still rockin’

Wby Jason MacNeil

ith a bevy of signature songs and a debut that commercially and critically caught lightning in a bottle, Counting Crows have rarely been rivals to the megastars playing stadiums nowadays charging almost laughingly exorbitant prices. Yet the band fronted by singer Adam Duritz have carved an audience that has always been loyal, sizable and eager for new material.

The band, playing August 4 at the Suncoast Credit Union Arena, released an 2021 EP entitled Butter Miracle Suite One and while not smashing sales records it was another creative feather in Duritz’s cap.

“It got great reviews,” Duritz says during an early May chat. “You’d always like something to become a cultural touchstone, but it doesn’t always happen. I would love for it to be the biggest album of the year. It didn’t happen that way, it’s not my fault Taylor Swift exists.”

While some might think an EP means less work overall, the vocalist says Butter Miracle Suite One was taxing simply because each piece of the suite needed to mesh into a cohesive whole.

“It was very difficult to write,” Duritz says. “If I had to sum up the biggest difficulty now it was the faith that it would work because you trust the idea these things will all fit together. You don’t normally record four songs that are supposed to flow like that. We didn’t really know until we finished mixing all four of them and fit them together that it worked. We didn’t play the whole thing as a twenty-minute piece when we recorded it.

“It’s not usually a problem on any other record. Each song is an individual thing and you don’t have to worry about it. The day we put them together was one of the most satisfying moments of my entire career. Probably because I’d been carrying it with me for so long.”

Unfortunately, a slight label snafu caused some brief consternation for Duritz on the EP’s release due to digital streaming services. The seamless nearly 19-minute suite was instead released as four individual songs which irked Duritz who wanted it released as ‘one flowing thing.’ It took roughly a week to rectify the situation.

“It happens,” the singer says. “I was furious at the time. They’re not very good at being organized, the labels. They’re good at big picture stuff, but the details often escape them, the communication is not that great. I was furious that week and, honestly, I’ve forgotten about it.”