If you ever wondered whether Adam Duritz was alone out in a field in rural England, reteaching himself piano like some emotionally volatile Nick Drake — congratulations, you’ve just described the origin story of Butter Miracle, Suite One.
“It was right after I shaved my dreads,” Duritz says matter-of-factly, as if he’s recounting a minor grooming decision and not the symbolic decapitation of a 25-year alt-rock identity. “I was staying at my friend’s farm in the west of England. Sometimes with my girlfriend, sometimes alone. Mostly alone.” And then, because Counting Crows never do anything the normal way, he summoned a keyboard via courier and wrote Tall Grass — the first in what would become a seamless suite of four interlocking songs, each bleeding into the next like some Abbey Road fever dream narrated by a melancholic rock star in exile.
But what started as “just two chords on repeat because I literally forgot how to play piano” turned into something much larger — structurally ambitious, emotionally raw, and, somehow, not completely undone by a global pandemic.
“We were 85% done with the record when COVID hit,” he says. “All we needed were some guitar parts. Two-week break? Turns into four months. So we finished it by remote, and the last thing we did was stitch the songs together. That moment — hearing it play as one piece for the first time — was probably the most satisfying of my entire career.”
You get the sense Duritz is still chasing those moments: the ones that exist in the gap between imagination and reality, between what you think might work and what finally, miraculously, does.
But this isn’t just some high-concept prog rock art project. It also rips. “I wanted people to play air guitar,” Duritz says of the closing track Bobby and the Rat Kings. “We’ve done so much air piano over the years. Time for a little glam, a little Who.” And yes, he knows you caught the My Generation line. “I didn’t mean it as a Who reference at first. Then I got in the studio and thought, yeah, let’s lean in.”
For a guy who’s often associated with ballads and late-90s sadness, Butter Miracle is aggressively fun. There are traces of Mott the Hoople, Bowie, Bombay Bicycle Club (ish?), and yes, a healthy dash of overcooked glam-rock background vocals. “Some of those harmonies were like 12 parts deep,” Duritz laughs. “We had to tone them down. And that was after I asked Dave Drago to make them less Ziggy.”
The record may be framed as a suite, but don’t ask Duritz to explain any grand concept. “I don’t write thematically. I write what’s true in the moment. Later on, sure, you can spot the through-lines. But I never sit down and say, ‘This one’s about transformation.’ That’s how you get garbage.”
Still, the themes are there — especially if you’ve been trainspotting Counting Crows lyrics since the ‘90s. “Can you see me ‘cause I’m changing,” he sings on Tall Grass, calling back (accidentally or not) to Have You Seen Me Lately and All My Friends. “That perception thing, how we see ourselves versus how others see us — that’s gonna show up a lot when you’re a dissociative rock star,” he shrugs.
As for Counting Crows’ complicated place in music history, Duritz is acutely aware. “We were kind of a joke for a while — to critics anyway. But musicians were always different. Dashboard Confessional, Panic! At the Disco, Between the Buried and Me — they’d name-check Recovering the Satellites like it was the Holy Grail.”
He recalls reading an Alternative Press piece with the headline Do We All Have It Wrong About Counting Crows? “I was like, uh, yeah, I think you do.”
Duritz has leaned into that musician peer group in recent years — running the Underwater Sunshine Festival, singing on records by friends like Sean Barna, Chris Carrabba, and Gang of Youths, and finding joy in being the secret sauce on a killer background vocal. “Some of my proudest moments are singing on other people’s songs. That Dashboard track ‘So Long, So Long’? That’s one of my best.”
Which brings us, finally, to the holy grail: a deluxe edition of Recovering the Satellites. Will it ever happen? “I’ve been trying to get Geffen to do it for twenty years,” he says. “They lost the masters before the fire. Then the fire happened, and they didn’t tell us for a long time. Now they’re saying, ‘Well, maybe we have some stuff,’ but they haven’t produced anything.”
Still, he’s not giving up. “I don’t need bonus tracks. We filmed everything. The Angels of the Silences video, the 10 Spot show, Storytellers, even this little documentary while we were recording. If they can just find it, we can make something beautiful.”
Until then? Butter Miracle Suite One is the miracle we’ve got. And Adam Duritz — still without dreds, still emotionally raw, and now a little bit glam — sounds more invigorated than ever.
And an older interview with Adam and Kyle:
