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Despite over 30 years
of colossal success,

Counting Crows remains

one of the most polarizing bands
in rock history.

In this film, I focused on the first two
Counting Crows records

because I wanted to trace the roots

of what inspired so much adoration

as well as so much vitriol.

A long December
And there's reason to believe

Maybe this year will be better than last

I can't remember
The last thing that you said

As you were leaving

But now the days go by so fast

And it's one more day up in the canyon

And it's one more night in Hollywood

If you think that I could be forgiven

I wish you would

Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah
Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah

Nah, nah, nah, nah

Yeah

Yeah

Yeah

Yeah

A lot of my songs are about
difficult moments in people's lives,

but they're almost always
sort of leavened with the idea of hope.

I know I'm the kind of person
who thinks about things

being hopeless in a lot of situations,
and I especially was when I was younger.

It was, you know,
'cause on top of everything else

and whatever difficulties
you might be going through,

I had a mental illness that was really...

I didn't understand what it was,
I didn't know what was happening,

and I just knew
it was really hard to live with.

It's like, how do you,

you know, move yourself
more towards hope

when you can't sleep

and you can't think clearly.
And then all of a sudden,

you're in front of the whole world.

And it was great
to suddenly have a career.

There are all these things
that came with it

that were just fucking really difficult.

These songs made me change
the entire kind of person I was.

So, they mean everything to me.

Well, I was down at the New Amsterdam

Staring at this yellow-haired girl

Mr. Jones strikes up a conversation

With a black-haired Flamenco dancer

You know, she dances while his father...

I'm grateful for that band,

that kind of lyrical openness,
just saying how you feel.

It's a very brave thing to do,

and you can take a lot of shit
for it as an artist.

I wish I was beautiful

He hit hard with a song
about wanting to be a rock star

at the exact moment in rock history

when you weren't supposed to admit
you wanted to be a rock star.

Mr. Jones and me...

We're at a stoplight,

and these kids in this car
started screaming,

"Counting Crows suck!"

She’s looking at you

I don’t think so, she’s looking at me

When you become famous,
you can't do what you used to do,

and you become isolated.

Man, when everybody loves me

I hope I never get lonely, yeah

If your inner critic is loud
like mine is, like Adam is,

you inevitably go through periods

where you literally don't like yourself.

Believe in me

I don’t believe in anything

What no one prepares you for

is what happens when
your first album is enormous.

You should not believe in me

As Mr. Jones and me
Go stumbling through the barrio

We stare at all the beautiful women

She's perfect for you

There's got to be someone for me

I want to be Bob Dylan

But Mr. Jones wishes he was someone
Just a little more funky

Well, man, when everybody loves you

Sometimes that's just about as fucked up
As you could be

Mr. Jones and me

We don’t see each other much anymore

Mr. Jones.
Who is Mr. Jones, by the way?

Did we ever find out?
Is it James Earl Jones?

Was it Alex Jones?
Was it Indiana Jones?

I'm Jones-ing for an answer,

if you could help me
figure this out.

Who the fuck was Mr. Jones?

-Are my boots in the shot?
-Yeah.

Good, 'cause they're awesome.

We moved to Berkeley,
then Oakland, then back to Berkeley.

It was my first time being in a band
and writing songs and running it,

and it's hard to do that.

I was kind of at a point where
I was trying to find a name for the band.

I had, like, a legal pad
with two columns of names,

like, probably about 60 names.
They were all terrible.

There was one called Bird Circle
and one called Monkey Garden,

or else they were reversed.

I was watching a videotape
of Mary-Louise Parker.

It was, like, one of my oldest friends.

It was called Signs of Life.

That time was really wild.
I'd just done my first movie.

It stars Beau Bridges,
Vince D'Onofrio,

Kevin J. O'Connor.

And there's a scene where Vince and Kevin
are standing on a hillside,

trying to figure out what to do
with the rest of their lives,

and a flock of crows flies up.
And Vince says...

What's that rhyme
about the crows?

What rhyme?

The thing that you say
when you see crows.

-Crows?
-Yeah.

Kevin says,
"I think it was counting dogs."

No, it's not dogs. It's crows.

It's something my mom used
to say, "Counting crows."

I tore the piece of paper off the pad
and threw it in my parents' fireplace

and decided that was our name, you know.

I promptly was told
it was a terrible name.

All band names are terrible
until they're not.

He was playing a show at some
Grange Hall in Berkeley,

and Adam and I started arguing
about records, you know?

I was into Cannes or Captain Beefheart,

and he was talking
about Bruce Springsteen.

I was like, "I'm not a member
of the church,"

and he goes, "What do you mean?"
Couple days later,

there's this knock on my apartment door
in Berkeley at about 11:00 in the morning,

and I open up the door, and,
"Oh, it's that guy Adam."

And he's got this pile of records.

Bruce Springsteen's entire
chronological catalog,

used, that he just bought up
at Amoeba Records.

And he says, "Here, these are for you."

"We'll talk later." You know.

And I just like, "I love this guy."

Immerglück was like...

You know, "Let's see
if you guys can get along."

And we did. We kind of
hit it off immediately.

When we wanted to do some recording,
we went into Dave's studio.

Dave owned a little
16-track recording studio

called Dancing Dog.

This recording project
became a stunning demo.

Dave Bryson was a very
accomplished engineer,

and it sounded like a record.

But, oh, Margery

Takes the blade and walks away from me

We were writing August then.

I mean, Adam really wrote the songs,

but I contributed and wrote
some of the bridges and stuff.

So, when I say we,
I mean he, ultimately.

We found this guy, Alan Leonard.

It turned out to be a big deal.
He was Tom Petty's lawyer,

and he represented
Warner Chappell Publishing.

Yeah, sure. Send me a tape.

A demo should have a song on it,
maybe two, at longest three.

We had 14 or 15 songs
that we sent down to this guy.

His reaction,
which was anybody's reaction

to a 15-song demo,
is, "What a bunch of rubes."

Alan's like, "This better be good,
'cause it's gonna be on for 30 seconds."

But then when you start
listening to it, you know,

half the first album's on it.

Along with a bunch of songs
that I never considered

for the first album,
but they were really catchy

and they were good songs.

It wasn't 30 seconds to throw it away,
it was 30 seconds to call us.

The night he got it, I got a phone call.

"Oh my God. Hey, I'm so excited.
I really want to work with you guys."

"Let me just finish this.
Okay, bye." Click.

Phone rings again.
"This is Alan Leonard."

"I'm that lawyer. You sent me the tape."

"Okay. Okay, sure."

That lawyer passed it
around to record executives,

so everyone was copying it,

and it became a lot of their
favorite demo going around.

We got offers from
every record company there was.

After that, there was a bidding war.

Geffen offered us complete
creative freedom

and a higher royalty rate.

And we traded away
all the money for that.

I mean, all of it.

Geffen was Nirvana, you know?

Geffen was the vanguard
of what was now

the new, cool, enduring,
important thing.

If you were 14, hypothetically,
at the time,

Nirvana changed everything.

One day I was listening
to Poison and Def Leppard,

and the next day I was not.

That's when the '90s started, officially.

At the time, I was living
in my parents' house,

you know, and kind
of breaking their hearts.

I was ready to just go get a little job

and just try to eke out my existence.

I had another career over in software.

I wanted to be an academic

AI researcher,
in artificial intelligence.

Since I was 12,
I knew I wanted to be in a band.

I had no idea how impossible
it was to be successful.

All of a sudden, we had
a major label record deal.

Here we are, this bookish and pudgy
folk rock group from the Berkeley Hills.

You know, how are we going
to sell millions of records?

I assumed we'd make a record.

Maybe we'd do a tour
with tour support in a van,

and then we'd come home.

The band would break up.
Your record deal would fall apart.

There's that Wile E. Coyote moment
where he's flying

and somebody says, "You can't fly."

And he's like, "I can't?"
He drops like a rock, right?

I felt like I could be a rock star, right?

I could just do this.

So, when we went to make
the first record, right,

I told the people at my office that,

you know, "Save my office."
And I thought, you know,

this is going to take, like, four months
and I'll be back at work, right?

But it didn't.

We rented this house up in the hills.

I think it's, like,
the Swiss Consulate now.

It was perfect.
It had a big main room,

which we could record in.

T-Bone Burnett is one
of the great producers,

and we were lucky to have him.

First of all,
he's named T-Bone Burnett,

which I think is, like,
75% of his authority,

of his greatness.

It's just like,
"This is our producer, T-Bone."

It's like, "Yep."

We played a lot of poker.
T-Bone loved to play poker.

And there was, like,
one of the first massage chairs

I'd ever seen, right.

T-Bone was always in that chair,
always on the phone.

"Love what you're doing.
Keep doing it."

"Just keep doing it.
Love what you're doing."

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

He said, "We made a demo
that sounds like an album."

"Now, you have to make an album
that sounds like a demo."

As much as we were making
our first record,

we were also in discovery mode,

trying to figure out who we were.

I thought we needed to get in a circle
and listen to each other

and learn to play as a band.

I made everybody...

change.

Dave Bryson had played kind
of Stone Rose's affected guitar

with a lot of effects,
and we got rid of all those.

Matt had been playing
a fretless bass.

We made him get an old Hoffner
and an old Vox.

Charlie had been playing some synths,

but we said, "No, just piano
and B3 for this record."

As musicians...

I'll just say, I wasn't ready for it.

So, when we were making
that first record,

I was scared out of my wits.

I was not sure that I could deliver

what this record deserved
or what it needed.

In fact, I was sure I couldn't.

I made everybody's life miserable.

I mean, I think everybody
in the band quit at some point

during the making of that record.

It was a difficult transition
going from being a 50/50 partnership

to Adam calling the shots.

I remember when he told me

that this is the new world order,

and I thought long
and hard about quitting.

I really thought, you know...
Can I swear?

-For sure.
-"Fuck it. Fuck this."

Imagine, like,
working your whole life

to get signed,

and then you get signed
'cause you're such a good band,

and your band leader says,
"Yeah, it's great,

but everything
you've been doing is wrong,

and we're going to have
to change everything."

I mean, you'd be thinking, like,
"That guy's crazy."

But after I, you know,

stopped feeling sorry
for myself, I realized,

"Let's just see
where this goes," you know?

In the studio, he would regularly
have really dark episodes

where he didn't know
how to communicate

what it is he wanted,
and he didn't like the way it was.

It just needed to feel a certain way.

I didn't necessarily know
how to tell people what was wrong.

I just knew what it needed to feel like,
and I wasn't very good at it.

And I didn't know how to tell people

to be Counting Crows.

I think I could say this
because I am the exact same way,

that when he is in the act of creating,

he's, like, not the easiest person.

Because he's striving for something
beyond his expectations.

He wants it to surprise him.

He wants it to be better
than what he could imagine.

And he's going to be relentless
in pursuit of that.

And not everybody is like that.

I spent my life in rock and roll.

My whole life, I've been in bands.

And as a front person,

you have to connect with your band,
coming through you.

So, Adam took all this angst
that he was going through

and transcended it through music.

Just down the street from your hotel

Baby

I stay at home with my disease

He doesn't like polished music.
Polishing up is gonna make it worse.

You have to get, you know, your feelings
and the instruments around to a place

where it's not polished.
It's coming out raw,

even though it's the 109th take.

You know, we had to make it real.
It had to hurt.

It had to hurt.

I wanted a song
like "Perfect Blue Buildings"

to be like having a breakdown.

And so I basically had one.

So I try to keep myself
Away from myself and me

Oh, in perfect blue buildings

There's sort of
a rambling intimacy to Adam

where you feel like you're listening,

you're watching somebody work
something out.

And there's, like,
a journaling, you know,

like inner turmoil,

therapeutic sort of feeling,
you know,

that you can get from him
and that you can share with him,

you know, if you get
on that wavelength.

I started writing songs
when I was about 18.

It gave me a place to express myself
that I had been missing all my life.

I always felt like there's all
this stuff inside me.

It doesn't seem to express itself

or show up in all the other stuff
I'm doing during childhood.

It's like this place I go to talk
about all this stuff in myself,

like I'm living here
and it's this place I go to

where I can actually express
all the things I'm feeling.

You know, part of dissociative behavior

is you kind of live
at a distance from things.

The world often seems like
a movie you're watching.

So, you're, you know,
at a bit of a distance from your life.

And the nice thing
about learning to write songs is

I could go really express
a bunch of stuff as opposed to...

One morning, I was 21,
I got a really big glass

and I drank this whole glass of water.

And I thought, "Well,
I feel really strange."

"I feel different. I feel like..."

And as far as I'm concerned,
I was,

It was terrifying, 24 hours a day,
every morning I'd wake up

and I'd be afraid
to open my eyes at first.

I just really wanted it
to be over, and it wouldn't be.

It would just go on, and on, and on.

That's the beginning of when I thought,

"Okay, there's something
seriously wrong with me mentally

because this is just nothing
to do with drugs. It's just happening."

That's the first time
I started getting medicated

by a doctor because I didn't
even know how to live.

It was so scary, and it wouldn't stop.

While we were making
the first record,

I got a phone call
from my manager, said,

"Hey, Van Morrison's not gonna play
at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame."

"He's getting inducted,
but he's not coming."

Robbie Robertson
was the music director at that point.

And Robbie said, "No, I know this band."

"They're making a record up
in the hills right now."

"They'd be perfect."

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
was built to exclude people.

Every year, there's, like,
"We're gonna let these people in

and not these people."
There's a hierarchy.

There's a way that you get in

and that they come to accept you.

Like, I think about
Robbie Robertson being like,

"Ladies and gentlemen, these guys,"

and Counting Crows appear,
and nobody knows who they are.

And the caravan is on its way

I can hear the merry gypsies play

And I remember when we went to go play,

I had this stupid hat called a mambo sock.

And it's like a cap
that's got a long end to it,

and it tucks itself
through itself in the back,

through the little tie rope.

Gypsy Robin and sweet Emma Rose

I don't know why I'm wearing
that on my head, but I am.

And I've got like this big, heavy coat on.

You know, I get really lost on stage.

And the first time I do
the first, like, "Turn it up."

Turn it up.

I throw my head back
and the hat flies off

the back of my head, but I catch it.

I have enough sense
to keep catching the hat,

but not enough sense

to either get it on my head firmly
or throw it away.

And so it just spends the song

migrating around my head
in different directions,

like forward and back.

It just keeps coming off
and spinning around.

But we played great,
you know, it was great.

I think to this day, we're still
the only unknown band

to ever play at the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

I just kind of heard
one day that, you know,

"Oh, Charlie's quitting all of his bands
and he's going to play in this one band."

And I was like, "That's crazy,"
you know, 'cause why would you do that?

I went and saw them
at the Paradise Lounge,

and just hearing the songs, hearing Adam,
watching Adam perform, I was just like,

"Charlie, if you guys ever need
another guitar player,

I... I'd love to play with you guys."

I took the record home on the weekend

and played it at my parents' house,

and my mom yelled from the kitchen,
she said, "That dude's a whiner."

That was the start of that.

We're up. Master T
hanging out with the Countin...

Countin... Counting Crows.

-How are ya? All right?
-Hi.

All right, fellas, introduce
yourselves to the nation.

-I'm Charlie. Hello, nation.
-I'm Adam.

-Dan.
-Good afternoon, nation. This is Dan.

-Dan, glad to meet you.
-All right.

Let's talk about the dreads.
How long you have the dreads?

About a year.

-Yeah?
-Yeah.

Fresh look.

I've always had troubles looking
in the mirror

and feeling like it wasn't me.

There were some times
that was more disturbing than others,

but it just didn't look right.

It's not how I felt about myself.

What I would see wasn't me.

It didn't feel like the way I felt

to see the face in the mirror.

It just didn't.

But when I got dreads, I did.

It was just like the first time
I'd ever really recognized myself.

And then I spent...

27, 28 years living in that.

You know, and...

I think I learned to be me.

Like, what? Well, it just seemed...

it seemed crazy to me.

Like, why would you do that, you know?

But good Lord,

it became this huge part of who he was,

and he looked great back then, you know?

But the shock of it was like,
"Are you kidding me?"

Like, "This is where we're going? Okay."

I bought one of his dreadlocks on eBay.

I planted it, and I'm hoping
to grow another Adam Duritz.

I've known him a long time.

I met him about 20 years ago
in Washington Square Park.

I thought he was Ani DiFranco
and I started hitting on him.

Why did you even ask me to do this?

I'm just gonna make fun
of Counting Crows the whole time.

Is this really what you want?

When Counting Crows first hit,
I was a writer at MTV.

I was working at 1515 Broadway.

MTV was the place.
You had to be on MTV to make it.

MTV told you what was cool.
MTV told you who you were.

You know, and maybe you went
in the Yo! MTV Raps direction,

maybe you went in the
Headbangers Ball direction,

maybe you went
in the 120 Minutes direction.

120 Minutes
was the kind of indie show

that was on every Sunday
from midnight to 2:00 in the morning.

Geffen got a call from MTV,

said, "Where's the video
for Counting Crows?"

Geffen said, "Which song?"

The people at MTV were like,
"What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"What do you mean, which song?
It's your album."

The hit, 'Mr. Jones,' you know?"

Like, "Oh, okay, yeah, we'll make that."

My managers had this really genius idea.

You know, nothing gets released
between Christmas and New Year's.

There's no charts that week,
so they don't release anything.

No songs, no records.

Nothing comes out then
because you can't chart.

They had this idea that no one's
giving anything to MTV in that week.

So, if we give it to them that week,

they'll put it right up
on 120 Minutes for sure.

-I'm Charlie.
-I'm Matt.

I'm Adam.

-And we're...
-Yeah. We're...

-Counting Crows.
-Yeah, we are.

MTV was on,
and I heard that beginning riff.

I went, "Oh, this is Adam.
This is going to be Adam."

Sha-la-la-la, la-la-la

So come dance this silence
Down through the morning

Sha-la-la-la-la

Rock stars of the early
'90s taught me, you know,

what rock stardom was and how it felt.

And what they told me
is that it was terrible.

Trent Reznor holding
the microphone with both hands.

And this, "My head is so heavy
with the weights

of my rock stardom."
That's Trent Reznor.

Whereas "Mr. Jones," it's like this.

Mr. Jones and me

He understands that the thing he wants

will probably destroy him.

The darkness of this song
is immediately apparent,

and is only sort of darkened
by the bounciness

of the presentation.

Coming through in stereo

When everybody loves me

I will never be lonely

"Mr. Jones" is about dreaming
about being a rock star,

but it's also about
how it's not going to turn out

to be what you think it is.

I mean, when he keeps saying,
"When everybody loves me,

I'll never be lonely," you're supposed
to know that's wrong,

and it's not just about dreaming,

that it's about an emptiness
in there, too.

Which doesn't invalidate the dream.

Dream is great,
but nothing solves everything,

just like being a rock star
doesn't fix it all.

You've got to fix your shit yourself.

We’re gonna be big stars

The lucky thing was
that sometime in that fall,

we had played Irving Plaza
opening for Cracker,

and we had a great show.

And they pushed us back
on stage to do an encore

as an opening band,
which just doesn't happen.

In the audience that night
was Marcy Klein, Calvin Klein's daughter,

who was the booker
for Saturday Night Live.

They called and asked us
if we'd be on the show after that.

They said, "'Mr. Jones' first,
and then maybe 'Round Here,'

but they both got to be cut down."

You know, there are two songs
on Saturday Night Live,

and one is...
the difference in viewership

between one and the other is massive.

I really wanted to play "Round Here,"
and I wanted to play the whole song,

and I thought it was the thing
that would define us for people.

"Mr. Jones" is a great song,

but it's a lot like a lot of other songs.

"Round Here" is not like anything.

They disagreed.
They wanted us to play the hit.

Finally, Saturday Night Live agreed.

We could play "Round Here,"
and then we could play "Mr. Jones,"

and we could play them both
at the full length.

You do a rehearsal, then you hang out
and don't leave the building.

I was so overly excited,

I couldn't relax,
I couldn't look anyone in the face.

We'd never been on TV before.

Everyone seemed like a gigantic,
famous person.

The very first day we got there,
they're like, "Oh, by the way,

I gotta tell you, just to get
the scheduling right,

we've actually rethought
a bunch of this stuff,

and you're gonna play 'Mr. Jones' first,

and, well, 'Round Here'
will be the second song."

"And...

you're gonna need
to cut probably a minute

to a minute and a half
off of each song."

Basically, everything we'd agreed on
was thrown out the window.

And I said, "No, we have an agreement.
You promised us this."

They said, "Yeah,
we can't do anything about it."

"It's just, you know, with TV shows."

And I said, "No."

Adam just said, "No,
we're not going to do that."

And was threatening just to walk.

Which, you know, takes a lot, given--

I mean, anybody would die to have a break
on Saturday Night Live.

It's the biggest moment in our lives.

And we've got to do it the right way.

Otherwise, I don't wanna do it.

I can't imagine that everybody thought
it was a good idea to fight over that.

I'm supporting Adam here.
I'm not, like, blaming him.

But in the times he's done
that over the years,

he's pissed a lot of people off.

He's in charge of the band,
and he makes decisions.

He doesn't really consult anybody.
It's his thing.

One of the reasons
we've stuck together so long

is because we all accept that.
Yeah. It's okay.

Sometimes it's not okay,
but mostly, it's okay.

Ladies and gentlemen, Counting Crows.

Step out the front door
Like a ghost into the fog

Where no one notices the contrast
Of white on white

It's easy to lose concentration,
and all of a sudden, you go clunk,

and it's there to get replayed
over and over and over.

And, like, we all knew that.

If we didn't discuss it, you just know it.

I walk in the air between the rain

Through myself and back again
Where?

All I could think about was,

"I'm gonna go do the thing
I do really well, like,

and it doesn't matter
about the cameras."

Round here, we always stand up straight

Round here

Something radiates

And Adam, of course, was electric

and you put Adam in front of a camera,
and he comes to life.

Suitcase in her hand

She says she'd like to meet a boy
Who looks like Elvis

And she walks...

That song has such drama,
you know, and as we played it,

I was so lost. Just gone.

Like, I mean, it just built
to this huge climax.

She must be tired of something

Round here

She’s always on my mind

It was like a rocket ship.

There's a part
where he just goes, like,

to another level at the end.
And, I-- I screamed at him on stage.

I was, like, screaming, like, "Yeah, go!"

We stay up very, very, very late

I can't see nothing

Nothing

Round here

Will you catch me if I’m falling?

Catch me 'cause I’m falling down on you

I said I’m under...

I think we really played it
as well as we possibly could have.

And it was on live TV.

Round here

I thought we had just played

a fucking spectacular version
of that song.

Marci Klein was up in the balcony
with Gary when we played it.

And she said, "Boy, your band?"
He says, "Yeah."

She goes, "They're really great."
He says, "Yeah."

"Your friend, Adam..." "Yeah?"

"He's a fucking asshole."

We've never been
on Saturday Night Live again.

Never. But it made our career.

This is their debut album here.

It's entitled August and Everything After.

And I'm telling you something,
if you don't have a copy of this,

there's something wrong with you.

The two weeks
following Saturday Night Live

were the first headline shows we played.

Those few weeks
were, like, the best tour ever,

because we could do anything
on stage we wanted to.

That whole period was crazy surreal.

Being in a van in Sacramento,
listening to the radio,

and then we came on the radio.

And we just went nuts, you know?

And we just plowed ahead and, you know,
it's just this great period of our lives

of becoming a big band.

It was a crazy time.

It was unstable, but just thrilling.

Being on stage with Adam
was, like, really exhilarating,

because I'd never even come close
to playing music with anyone like Adam.

Some people have it,
some people don't.

Adam had it.

We were just getting bigger
and bigger, and bigger,

and now we're opening for The Stones.

I don't think you grow up
and dream of opening for people.

I mean, you grow up
and dream of being a musician

or being a songwriter or whatever.

I mean, I will say this, though.

What Mick Jagger was doing at age 20,

it made me want to get up
from behind the piano and,

you know, be a singer
and just stand up and sing.

August and Everything After
came out in 1993, so I was 17.

The only bands I really knew
were Nirvana and Pearl Jam

and Sound. All the grunge.

But it just had this, kind of,
exotic, desert-y,

open-plain freedom of spirit

that I think for 17-year-olds
just felt like,

"Wow, how do I get
to that state of being?"

I don't think
we understood much about,

you know, the daily torture
of Adam's life or anything.

I think it just sounded like
a free spirit flying.

I can picture that album cover,

August and Everything After so clearly,

it was part of the quilt
of alternative rock.

It seemed immediately important
and immediately huge.

The sullen, the literary,
journaling teenager, you know,

like, this is your shit right here.

We got to Europe,

and Rolling Stone had decided
to put us on the cover.

But I was dicey about that,
too, because even though,

obviously, you gotta go
on the cover of Rolling Stone,

I couldn't help but think
what my life was gonna be like after that

and how much it would change.

Because I was very shy.

I was assigned to go over to Paris

and do a cover story on them
as things started to explode.

But I think I fell in love with the record

on a, like, all-night flight to Paris.

I couldn't sleep,

and I just listened over and over again.

And that was when the album hit me.

I became that rare rock critic
that loved Counting Crows

and still does.

It's hard to describe to people now,
but magazine stands were everywhere,

and Rolling Stone was in the front

and they had like a whole rack
of Rolling Stone.

And that's your face
on every street corner,

in every airport,
in every bus station in every--

Everywhere.
Your anonymity is fucking gone.

And I couldn't help thinking
about the-- there were real repercussions

to saying yes to that, even though
there's no way you're saying no.

The entire photo shoot
in Paris was useless.

I looked like a donkey.
Like, I was so fucking mopey.

The whole band,
everyone was furious at each other, too.

It was raining, the weather
was fucking horrible,

and nothing came out.

It was terrible.
They're all in black and white,

and we're like...

Like, fuck, it's rock and roll.

Black and white pictures
of people moping, theoretically,

are exactly what you want.

After all, we're dark and sad people.

But it's so bad
that you can't even use them.

They look like a joke about moping,
like a parody of a band.

My memory is we had this amazing day,

sort of, just walking around Paris,

and when we got back to the hotel,
we were sitting in the lobby,

and I think that's when Adam got the call.

The woman at the front desk said,

"Is there an Adam Duritz here?
Can you pick up the courtesy phone?"

And it's Gary Gersh.

He was the president of Capitol,

and he left before we finished
mixing the record,

but I was still like his little brother,

and his other little brother
was Kurt Cobain.

Hi, I'm Kurt Loder with MTV News.

Nirvana leader, Kurt Cobain,

an extraordinarily gifted singer,
songwriter, and guitarist,

was found dead in Seattle
on Friday morning,

apparently a suicide.

It was this big and horrible moment

for him more than any of us,
because he actually did know Kurt.

I was just a fan.

I had been around, but I didn't know him.

He was very upset when Kurt Cobain died,

and I think it really freaked him out.

We both had some
of the same struggles,

but I'm not handling it well.

It's why a lot of this stuff was so scary

because for me, I knew...
Nobody else knew,

but I knew that
I had a serious mental illness

and there was a big problem.

I'm on all these medications
that are, kind of, for...

I don't think I'm bipolar,

but they're treating me for bipolarity,
and it was scary.

He didn't have any substance issues.

Like he wasn't drinking heavily,
he doesn't do drugs.

I was more worried
that he was just gonna quit.

Adam was trying to put the brakes
on the excitement around us.

And you couldn't stop it.

The first record was a smash record.

You can't just slow it down
if the public's eating it up.

But Adam wanted
to slow everything down.

Success has arrived.

Do you think that you will
be given the time

you need to develop
in your own rhythm?

And do you have
the patience yourself?

-No.
-No?

No, I think it's already too late.

So, the pace has gotten faster?

Yeah, the pace
is a little too fast these days.

For me.

Yeah, so will you be able to take time out
when you come back to America?

-No.
-No.

When we came back from Europe
and we landed in New Orleans,

I went down there to the festival
at the fairgrounds and got mobbed.

I had no idea what was happening,
but suddenly, like...

people, a huge crowd
just surrounding me,

and it's like-- I'd been
overseas while it happened.

I didn't realize that it had...
hit that high-water mark

or something. Like...

But now it was, like, a mania.

But the weird thing
that happened that summer

was that was the change
from playing indie rock shows

to playing mania shows

where everybody just wants
to hear "Mr. Jones."

I feel like it was
at the Greek Theater maybe.

He was like,
"Just come on stage with me."

We walked out, the lights went down,

and, like, the sound...

I've acted on stage my whole adult life,
but not with that many people

and not with that, kind of,
sensation where you walk out

and it's almost like being hit
with a wave.

I can't even... I can't even describe it.

The sound was so overwhelming

and just the feeling of anticipation,
just all, kind of, rushing at you.

I was like, "Oh, this is why he's...
you know, he's struggling."

I started listening
to August and Everything After.

It was automatically,
as soon as I heard it, my favorite album.

I was living in the Bay,
so we became pretty close friends.

But I think Adam and I have
a similar disposition,

actually on the quiet and shy side,

but doing something that, you know,

you're performing in front
of thousands of people.

So, that's a weird thing to reconcile
when people start recognizing you.

On the one hand,
it's incredibly flattering.

On the other hand, it's--
You kind of like your privacy

and you feel a little self-conscious.

Being able to figure that out
as you're expanding

and dealing with that notoriety,
is a weird vibe.

I led the Chainsaw Kittens.

I knew him

because you couldn't not
know him at that point.

I really got to see

how they were massively
overexposed, basically.

We would just be walking

and some random person
would come up

and be like, "You're that guy,"

not absolutely knowing
what the band's name was

or who he was,
but that he was that guy

that they'd seen on television.

There was a movie theater,
like, a few blocks from our hotel.

I sat down in the movies.
There's no one in the theater.

The door opens in the back.

This guy walks to where I'm sitting

and then sits down
right next to me and says,

"Hey, man, are you the guy
from Counting Crows?"

And I said, "Yeah."
And he goes, "it's cool if I sit here?"

I said, "Look, man, I'm just trying
to have an afternoon off."

"I'm just trying to have
a little bit of time."

"Okay, man." He gets up and leaves.

About half-hour later,
door opens in the back again.

Guy comes walking down the aisle.

I'm like, "Man,
can you just fucking leave me?"

And it's not him.

It's just a guy that
was at the concession stand.

Then he said, "Hey, man,
I don't know what's going on,

but there's somebody in the lobby

that's been on the phone
for the last 30 or 40 minutes

calling everyone he knows,
telling them you're here,

and there's like 200 people
outside right now."

I go, "You're fucking kidding me."

He goes, "No, look,
if you want to sneak out,

there's, like, an exit at the bottom."

So, I go out there,
I sneak down this alley,

and I start to walk up the street,

and then I hear this guy yell,
and I had to run for it.

Like, this huge crowd of people
comes chasing me back to our hotel.

And it just freaked me out.

It's like if you woke up
one morning on Mars, you know?

It takes a little while
to get used to the gravity.

I'd hear him complaining about it

and I was like, "What,
you're having success."

"What's the problem, you know?"
And I meet Adam for lunch.

We're sitting at the table, me, and him,

and a couple of other friends,
and this, like,

six-year-old girl
comes walking up and like,

"Excuse me,
can I get your autograph?"

And he goes to reach
for whatever she has,

and suddenly, her mother jumps out

from behind this bush, you know,
and, like, knocks the kid away.

"Oh my God, I'm such a huge fan,
can I get my picture with you?"

You know, it's like, "Oh my God."

That's when I was like, "Oh."

"Oh, I guess it's really--
a lot more's going on

than I thought was going on,"
you know?

In the early days with his dreads,
he was very recognizable.

The "Mr. Jones" video was huge,
which made him, you know,

this person who was super famous.

I mean, he couldn't go anywhere
without somebody recognizing him.

I think our experience
was radically different.

I'm a Little League coach,
and I'm a guy in a band.

Like, I wasn't... I'm still not famous.

I'm just in this famous band,
you know?

So, there's battling with fame
and there's also, you know,

being on the road
for three years, which,

you know, from going from zero
to three years,

which it was a great move
for us to do.

He was adamant about the fact

that we weren't just gonna be
this band on the radio.

We were gonna be
a band you could go see live.

But touring for three years
pretty constantly is,

you know...
That'll do your head in as well.

Travel is reality challenging.

You can't tell
what's real anymore, right?

Everybody's a little
dissociated out on the road,

'cause you don't know where you are.
You don't know what day it is.

You know, you're waking up
in a different bed every day,

and it's a different planet.

And you find that all your memories
are disconnected, you know,

like things that happened a month ago,

they seem like they happened
a couple of days ago.

And then things that happened
a couple of days ago seem like it was--

When was that?
That was weeks ago, you know?

Because you're completely mixed up.

You don't have anything constant
in your life

except the show to keep you going.

So, it's rough being on the road.

There was this era when people wanted
to just hear the hits,

and those people
are not even music fans.

They just want their radio
to happen at their concert.

I think when you go to a concert,
you wanna hear the song

the way you hear it in your head.

You know, you want them to play the hits

exactly as they are,
exactly as you love them.

And Adam Duritz does not do that.

He was making fun of me.

"Pantera Sarah" was started as an insult

and making fun of the fact
that I like metal.

I don't remember.

I thought I gave her
the name Pantera Sarah.

Adam was like, "Oh, Pantera."

And I was like, "Yeah, I like Pantera."

And he's like, "Into heavy metal?"

And I'm like, "At least they put
on a hell of a stage show."

"Can't say the same for you."

I didn't know that.
I don't remember that.

"I saw you in Milwaukee,
walked out after four songs."

It's the first thing I said
to Adam when I met him.

And he was like, "What?"

And I said,
"Eagles Ballroom, you sucked."

"Me and my girlfriend walked out."

And he was like, "I remember that show."

That was during that summer
where I was like...

By the time I got on stage every night,
I was so angry.

The audiences were terrible
to our opening bands.

I mean, fucking terrible.

They care about getting
to us and seeing "Mr. Jones,"

and they're booing the other bands.

And some of them were friends of mine,

and others were idols of mine,
like in Alex's case.

He had a guy named
Alex Chilton open up for him.

Nobody had ever heard of him.

Milwaukee crowds are not very forgiving.

When Adam came out, he was mad.

His friend just got booed off the stage.

He was mad at the way he was treated.

And I remember looking at my girlfriend
after our first couple songs

of him just kinda angry singing

and thinking,
"I don't want this to ruin my love

of the Counting Crows music.
Let's leave."

That experience on the summer tour,
it really made it hard to want to play.

And I kind of had a little breakdown.

We had to cancel a few shows
on that tour at the end of it.

He was very fragile.
He wasn't in any way,

shape, or form
prepared for what happened.

And what happened
was a lot of huge praise

and a lot of huge abuse.

And I don't know
any human being can take that.

There was a legitimate backlash.

I mean, the funny thing is
that during those first four

or five months,
the reviews were incredible.

You know, all these people saying,

"I discovered this band
and they're amazing."

But then it quickly pivoted
to something else.

Counting Crows wasn't particularly loved
in San Francisco.

San Francisco,
very fickle place, you know?

And very provincially
into being cool, you know?

And cool back then meant trying
to sound like the Stooges

or Butthole Surfers or something
like that, you know?

And anything that had any whiff
of commerciality

or being able to sing
in tune was not cool, man.

So, when Counting Crows
actually got so successful,

it was reviled in San Francisco.

Guy walked up to me and said,
"Man, you're so lucky."

I said, "Thanks."
He goes, "No, no, I mean, like,

you're so lucky
because you guys are terrible."

"And you've had all this success and,
like, better bands haven't."

"I mean, it's just--
Does that make you feel weird

to be so shitty and be so famous?"

I was just like, "Man,

who would come up to a total stranger
and just say that to him?"

Yeah, you get flack.

Listen, people used to throw rocks
at me for how I dressed.

I've had people, you know,
tell me to resign,

you know, email me or, you know,

like, "How'd that guy
get my email address?"

You know, that's part of it.

And you really do have to
somehow reconcile

the criticism with the life
that you get to lead.

We have a house in North Berkeley.

It just seemed like there was a party
on our street every night.

Like, it turned
into this whole party scene.

And then I realized
that it wasn't a big party

on our street, it was that these kids
were camped out on our lawn.

They just kind of moved in
on our lawn,

and that's where they were living.

So they could see us
through the windows every day.

And they were pointing us out
through the windows.

And it was, like, I started
to have panic attacks,

like, "I can't do anything here.
I don't know where to go."

"And everywhere I go, it's just an issue."

You start to shy away from everybody

when people are coming up
to you like that.

You know, I was about
to become a shut-in, basically.

So, I got this phone call one day.

It was Sal Jenco and Johnny Depp
calling from the Viper Room,

And they said, "How you doing?"
I said, "Things are okay, you know."

And they said, "What's wrong?"

Because it was probably pretty clear,
and I told them.

They said, "Hang on."

They were mumbling some shit
to each other, and they put me on hold.

So, they said, "Look,
we got you a room at The Bel Age,"

which is the hotel right behind the Viper.

"We got you a seat
on the seven o'clock flight,

Oakland to Burbank.
We're having a party tonight."

"It's Kate Moss's 21st birthday."

"Just come down,
and you got to get out of there."

You got to get out of there now."

So, I left.

That first night, at that Kate Moss party,

at the height of the supermodel thing,

it was every single one
of them in one room,

which is weird to look at.

Like, when you walk
through an art museum

and then you come
upon American Gothic,

and then you go up
on that stairwell on the landing

and there's Georgia O'Keeffe's
Clouds, and it's really famous,

and then it's right in front of you.

You suddenly show up at this party

when you've been
having a terrible week at home,

and there's Elle Macpherson
and every other famous model

that there could possibly be.

And by the way,
meet William Burroughs.

Meet Tom Petty. Meet Billy Gibbons.

Because they're all
in this little room together

in this clubhouse
that Johnny and Sal made.

LA was like a real refuge.

It seemed real magic to me at the time.

Like, this whole town full of dreamers.

Whether their dreams are, like,

shallow, or deep, or artistic, or not.

They didn't wanna do
what everybody else was doing.

And they wanted to go
make something themselves.

You know, dancers, sculptors,
painters, models,

actors, writers, directors, musicians.

Christina Applegate bought me
a Nikon for Christmas

one year, I think '93 or '94.

So, I just took photos,

and you couldn't have cameras
in the Viper Room in those days.

There was no Internet, no cell phones,

and so I, being the manager,

was able to take my Nikon in the bar,

so I have tons of photos.

I always had this little
Olympus stylus camera

that would fit in my back pocket.

And it wasn't really as any grand idea

more than I knew that my friends
were really fucking cool.

And I didn't wanna forget it.

I was Instagram before Instagram.

Because I would take pictures,
go to the 20--

There was like
a 23-minute photo on Sunset.

God, I put
those people in business.

I would usually get either doubles,
or triples of prints,

'cause I would give people
the copies of the ones

they were in a lot of the time,

and then I'd put them in a photo album,
and I'd bring them to the next night

that I promoted,

and they would get
passed around the club.

I was the only...
besides Randall sometimes.

I allowed Randall
to sometimes take pictures,

because I also knew
he wasn't selling them

to the tabloids.

When I was running around
with Adam,

I was the only camera there.

So, if I didn't take a picture of it,

it was just in your memory.

And that's what I think
really makes those special.

I always say that
it was the last good time,

because it was just the beauty of...

being able to hide.

I lived in one
of Christina Applegate's houses

and she was gonna rent out
one of the other houses.

So, I said to Adam,

"Dude, Christina has
a house up for rent."

And I remember driving up
Laurel Canyon with him going,

"Remember this drive,
because this is gonna be

your drive home from now on."

And the next thing I know,
he's moved to the forbidden LA,

where all bad things come from.

All cheese comes from LA.

If you've grown up in the Bay Area,

like, especially Berkeley,
you know, it's like,

"God, it's the source
of all crap," you know?

Of course, everyone who thinks that
has never been to LA, but never mind that.

Except for Randall,
the only people I really knew in LA

were people that worked
at the Viper Room.

Like, I knew Sal, I had met Johnny,

like, Shannon,
and a few people that worked--

They were, like,
the only people I knew,

which is why I only hung out there.

I know so many people
would disagree with me,

but it had something very small,
like Cheers,

small bar vibe to it,
because there were big shows.

Sure, Smashing Pumpkins
or Oasis, or whatever,

but the people that came
five, six nights a week

were like family.

There was, like,
a safety net around people

that hung out there,
and that included Adam.

Shannon was like, "Hey,
I gotta go to the bathroom."

"Do you know how to run the register?"
And I said, "Yeah, sure."

She was like, "Hey, can you just do it?"

And I bartended,
and ran the register,

and then I did it every day.

It was the only place I was comfortable.

I taught him to bartend,

and then he was so good at it,
he would go,

"And the tips aren't for me,
they're for her."

He got to meet girls and people,

and I got to party with my friends,

and make a bunch of money.
And also, I think,

because he could still talk
to people, and not be like,

"That guy from Counting Crows
is trying to talk to me."

It's like, "What would you like to drink?"

"Rum and Coke? Okay.
Eight dollars or whatever."

You know, he could talk to people
and not be in that skin.

I remember hearing someone say,

"Man, that guy looks just like
the Counting Crows guy."

You know, 'cause people
would not think

that the guy on the cover of Rolling Stone
was also giving them an Amstel Light.

We took a lot of time off.

And I remember calling Adam
from San Francisco saying,

"You want to get together and write?
We could get together and write."

And he's like,
"I'm not in a band right now."

We just knew he struggled with things.

We were actually wondering
whether or not we're gonna make

a second record,

because it looked like
he was ready to just quit.

The thought that kept going
through my head was like,

"Is it better to have gotten here,

and then... it ends,

or was it better not
to have ever gotten here before,

to not know what it was like,"
you know what I mean?

I don't even know if this is true,

but I read that Adam went to work in a bar

after the first album,

and I've always held onto that.

In my own way, after everything we do,
I try and do something like that.

I can see he's trying to keep
his feet on the ground somehow.

And to me, that suggests
trying to remember,

"I have to do normal human things too,

to know how to sing about things
other people are going through."

That really inspired me. Is that true?

Okay. Oh, well, the Viper Room.

Okay, so, maybe less grounding than,
like, the airport lounge at Des Moines.

I was never good at-- I'm still not good
at going up and talking to people.

But it kind of didn't matter,

'cause in LA,
they came up and talked to me.

And they weren't just fan people.

In fact, they just were acting normal,
'cause everyone was famous.

And even though I was famous,
who cares?

There's Jack Nicholson.
Who fucking cares about you?

I had Mexican food
with Allen Ginsberg one night.

We watched Adam Ant together.

I mean, what more do you want
out of life?

And then once I was a little recovered,
'cause I needed some recovery time,

it was magic.

And it gave me this world to write about

that was fucking fascinating.

I couldn't wait to make a record.

I had lived
a completely different life that year

than I had ever lived before in my life.

I had been on the road.
I had toured the world.

I was a rock star.
And then I moved to Hollywood.

And I met all these really cool people.

And I wanted to write about it.

And I thought...

"I'm gonna write the fucking greatest
rock and roll album," you know?

I can't imagine the pressure of going

from being an unknown band
that sells seven million copies

of your first record
without trying, you know?

You don't know that
you're gonna do that, you know?

And then you do that,
and then everyone's like,

"Do it again."

This time we got this old
1930s Edwardian mansion

up in the hills by Griffith Park.

So, what's the difference
when you move in here?

It just gives a different sound
to everything?

Well, we could all get
in one room. It's echoey.

We thought that the liveliness
of the room would help.

I'm not sure whether it does,
or it doesn't,

but it'll give it a really unique sound.

Whether it sounds, like,
good or not, I don't know.

-But... it'll sound unique.
-Right.

It had a big entryway
when you walked in

with this big staircase going straight up,
one of those classic, like, staircases.

And then the whole living room area
to the right

became where the band played,
the music room.

I went out and bought everything.

Mic cables and microphones
and tape decks

and headphone systems
and like, crazy amount of stuff.

This is my friend, Jane Pratt.

She used to be the editor
of Sassy magazine

because she's very sassy.

I was between Sassy magazine
and Jane magazine,

and I was doing a bunch of TV stuff.

-This was Jim Morrison's piano.
-No way.

Yeah, yeah.

My landlord left it at the house.

I actually knew the band

from going over
to Adam's house late at night

when he couldn't sleep,
and drinking beers and watching TV.

Sounds like shit.

It's supposed to sound like shit,
and it does.

-Very good.
-Yeah.

We started thinking about producers.

I just had this idea about
a different kind of feeling,

and I immediately thought of Gil Norton.

Okay, do you want us to keep
going through the chorus,

or keep what you did on the chorus?

He'd worked with the Pixies on Doolittle,

which is, like, this incredible record.

It was intentional to be more rock.

Other than Tony Berg,

I feel like everybody else
we talked to at the record company

wanted another
August and Everything After,

and we went in a completely
different direction.

I don't wanna make
After August and Everything After.

Tony?

I think Adam looks at record-making

as the opportunity to express himself.

It's often something he can't articulate.

It's a gut response.

And you know what?
That's how it's supposed to be.

That's the whole fucking point.

When the organ goes, go with it.

-Solo?
-When the organ goes, go with it.

Just... We'll see who wins.

Adam wanted for the second record,
I think, to be a little heavier,

and he wanted a lead guitar player,

because I think being out there all alone

with nothing else to bounce off of
for a singer like him

probably was more
than he wanted, you know?

It's just too much attention.
You're already getting all the attention.

It's like, it's good to have a foil.

I was living up north,

and staying with
a high school buddy of mine.

I was just sitting around
watching the OJ trial,

and this guy was just asking me,
like, nonstop questions.

We'd been on tour
for, like, three years,

and I was just like,
"I gotta get out of here."

So, Adam's like, "Come on down."

-Is Dave in here?
-Yes.

-Yeah.
-Dave's here. Dan's here?

Yes.

-Charlie?
-Everybody's here.

-Yes.
-Matt?

-Yo, yeah.
-Get a bass.

Where's Charlie?

-Yo!
-Let's go.

I'd never really been in a studio.

I'd done one-off recordings with friends,

and like, some living room recordings.

So, it was my first record,
and here it is,

this record that I know is going
to get heard, obviously.

So, I was just trying to,
you know, keep my shit together,

and get through it, you know?

Fuck you, Hollywood!

Well, I guess you left me
With some feathers in my hand

Didn’t make it any easier

Dave Bryson's rhythm guitar

is kind of the salient instrument
on the first album.

Whereas the second album,
you hear Dan and Immy as well.

And Charlie is this constant presence
that smooths things quite expertly.

Usually what will
happen is Adam will come in

with a song and the band
will work on it a lot.

And then Adam will come
in at the end of the day

or the next day and tell us

that we're all horrible musicians
and we should all quit.

And then we work on it,
and finally, he loves us.

It's all about getting Adam to love us.

Oh, you're fired.

I'm fired. That's it. I'm out of the band.

You meet any artist, real artist,

and you'll meet someone
who's wanting to mix it up,

wanting to challenge the listener

or the people
who might have authority.

I think Adam does that very well.

He does it in an artist's way.

It's not abrasive. It's expressive.

"Catapult" starts off the album
with, like,

I've just been sent screaming
into the stratosphere,

and then I came crashing down,
and I don't know how--

I gotta figure out
how to deal with this.

And Recovering the Satellites itself,
which is about picking yourself up

after you come crashing out of the sky.

All of the sudden she disappears

Just yesterday she was here

Somebody tell me if I am sleeping

Someone should be with me here

'Cause I don’t wanna be alone

I wanna be the knife
That cuts into my hand

And I wanna be scattered

From here in this catapult

What a big baby

Won’t somebody save me please

You won’t find nobody home

Adam and I have lived
some kind of weird,

intersecting lives, all of which resulted

in him dating one and a half Friends,

me writing two books about Friends,

and writing the first cover story
about Friends in Rolling Stone.

Adam's a handsome guy in a way.

He's, you know, he's got
a little bit of an ogre vibe,

but... but a guy
that can write those songs.

I guess I'd date him if I was an actress.

When I met Jennifer Aniston,

my friends lied to me,
and her friends lied to her.

They told us both that we were
really into the other.

I didn't know anything about her.
I was busy during prime time.

On a Thursday night at eight o'clock,
I'm not watching TV, I'm on stage.

The craziness was, that was the epicenter
of fame and projection in the '90s.

Every guy I knew was asking me
in the first season of Friends

when I wrote about it,
is Jennifer Aniston single?

Like they thought they had a shot
because TV stars have that value.

They come into your home
and you think,

"Oh, they're just like my friend."

When we were getting ready
to record records,

we would do these shows
at The Viper Room

and we'd work on all the material.

And Jen came to the show, and she's cool,

she's smart, she's really funny,
she's beautiful.

And I was taken.
And she likes me, apparently.

So, there he is dating the actresses

that every rock critic thinks
they should be dating.

He also then steps
into the modern age of celebrity

just as it's exploding.

You know, it's like
that was the exact moment

when Rolling Stone
was sort of competing

with the Us magazine world,
the sort of pop celebrity world.

And he pissed everybody off.

I remember being here once
with Jen and Adam,

and we left.

Adam had parked his Karmann Ghia
across the street,

and the mob scene

of paparazzi and videos was terrifying.

You did not see Kurt Cobain
stepping into like,

the cast of, like,
Sabrina the Teenage Witch

and dating people.

And I think maybe
that gave him demerits

in the church of, you know,
hipness or alternativeness.

The thing is, it's no one's business.

In the course of those years, right,

that I was spending
a lot of time with Adam,

he was probably deeply in love,
maybe four or five times.

He would fall in love very quickly.

My memories of Adam are 98% platonic,

maybe 98.6.

He could have done without a few
of those girlfriends, I think.

Like... like, I could have shaved
a few of those off the list very happily.

Here we have tonight's list.

When we were
doing our second record,

Recovering the Satellites,
he was dating Courtney Cox.

And she's hanging out with us,

or she's on our tour bus with us.

She's painted my fingernails.

You know,
there's repeated references

to her on the record.
You know, she is "Monkey."

She's the girl that he sees
across the hospital room

in "Long December" is Courtney.

That record is very tied
to that relationship.

I don't think the relationship
was the healthiest thing

in the world, 'cause Adam
wasn't the healthiest thing

in the world at that point.

Courtney was probably
my longest relationship,

although I don't know... really

whether we were together
for a lot of it.

We were very, very,
very different people.

And... there were moments

that were absolutely wonderful together.

You know, and there were moments
where it was really hard.

We just weren't
on the same wavelength.

I get it. It's hard to resist
the temptations of fame,

but it's also, it can be quite
a destructive element.

I think he recognized at a certain point
he was becoming,

or at least flirting
with becoming, a cliché.

Keep your private life private.

Save your public persona
for your work.

It helps inoculate you

from the things
that can feel very hurtful

or very personal.

VH1 Storytellers was the sister,

the equivalent of MTV Unplugged.

What differentiated Storytellers
was the storyteller

was supposed to explain to you
what the song was about.

Sometimes, I think songs
like this can be a little trite.

It seems like everybody
who has a big record

writes a song about how hard
a time they're having,

and I think that it's a little hard

to get people to sympathize
with that sometimes,

because it's like, "Oh, okay,
he's famous, poor schmuck."

It's a weird thing, you know?
All of a sudden,

the whole world's different.

People look at you differently,
people treat you differently.

I adjusted, but there was a period
where I had a really hard time.

We were really trying to come up
with complete reworkings

and rewritings
of all these songs.

Taking a song like
"Have You Seen Me Lately?,"

which on record
is like super rockin', right?

Like it's all guitar,
the piano's going...

and it's just...

But now to deconstruct the song,
lays bare the lyrics,

the foundation, you know,

the entire reason for
this song existing, you know.

You don't have the comfort
of the blaring electric guitar

to distract you from the fact
that this is a song

about being miserable,
about being a rock star

for you right now.

Get away from me

Get away from me

This isn't gonna be easy
But I don't need you, believe me

"Have You Seen Me Lately?,"
it's just angry.

That was like the first time in my life
I really experienced that, like,

existing in more than one place
at once.

You know, like, 'cause you live
in your own life,

and then you live
this imaginary version of yourself

in people's imagination of you,

and you live on the radio.

Like, sometimes I want
To hear myself on the radio

Have you seen me lately?

Have you seen me lately?

"Have You Seen Me Lately?"
is specifically about,

like, your relationship with fame
and people's relationship with you

through fame and anger
and a rejection of it, you know?

And what do you think of me now?

Now, that I've said, "fuck you,"
what do you think of me now?

You know, 'cause the idea
that can you tell me

a thing, anything, like a single thing
you remember about me.

And have you seen me lately?
'Cause I'm not that person even anymore.

I was out on the radio

Starting to change
Somewhere out in America

It's raining

Could you tell me one thing

You remember about me?

"Have You Seen Me Lately?"
is the fulfillment of the prophecy,

the dark, terrible prophecy
of "Mr. Jones."

There's the prediction
and there's the culmination.

You know, yep, I got famous.
Yep, I hated it.

Yep, I... I don't know myself anymore.

You know, I don't know who I am,
and you don't know who I am either.

You think you do.
You've seen me on magazine covers.

You've seen me on MTV.

You've seen me
with this or that actress.

And you think you know who I am,
but you don't.

You know, like, tell me one thing
you remember about me.

Just one thing you remember about me

Remember about me

You guys have heard it now
before anybody else, so.

This is called "Walkaways."

I was very excited about it.

You know, also, we have this entrée.

We're not this complete unknowns.

We've had one of the biggest records
in the world for the past three years,

and everyone's gonna listen
to whatever we put out next.

So, as long as it's great, we're fine,

wish is like, obscurity was the thing
you were scared of, not disapproval.

I wasn't worried
about people not liking it.

I thought we'd make
another great record.

You know. And we did.

“I gotta rush away” she said

I've been to Boston before

And anyway

This change I’ve been feeling

It doesn't make the rain fall

No big differences these days

Just the same old walkaways

You know, August
had sold so many copies.

I don't know what it sold at that moment,
six million or seven million.

And I'm like, all the records
are gonna sell seven million.

Like, duh, you know,

this Satellite is gonna sell seven,

it's gonna sell more,
you know, until it didn't.

At the time it was released,
no one paid it any attention,

or they dismissed it
and they didn't like it.

He's a brilliant artist,
and he's delicate.

You know, as tough
as he is on the outside,

you have to handle him carefully,

'cause he's a really good songwriter
and a really great singer.

If you tell him he sucks
in your magazine,

it's gonna affect him.

Someday, I'm gonna stay

But not today

Thanks, good night. Take care.

I would get bummed out on the road.

Reviews come in and they're shitty.

In fact, they're not even shitty,
they're just not talking about us at all.

The reviews just talked
about people you dated,

and they don't have anything
to do with music.

Adam cared about the criticism.
He... he was sensitive.

He's a sensitive motherfucker.

Recovering the Satellites
went double platinum,

I think, two million,
you know, which is not

the success
of August and Everything After.

But to sell two million records, you know,
in 1996, on your second record,

in the midst of this backlash,

you know, with this environment
where everyone is starting to hate you

just because you're too successful.

You know, that's almost more impressive,

you know, than selling
seven million records out of nowhere.

For some people,
Recovering the Satellites,

the second record, it's,
you know, a sophomore jinx,

even though it's a great album
and very successful in its own right.

It's a great record.

It just really crushed me at the time.
Like, I worked so hard on that record.

Part of it was also that I was
really unhealthy then.

I was a mess, mentally.

I thought, this is our last record.

I'm losing this battle
with whatever it is,

and I'm going downhill.

I mean, it took him years
to really get a grip on his diagnosis.

To tell you the truth,
the way I felt is just,

if he needs to cancel a show...

you know, it's a bummer
for the business,

but if it helps you to get through
the rest of this tour,

that's okay with me.

If we have to cancel
the rest of this tour,

'cause you just can't take it,
I get that.

Take some time off,
you know, figure it out.

Wasn't clear what to do
for him exactly, you know...

when it got bad, 'cause it did
get bad sometimes.

The doctor told him he needed
to go into rehab

to get off the drugs he was on.

Prescribed drugs.

And he went, "Nah," and booked a tour.

And we did this whole tour
with him coming off these meds,

crazy out of his mind,
and that was tough.

Catch a boat to England, baby

Maybe to Spain

Wherever I have gone

Wherever I've been and gone

Wherever I have gone
The blues are all the same

I was really struggling
with the mental illness then.

It was dragging me down in a way
that I was having trouble overcoming.

Send up for whiskey, baby
Send up for gin

Me and room service, honey

Me and room service, baby

Me and room service

Well, we're living a life of sin

I think if my songs are about anything,
it's about, you know,

the attempt to at least continue
to feel things

while everything around you
is encouraging you to be numb,

to deaden your feelings.

I think if there's one message
in it, it's that.

I don't really necessarily think
it's possible to be happy.

I'm not sure it's a world suited for that.

At one point
when I was still living in LA,

I was really a mess,

and I was starting to cut myself.

The worst part about it was
that you cut yourself,

and then it seems like it works.

Like that, yeah,
it does release some of it.

So, I should cut myself some more,
'cause that's actually making it better.

And I remember
kind of going through that logic

and thinking,
that's not actually good logic.

Having enough clarity to be like,

"I feel like I'm really doing
something productive here, and I'm not."

So, I called the doctor and said,

"Hey, this is a problem.
I'm having a problem right now."

And I self-admitted
to UCLA Medical Center.

And the day I checked in,
Mariah Carey was checking out.

All over the news was just people
making fun of Mariah Carey.

They did not treat it with respect
or sympathy at all.

They made her, like, a joke,
like she was some kind of mess.

And that would, like, confirm to me,

I'm not talking about this
in the press while I'm,

you know, not in control of it.

I'd had enough venom
directed towards me

to know not to tell
any of those people anything.

You know, at first,
you couldn't talk about it.

You just couldn't.

I think mental illness is wide
and deep in this world

because everybody thinks differently.

And the more we know
about how our brains work,

I think the better off we'll be.

We knew that Adam
had chronic insomnia.

He wasn't closed off about talking
about his mental health.

He was open to being vulnerable about it,

but he just didn't have--
None of us had the language.

To get that much attention that fast,

I feel like it's almost like just...

throwing a bomb
into your brain and saying,

"Hey, I hope this all works out
for you, you know?"

I think it helped a lot getting
a real diagnosis finally.

Having a doctor go,
"Okay, these medications

are probably wrong for you."

"We're gonna switch that.
This is really what's happening."

And finally something
that actually kind of sums it up.

It doesn't go away,
but I know how to breathe and not panic.

I know how to get through things,
and I live with it.

He turned a corner,
and he started working on himself.

He really saw himself at rock bottom
and worked his way out of it.

And it was the best thing he ever did.

And how he rebuilt himself
from that, the work he put in,

huge credit due to him.

I try not to think about it.

I mean, I just, I don't think about it
when we're working.

I do think about it in between.

It definitely soured
a lot of things for me.

You just become such a public joke
that it's a joke everybody makes

and everybody's comfortable
and it's not personal.

Are you familiar with a band
called "Counting Crows"?

Their lead singer is this thing
called "Adam Duritz."

This Sideshow Bob burnout
slept with a primo roster of '90s tail.

There are no match for my lead singer
of the Counting Crows,

Adam Duritz impression,
the albino version.

Round here

Somebody wrote in 2003,

"Having recognized that he will never be
a lean pinup like Enrique Iglesias,

the band's front man, Adam Duritz,
has completely gone the other way."

"He comes out looking
like a barefoot bus driver

with an octopus strapped to his head."

I would wanna see that show.

I'd rather see that than Enrique Iglesias.

"Adam Duritz has a raw nerve
attached to vocal cords."

That's positive.

"Screeching, quivering,
withering, stinging."

"The lead singer of Counting Crows

has never met a pain
he didn't like to exercise

by opening his mouth
and letting it fly."

So, he would read
that as a bad review,

but I look at that as,
like, passion.

So fuck these reviews.

It's just part of what becomes
the popular face of humor,

it's like, you're a diss joke.

And that's the punching bag
we became.

Well, I don't fucking know.

You know, it clearly pissed
a lot of people off.

And maybe some of that
was me going around

telling everyone to fuck off

when they told us to do stuff
I didn't wanna do.

To me, a joke's too far

when it comes from a place
of anger or jealousy.

When it comes from affection,
you can't really go too far.

If I love somebody,
I'm writing as a fan

or heckling as a fan,

it's all good.

But when the intention
is not affection,

that's when a joke goes too far.

Like, I could make fun
of Adam all day.

He knows I love him.

That's why I love
Counting Crows music.

It's like Dave Matthews Band without
all those intricate guitar parts.

No, I love Counting Crows.
It's some of the best music

you'll hear at a CVS at 3:00 a.m.

Did you ever see The Quiet Man?

The John Ford,
John Wayne movie about him?

He's an ex-boxer,
and he goes to Ireland

to try and live in his home
where he was born.

And he gets in this fight
with this landowner

in the area who keeps
getting really angry

at John Wayne's character.

And he tells his, like, right-hand man,
who's his little weasel,

and he's like, "Write a name down."

Set down the name,
the one Sean Thornton.

"Did you write it down?" "Yes."

Well, then strike a line through it.

Death for him.

He always says that. "Now, cross it out."

Like, what am I gonna do,
write names down and cross it out?

It's like I got better things to do.

Just seems like
a waste of my time.

It's a great scene, though.
It's a great movie.

I like playing.

I like... I like to do this.

I mean, it's the only thing
I really like to do.

I used to have nothing
in my life but my music.

And now, it's like the truth is,

I don't live and die
by it like I used to.

It means the world to me
to continue to be creative

and to write songs.

But I'm not dying of misery alone

in a house by myself
with no other outlet except my songs.

I just had a very scary
dissociative aloneness.

And then I had songs,

which were a way
of connecting to the world.

I met Adam in 2017.

He was charming and a little bit shy
and just completely sweet.

Basically, we had dinner
and we've been together ever since.

I feel very protective of Adam.

I've had that worry before

of being relied upon for happiness,

but Adam isn't reliant on me or anyone.

I think that the dreadlocks
were one of the things

people didn't understand
about him and that probably...

was a factor in, like, the way
that the public responded to him.

I think there was a little bit
of, like, ridicule,

and I think there was a fixation
in the media, too,

like, "Oh, this dreadlocked guy
dating this beautiful woman,

like, what's up with that?"

And so, in our relationship,
I came in, he did have the dreadlocks,

and I had the feeling
that whatever they were before,

that they were now
closer to, like, a shield.

I felt like they were a barrier,

and when I could get through them
and see his face, and I...

I just love his face and his...
He's got beautiful eyes and,

like, my favorite smile in the world.

And I always...

gently encouraged him,

like, maybe... maybe you should try...

you know, not having dreadlocks.

I was stunned and so happy for him
because he was happy.

He was ready for a new era.

He was ready to be
a new version of himself

and a more exposed, maybe,
version of himself.

And I was ecstatic for him.

The second record is the record for me.
Recovering the Satellites,

I remember hearing it
from my brother's room. He got it first.

I didn't know what it was.
It didn't sound like the first record.

Like, sonically, it didn't sound
like the first record.

It's got a brashness
that still speaks to me.

It makes me feel, even at this stage,

young and excited about music.

And it's one of those records

that I still listen to
when I need to feel that.

The songs are unmatched,
and they're all consistent

since the first one on the first record
right to the ones...

that he released recently.
So, I just couldn't believe

that somebody
could craft emotion that well.

It changed my life.
I write songs now because of it.

It gave, I think, a band like us
a lot of insight or courage

about was you don't have
to write the fastest, loudest song.

You have to write distinct songs.

They could be quiet, they could be slow,

they could be heartfelt.

Sincerity isn't dead.

Earnestness isn't gonna kill you.

It doesn't have to be ironic,
but it has to be poetic.

He was very willing
to make himself completely open

and vulnerable and tell you
how uncool he felt,

which was--
that was the coolest thing.

The people who loved that first record,

maybe they didn't buy
Recovering the Satellites,

maybe they did,

but no one's ever
stopped loving his songs.

They've never been off the radio.

Let me see.

We're gonna record
"A Long December."

-You on your own?
-Yep.

Okay.

Are you ready? And...

So this is the encore.

Adam's talent
is a lot more important

than hipness,
which is a day-to-day thing.

It's like, fuck hipness.

There's a lot of people
who Adam got less rave reviews than

as the '90s went on,
that no one is listening to now,

that don't have a place
in the heart of generations.

A long December

And there’s reason to believe

Maybe this year will be better
Than the last

Knowing what I know now, I'd say,
as long as what you're singing

is from your heart
and what you really want to sing,

there's really nothing else
to worry about.

Everyone is going to have
a different reaction,

and some people that hate it today
will love it tomorrow.

And the best
Counting Crows music to me

sounds like it doesn't worry
about what anyone else thinks.

It's just telling you his experience
or their experience.

And it's one more night in Hollywood

That I could be forgiven

Wish you would

Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah

Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah
Nah, nah, nah, nah

It is a brother and a sisterhood

of strange people that I have
this thing in common with.

We take the stuff
that goes on in our lives

and we make it into
these weird things that rhyme

as a way of explaining
what we're going through.

And all at once
Look across a crowded room

To see the way
That light attaches to a girl

It's one more day up in the canyons

And it’s one more night in Hollywood

I'm still obsessed with music.

It's not just this place I go to
to express stuff anymore.

It's this place I'm living, and I love it.

I think you should

Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah

Nah, nah, nah

Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah
Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah

Get away from me

Just get away from me

This isn't gonna be easy
But I don't need you

Believe me

Yeah, you got a piece of me

But it’s just a little piece of me

And I don't need anyone

And these days
I feel like I'm fading away

Like sometimes
When I hear myself on the radio

Have you seen me lately?

Have you seen me lately?

Have you seen me lately?

Cause I was out on the radio
Starting to change

Somewhere out in America
It’s starting to rain

Could you tell me
One thing you remember about me?

And have you seen me lately?

I remember me

And all the little things
That make up a memory

Like she said, she loved to watch me sleep

Like she said, it’s the breathing

It’s the breathing in and out
And in and...