We all wanna be big, big stars

A surprising story of wanting fame, attaining it, then discovering that maybe it wasn’t what he wanted after all. Who are we talking about? Adam Duritz, the singer/songwriter from Counting Crows, one of the biggest alternative bands of the 90’s.

One night back in the early 90s, singer-songwriter Adam Duritz was out on the town in San Franciso with friend and bassist bandmate Marty Jones. The two had ventured out to the Mission district to catch a performance by Marty’s father, a talented Flamenco guitarist, and his troupe. I guess it was quite a show. After the gig was over, everyone went out drinking at an establishment called the New Amsterdam. While there, Adam and Marty sat at the bar checking out a couple of girls, trying to muster the courage to talk to them. But the band brothers both felt too self-conscious to make the first move Meanwhile, sitting in the corner, there was another guy who was getting all the girls. It was Chris Isaak’s drummer Kenny Dale Johnson, and he was surrounded by three ladies. Back then, Chris Isaak’s band was the hottest rockabilly outfit in the city. And clearly, Kenny was reaping the benefits. Staring across the room, Adam started thinking, man, if we were more famous, maybe we’d be able to do that. Said Duritz, “I remember just talking about it with Marty, saying, ‘Man, we have got to get [it] together and become rock stars.’” But that night, the two didn’t get it together. And they spent the rest of the night at the bar alone. Later, after Adam got back home, he channeled his feelings and frustrations into a new song that he called Mr. Jones. Duritz actually doesn’t remember much about writing the song, just that he did it in the middle of the night and he was pretty drunk at the time. Lest anyone get confused by the title, Adam also explained that the song is completely about him, not Marty. Mr. Jones would just be along for the ride. Not surprisingly, many of the song’s lyrics draw on details from Adam’s earlier outing… Down at the New Amsterdam, black-haired flamenco dancer, stare at the beautiful women, pass me a bottle Mr. Jones. But the main message of the song clearly points to Adam’s desire to be famous… We all wanna be big, big stars / Yeah but we got different reasons for that…

P.S. I had the pleasure of meeting their bass player, Matt on my WWII Engineer forum in 2019. Small world huh? His introduction began as:

Hello everyone – my name is Matt Malley, and I am glad to be here! My father, WW2 vet Patrick Lawrence Malley passed away in April of ’03 and I must have the worst timing because I’ve since become a bit obsessed with WW2, watching all the documentaries, reading all the books – and now I have a million questions for him but he’s gone. In 5 days from now, on Feb 3rd it would have been dad’s 100th birthday. In my 20’s I co-founded a successful 90’s rock band “Counting Crows” as their bass player and dad was proud of me in his quiet way – one of the highlights of my life is when mom said that he wears his Counting Crows t-shirt to the bar as a conversation piece! He’s from Berkeley, CA and was in the “343rd Engineer General Service Regiment”. I’ve been going through one of his boxes this week and found some great photos from Naples Harbor, Rome, North Africa, Southern France etc. Attaching a photo – dad is the handsome devil on the right with the cigar. I’m here to meet other sons/daughters of WW2 vets – all of these vets are national treasures who fought an undeniable evil and grew up too fast – and when they’re gone, there will be no more firsthand accounts of the war and that will be one of this country’s greatest losses. I got a very limited report of dad from the St Louis archives but his original papers were destroyed in a flood that happened in the ’70’s I believe. Anyway great to be here, please write and hope to connect some of the dots! Matt Malley