Yesterday Counting Crows announced on their website that they are leaving Geffen Records after 18 years. Lead singer Adam Duritz called the Music Mix from Australia—where he is currently on tour with the band—to discuss the split, the future of the Crows and the enduring hotness of Jane Seymour.ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Why did you decide to split with Geffen? ADAM DURITZ: The internet’s changed everything. But the record companies aren’t owned by the David Geffens anymore. They aren’t owned by guys who might be visionary in this sort of way. It’s not the fault of the record companies. There’s plenty of smart people there. But, at a certain point, they’re owned by a guy who just works at a large large corporation. And his job is to see the bottom line. And when someone comes to him and says, we’d like to give something away free—I imagine that’s something his superiors don’t want him to say. The people we worked with at Geffen are smart and understood completely what we were doing. When we finally got cleared to do some things for this last record [2008's Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings] they couldn’t have jumped in with more enthusiasm. But the fact is, it doesn’t matter whether you are artist-friendly or not, there are rules about proprietary uses of music, and those rules come from on high and you are just not allow to do things. You could see it in their eyes, too—there was a certain helplessness there.You seem to be saying that you wanted to give some of your music away and you weren’t allowed to.In some ways we were allowed to, and in other ways were weren’t. We gave away a digital 45 free before the release of the record and I think that was a big factor in the album opening at number 3. Jimmy Iovine was great about it. He said, you’ve been here a long time and you’ve had a lot of great ideas and you deserve a shot at trying this one.So, I’m not quite sure what it is that you weren’t allowed to?Look, understand that I was there for 18 years. A long time. And they did not have to let us go. So, I’d rather not get into specific things. There were things that we just weren’t allowed to do. The funny thing is, it leaked to the public anyways, it got out there before the release, and it still opened at number 3 and it still made money.What is the future for Counting Crows?There’s so many different things to do right now. I have an indie label. I have a movie called Freeloaders that I just finished producing that will have a soundtrack Counting Crows will do some things for. We’re quite capable of making records for very reasonable amounts of money because we own our own studio anyway and I believe we’ll always be an album band. That said, I don’t have one bursting out of me right now.How did you get involved in Freeloaders?Two friends of mine wrote it and I wanted to make sure they got to be able to make it and one of them got to direct it. It’s about a bunch of douchebags who live in a rock star’s house. So I took over the option and me and a couple of partners raised all of the finance for it ourselves. And Broken Lizard, who made Supertroopers and Beerfest, they came in and partnered up with us, which was great. They’re getting ready to do the first screening in a week or so. I think we made a hysterical indie comedy. It’s very funny and very vulgar.And one of the stars is Jane Seymour?Yeah, she’s the coolest chick I ever met in my life. Every time you’re on the phone with Jane she tells you something else that reminds you of how much cooler than you she is. Some other story about her life that’s, like, you’e got to be f—king kidding me.And, not to be rude, but I’ve seen Wedding Crashers and she’s still a fine-looking woman.Oh, yeah. She’s just cooler than I’m gonna be ever.More Counting Crows from EW:CD Review: Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings
Archive: March 2009 (111-120 of 123)
Adam Duritz exclusive: Why Counting Crows Left Geffen
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Kelly Clarkson debuts at No. 1: Don't call it a comeback?
Conventional wisdom says that Kelly Clarkson is currently in the middle of a triumphant comeback from the fizzle that was 2007′s My December. Sure enough, her new one, All I Ever Wanted, just debuted at No. 1 on this week’s Billboard chart after selling 255,000 copies in its first week, according to Nielsen SoundScan. That’s a strong opening, 2009′s second biggest yet after the 484,000 that U2 racked up the week before. But it’s worth pausing for a moment to note that this is actually somewhat less than the 291,000 units that My December moved in week 1. You can say that sales don’t really matter, or that everyone’s selling fewer CDs these days, and both of those points are more than fair. But My December was judged primarily on its sales record. The whole rap against that album was that it allegedly wasn’t "commercial" enough — as if singer-songwriter confessions and Evanescence-style power chords were the most perplexing left turns a pop star could take. Fact is, there’s no shame in having between 200,000 and 300,000 reliable CD-buying fans. Maybe the people who expected Clarkson to do mega-huge numbers every time were the unrealistic ones all along.
Other noteworthy chart debuts this week came from The-Dream, who sold 151,000 copies of Love vs. Money (which I think is a terrific pop album, though our reviewer didn’t agree); J. Holiday, with 55,000 of Round 2; Chris Cornell, who sold just 26,000 of his unexpected R&B experiment Scream; New Found Glory, with 23,000 of Not Without a Fight; and the second installment of the Punk Goes Pop compilation series, with 21,000.
More on Kelly Clarkson:
All I Ever Wanted got a B+ review
ShePop: Kelly Clarkson’s new album scores one for not scoring
Kelly Clarkson’s new video does not suck
Beyonce talks 'Rhythm Heaven,' 'Guitar Hero,' and more: An exclusive Q&A about music and videogames
Beyonce is already famous around the world as a singer-actress, but maybe it’s time to add another word to her hyphenated title: gamer. I caught up with Beyonce recently on the set of a TV ad she was taping for the new Nintendo DSi game Rhythm Heaven (in stores April 5) and heard all about her favorite videogames. Read on for our exclusive Q&A.
EW: You just shot a TV ad for Rhythm Heaven, in which players tap a screen with a stylus in time with music. Have you been having fun?
BEYONCE: I have been having a great time. I’ve been rehearsing for my [upcoming] tour in stilettos and uncomfortable corsets, learning all these arrangements. Today I was playing the game with my socks on, on the couch, and it was very relaxing!
What are some of your other favorite videogames?
I like all the Wii games. Love Guitar Hero. This reminds me a little bit of a portable Guitar Hero, which is great, because I don’t want to carry around a big guitar! Growing up, I liked Tetris. I even like BrickBreaker on the BlackBerry.
Are you better at Guitar Hero or actual guitar?
Guitar Hero! At one point I was learning to play guitar, maybe 10 years ago. I wrote "Dangerously in Love" on the guitar. I’m very upset with myself for stopping.
Would you ever consider creating your own Beyonce version of Guitar Hero or Rock Band, like other artists have?
Definitely. I would love to imagine people playing to my songs. I’ve actually played some karaoke games with the old Destiny’s Child songs. It’s so funny, because I don’t get great scores. I’m like, "How is that possible?!" [Laughs]
What was the first game system you had when you were growing up?
A Nintendo. I would play Super Mario Bros. We weren’t supposed to play it after 9 o’clock, and I would sneak and play all night. I loved it.
When do you do most of your gaming?
I am very busy, but I always have time sitting around sets and on tour buses and planes. Usually I use that time to do approvals and other things, but sometimes it’s necessary to take your mind away from all of that. So I make time.
More on Beyonce:
Beyonce talks world tour, new videos
EW Gallery: 10 "Fierce" Beyonce Looks
Beyonce’s "Single Ladies" dance contest
The six easy steps to the "Single Ladies" dance
Rush's Geddy Lee talks about 'I Love You, Man,' 'Colbert,' and their new compilation
Rush may be on a "deep holiday" these days, but the legendary rock trio sure seems busy. Their third Retrospective set — a CD and DVD covering the last 19 years -– recently hit stores, and they show up to perform "Limelight" in the highly anticipated upcoming Paul Rudd/Jason Segel comedy I Love You, Man. Frontman Geddy Lee fills us in on what the band has been up to. (Click through the jump for the full Q&A.)
EW: Let’s talk about your new greatest hits collection, Retrospective 3. What did you argue about when putting together the track list?
Geddy Lee: We don’t really have a lot of disagreements. We’re ridiculously sensible, the three of us. We like to joke that we’re one of the few working democracies in the world today. We all sent our opinions around. It was only two or three emails and everyone said, "Sure, that’s good, no problem, thumbs up." And that was that. It was very painless. Unlike when we have to choose the songs for our tour. That’s a long and very difficult process. We play for about three hours, and we have to balance what our fans want to hear and what we want to play, the new songs. We have, like, a hundred million albums. Trying to draw three hours out of all those records…
EW: So how did you settle on the 14 songs on the new collection?
GL: We usually send each other a bunch of emails. Management will make suggestions, and we’ll try to ignore as many of their suggestions as possible. [Laughs] For me it’s all about trying to do something interesting for our fans. Our fans probably have all those songs in one form or another, so if we’re going to put something out there we’d like to try to make it a little different. We tried to include some unusual versions of some of those songs. If I had my druthers it would be a boxed set of three discs. But that’s not very practical. I would like to spend some time at some point doing some creative boxed sets. I think that would be fun.
EW: So there’s a lot of unreleased Rush material sitting in the vaults, then?
GL: There isn’t. None. There’s lots of unreleased live material. Hours. Months. But there’s no [studio] material that we’ve recorded and not released. It’s like this: if we’re working on a song where we don’t love it enough to put it on the record, we throw it away. If we’re disappointed in them, we trash them.
Rod Thomas: New kid on Elton's block
Music Mixers, meet Rod (not be confused with matchbox 20′s Rob) Thomas, a young singer-songwriter passed on to us from EW’s resident movie expert/Euro-pop superfan Dave Karger. He’s signed to Elton John’s Twenty-First Artists management company, also home to Lily Allen and James Blunt, and he’ll be all over Austin for SXSW this week.
From what we’ve streamed on Thomas’s MySpace, he’s got a sort of Blunt-like sensitive-beardy-Brit vibe,with a little whiff of Yaz-style synth-wistfulness (and pretty much none of Lily’s naughty-Mockney snark). But don’t take our word for it; check out the live acoustic clip below and tell us what you think:
Rejected Demos: We dare you to listen!
Given the dubious quality of some music that gets released I occasionally find myself wondering quite how awful the stuff record companies reject can be. Now I have my answer! New York magazine’s Vulture blog has discovered a tumblr which features demos rejected by an anonymous label. These choice cuts—and I use that term in the most sarcastic way imaginable—range from a none-more-cheesy Christmas song (“So take me to the Santa Claus Parade/I’ve always loved the magic that it made…”) to a diabolically lame cover of "Let’s Get It On". The whole, hilarious, thing reminds me of a passage from real-life British ex-A&R man John Niven’s fantastic recent novel Kill Your Friends in which he describes the average record company demo-listening session in the following words: “Occasionally, if it’s a rainy afternoon and we’re really bored and want something to do, a few of the A&R staff will gather in someone’s office, roll ourselves a couple of thick spliffs, uncork a bottle or red, and go through one of the sacks marked ‘UNSOLICITED DEMOS’. These sessions usually end with two or three of us on our hands and knees on the floor howling, gasping for breath, ribs and facial muscles aching.”
Of course it’s easy—and fun!— to make mock of such hapless stabs at success. But should we—and the whoever made the tracks available—be feeling guilty inbetween our guffaws?
Rihanna's mentor speaks: An exclusive interview
In an exclusive interview with EW, veteranmusic producer Evan Rogers (Christina Aguilera, Kelly Clarkson), whodiscovered Rihanna in Barbados and has worked closely with her ever since,is speaking out for the first time since the alleged incident with Chris Brown.
EW: What do you make of everyone from Katie Couric and OprahWinfrey to Tyra Banks and Dr. Phil attempting to get through to Rihannaon their shows? Do you think it will help or is it just a circus?
EVAN ROGERS: I think that everyone has good intentions and means well, but it turns up the heat in terms of it seeming like the whole world is telling her what to do. At the end of the day, people forget that at 21, your perspective is very different. These kinds of things can happen to anyone, whether you’re a celebrity or not.
EW: As someone who knows Rihanna and is close to her, do you think she’staking their advice into consideration? Has she been watching thoseshows and following what public figures like Oprah are saying about her?
ER: I think she’s very aware of everything that’s going on. Just like anyone else, she watches TV, she goes online. And I think that it matters to her, but there’s a line that she walks between being human and caring when you hear these kinds of things, and separating your personal life from your professional life. She’s doing the best she can and this is a very difficult time that she’s going through right now and she’s going to learn a lot from it.
EW: What effect could all of this have on Rihanna’s young fans?
ER: It obviously concerns her a lot. But at the end of the day, I think that most people still see her as the victim in this situation. You’ll always have a lot of haters who talk negatively about artists all day long on the Internet. But I think that when the dust settles, she’s going to be fine. The bottom line is Rihanna is a superstar and like other artists, the reception from her fans will mostly depend on how good an album she makes next time out and how great the songs are. As long as all that is taken care of, she’ll be fine and everything will take care of itself. She just needs to get in [the studio] and make a great album.
EW: Last week, reports surfaced that Rihanna and Chris Brown recently recorded a duet for his next CD…
ER: There’s no duet that’s been recorded other than the one [called "Bad Girl"] that was a bootleg track from months before. Those were just rumors.
EW: Is Rihanna recording any new music?
ER: She’s just getting started now.
More on Rihanna
Rihanna is NOT a role model
Chris Brown and Rihanna: No love duet after all?
Boston survey finds that many teens blame Rihanna
Oprah Winfrey: my Rihanna, Chris Brown show ‘a huge, teachable moment’
Pearl Jam hits today's top ten with a song from 1991
When this week’s Billboard charts came out, some here at Music Mix headquarters were shocked to see Pearl Jam’s “Brother” in the top ten of both rock lists — #4 on Modern, #8 on Mainstream (where, thank god, Nickelback’s “Something in Your Mouth” still reigns supreme). Your Aunt Whittlz, on the other hand, was not shocked in the least: Pearl Jam has always sounded great on the radio, and “Brother” is vintage brew, the first song released from the upcoming Ten reissue.
The track is an outtake from those long-ago sessions, until now available only as a bootleg or in instrumental form on 2003′s Lost Dogs. But as of March 24, the fancy Brendan O’Brien remixed version can be yours, along with other bonus remixes like “State of Love and Trust” and the band’s never-before-officially-ownable MTV Unplugged show. Those wishing to get a jump on things can stream “Brother” and more on the PJ MySpace page, or play this very angry-making online game to unlock additional content. My Super Deluxe version is apparently waiting for me back in LA, because I am a very lucky girl. I have never wanted SXSW to end so quickly.
We’re trying to get a band member on the horn to discuss all this for ya, but meanwhile — what do you think, Mixers? Surprised at PJ’s newest chart success? Do you think all that airplay is more a testament to the quality of the track or the power of Eddie et. al.’s enduring sound? Might this old-school radio success equal old-school sales success for the reissue, too? And can you think of any other remixed outtakes that have hit the top ten?
More on Pearl Jam
Pearl Jam to remaster, remix, and reissue ‘Ten’
Pearl Jam at Bonnaroo 2008
Eddie Vedder on his solo soundtrack work
It’s a Pearl Jamily Affair
2006 interviews with all five band members
Keith Urban's Defying Gravity: Early Access to new album on iLike
Want to hear Keith Urban’s new album, Defying Gravity, two weeks before it hits record-store shelves? Online music site (and popular Facebook app) iLike just announced today that it will be unrolling the record one track at a time for every one of the eleven days leading up to Gravity‘s release March 31, complete with a personalized video intro for each song. Click here for more info, and keep your country eyes peeled, too, for a ticket giveaway attached to his May 2009 tour.
EW will have its own review of the disc in next week’s issue, but in the meantime, tell us what you think of Nicole Kidman’s baby’s daddy’s new material. Did his February Grammys appearances (including this little number with Al Green and Justin Timberlake) whet your appetite for all things Urban?
//
No Doubt on 'Gossip Girl' spin-off, album, and tour: An exclusive Q&A
On March 12, inside a damp, musty warehouse in downtown Los Angeles, No Doubt did one of their first gigs in years. Well actually, "Snowed Out" performed. That’s the name of the punk band No Doubt is playing in the Gossip Girl spin-off that’s due to air May 11th. Set in LA in the early ’80s and focusing on young Lily Van Der Woodsen (played by Hairspray‘s Brittany Snow), the special episode features Gwen Stefani, Tony Kanal, Adrian Young, and Tom Dumont rocking a cover of Adam and the Ants’ "Stand and Deliver." EW got an exclusive sit down with band, whose reunion tour kicks off May 2 in Atlantic City, before they took the stage.
EW: Why the Adam and the Ants song?
Adrian: Because that song rules!
Tony: We just went through a bunch of songs and that was one that we all agreed on. We all loved it.
Gwen: It took us like five minutes to pick that.
Tony: Because we’re quick like that now! As you get older, you’re just smarter.
Gwen: We normally just email, but we got on the phone for that one.
Tom: It’s like, should we do "Stairway to Heaven" or" Stand and Deliver"?
Tony: Or "I’m Too Sexy"?
EW: Tell me about your tour. Are you guys in rehearsal right now?
Gwen: We haven’t even gone into rehearsals yet.
Tony: We kind of have.
Gwen: Those guys went to the mountains together!
Tony: Idyllwild [in California]. The three of us. We rented a cabin.Three men. One van. Lots of equipment. One cabin. Five days and Fivecrazy nights!
EW: Did you bring eyeliner?
Tony: We didn’t. But we had a good time up there. And we played some music. We got our calluses ready again.
Tom: And we dusted off the cobwebs.
EW: What about an album? Are you thinking that?
Gwen: We were making an album and I was pregnant for a super longtime. I kept trying to write the record when I was pregnant and itdidn’t work. We did a lot of work, though. We did a lot of talking andhanging out and eating which was really fun. I was like, "You guys,let’s go. Let’s just go tour." I think that’s going to point mepersonally in the right direction for what I need. I mean, these guysare already writing, like, so much music. I take the blame. It’s all myfault! I think the chemistry up there is going to really make us feellike able to make modern music.
Tony: The interesting thing is that as soon as Gwen said, "Let’s goon the road," we were all like, "Let’s go on the road!" Four adultsturned into four giggly children.
EW: Fans who purchase a ticket for the tour are getting your entireback catalog of songs for free. What was the thinking behind doing that?
Gwen: Was that your idea? [Points to Tom]
Tom: Yeah. We have a lot of music and we just wanted everybody tohear it. And technology is such that it’s just very easy to do. Leteverybody download everything we’ve recorded and throw it in with aticket.
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