Adam Duritz: Singer-Songwriter/Movie Producer

Counting Crows singer Adam Duritz has been throwing some of his creative ambitions to filmmaking over the past few years. Having just concluded a year-and-a-half tour with his band, he hightailed it to Park City, Utah, in late January, where a film he co-executive produced with Bryan Singer (director of The Usual Suspects) found a willing audience at the Slamdance Film Festival, the city's alternative event to the famed Sundance Festival.

Burn, written by Dylan Kussmann, directed by Scott Storm, and starring Randall Slavin and David Hayter, created quite a stir at the festival, but much of the initial attention focused on Duritz and Singer's relationship to the movie. The film walked away with a Special Grand Jury Prize, but mixed reviews.

Duritz characterizes his involvement in Burn as a bunch of friends getting together to have some fun. In this first installment of a two-part interview, the enigmatic musician talks to Wall of Sound about Burn and how his experience in the music business translates to the film industry.

This is the second movie you've been involved in as an executive producer. What draws you to film?

It's been the same thing in both cases. The first movie was called The Locusts. It began in the back of a sushi bar in Hollywood. I was talking to two of my best friends about all the troubles they were having getting a movie made. One guy, who had written it, wanted to direct it. The other one was going to be the lead. They could not get the freedom to make it the way they wanted to. And they didn't have much experience working with people in this field. I've had to deal with record companies because of my band, so I've had to deal with a lot of those people—not bad people, just business people. They weren't good at standing up to stuff; they were getting everything third-hand through management and through agents. So I read the script and I loved it, and I said, "Let's just do this together. I bet I could get us a deal." I thought, well, just call people I know, and have them call people and just keep pushing it. We got a deal with MPCA for about $4 million. Got 'em a lot of money to make it.

So they got the cast, and then I had to go mix my record, so I didn't have any involvement after that. Then I was sort of forced out. They didn't want me to be a producer; the movie company didn't; they wanted to bring their own people in. It was actually a very unpleasant experience - none of us are friends anymore. So I didn't have anything to do with that movie, other than getting it set up. The fact that it turned out, from what I hear, terrible had nothing to do with me.

What kind of responsibilities did you have on this film?

A lot of it had to do with trying to get the money for it. I've been on the road for the last year and a half, so I wasn't there for a lot of it. I wasn't there for the filming. But a lot of advice. We'd see edits, and we'd talk about it. For Bryan and I, we're not producers, we're executive producers, so for us, the main point of it was to help our friends get a chance to make a movie. Randall and David are great actors. It's really hard to get a shot as an actor where you really get to do something. For Scott, it was to get a chance to get back to being a director—a place where he should really be. For us, the idea is to advise and to help. We don't tell people what to do—we tell people what we think they should do, and, really, it's their baby.

It's weird, both for Bryan and I, as we're used to having complete control of things. My band is extremely collaborative, but I have the final word. Someone has to; that's the way it works. On Bryan's film, that's the way it works, too. I've talked to him about this endlessly. So it's a weird thing, and probably a good thing to learn for both of us, to not control all of it, to be able to collaborate on it in a lighter way. We all really like each other, we respect each other, and we've enjoyed doing it together. The next movie we do—and we're getting ready to start up another one—will be great. I'll be much more involved because I won't be on the road this whole year. I'm off while we're making a record.

Do you find that you prefer to be on the business side of filmmaking and the creative side of music?

In both cases, it's got to be a mix. My whole life is writing songs and singing. But either I handle the business with the band, or I get pissed at someone else for doing it wrong.

The same thing's true here. The real producing was done by David Hayter, who also starred in the film. Bryan and I were there as advisers on some business stuff, but most of it was creative—where to go with certain things, who was going to be cast as the woman, the third lead role in the film, watching a lot of tapes. I wasn't there for the auditions; I was filming the "Daylight Fading" video at the time. But they would send a tape to me where I was, out in the desert, and I'd give them my opinions. [Until last night], no one had seen the film up on a screen before.

How was it received?

It was great; it was huge. The moment we walked out of the screening, the Seattle Film Festival invited us to bring the film there. Before the screening, there was huge buzz about it all over town. It must have been advance word from the Slamdance people, because they're the only people who'd seen a copy of it.

Well, there's definitely some cachet with you and Bryan being attached to the project.

Yeah, I can understand that. I had a lot of problems with the early version that I'd seen, and I was worried. But when I saw it up on-screen last night, I was riveted. It was beautiful. The cinematography—the way Scott filmed it—I was blown away.

Do you get different things out of music and out of filmmaking?

Music is much closer to my heart. This is something fun to do with my friends. I'm a musician, but I'm a big movie fan. I grew up in a lot of different places as a kid, and I didn't know a lot of people, so I spent a lot of time watching movies, reading books, listening to music.

Music is my career. That to me is much more like breathing—it's completely a necessity. Making movies to me is just fun, it's something I enjoy doing—the chance to be creative in a completely non-life-or-death way for me. Though I have to say, I don't get nervous onstage, and I was freaking out last night at the screening [of Burn]. But also, onstage is an unbelievably emotional and exhausting thing for me. Last night, I got done, it was enjoyable, and I had a really fun, joyous evening in a way I never do coming offstage. I've never felt so happy.

Do you have the new Counting Crows record written?

Nothing, nothing at all. I don't write while I'm on the road. After the big tour we went on a tour of college towns across America, and then we took a week off and went to Europe, played the Royal Albert Hall in London for two nights, and we ended up in Dublin at the end of December. I skied for a couple of weeks, and now I'm here. When I get back, we'll start four-tracking some stuff. We have a lot of pieces of music that are pretty cool. I'll start writing—I'm looking forward to that; it comes when it comes. It's not something I do when I'm on the road.

I remember reading an interview where you said that whenever you try to force songwriting, you come up with crap.

I used to panic about it. I don't even try that much anymore. If I feel like playing, I play. On the road, where are you gonna write? There's no piano in your hotel room. You can carry one up, but then suddenly you gotta stay home and work that night. It's just a hassle, more than anything. But playing live is so creative that it's like songwriting to me. We're very different onstage than on the record—things just change as they go. That's such a creative thing, that I don't tend to get it all bottled up and want to write songs. I've written just a few songs on the road.

What are you listening to right now?

I've been listening a lot to Joni Mitchell's Blue. I just picked up my ninth copy of the Beastie Boys' Ill Communication; this is like my twelfth copy of Blue. I've been listening to that last Wilco album, Being There. Sparklehorse; I love them. I'm getting a Cracker tape from David Lowery while he's here—that album is almost finished. I got this really weird Laura Nyro album with LaBelle with a lot of cover songs. I was listening to the Radiohead album a lot. I didn't get it at first, maybe because my bass player was so annoying about it, but I really like it now. Then there's a really good Built to Spill album, called There's Nothing Wrong With Love, that I listened to a lot last year on the road.

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