It's a bad habit.
JW: Dramatic Effect?
AD: Just can't think of anything else to do.
JW: Could you tell us a little bit about the history of the Crows, when they got together ?
AD: Coupla years ago, two, two years ago
JW: And you're all from around the San Francisco Bay area ?
AD: Yeah, I live in Berkeley, coupla guys in San Francisco, three guys in Oakland.
JW: And had you been writing songs before the band got together?
AD: Yeah, I'd always written songs. Most of them sucked.
JW: The album doesn't sound like a debut album, it sounds so assured. Had you been touring a lot with these songs before you recorded the record?
AD: No, not really. I don't understand when people say that. I don't find it to be an assured album, I think it's very emotional, for me it's everything I wanted it to be. I don't know what they expected it to be, I suppose what they mean by that is that they expected it to be crappy in some way. But we worked real hard at it, we feel very deeply about these songs. They mean so much to me, I wouldn't have put it out unless it was this way.
JW: And the reaction to the album, it seemed just to get it's own momentum going. There's no big shouting from the record company it seemed to me, for us over here..
AD: Yeah, no, we just released it. We didn't really do anything other than release it and start touring. We've been touring for six months straight now with a few weeks off here and there. We've been on the road since the end of August, beginning of September. Played with the Cranberries for a while, the Cranberries and Suede. A bunch of little shots on our own and then with Cracker for a long time. So, I mean, I think that's why it sort of has really developed a power of it's own kind of, after all. Because we just did it by touring and the more you go around and around the more the radio stations pick it up. And the more the people, you know, get a hold of it, they see it, buy it.
JW: And the stage you've reached now, are you surprised by that or do you think that's just a natural way that things have been evolving?
AD: Oh no, it's much bigger than I thought it would be. I just hoped we'd get a coupla hundred thousand records sold so it wouldn't be a huge disappointment to everybody. You know, I figured as long as I did that it would be fine because to me the album is beautiful. It's everything I wanted it to be and so regardless of whether it was a big hit right now, Ten years from now it would still be a great record. So I just was hoping that, you know, I didn't want the hype, I just wanted to tour and I thought we'll be able to do it gradually this way. Over the course of several records we'll build a following. It'll work real well that way.
I'd hoped to, like I said, a coupla hundred thousand records. We sold a hundred thousand records this week.
JW: Are you getting nervous now?
AD: Nah, there's just, you know, things change when you do that. People, they want things of you that they might not have asked of you otherwise. Look, it's a business, it is, and it's not for me, but it is and there's a lot of that stuff that gets involved and everything. A lot of that ___ to sift in when you start selling a lot of records. Suddenly they see the chance for great deals of money and then things change a bit.
JW: The pressure starts
AD: Yeah.
JW: Can you handle that?
AD: Er, No I don't actually think so. I've been thinking about that recently. There's parts of it that I just dislike so much, I don't know, It's a strange thing, I think. It means such a different thing to me than it would mean to people in the business. Even though I see that they love our record, they still don't hesitate to ask you "We gotta play Top of the Pops this week" and I don't want to do it. I have a ..., I feel very uncomfortable with it, I don't believe in miming your songs on TV. I don't know, it's not a moral thing or anything I just don't feel comfortable doing it. I feel very uncomfortable, I feel silly doing it. I'm that way, it's why I'm a good singer is because I feel so strongly about what I do. Either I feel very strongly and these things come out of me naturally or it affects me negatively too when things are wrong. I don't know, it's just...
JW: Do you think maybe..., do you ever worry about investing too much feeling and emotion into doing this?
AD: No, it's the only reason I'm any good. I mean, sure I do. I think that it's a handicap in ways but in what ways is it a handicap? It's a handicap in the sense that maybe it's not gonna be as easy for me to "go along" with some of these things as it would be for somebody else. But I'll tell you, I didn't get into this to "go along" and I didn't get into this, the only loss is that maybe we don't sell as many records. Well I didn't get involved in this to sell a lot of records anyways. I write songs because I am moved to write them, I have no choice, I just do it. It's the only thing in the world I'm good at, I can't do anything else very well. The fact that I'm able to get so involved is the gift of it but it makes it hard to take some of that sort of stuff.
JW: Well I hope you manage to find ways of working it out
AD: Nah, well...
JW: You're gonna have to!
AD: Yeah, well it's strange that they love that you can do it because it produces this music but they think you're a silly artist when you complain about things that bother you. It's the ups and downs of this sort of a business, it's a creative business but it's certainly a business. There's a lot of money involved, I knew that going in it's just hard to deal with, I'm not very comfortable with it.
JW: That's a lot of the negative side, on the positive side you must feel very good that the songs have been received so well?
AD: The good thing was writing them, the really good thing was being able to write them. To me the reception is completely peripheral.
JW: Do you almost get pictures in your mind when you're writing songs? Because for me some of your songs, they're like movies.
AD: Sort of, I mean you get the feeling of what... I get this feeling and then I kind of feel the character and then I just say whatever he would say, or she would say and try and see where they are. It is like sort of fleshing out the details around them, once you get the real basic feeling, the core and the heart of who they are the rest of it just sort of fills itself around it.
JW: Well listen, thanks a lot for coming in to play.
AD: Oh, You're welcome, you're welcome.
JW: And next time I see you, you might have developed a slightly thicker skin, maybe? You'll be dealing with all this okay?
AD: Let's hope not, I think that would lead to a poor second album. The thin skin is the plus of it all, I think. It's a real dead world sometimes and it's easy to forget how to feel. And the one thing I like about my music is that it makes me feel things, very strongly. I would hate to lose that, it's the only good thing, the feelings. It's the part that makes it all worthwhile.
[The band play A Murder of One]
