Counting Crows

They’re still standing after all this time. A career birthed on the melancholic introspection of Adam Duritz, the band’s strong live show, vulnerable lyricism and strong musicianship has led Counting Crows through their share of hills and valleys, hits and misses and time in and out of the spotlight. It might have been Mr. Jones who introduced them to the musical world, but they quickly made themselves at home without his help.

While there have been a few singles or live releases littering the void, it’s been six years since the last proper studio release (2002’s Hard Candy) from Counting Crows. So it shouldn’t be a surprise the band’s latest, Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings, is also their most thematic and thoughtful - an album intended for vinyl with two distinct sides and tones.

Guitarist David Immergluck tells us all about what happened during the down time, what happens on Saturday nights, working with Gil Norton again and what makes the band proud yet humble.

SSv: The whole theme of Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings as sin and regret, was that something the whole band was into or was that an Adam thing?

David Immergluck: It was definitely an Adam thing. He has his own feelings about Saturday night sins and Sunday morning regrets. You’ll have to talk to him about that one. My week consists of different days. [Laughs] My definition might be different than Adam’s although we tend to agree on a lot of that stuff.

SSv: So does the album title interpret differently for you or the others?

Immergluck: Well, within the band you have seven fully formed, arrested development adults. You’re gonna get a lot of different answers there. So I could leave it at that, but I will say that I tend to, when given the chance, turn my Saturday night into a Sunday morning without any break. Someone like my compatriot Jim Bogios, the drummer, tends to be in bed by 9:30 or 10:00 with milk and cookies as we like to tease him. So you get the full gamut with seven Counting Crows members. I’ll leave it at that, too, because I could myself into trouble, let alone getting the other guys into trouble. [Laughs]

Elusive and vague, isn’t it? But full of implication. [Laughs] I will say that we’re about to have a little two week stand in New York doing a bunch of press and filming and that usually leads to a lot of Saturday nights in a row for me. It’s just the nature of the nightlife of Manhattan compared to the other cities we might find ourselves in. It’s really one Saturday night after another with maybe a Monday thrown in there somewhere to recuperate.

SSv: It’s set up like a double album, feels like a double album but obviously not enough tracks for an official endeavor.

Immergluck: At one point, we had a lot of material when we were wrestling with whether we would make it a two CD set.

SSv: What kept that from happening?

Immergluck: Well, the great records are 40 minutes long. What were considered outrageously long records like Blonde on Blonde or even London Calling come in under an hour and when those came out it was, ‘Oh my God!’ Even cries around Electric Ladyland were, ‘This record is so long, it’s unheard of.’ Now with CDs you have all kinds of people putting out 75 minute things or cramming as much in because you can and because the things are so damn expensive, you feel responsible to justify it.

But that is what was great about vinyl records and I was fortunate enough to be making records when vinyl was the mode. You had that 20 minute sort of set. One side of a record was something you could time out and make a flow of it. And that’s a good chunk of amount of time where people have attention spans for. People have about the attention span to get into about one side of a record. Then maybe another day, you flip it over and say, ‘Oh my God, the second side of Beggars Banquet is awesome’ or whatever it was. You go through phases listening to sides of a record in 20 minute chunks.

Now the medium allows for there to be much longer pieces or works but attention spans have actually gotten shorter and shorter. People have a two and a half minute attention span now. So it didn’t seem the best way to do it. We thought if we put them all out on one thing, the attention on the songs would be dissipated.

SSv: If any Crows album deserves vinyl treatment, is this the one?

Immergluck: Yeah, this one would have been a good one. This one has two distinct halves to it. But this is an issue that most people wouldn’t even understand, frankly. ‘What is he talking about? Side of a record? That sound stupid. Why would you want that?’ People say something like, ‘I love track four.’ They don’t even know what song they’re talking about. They don’t know the name of it. They don’t even know the album title because they bought the song individually. The way people consume music now is getting different by the day.

SSv: Does that make it difficult for a band like Counting Crows?

Immergluck: Counting Crows are really lucky because we have a fantastic audience, we have a fantastic relationship with our audience and it’s growing. It’s harder to make what we think are good records. I’ll say that. We were brought up in a different era. I still think in terms of albums. I don’t know what people who are starting out now are thinking.

SSv: Do you think you’ll always think in those terms?

Immergluck: I have no idea what the future will hold for us or for the medium. We make music for people. We want to give people music what they want to hear in a way they want to hear it, so I don’t know how that works. Maybe in five years or less, it will be a subscription to a catalog on your wall-mounted listening device. A friend of mine works for this company called Gracenote. If you stick a CD into your computer, it will go to their server to download the titles. They were all required to subscribe to some online music subscription thing…

SSv: Rhapsody?

Immergluck: Yes, that’s it! He lives in Berkeley and I stay with his family when I’m there. But he got into Rhapsody early on and I’m ever the skeptic. You know, the good old days? ‘I remember the way those albums smelled.’ That sort of thing. But he’s trying to tell me how great Rhapsody is. He would say, ‘You can have the whole catalog of whatever you’re wanting to listen to. You suddenly want to get into Ali Farka Tour, you just dial it up and they have everything. It’s the cost of one CD a month and it’s all right there. You have access to this thing all the time.’

It sounds pretty good, so I got on there and into their search engine and thought, ‘Okay, let’s see if I can break it.’ I looked up Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band and they had nothing. I typed in Can and they had nothing. Now I’m telling you this was the early days of Rhapsody. But I was like, ‘Look, I’ve been on this thing for less than a minute and I’m typing bands that start with C-A and they aren’t there. I can’t use this. This isn’t for me.’ Then three weeks later, I try again and they had some Captain Beefheart and a couple Can albums. I haven’t checked it recently but it’s always growing. They acquire entire record labels. So eventually enough people will listen to music that way. I like to collect things, so I’m burdened with thousands of vinyl records everywhere. They’re suffocating me.

SSv: I read about that. How many do you have?

Immergluck: Oh man, I haven’t bought vinyl in years, but I have probably 3,000 of them. And that was my second collection. My first collection was wiped out in a flood. And then, I don’t even know how many thousands and thousands I have in CDs. Half of them are in storage. Every now and then, I’ll put a moratorium on consuming and just listen to what’s sitting on my floor rather than adding to the pile. I’ve just recently after a month ended one of those periods, so I’m starting to consume again.

SSv: Did Saturday Nights require all the years between studio albums or did other things like side projects contribute to the delay?

Immergluck: Counting Crows is a peculiar band. I’m trying to remember when Hard Candy came out. I’m thinking it was 2002.

SSv: Yeah.

Immergluck: And now here we are in 2008, so you have six years. That’s almost the entire career of The Beatles give or take nine months, but they were putting out two and a half records a year. And great records. But records are sold differently now, too. This record was pretty much finished a year ago musically.

SSv: You were supposed to release late last year originally.

Immergluck: First it was October, then it was November and then the cover stuff wasn’t done. It just got bumped into the next quarter. I don’t think The Beatles were dealing with that sort of stuff.

SSv: But for the bulk of that delay…

Immergluck: Well, the side projects … I don’t know how many records I’ve personally made since Hard Candy. I think I’ve made three records since we finished Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings. The last few months I’ve been making a bunch of other records here in Los Angeles with friends. Also, our touring cycle tends to be two and a half years and then you need a break after that. That was a particularly long time so I hope it’s not as long for the next one.

SSv: Is it hard to gear up for that long of a stretch?

Immergluck: You don’t even think about it until it’s over and say ‘Oh my God! I don’t even know what’s going on.’ It’s so fun, first of all. There’s nothing better than playing live music that you love to people who want to hear it. I’m hard pressed to think of a better way to spend time. So you’re not thinking about the passage of time as much until you stop and think, ‘When did we start?’

The last one was weird though because we were touring before the record and we were touring while we were making the record, Hard Candy. We would record for five weeks and then tour and try some stuff out for six weeks and then come back and record some more. We toured and toured and toured. Then during that time, the Greatest Hits [Films About Ghosts] package came out and it turned into touring for that. Then we had a song on the Shrek movie which was a hit, so we continued touring for that. It just kept on going. It wasn’t just the Hard Candy tour. So I don’t know what will happen with Saturday Nights.

SSv: Was that a good way to record, testing material on the road?

Immergluck: There are many ways to record, but that was a good way I thought.

SSv: Because you used to really hole up in a house.

Immergluck: We didn’t do that for this latest record, but we actually had that for Hard Candy. We would just leave and come back to it.

SSv: What were these sessions like then?

Immergluck: First of all we used two producers. One was Gil Norton who did Recovering the Satellites for Counting Crows and myriad other excellent records and, for the harder edged stuff, we recorded in Manhattan which is something I’ve always wanted to do. I’ve always wanted to make a record in Manhattan. I fell in love with the subway system there. It’s like a Fellini movie every day down there. But we did that at Avatar Studios up on 58th Street in the old Power Station which is a famous old studio.

The other half of the record was made with Brian Deck, who is completely different than Gil and did excellent things with the band. You might know him with Iron & Wine. He’s an interesting guy and great, great musician. We demoed a lot of that stuff in Adam’s house in New York while we were working with Gil but we had another studio [David] Bryson had set up in Adam’s living room. So between the sessions, we’d be at Adam’s house writing and demoing there for the next half and we recorded it proper in Berkeley at Fantasy Studios. That’s the Sunday Mornings side. That was interesting, too. We were at home for most of us, so it was weird to make a record there.

SSv: Can you feel and hear the distinct locations on each section?

Immergluck: [Laughs] Well, I can. I don’t know if anyone else can. I have distinct memories with all of it, so you’ll have to tell me if you can. I think you will.

SSv: Getting “1492″ on the album … That’s been out there for a few years, so were you glad to finally record it properly?

Immergluck: Yeah, we actually recorded a version for Hard Candy with Steve Lillywhite and some of the tracks still remain from that session. Certainly it’s a song Adam and I loved ever since then. We played it live for a little while before Hard Candy came out and it seemed to go with the theme for this record. It’s funny, but originally there was a guitar solo I played on it that sounded like The Scorpions - like some early Lonesome Crow Scorpions. I loved it but Gil absolutely hated it. I was really pissed at him. He said, ‘[Switching to British accent] That sounds a bit posh.’ He made me recut the guitar solo and made me do this other thing on it, like Dick Dale playing with MC5 or something. And I’m just overjoyed that he made me do it. I love the new one, so that was pretty funny.

SSv: What are you doing with all the extra material?

Immergluck: Well, there will be b-sides. I’m not sure. There are going to be all kinds of different exclusives with this release. I think Starbucks is doing something with a track and something for iTunes. I don’t know how all that gets played out, but I hope some of them get saved in the can for another record. I don’t know if that will happen.

SSv: There are so few bands left standing from the days when you guys were coming in…

Immergluck: Wait, you have to know that even when Counting Crows first came into people’s consciousness, the guys in the band had been doing stuff for a good, good long time before that. I’ve been doing stuff since 1985 in the Bay Area and had even gone around the world with some other bands. David Bryson had been in several bands that had been signed. He had an excellent studio that everyone used in the Bay Area. Charlie [Gillingham, keys/piano] had been with countless bands. Adam had countless bands in the area that we’d all done different stuff with. So we’d all been around before the thing started in our own minds. There was such a huge influx of bands right then. It was the post-grunge glut. There were a lot of terrible bands and also a lot of bands that made records through not necessarily honest means.

SSv: What does that mean?

Immergluck: They couldn’t play them live. Countless bands. I won’t name names, but there were countless bands from that era. But then again, there are even more today the way people make records with Pro-Tools. People don’t know what it is to make a magic live occurence, which is what we grew up with. I grew up going to shows at the Winterland in San Francisco, which is the venue Bill Graham used after the Fillmore closed. I saw countless shows there. There was always this once-in-a-lifetime, magical thing.

You just don’t get that from so many bands nowadays. They don’t know the importance of a spontaneous occurrence in music. They might get a producer who can make a record that sounds really good on the radio, they can have a hit and sell a million copies of the record. But then they get on stage and people go and buy the ticket and they’re bored and they don’t buy a ticket the next time. You get all these fly-by-night acts.

But Counting Crows … say what you want about Counting Crows and whether our records are good or not, but Counting Crows have always been a good live band. We pride ourselves on that. It’s more important now than ever. People are always talking about the death of the music industry, but people will always need music. People will always respond to an emotional moment that’s happening in front of you on a stage where a lot of people are congregating to watch. People will always respond there. That’s not dying.

SSv: Is there more pride in a live show than the studio for the band?

Immergluck: We’re proud of our world. Let’s put it that way. I think I can get pompous in our advanced years.

SSv: So you would say that you’re not surprised that you’re still standing as a band?

Immergluck: [Pause] As Jim Morrison wisely spake, ‘The future is uncertain and the end is always near.’ Especially in rock and roll. It’s amazing that we’re still here and it’s amazing that people are still interested in hearing us and that our audience is growing. We cherish it. So I wouldn’t say that this is the way we thought it would all go. We’re very glad that we’re still here and I think I can speak for everybody when I say that

• www.countingcrows.com

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#1 MattConner.net » Blog Archive » Interview: Counting Crows on August 5th, 2008 at 9:38 am

[...] can read the rest of the interview here. Posted in stereo subversion | Leave a [...]

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