Word: duritz
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...songs and performances, though, Duritz opens his life up to the public. His Iyrics are known for their personal reflections on his own life and his concert performances drip with real emotion. He does not just perform--he's living on stage. Yet he says, "That's kind of the point of it to me. Nothing that has to do with the music ever gets to be really too much for me." For him, only the press and the people sometimes become too burdensome...
...Duritz, however, says that neither he nor the band is affected by the lopsided attention and publicity he receives as the band's lead singer. While a lot of listeners might be hard pressed to name the band's other five members, Duritz says he realizes that he has found something very rare in Counting Crows. "I don't want to be a solo-artist," he says. "We know that we're a band." Duritz says that he could write the most incredible lyrics and music, but without musicians who understand what he has written and who are able...
...Still, Duritz's heart-wrenching lyrics are undeniably an integral part of Counting Crows' success. "I wanted to be a writer, and I am one," he affirms. He began writing his freshman year in college, but says he remains undaunted by the fact that he never received his English degree from Berkeley. He completed everything except his thesis. "It was the last thing," he explains, "and I just didn't turn it in. I was doing other things the whole time anyway. I planned to get back and turn it in. I got an extension on it, an incomplete...
...While Duritz resists the temptation to call his song lyrics poetry, saying that they are definitely a separate thing, he admits that the only writer who has ever influenced his writing was poet Carolyn Forche. "She's really a brilliant poet," he says. He first learned of Forche when he read her book A Country Between Us during his one year at Davis. "It has really had a big effect on me," he adds...
...Duritz, the events of his life clearly influence and affect his music most. "I just write about what happened yesterday," he says. "Your life today is the result of what happened yesterday, and tomorrow is the result of today." This philosophy shines through in Counting Crows' latest album Recovering the Satellites. "[The album] is indicative of what that year was like," comments Duritz as he describes the time during which the album was written. "The whole album," he continues, "is about sort of coming to grips with things that happened to you--that changed you in your life...