With any sort of self-employed lifestyle, you can work wherever you want, as long as you're willing to work all the time. That's the way it seemed to me. When I was a kid, I felt like I was a really lazy person. (Laughs) As I got older, I turned into a workaholic.

You're pretty interactive with your fans on Twitter. Obviously, they enjoy it, but what do you get out of the time you spend on social media?

It always seemed like a good idea to me. I can remember when I moved to L.A. in '95 discovering that AOL had a message board with different bands, and there was a Counting Crows board. I remember thinking, I could talk to people directly. So I started doing it.

It was always set up so you had to go through intermediaries: You had to go through a record company to put your records out, you had to talk to the press to talk to your fans. If you wanted people to hear your music, you had to put it on the radio. The thing about the Internet that occurred to me even back then is you could communicate directly with people.

I noticed there's a fake Adam Duritz on Twitter. Is that flattering or irritating?

I think he's f---ing hysterical! It's embarrassing because he's making fun of me, but he's really clever about it. I don't think he'd have half the amount of followers if I didn't constantly retweet him. Actually, I met him once. He came to a gig.

How you discover new music? Do you just hear about it through friends, or do you use blogs or places like Spotify?

I do a lot of work with independent bands. My friend Ryan Spaulding who's a blogger — he does Ryan's Smashing Life — he and I have been putting on these indie showcases for the last three or four years at CMJ and South by Southwest. We put on about 70 sets of music at South by Southwest this year, and we'll have three days of bands (at CMJ this year).

I think the bloggers are kind of where the future's at. I think a lot of journalism turns into people ... they kind of learned the wrong lesson from Lester Bangs. They write clever, ironic articles about what sucks. Which is funny, but not very helpful in finding new music. But bloggers are just talking about music they love, and there are so many of them that are so good.

Like which ones?

Katie Darby Recommends is a really nice blog. I Am Fuel, You Are Friends is pretty great. And what's the Bees one?

Muzzle of Bees?

Yeah, he writes really good stuff, too. There are so many great things out there you can just drown in music these days. And it's so possible to survive in a band and thrive — I have friends who have never signed to a major label who have made five albums. That was almost unheard of back when I was growing up.

Your band has performed a bunch of covers over the years. Have you ever heard a good cover of a Counting Crows song?

Yes. Dashboard Confessional used to do a version of our acoustic take on Angels of the Silences that was really cool. And one of the coolest things I saw was Panic! at the Disco, in the middle of one of their songs, put in part of Round Here. They didn't even pull the (album version), they pulled, like, an improv I'd done at some concert. They must've listened to a bootleg.

What's the last great band you saw?

Well, the (showcase we put on) at South by Southwest was incredible. This band Fantasmes from Puerto Rico is like this Latin version of Television. They flipped me out. They started this circular groove going with all these guitar parts weaving in and out of each other, then the band just kicks in … oh, my god. I saw them twice.

Your tour ends in a few weeks. What are you plans after that?

I'm trying to write right now, and we're going to record in the fall to start working on a new record.

Nice. By the way, the other day I was listening to the Slacker radio station you programmed. A bunch of good bands are on there, like the Pixies. Do you know them personally?

Oh, yeah, David Lovering, the drummer, played with Cracker when we were starting out. But also Gil (Norton), who produced Recovering the Satellites and Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings, was the Pixies' producer for years, so I met those guys through him. I'm a huge fan.

Big Star is on there, too. Did you listen to them growing up?

They were maybe the biggest influence of anything on me. I read about them when I was a kid. You couldn't find those records in America anywhere, but I went on a trip with my parents to England when I was a kid, and I had a list.

It sounds silly, but Pet Sounds was impossible to find when I was a kid. Fairport Convention, the Modern Lovers, Billy Bragg ... I went searching through every record store in every town in England I went to, and I ended up coming back with about 50 records, including the Big Star records. I went home and listened to them all for years.

You know, when Big Star reunited in the '90s, we played a show with them. I wandered into Ardent on our very first tour of Memphis, and who's hanging out but (Big Star drummer) Jody Stephens! We ended up talking, then a few months later, they played San Francisco and we got a call to open for them.

I said OK, as long as we could go under an assumed name — I didn't want the concert to fill up with Counting Crows fans. So we went as The Shatners. I met Alex (Chilton) that day. New Orleans used to be my home away from home, so I'd always see him. He was such a nice guy to me, and I was always so shy around him. It was very upsetting when he passed away.

That's a great story. Well, thanks for your time, and good luck on the rest of the tour.

No problem. Thanks, Whitney.