December 11, 2025 • 11 mins
Counting Crows are coming round here in 2026, their lead singer Adam Duritz called up for a chat about “The Complete Sweets! Tour” - bringing decades of sing-along moments, deep cuts, and fresh energy to iconic theatres across both countries.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Radio Hokes Off the Record podcast with Jeremy
Wells and Manice Stewart.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
We're talking to the lead singer from the Counting Crows,
dam Durrance. I am here and how are you. It's
jerrym and I here.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
I'm good. How are you so good?
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Thanks for talking to us, No problem. Where do we
find you today?
Speaker 3 (00:23):
I am in New York City at home.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Oh beautiful. I haven't never been to New York. I'd
love to go to New York.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
I feel like it would spoke me as someone from
a country with about forty three people in it.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
It's big, it's it's a small town though it's a
it's a weird big city in that way. It's very
uh villagey, very college town. Lake is everybody ox and
takes the subway.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
This meeting is being recorded. Well, okay, this meeting's recorded.
Heeses coming through Strong. Which part of New York? Are
you in the meat pecking District?
Speaker 1 (01:00):
No?
Speaker 3 (01:00):
I lived down in Greenwich Village.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Ah, beautiful, beautiful, I've been there. Yeah, it's that's that's
a very very cool, cool part of the cool part
of the city.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Yeah, I'm right on the border of the East Village.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Yeah, that's that's the night. And I, who hasn't been there,
that's like, that's like the Ponsonby of New York City,
pretty viby, little Adam and be like, what the hell
is the New York City doesn't make sense? So you've
been to New Zealand before, Adam, I feel like I
(01:32):
saw you open for the whole years ago, like a
long time ago. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
I always forget about that tour, but yeah we did.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
You've been touring for so long. Where are some of
the coolest places that you've been Uh?
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Well, New Zealand is definitely one of them. I mean,
Auckland's beautiful in its own but I have a friend
who has a cattle station up in the Cormandel and
I love going up there. It's incredible.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
There's one of the.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Most beautiful parts of the country of the cormandor it
makes you hitting there over the break.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Yeah, it's I can't wait to go back and.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
To question for you. And I'm always interested in this
for people who have written massive hits, like how does
your relationship So mister Jones is messive hit. You know
you're gonna have to play mister Jones wherever you go,
that's the way it goes. How does your relationship change
with a song like that? Like, how do you feel
about that song now? Is it different than how you
(02:28):
felt about it when you first wrote it? Does it?
Does it changes? It come in and out of favor?
Is it like a child? What's it like?
Speaker 3 (02:36):
I mean, it changes the same way your relationship with
all your songs do, which is that you know your
life changes, and so you look at the songs in
a different way. You know, writing a song like mister
Jones about dreaming about being a rock star but also
knowing it's not going to be what you dream is
different when you're kind of just supposing that than it
(02:59):
is when it happens, or it is when you've been
doing it for thirty years, you know what I mean?
Like none of them Like, I don't like the song
any less. I love the song, but you know, I
think of it differently now than I did when I
first wrote it, just because specifics of the song. I'm
living a different life than I was when I wrote it.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
You mentioned that some parts of what you thought being
a rock star would be like with different than what
it's actually like. What was the biggest difference from what
you thought it was going to be, like being a
rock star.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Well, I mean, I didn't really know what being famous
is going to be like, and I knew that when
I wrote it, Which is why you're supposed to know.
When the guy says, when everybody loves me, I'll never
be lonely, you're supposed to know that he's wrong, you know.
I mean that's kind of the thought, and I knew
that before I wrote it. But like, fame is such
a weird thing. There's no way to prepare for everybody
(03:54):
looking at you like that, you know. Like I've often said,
fame isn't really something you do. It's something other people
do to you, you know, And so that's a big change.
Like when you live through it, it's a whole different thing.
But I mean I was right about that, it was.
You know, it doesn't solve all your problems. It just
makes you someone everybody knows sort of or thinks they know,
(04:17):
which isn't fix you. You know, it just makes you
popular for.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
A little while, just gives you a different sitter problems.
Are you still getting people camping outside your house off
to shows and stuff?
Speaker 3 (04:28):
No, thank god, But It's weird. You know, you get
mail from people and you realize, oh, people know where
you live. That's a strange feeling to get, like, oh,
they know exactly where I live. I'm glad they're not
camped out in front of my house.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
What kind of things did they send you?
Speaker 3 (04:47):
You know, they want me to mail them stuff like
pictures that I'll sign. They want me to mail them pictures.
They want me to give them tickets. They want to
know if I've gotten the old dreadlocks saved up they
can have just saw lines and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
And what are you doing with your time? Most of
the time, you're still recording music, obviously you're touring at
certain times, Like how's all of that if that changed
over time in terms of your percentages of of what
you're doing. Are you doing a whole lot of other
things as well?
Speaker 3 (05:21):
Not right now? I mean I just got home from
eight months of touring, so I'm kind of just trying
to relax. My girlfriend's in a play that opens tonight,
so I'm gonna go see that. I've been helping her
run lines. You know, for a few weeks there. It
was kind of busy because I was cooking stuff for Thanksgiving,
(05:41):
and I try to think what else I was doing.
I had to go away for a couple of gigs
and just one offs, So you know, I'm just trying
to relax right now a little bit.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Are you wandering around with music and you hit all
the time? Are you one of those guys that's got
chord progressions or jingle melody melodies or other people's music
in the head, like all the time?
Speaker 3 (06:04):
Not all the time, but it happens a lot. Sometimes
I'm more willing to pay attention to that. Other times
I just kind of hums up to myself. I think
I have a lot of music in my head a
lot of the time. I just don't always want to
work on it. Once I start working on something, I
get obsessed with doing it, And I don't always want
to do that because then you'd like, oh, Okay, I've
(06:24):
got to write this, I gotta finish it, we got
to go in the studio, we got to make it another record,
And you know, like right now, I don't really want
to do that. I kind of want to relax for
a little bit. Let Zoe be the star, you know,
gonna follow her around. I'm running lines with her a
lot and gonna go to the show and watch her tonight.
I don't want it to be all about me at
(06:46):
the moment. I've still got some work to do musically.
We just we stopped in Belgium on the way home,
Emma and I and we recorded some stuff with the
Dutch band Bluff, who we've done singles with before in
Dutch and English. And we need to go in the
studio and finish up this song that we did together.
And then there's a re release of Recovering the Satellites
(07:06):
coming up, and we're there's a track we never finished
back then. We're going back to try and do something
with that. So I've got little bits of work to do,
but I'm trying not to get too caught up in
it because we've been so since COVID ended. We've been
just like on the road so much, and it's you know,
I need to take a little time and not get
burnt out right now?
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Yeah, how do you do?
Speaker 1 (07:28):
How do you do that on the road? Because you
know you're in plaines, trains and automobiles. You're giving so
much yourself at every show. What are you doing between
to make sure that you still get a bit of
joice to give.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
All right, I sit around a lot in hotel rooms
trying to be quiet. Uh And because I got to
make it to every show. And when I was younger,
I went out a lot more, but it was harder
on my voice. Now that I'm older, I really got
to take care of my voice. So it's a lot
more boring now. But the shows are so cool. Like
to me, getting up on stage and playing is still
(08:00):
the greatest thing in the world. So that's so important
to me that I just want to be You know,
you got to be careful, get worn down. Like twice
I came to New Zealand and got really sick because
I was working too much right before it. Once I
was at south By Southwest for two weeks putting on
a music festival. Once I think we've just been doing
a lot of promo right after COVID, and I got
(08:21):
COVID last time we were in New Zealand. So you
got to be careful about that stuff where you miss shows.
And I don't like to miss shows.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
And I know that once upon a time you really
knew how to send it. Are you still capable of
sending it when the situation demands it?
Speaker 3 (08:37):
You know?
Speaker 2 (08:37):
In terms of you play, in terms of the partying.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Nah, but I don't. I don't really care. I think
a lot of times you're out there, you just really
want to meet girls, you know, And I don't care
about that right now. I'm very settled, so I don't
really need to do that as much. I got a
wine cellar full of wine whenever I want to get drunk, Okay,
me and a couple of friends own a winery, so
I always have booze available. But you know, I don't.
(09:05):
I don't need to socialize that way as much.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
I read a really interesting thing about you a while
ago that after the release of your debut Counting Crow's
album massively Successful, that I think this is right, you
went you went back and worked as a bartender for
kind of a reality check. Is that right? Nah?
Speaker 3 (09:27):
It wasn't for a reality check. It was just less
crowded on that side of the bar. I was bartending
at the Viper Room for years.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Yes, the Vip Room met Rot Where have I heard
of that?
Speaker 3 (09:38):
Virent too La and the only people I knew worked
at the Viper Room, So I was hanging out there
all the time, and it was just less crowded on
the other side of the bar, and so I would
be hanging out back there with friends and at one
point one of them is like, hey, do you know
how to work the register? And I said yes, and
Shannon said, well, I gotta go to the bathroom and
have a cigarette. Can you just run the bar for
(10:00):
a while? And I just said sure, you know, And
by the time she got back, I'd made so much
fucking money I'm sorry in tips for her that she
was just like, you got to do this all the time. So,
I mean, I wasn't really getting paid. I was just
hanging out. It was where I went every night anyways,
and it was just more comfortable on the other side
of the bar, and I was with people I knew,
(10:21):
and I met lots of people. It was just exciting.
It was fun, but it was the last thing in
the world. It was was a reality check. It was
the most star studded place I've ever been in my
entire life.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
You guys have got so many hurts. How do you
decide the sittlist? Who comes up with it?
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Me and Immer do it every night right after dinner.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Usually is running on the back of a napkin.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
No, we got. We got a pile of like old
set lists and a list of songs, and there's one
paper that's a list of cover songs that we've played.
I don't know who made that list because half the
stuff on it we've never played in our lives. Since
it's he used this piece of paper, I do it
on the back of that piece, but it's a weird superstition.
I don't like to do it anywhere else, so I
(11:07):
always do it on the back of that piece. Emma
and I sit talk about it and we make a list.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Well, looking forward to seeing it, Adam when you come
down here. Best of luck with everything, and lovely to
chat to you.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Thanks so much, Man Radio, hold Aches off the Record podcast.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Why not subscribe so they download automatically and don't forget
to rate us five stars?
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Thanks mate.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Find out more about this podcast and the people who
make it at hodache dot co dot nz.
Welcome to Radio Hokes Off the Record podcast with Jeremy
Wells and Manice Stewart.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
We're talking to the lead singer from the Counting Crows,
dam Durrance. I am here and how are you. It's
jerrym and I here.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
I'm good. How are you so good?
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Thanks for talking to us, No problem. Where do we
find you today?
Speaker 3 (00:23):
I am in New York City at home.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Oh beautiful. I haven't never been to New York. I'd
love to go to New York.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
I feel like it would spoke me as someone from
a country with about forty three people in it.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
It's big, it's it's a small town though it's a
it's a weird big city in that way. It's very
uh villagey, very college town. Lake is everybody ox and
takes the subway.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
This meeting is being recorded. Well, okay, this meeting's recorded.
Heeses coming through Strong. Which part of New York? Are
you in the meat pecking District?
Speaker 1 (01:00):
No?
Speaker 3 (01:00):
I lived down in Greenwich Village.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Ah, beautiful, beautiful, I've been there. Yeah, it's that's that's
a very very cool, cool part of the cool part
of the city.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Yeah, I'm right on the border of the East Village.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Yeah, that's that's the night. And I, who hasn't been there,
that's like, that's like the Ponsonby of New York City,
pretty viby, little Adam and be like, what the hell
is the New York City doesn't make sense? So you've
been to New Zealand before, Adam, I feel like I
(01:32):
saw you open for the whole years ago, like a
long time ago. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
I always forget about that tour, but yeah we did.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
You've been touring for so long. Where are some of
the coolest places that you've been Uh?
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Well, New Zealand is definitely one of them. I mean,
Auckland's beautiful in its own but I have a friend
who has a cattle station up in the Cormandel and
I love going up there. It's incredible.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
There's one of the.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Most beautiful parts of the country of the cormandor it
makes you hitting there over the break.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Yeah, it's I can't wait to go back and.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
To question for you. And I'm always interested in this
for people who have written massive hits, like how does
your relationship So mister Jones is messive hit. You know
you're gonna have to play mister Jones wherever you go,
that's the way it goes. How does your relationship change
with a song like that? Like, how do you feel
about that song now? Is it different than how you
(02:28):
felt about it when you first wrote it? Does it?
Does it changes? It come in and out of favor?
Is it like a child? What's it like?
Speaker 3 (02:36):
I mean, it changes the same way your relationship with
all your songs do, which is that you know your
life changes, and so you look at the songs in
a different way. You know, writing a song like mister
Jones about dreaming about being a rock star but also
knowing it's not going to be what you dream is
different when you're kind of just supposing that than it
(02:59):
is when it happens, or it is when you've been
doing it for thirty years, you know what I mean?
Like none of them Like, I don't like the song
any less. I love the song, but you know, I
think of it differently now than I did when I
first wrote it, just because specifics of the song. I'm
living a different life than I was when I wrote it.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
You mentioned that some parts of what you thought being
a rock star would be like with different than what
it's actually like. What was the biggest difference from what
you thought it was going to be, like being a
rock star.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Well, I mean, I didn't really know what being famous
is going to be like, and I knew that when
I wrote it, Which is why you're supposed to know.
When the guy says, when everybody loves me, I'll never
be lonely, you're supposed to know that he's wrong, you know.
I mean that's kind of the thought, and I knew
that before I wrote it. But like, fame is such
a weird thing. There's no way to prepare for everybody
(03:54):
looking at you like that, you know. Like I've often said,
fame isn't really something you do. It's something other people
do to you, you know, And so that's a big change.
Like when you live through it, it's a whole different thing.
But I mean I was right about that, it was.
You know, it doesn't solve all your problems. It just
makes you someone everybody knows sort of or thinks they know,
(04:17):
which isn't fix you. You know, it just makes you
popular for.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
A little while, just gives you a different sitter problems.
Are you still getting people camping outside your house off
to shows and stuff?
Speaker 3 (04:28):
No, thank god, But It's weird. You know, you get
mail from people and you realize, oh, people know where
you live. That's a strange feeling to get, like, oh,
they know exactly where I live. I'm glad they're not
camped out in front of my house.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
What kind of things did they send you?
Speaker 3 (04:47):
You know, they want me to mail them stuff like
pictures that I'll sign. They want me to mail them pictures.
They want me to give them tickets. They want to
know if I've gotten the old dreadlocks saved up they
can have just saw lines and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
And what are you doing with your time? Most of
the time, you're still recording music, obviously you're touring at
certain times, Like how's all of that if that changed
over time in terms of your percentages of of what
you're doing. Are you doing a whole lot of other
things as well?
Speaker 3 (05:21):
Not right now? I mean I just got home from
eight months of touring, so I'm kind of just trying
to relax. My girlfriend's in a play that opens tonight,
so I'm gonna go see that. I've been helping her
run lines. You know, for a few weeks there. It
was kind of busy because I was cooking stuff for Thanksgiving,
(05:41):
and I try to think what else I was doing.
I had to go away for a couple of gigs
and just one offs, So you know, I'm just trying
to relax right now a little bit.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Are you wandering around with music and you hit all
the time? Are you one of those guys that's got
chord progressions or jingle melody melodies or other people's music
in the head, like all the time?
Speaker 3 (06:04):
Not all the time, but it happens a lot. Sometimes
I'm more willing to pay attention to that. Other times
I just kind of hums up to myself. I think
I have a lot of music in my head a
lot of the time. I just don't always want to
work on it. Once I start working on something, I
get obsessed with doing it, And I don't always want
to do that because then you'd like, oh, Okay, I've
(06:24):
got to write this, I gotta finish it, we got
to go in the studio, we got to make it another record,
And you know, like right now, I don't really want
to do that. I kind of want to relax for
a little bit. Let Zoe be the star, you know,
gonna follow her around. I'm running lines with her a
lot and gonna go to the show and watch her tonight.
I don't want it to be all about me at
(06:46):
the moment. I've still got some work to do musically.
We just we stopped in Belgium on the way home,
Emma and I and we recorded some stuff with the
Dutch band Bluff, who we've done singles with before in
Dutch and English. And we need to go in the
studio and finish up this song that we did together.
And then there's a re release of Recovering the Satellites
(07:06):
coming up, and we're there's a track we never finished
back then. We're going back to try and do something
with that. So I've got little bits of work to do,
but I'm trying not to get too caught up in
it because we've been so since COVID ended. We've been
just like on the road so much, and it's you know,
I need to take a little time and not get
burnt out right now?
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Yeah, how do you do?
Speaker 1 (07:28):
How do you do that on the road? Because you
know you're in plaines, trains and automobiles. You're giving so
much yourself at every show. What are you doing between
to make sure that you still get a bit of
joice to give.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
All right, I sit around a lot in hotel rooms
trying to be quiet. Uh And because I got to
make it to every show. And when I was younger,
I went out a lot more, but it was harder
on my voice. Now that I'm older, I really got
to take care of my voice. So it's a lot
more boring now. But the shows are so cool. Like
to me, getting up on stage and playing is still
(08:00):
the greatest thing in the world. So that's so important
to me that I just want to be You know,
you got to be careful, get worn down. Like twice
I came to New Zealand and got really sick because
I was working too much right before it. Once I
was at south By Southwest for two weeks putting on
a music festival. Once I think we've just been doing
a lot of promo right after COVID, and I got
(08:21):
COVID last time we were in New Zealand. So you
got to be careful about that stuff where you miss shows.
And I don't like to miss shows.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
And I know that once upon a time you really
knew how to send it. Are you still capable of
sending it when the situation demands it?
Speaker 3 (08:37):
You know?
Speaker 2 (08:37):
In terms of you play, in terms of the partying.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Nah, but I don't. I don't really care. I think
a lot of times you're out there, you just really
want to meet girls, you know, And I don't care
about that right now. I'm very settled, so I don't
really need to do that as much. I got a
wine cellar full of wine whenever I want to get drunk, Okay,
me and a couple of friends own a winery, so
I always have booze available. But you know, I don't.
(09:05):
I don't need to socialize that way as much.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
I read a really interesting thing about you a while
ago that after the release of your debut Counting Crow's
album massively Successful, that I think this is right, you
went you went back and worked as a bartender for
kind of a reality check. Is that right? Nah?
Speaker 3 (09:27):
It wasn't for a reality check. It was just less
crowded on that side of the bar. I was bartending
at the Viper Room for years.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Yes, the Vip Room met Rot Where have I heard
of that?
Speaker 3 (09:38):
Virent too La and the only people I knew worked
at the Viper Room, So I was hanging out there
all the time, and it was just less crowded on
the other side of the bar, and so I would
be hanging out back there with friends and at one
point one of them is like, hey, do you know
how to work the register? And I said yes, and
Shannon said, well, I gotta go to the bathroom and
have a cigarette. Can you just run the bar for
(10:00):
a while? And I just said sure, you know, And
by the time she got back, I'd made so much
fucking money I'm sorry in tips for her that she
was just like, you got to do this all the time. So,
I mean, I wasn't really getting paid. I was just
hanging out. It was where I went every night anyways,
and it was just more comfortable on the other side
of the bar, and I was with people I knew,
(10:21):
and I met lots of people. It was just exciting.
It was fun, but it was the last thing in
the world. It was was a reality check. It was
the most star studded place I've ever been in my
entire life.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
You guys have got so many hurts. How do you
decide the sittlist? Who comes up with it?
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Me and Immer do it every night right after dinner.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Usually is running on the back of a napkin.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
No, we got. We got a pile of like old
set lists and a list of songs, and there's one
paper that's a list of cover songs that we've played.
I don't know who made that list because half the
stuff on it we've never played in our lives. Since
it's he used this piece of paper, I do it
on the back of that piece, but it's a weird superstition.
I don't like to do it anywhere else, so I
(11:07):
always do it on the back of that piece. Emma
and I sit talk about it and we make a list.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Well, looking forward to seeing it, Adam when you come
down here. Best of luck with everything, and lovely to
chat to you.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Thanks so much, Man Radio, hold Aches off the Record podcast.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Why not subscribe so they download automatically and don't forget
to rate us five stars?
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Thanks mate.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Find out more about this podcast and the people who
make it at hodache dot co dot nz.
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Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by Audiochuck Media Company.
The Brothers Ortiz
The Brothers Ortiz is the story of two brothers–both successful, but in very different ways. Gabe Ortiz becomes a third-highest ranking officer in all of Texas while his younger brother Larry climbs the ranks in Puro Tango Blast, a notorious Texas Prison gang. Gabe doesn’t know all the details of his brother’s nefarious dealings, and he’s made a point not to ask, to protect their relationship. But when Larry is murdered during a home invasion in a rented beach house, Gabe has no choice but to look into what happened that night. To solve Larry’s murder, Gabe, and the whole Ortiz family, must ask each other tough questions.