Red Light Management

Counting Crows

countingcrows.com/

Bio

For more than two decades, Counting Crows have enchanted listeners worldwide with their intensely soulful and intricate take on timeless rock & roll. Now, on Somewhere Under Wonderland —their seventh studio album, the Bay Area-bred alt-rock band push into new terrain with a revamped songwriting approach that’s adventurous and visionary but still rooted in raw emotion. Propelled by the same earthy passion that’s instilled their songs since 1993’s multiplatinum August and Everything After, Counting Crows (vocalist Adam Duritz; guitarists David Bryson, David Immergluck, and Dan Vickrey; bassist Millard Powers; keyboardist Charlie Gillingham; and drummer Jim Bogios) build each of Somewhere Under Wonderland’s nine sprawling songs around rich sonic tapestries and a storytelling-esque lyricism that yields some of their most grandiose yet intimate songs so far.

The follow-up to Counting Crows’ 2012 covers album Underwater Sunshine (Or What We Did on Our Summer Vacation), Somewhere Under Wonderland was heavily inspired by its predecessor’s reworkings of beloved songs by artists like Bob Dylan, Big Star, Gram Parsons, and Faces. “Making the covers record did something extraordinary to the band,” says Duritz. “It really opened us up to a lot of new ideas on how to make music.” After touring in support of Underwater Sunshine, the band wrote Somewhere Under Wonderland in a few feverish bursts while camped out at Duritz’s Greenwich Village loft for several weeks in the Fall of 2013, then took to Berkeley’s Fantasy Studios in parts of December and February to pair up with producer Brian Deck (a repeat Counting Crows cohort who’s also worked with Iron & Wine, The Shins, Margot & The Nuclear So and So’s, and Modest Mouse). As the album came to life, the band saw that interpreting the work of other musicians helped expand their own songwriting and sound. “Singing other people’s material and taking on different perspectives, we sort of stepped away from music being solely a vehicle to express whatever I was going through,” says Duritz. “I started allowing myself to write about things I might never have allowed myself to write about in the past, and some really great songs came out of that.”

Borrowed from a line in the album’s quirky shuffling second track “Earthquake Driver,” Somewhere Under Wonderland gives a nod to Hollywood’s Laurel Canyon, which Duritz once called home. “I moved there right after all the craziness started up with us,” he says, referring to the years after the runaway success of August and Everything After. “It was kind of a place where I started over in life, and this record’s somewhat about starting over too.” Throughout Somewhere Under Wonderland, Duritz gracefully captures that feeling of renewal—a sense of beginning again despite not being entirely freed from the weight of the past—thanks to a warm and powerful vocal delivery that often embodies both hope and melancholy in a single note, as well as elegantly crafted lyrics nearly novelistic in scope. “Writing only from your own personal experience can be really limiting, so these songs are often partly telling other people’s stories, sliding in and out of the first person,” says Duritz, who notes that his recent collaboration with acclaimed playwright Stephen Belber on the in-progress play Black Sun helped reshape his lyric-writing process for Somewhere Under Wonderland.

On “Palisades Park”—Somewhere Under Wonderland’s eight-and-a-half-minute-long opener—the story centers on a fictional pair of friends stumbling into self-discovery in the violently changing world of New York City in the late ‘70s. At turns exultant and heartbreaking, the piano-driven epic weaves in images of boxing legends Jack Johnson and Jim Jeffries, flying horses and pinball machines, Edie Sedgwick and angel dust—all while spinning an oddball romance that sometimes unfolds into tender aphorism (“Real love outlives teenage lust/We could get wet and it keeps us warm”). That artful yet easy balance of outlandish imagery and poignant revelation endures throughout Somewhere Under Wonderland, with the gloriously fired-up “Elvis Went to Hollywood” telling tales of everything from motorcycle-riding aliens to Alex Chilton’s ghost and the hard-driving, harmony-laced “Scarecrow” lamenting the “American boys at the Park ‘n’ Shop/Selling their memories for a dollar a pop.” “Earthquake Driver,” meanwhile, counters its breezy melody with the restless energy harnessed in its lyrics (“What is the price for all this fame and self-absorption?/We turn ourselves into orphans/And then spend our nights alone”). And on “Dislocation,” Counting Crows offer a soaring but wistful exploration of isolation and identity in the modern age (“I am written in the radio/I dream on my TV”) that references Jackie O alongside subway trains, gamma rays, paper airplanes, birthday cakes, and bombs.

But this is all really nothing new. Counting Crows have long thrived on creating gorgeously textured songs whose lyrics subtly unfurl into ever-shifting moods. Formed in the Bay Area in the early ‘90s, the band achieved their breakout with the release of August and Everything After, a debut album produced by T Bone Burnett (former member of Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue and producer for artists including Elvis Costello and Los Lobos). With August and Everything After ultimately selling seven million copies, Counting Crows saw their sophomore album Recovering the Satellites, produced by Gil Norton (groundbreaking producer for The Pixies, Gomez, Foo Fighters) debut at number-one upon its October 1996 release and eventually go double-platinum. Endlessly furthering their reputation as an unforgettable live act, Counting Crows went on to release This Desert Life in 1999, Hard Candy in 2002, and Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings in 2008, along with the Academy Award-nominated 2004 single “Accidentally in Love” and a host of live albums (including Echoes of the Outlaw Roadshow, a 2013 release whose title alludes to the ongoing music showcase co-organized by Ryan’s Smashing Life blogger Ryan Spaulding and Duritz to boost exposure for indie bands).

With Somewhere Under Wonderland, Counting Crows continue their tradition of delivering uncompromisingly honest music grounded in pure feeling—even when the stories at the center of those songs are essentially fiction. “Palisades Park,” for instance, not only draws on Duritz’s teen years in the wilds of San Francisco, but also mines inspiration from his life as a musician “living outside the bounds of what everyone else does, and how liberating and terrifying that can be.” One of the most rewarding elements of Somewhere Under Wonderland’s point-of-view shift, according to Duritz: a joyful venturing into some less frequently plumbed corners of his mind. “I was talking to a friend who’s a songwriter, and I asked him if he thought the songs on the record were less personal than usual for me,” Duritz says of the making of Somewhere Under Wonderland. “And he told me, ‘No, they actually seem way more personal to me. I feel like in a way, you spent the past 20 years writing this epic tragedy about living with mental illness but that’s not all there is to you. You don’t walk around depressed all day every day. You’re funny. You talk a lot of crap and you have crazy thoughts, you make these twisted associations that other people wouldn’t make. It’s not all some big tragedy. I love those records, but this is more what it’s really like to be inside your head for a little while.’”

Read More

Contact

Agency - Europe

Agency - International

Tour Dates

Apr 26 2025
High Water 2025
North Charleston, SC
Jun 10 2025
The Pinnacle
Nashville, TN
Jun 11 2025
Fraze Pavilion
Kettering, OH
View More
Jun 13 2025
Pavilion at Ravinia
Highland Park, IL
Jun 14 2025
Everwise Amphitheater at White River State Park
Indianapolis, IN
Jun 17 2025
Michigan Lottery Amphitheatre at Freedom Hill
Sterling Heights, MI
Jun 19 2025
The Theatre at Great Canadian Toronto
Etobicoke, Canada
Jun 21 2025
Chautauqua Amphitheater
Chautauqua, NY
Jun 22 2025
The Event Center at Turning Stone Resort Casino
Verona, NY
Jun 25 2025
Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion
Gilford, NH
Jun 26 2025
MGM Music Hall at Fenway
Boston, MA
Jun 28 2025
PNC Bank Arts Center
Holmdel, NJ
Jun 29 2025
Northwell Health at Jones Beach Theater
Wantagh, NY
Jul 02 2025
Mass Mutual Center
Springfield, MA
Jul 03 2025
Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Course
Grantville, PA
Jul 05 2025
Hard Rock Live at Etess Arena
Atlantic City, NJ
Jul 06 2025
Hartford HealthCare Amphitheater
Bridgeport, CT
Jul 08 2025
Freeman Arts Pavilion
Selbyville, DE
Jul 10 2025
Merriweather Post Pavilion
Columbia, MD
Jul 12 2025
Allianz Amphitheater at Riverfront
Richmond, VA
Jul 13 2025
Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Bristol
Bristol, VA
Jul 15 2025
PNC Music Pavilion
Charlotte, NC
Jul 17 2025
Red Hat Amphitheater
Raleigh, NC
Jul 19 2025
St. Augustine Amphitheatre
St. Augustine, FL
Jul 20 2025
The BayCare Sound at Coachman Park
Clearwater, FL
Jul 22 2025
Hard Rock Cafe
Hollywood, FL
Jul 24 2025
Ameris Bank Amphitheatre
Alpharetta, GA
Jul 26 2025
Orion Amphitheater
Huntsville, AL
Jul 27 2025
The Sound Amphitheater
Gautier, MS
Jul 27 2025
The Sound Amphitheater
Gautier, MS
Jul 30 2025
Saenger Theatre
New Orleans, LA
Jul 31 2025
Smart Financial Centre at Sugar Land
Sugar Land, TX
Aug 02 2025
The Espee
San Antonio, TX
Aug 03 2025
Choctaw Grand Theater
Durant, OK
Aug 05 2025
Isleta Amphitheater
Albuquerque, NM
Aug 07 2025
Petco Park
San Diego, CA
Aug 09 2025
PH Live
Las Vegas, NV
Aug 10 2025
Yaamava’ Theater
Highland, CA
Aug 12 2025
YouTube Theater
Los Angeles, CA
Aug 13 2025
The Greek Theatre at UC Berkeley
Berkeley, CA
Aug 16 2025
PNE Fair
Vancouver, Canada
Aug 17 2025
Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery
Woodinville, WA
Aug 19 2025
Hayden Homes Amphitheater
Bend, OR
Aug 21 2025
Utah First Credit Union Amphitheatre
West Valley City, UT
Aug 23 2025
Fiddler's Green Amphitheatre
Greenwood Village, CO
Sep 21 2025
Cirque Royal
Brussels, Belgium
Sep 22 2025
AFAS Live
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Sep 24 2025
VEGA
København, Denmark
Sep 25 2025
Sentrum Scene
Oslo, Norway
Sep 27 2025
Annexet
Stockholm, Sweden
Sep 29 2025
Docks
Hamburg, Germany
Sep 30 2025
Huxleys Neue Welt
Berlin, Germany
Oct 02 2025
LKA Longhorn
Stuttgart, Germany
Oct 04 2025
Gasometer
Wien, Austria
Oct 06 2025
TonHalle München
München, Germany
Oct 07 2025
Volkshaus
Zürich, Switzerland
Oct 09 2025
L’Olympia
Paris, France
Oct 10 2025
Transbordeur
Villeurbanne, France
Oct 12 2025
Alcatraz
Milan, Italy
Oct 14 2025
Razzmatazz 1
Barcelona, Spain
Oct 15 2025
Sala Riviera
Madrid, Spain
Oct 17 2025
Coliseu dos Recreios
Lisboa, Portugal
Oct 21 2025
3Arena
Dublin, Ireland
Oct 23 2025
O2 City Hall Newcastle
Newcastle Upon Tyne, United Kingdom
Oct 24 2025
O2 Apollo Manchester
Manchester, United Kingdom
Oct 26 2025
O2 Academy Leeds
Leeds, United Kingdom
Oct 27 2025
Corn Exchange
Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Oct 29 2025
Wolverhampton Civic Hall
Wolverhampton, United Kingdom
Oct 31 2025
Guildhall Studio
Portsmouth, United Kingdom
Nov 01 2025
OVO Arena Wembley
London, United Kingdom

News

05/31/2023

SIRIUSXM PRESENTS COUNTING CROWS LIVE FROM THE TROUBADOUR

SIRIUSXM PRESENTS COUNTING CROWS LIVE FROM THE TROUBADOUR (more…)

Read More

03/14/2023

COUNTING CROWS ANNOUNCE BANSHEE SEASON TOUR WITH SPECIAL GUEST DASHBOARD CONFESSIONAL

THE 56-DATE MEGA TOUR SET TO KICK OFF JUNE 13 General ticket on-sale begins Friday, March 17 NEW YORK, NY (March 13, 2023) – After performing to sold-out crowds worldwide…

Read More

10/04/2021

COUNTING CROWS SET TO BRING “COUNTING CROWS: BUTTER MIRACLE TOUR 2022” TO EUROPE

COUNTING CROWS SET TO BRING “COUNTING CROWS: BUTTER MIRACLE TOUR 2022” TO EUROPE TOUR TO KICK OFF FEBRUARY 28 IN HELSINKI PUBLIC ON-SALE BEGINS OCTOBER 8   Photo Credit: Mark…

Read More