Duritz has fronted Counting Crows for more than two decades. Their debut, August And Everything After, would become a defining document of the alternative rock movement, thanks to the earnest and deeply-heartfelt quality of singles like Mr Jones and Round Here. Duritz has remained a vital force since then, but admits that often, it’s far from easy.
The singer is surprisingly open and self-deprecating about his various struggles. “I’ve had to deal with a lot of mental illness over the years, and that’s hard on everybody,” he says. “It’s hard for me to do some of the necessary stuff sometimes, because my head doesn’t work right. I’m very conscious of the fact that I don’t want to be the one who drags the band down. My inability to work makes things hard sometimes.” Duritz admits that this has been a factor since the early days, and that ironically, his attempts not to put a strain on the band often strain the most. “I mean, me being crazy is probably the biggest problem the band has,” he says with a laugh. “It’s not always good for me to be away, but over the years, I’ve chosen to go off on tour instead of taking responsibility for getting better. A lot of things have dragged on a lot longer than they should because of that.”
Not every band can remain functional for two decades – there are fights and fallings-out, singers go solo, line-ups change drastically. Counting Crows, however, have remained a pretty tight unit, and Duritz insists that this is because everyone in the band is treated as an equal, with money split evenly between all members. “Right from the beginning, I knew that if we were going to do this for the long haul, there needed to be enough money for everybody,” he says. “I’ve seen a lot of bands make that mistake, and I never wanted it to be that way with us, so we split everything, even the publishing money. You can’t have a band where people can’t afford to be in it. The decision is a pretty simple one – do you want more money for yourself, or do you want that guy over there, your friend, to have an equal share so you can stay together and keep playing? If you want to be in a band, you have to make sure everyone does okay.”
Counting Crows consistently go out of their way to ensure that their live show is as spontaneous as possible, and Duritz tells me that when the band returns to Australia, we can expect no less. “We don’t plan the shows too much ahead of time,” he says. “After sound check, around dinner time every night, I send a text out to the band, to the crew, to the opening bands if we’re close friends … everybody on the road with us who could conceivably give a shit. I ask if there’s anything that people want to hear or want to play on that particular night, and then when I hear back, I know what I want to play, so I include all the songs that everybody names, and that’s the set list. It’s good to hear what everybody wants. I mean …” he pauses. “What better song to play on any given evening than the song that somebody’s dying to play?”
This approach, Duritz insists, makes things more exciting for everyone. “I think you owe your audience a great show,” he says. “They’ve paid their hard-earned money to be there, they deserve something great. I don’t think you owe them any particular songs.” Take this as forewarning – you may not necessarily hear all the hits, but you’ll certainly get a vibrant performance. “We’ve been playing a different show every night for 20 years now,” Duritz says. “We even turn it into a game sometimes. If we’re playing two different nights in the same city, the game will be not to repeat a single song in the set. The question is – can we do that? I don’t think a lot of bands could do that. They couldn’t play through two shows with no repeated songs and make it work, but I think we can. I love that about our band.”
BY ALASDAIR DUNCAN
