Duritz is more than a
musician, he is a
poet. His
lyrics span a
massive collection of
emotions and almost anyone can find a
Counting Crows song that they are sure was
written about their
life.
Duritz was a student at UC Berkeley. He studied English, but left a semester shy of graduation because the University would not recognize songwriting as a genre of English. Adam began landscaping and washing dishes before he and future Counting Crows guitarist David Bryson began playing under the name Sordid Humor, and so the story unfolds...(Check the Counting Crows node for the rest of the story)
Duritz is a lyrical genius and his musical poetry has been compared to artists like Bob Dylan. Adam is fairly secretive about his private life. He despises the off-stage spotlight, and he tends to not allow interviews to delve too deeply into his persona.
Adam's musical influences include Elvis Costello, Robyn Hitchcock, Graham Parker, The Faces, The Gigolo Aunts, and some of the local bands from Boston in the early 90's.
Adam actually derived the band's name from Mary-Louise Parker's Signs of Life while he was trying to come up with a fitting name for the band. There is a line in the movie about counting crows, and the line stuck in Adam's head.
Duritz is also the founder of E Pluribus Unum, a record label whose purpose can be summed up best by Adam himself:
"What we look for is good songwriters and people who play great live because those are two commodities that will last for years."
A friend of mine once said:
"If I could be anything I wanted, I would be a Counting Crows song..." In conversation, while commenting on the lyrics of various musicians.