For those listeners who've followed the life of Counting Crows since its thrust into the public eye with the 1993 debut album "August and Everything After," most will admit the band has been nothing but evolutionary.From "AAEA's" compositions and lyrics that seem to have an emotional intensity like the eye of a hurricane sprung something quite different with the group's second project, "Recovering the Satellites" (Geffen Records, 1996).
Its sophomore work (my personal favorite) crashes into town with enamoring vocal melodies tearing into brazen guitar distortions, which seem to be a musical reaction to the mysterious and weird phenomenon called fame. It was a product of an evolution that listeners could relive over and over again in the privacy of their own homes.
The next period of growth came with the band's latest album, "Hard Candy" (Geffen Records, 2002). This work is a high concentration of well-orchestrated compositions and arrangements. The band seems to have been more attentive to the tunes in the way the pieces unveiled themselves in the studio. Although every work deals with memories, "Hard Candy" seems to be more of a conscious awareness of nostalgia.
With such an evolution, the band gives its fans four very diverse albums while still remaining honest to the writing process and connected to the craft. Its life is a noteworthy balance of emotion and technique.
Counting Crows is: David Bryson (guitar), Adam Duritz (lead vocals, piano), Charles Gillingham (piano and keyboards), David Immergluck (guitar), Matt Malley (bass), Ben Mize now replaced by Jim Bogios (drums) and Dan Vickrey (guitar).
Wy spoke with Immergluck, one of the band's three guitarists, on everything from Miles Davis to guitar heroics to first takes in the studio.
Wy: The band builds with its pacing on many of the tunes and then uses exquisite breaks in that after someone takes a solo it will kind of wind down together. Is this something that now happens organically since the band's been together so long now or is it still hard work to get the songs to sound the way they do?
Immergluck: I think what you're talking about is just a function of being a musician for 30 years. Every song requires a different amount of work to get it to work right or to get it to naturally flow. Some songs just fall out of the box and it just all falls into place naturally, and you don't even think about it. Other ones don't and it's really kind of random, but the band is very dynamic, I will say that, and it's one of the big attractions of playing in it for me. It's a lot more ebb and flow in it than most rock music just as far as getting intense and getting quiet almost line by line.
With all of these dynamic characteristics, is one person coming up with these ideas? Or is it the product of what happens when the band jams?
Well, Adam might have something that he really wants to have happen under his voice or with the way a certain verse flows and he'll have a sense about that. Other times the dynamics just sort of write themselves especially in the instrumental parts.
With the song 'American Girls' after the bridge, (a transitional feature that usually connects the second chorus to the third verse, verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-verse), the third verse's sixth and seventh measures are reduced significantly compared to the sixth and seven measures in the first and second verses. It occurs right after the words 'She took almost everything from me.' It's a very clever arrangement. How are these types of things happening?
I can't remember how that one came up when we were cutting the track or who had that idea. You got a song that has three verses to keep yourself interested, and to keep the music feeling like it's moving somewhere, you just don't want to repeat the same dynamic every time you hit the verse. I always want to add something or take something out to make each verse its own individual thing so it really feels like the song's moving along.
With those songs written by Adam, what kind of musical sketch does he present to the band? Is it something really simple like a skeleton of the song or does he give the band complex arrangements with lines written out for each member?
Adam usually writes on piano, in fact he almost always does, and a lot of times, I'll try to convert what he's doing on piano into something that would be played on guitar. But once again, every song is different. Adam might come in (studio) with something really complete and really worked out. Every song has its own individual process.
For instance?
You take a song like "Carriage," he (Adam) just had the chords and the vocal melodies. Dan and I came up with a finger-picking thing really quickly that worked. We cut the song and put the first or second take on the album. We didn't really think about it and I just took some solos on it and while we were recording I thought, "Nothing's happening, I think I'll play a little guitar." It just worked out really well. It just sort of happened. Other songs we just labored over and labored over. Everyone got an idea and none of them worked so we'd all get frustrated. It's a really interesting process, indescribable really.
Which songs are then first takes and which ones are those that have been rehearsed to death?
"American Girls" we cut the day it was conceived. "Carriage" was also one. "Frankie Miller Goes to Hollywood" was also a fairly early take. But something like "Richard Mannuel is Dead," we recorded it about four different times. It's a simple song, but it took a while to figure out how to play it. I remember I was originally playing the electric rhythm guitar way more aggressively with twice as many hits. Every take we did of it, we'd come back to it six weeks later since it wasn't sounding right and do it again. Finally, the last time we recorded it, I was exhausted. I decided to play half time on it and thought, "Oh, why wasn't I doing that from the very beginning like three months ago?" So it's real simple stuff like that where you get a block and you can't see it.
With most jazz musicians like, for instance, Miles Davis, he would always make sure the rhythm section was locked in (bass, drums, piano and sometimes guitar), and then the group would record and most likely hit it on the first take. With using second, third, fourth, fifth takes, are you guys ever worried about losing that instinctual feeling that always shows up on first takes?
Miles is one of my favorite all-time musicians. In fact, if I had to choose one person's body of work that I could keep and listen to that would be the only artist I could listen to for the rest of my life, it would probably be Miles Davis. He's all about first takes and Bob Dylan is also like that. There is really something to that. I've done a lot of recordings myself with Counting Crows and outside Counting Crows, and I always like to say the machines like discovery. They like to hear you realizing that something's good while you're playing it as opposed to knowing the part and having it all rehearsed and playing it perfectly in time with every note played properly. Tape machines don't like that. You can really perceive the fireworks and energy of coming up with something spontaneously while the tapes are rolling. I swear to God, you can hear it. I always feel like it's always better if you can catch that, for certainly the kind of music we're doing. There's really something to capturing the spontaneous on tape.
Based on your tone and style, I'd say you listen to quite a bit of (fusion jazz guitarist) John McLaughlin. Are you a fan of his work?
Am I a fan of John McLaughlin? I adore John McLaughlin. He is one of my favorites. I like early John McLaughlin. I like him with Miles Davis like on "In a Silent Way." I don't know if you've ever heard of the record "Emergency" by Tony Williams' Lifetime. It's just Tony Williams on drums, John McLaughlin on guitar and Larry Young on organ; and it's just ferocious. I actually have all of these records of him in England. He was sort of a mod in the mid-60s.
What did he sound like back then?
He played with the Graham Bond Organisation and all of these weird R&B bands. He played with this white soul singer Duffy Powers, who is kind of Tom Jones but a little rougher. The band is basically Cream. It's like Ginger Baker, Jack Bruce, John McLaughlin and this singer doing this white soul music. He's (McLaughlin) playing this straight stuff that sounds like Booker T and the MGs but every now and again, he'll throw in this bizarre, exotic chord. You say to yourself, "Oh there is the 'Bitches' Brew' (Miles Davis album) sound from eight years later." He's so exotic sounding; that's what I love about him. Don't get me started on Miles Davis; I'll talk your ear off.
In smaller bands, the players have more space to improvise without stepping on their band mates' toes. Since you've been a member of many other bands that are smaller, how would you describe the reactions and interactions between those groups and Counting Crows?
Counting Crows is a large band, and there are great things and there are other things that are hard about it. I think you hit the nail on the head. It's a more delicate thing with so many people. It becomes more about letting Adam do his thing and going with it. You really have to orchestrate moments where this person is going to do something musically here and so it becomes his moment, blah, blah, blah. We've been on the road for more than a year and a half now. Right at the beginning of the tour, we hadn't been on the road for a year, and so we took about three or four days and just blew through stuff all day long. The first few shows were a little "dodgey" and then we were up to speed. But generally, being on the road, your free time is very valuable and so you want to make the most of it.
The band recently switched drummers and the former drummer, Ben Mize, had a wonderful sense of time and I really love his downbeats (a point of simultaneous harmonic and rhythmic arrivals). What is it about the style of your new drummer, Jim Bogios, that piqued the interest of the band?
I've been playing with "Jim-Dawg" since 1990 in all kinds of bands, so for me, I'm at home when Bogios is on drums. He's a firecracker and a fountain of positive energy on stage. He's just a great guy to play with.
After hearing you guys play live, it's clear that everyone in the group is there because they are good musicians. Does it ever bother you that so many music fans and critics always seem to talk about Adam, and they tend to overlook all of the musical contributions and talent of the other band members?
I don't even think about that stuff. I've been playing in rock bands since I can remember. You just know that lead singers get all of the attention. In the old days, guitarists would get a significant amount of attention also. I don't know. I certainly don't stress on it at all. I'm proud of my musicianship, I have the respect of my peers and anything past that is just amusing gravy. I don't require a lot of public accolade to feel like I have value. I've gotten a positive response from a lot of people I respect. That's what's important to me.
Many musicians talk about what they most like to be remembered for - some for their technique, others for their emotion and still others for their compositions. What would you like to be remembered for as a guitarist? What would you like Counting Crows to be remembered for?
I would like to be remembered as a musician who has a wide breadth of musicality and maybe has inspired other people to look at a lot of different types of music. Guitar is always my first instrument and my first love, but I do play a lot of different instruments, which has made me think more about music as opposed to GUITAR heroics. Although, I do like to be a guitar hero, it's amusing. I think with the band itself, holding up the flag for soulfulness and doing something in a genuine way regardless of trends.
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