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Letters To Cleo

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Letters To Cleo "Cleo-ize" The Holidays On The Limited-Edition 'OK Christmas' EP

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"'Ok Christmas' is this year’s annual holiday gift to our fans," Kay Hanley, lead singer of the Boston alt-rock troupe, tells the Recording Academy
Will Hodge
GRAMMYs
Nov 25, 2019 - 12:29 pm

"Every year we joke about doing a Christmas record," laughs Letters To Cleo lead singer Kay Hanley, "but this year we decided to get serious and finally do it." Since reuniting in 2016, the beloved Boston alt-rockers have been playing a year-end run of shows where they like to have a surprise or two up their sleeves. "For the last couple of years, it’s been a bit of a tradition for us to tour in November," says Hanley. "When you only go on tour once a year, you can’t go out empty-handed. So, Ok Christmas is this year’s annual holiday gift to our fans."

Comprised of three holiday covers and a newly penned original, the Ok Christmas EP finds the band mining the often-overlooked corners of the Christmas canon for some left-of-center chestnuts through which to celebrate their seasonal spirit. Where some bands stumble when it comes to covering other artists' material, Letters To Cleo have been showcasing their unique talent for reinterpretation since their original run in the 1990s. They memorably became soundtrack/compilation phenoms with covers of The Cars' "Dangerous Type” (from cult classic "The Craft"), Fleetwood Mac’s "Dreams" (from the Spirit Of '73: Rock For Choice album) and their double-dipped entry of Cheap Trick's "I Want You To Want Me" and Nick Lowe's "Cruel To Be Kind" from the soundtrack to the high school rom-com 10 Things I Hate About You (a film in which they also make multiple on-screen appearances).

For Ok Christmas, Letters To Cleo bypassed the well-worn holiday fare for a trio of Christmas covers from The Kinks, Elvis Presley and The Dogmatics, a fellow Boston rock band that was active in the early-to-mid 1980s. However, even when they start off with another band’s material, Hanley and her bandmates can always find the right avenue through which to properly "Cleo-ize" their bouncy, buzzy, cranked-to-11 interpolations. There are no kids' choirs, church organs, "Jingle Bells" motifs or any other seasonal saccharine to be found here—not even in the EP's title. "We went through all the schmaltzy titles like Cleo For The Holidays or Cleo Does Christmas, but none of that was working. I suggested Ok Christmas because it’s a play on Radiohead's OK Computer, which is a phrase I’ve been using a lot in the last few years when responding to bots on Twitter," laughs Hanley.

To get a behind-the-scenes look at the making of Ok Christmas, the Recording Academy chatted with Hanley about her own connection to holiday music, the band's song selection process and the inspiration behind each of the four tracks.

Kay Hanley: Once we finally decided to record a Christmas EP, everything came together pretty quickly. We did a little deep dive into potential songs and democratically chose which ones we were going to do. However, as with most holiday albums, we had to record it in the least Christmas-like atmosphere you could imagine: 90 degrees in July in Los Angeles in a little studio over in Koreatown. But we had a good time and just went for it. Even the artwork process turned out simple enough. Our graphic designer, Nicole Anguish of Daykamp Creative, came up with the cover on her very first pass. She only showed us one thing and we were immediately blown away!

During the recording sessions for Ok Christmas, the band didn't try to manufacture any fake holiday spirit by stringing lights all over the studio or by putting up a Christmas tree in the corner of the control room. Instead, Hanley felt that she and her bandmates were able to stir up the exact inspiration they needed from their own nostalgic memories and their personal connections to the holiday music of their childhood.

Kay Hanley: I grew up in a very devout Catholic family and my parents listened to a lot of Elvis and a lot of religious music around the holidays. So, I was a big fan of Christmas music, especially the big dramatic church songs like "O Holy Night." In fact, we almost did "O Holy Night," but it was really hard to figure out how to get the right Cleo vibe on it, so we didn't push it. Even though I'm a Catholic atheist, I love the holiday and everything about it. I haven't been to a Christmas mass since moving to Los Angeles. However, there's a church right across the street from us, so maybe I’ll take the kids this year because the place is really beautiful.

One of the potential tracks that all of the band members immediately agreed on was The Kinks' 1977 holiday single "Father Christmas." While the original has long been an anchor of power-pop holiday playlists thanks to its roaring guitars and propulsive drumming, Letters To Cleo managed to further the song's intensity through their amped-up romp that serves as the door-busting opener to Ok Christmas.

Kay Hanley: There was never going to be a Cleo Christmas album without The Kinks on it. "Father Christmas" was just automatically going to be on there. It was the first one we chose and we just all knew it was going to happen. We all love The Kinks and it was such a blast to record. I hope the fun we had really comes through in the recording.

However, hidden away in Ray Davies' satirical lyrics about a department store Santa getting roughed up by an unruly gang of kids was one specific line—"But if you've got one, I'll take a machine gun/So I can scare all the kids on the street"—that didn’t sit quite well with the band in light of America's ongoing gun violence epidemic.

Kay Hanley: We had just finished tracking all of the music for our version of "Father Christmas" when the mass shooting in El Paso happened. Our guitarist, Greg McKenna, texted the band on our group chat and asked if we should change the machine gun lyric. My first instinct was to leave it intact, just because I’m a songwriting purist. To be honest with you, the machine gun line had always just floated over my head because the whole song is just so tongue-in-cheek in the way it’s commenting on class and the haves vs. the have-nots. But it only took a few minutes for me to be like, "Oh no, we can't use that lyric." It just seemed really tone-deaf in the face of the gun violence crisis that our country is going through. I went to Twitter and slid up into The Kinks' mentions, told them that we were recording the song, and explained why we wanted to change the machine gun lyric. We didn't hear back from them, but our fans saw it and offered up some ideas on how to switch it up. One of our fans, Eric Reiberg, made a suggestion that I ended up modifying a little into a new couplet —"Can you meltdown all the machine guns/So the kids are safe on the street." It feels so much better now. Hopefully, Ray Davies won't be mad at us.    

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For their next cover in the Ok Christmas tracklist, Letters To Cleo pulled out another '70s seasonal singalong. "If I Get Home On Christmas Day" was originally recorded by Elvis Presley for his 1971 album Elvis Sings The Wonderful World of Christmas. While the maudlin mid-tempo ballad may have shared a release decade with the spunky "Father Christmas," it certainly didn't share the same level of enthusiasm from the band during the Ok Christmas song selection discussions. At least, not until McKenna reworked the overly sentimental arrangement into the charming, twangy shuffle that eventually won Hanley over.

Kay Hanley: Greg brought this one to the band because he was the only one daring enough to look for the unknown songs that no one really covers. Initially, I wasn't into that approach at all and wanted stuff that people would immediately recognize. So when Greg first showed us this Elvis song, I was like "Hell no, absolutely not!" However, he worked up a different arrangement on guitar and sent me over a demo and I was like "Yes, this is fantastic now!" Our sound lends itself nicely to that sort of soft rockabilly vibe. So, even though it’s kind of twangy, I still feel like it’s very Cleo. It was surprisingly hard to sing though! 

For the final cover of the four-song EP, the band tipped their hat (a Red Sox cap, naturally) to their Boston roots by tackling the surly "X'mas Time (It Sure Doesn't Feel Like It)" by the Boston garage-rock band The Dogmatics. Originally appearing on the hard-to-find 1984 holiday compilation A Midnight Christmas Mess alongside Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Droogs and The Cheepskates, "X’mas Time" paints a dour picture of the snowswept city during the holidays, while shouting out a few of the "less touristy" local landmarks.

Kay Hanley: This song was actually our manager’s idea. I think he’s been trying to pawn this one off on us for years. I have to admit, even as a huge Boston music fan, I wasn't familiar with the song at all. At first, we ignored him, because that's what you do with managers, but we eventually came around to it. Musically, it's kind of long and doesn't go anywhere, but the vibe of it is absolutely perfect. It’s very defeated, very Boston—it doesn’t get more true-to-type than this song. I like that the lyrics are so visual for me. Filene’s Basement was my grandmother’s favorite department store. It was downtown, right at the edge of the Combat Zone, with a lot of seedy characters around there. Pine Street Inn is a homeless shelter in the South End. At the time this song was written in the early 1980s, it was in a very desolate, very bleak area. Now, the South End is one of the most gentrified areas in Boston. Pine Street Inn is currently in the middle of total opulence. The difference from then to now is absolutely nuts.

As nostalgically warm as the thick Boston threads that run through "X'mas Time" may be, the most personal musical moment on Ok Christmas lies within the band’s newly penned original, "Miss You This Christmas." Throughout the holiday heartbreaker, melancholy lyrics like "I'm not used to stringing lights alone" and "There's no cheer if you're not here" contrast smartly against the upbeat Spector-esque production touches of ringing guitars, clanging chimes and a bubbly bassline.

Kay Hanley: We really wanted to write an original for this record, so Michael Eisenstein and I made an appointment to sit down with a guitar and give it a shot. Writing a Christmas song can be really daunting because it feels like no one can bring anything new to the subject; like everything that could be said about Christmas has already been said. So I started trying to think about my boyfriend who tours a lot and is going to be gone through the holidays. I've also got two young family members who are serving overseas and I was thinking about how soldiers' partners must feel during deployment. So it all came together around hoping that your loved one will come home safe and sound for the holidays.

From the charming album artwork to the merry-making covers and the heart-warming original, Letters To Cleo have managed to craft an authentic, grade-A seasonal souvenir with Ok Christmas. They even pressed up the vinyl version of the EP on "holiday candy"-colored vinyl. Free of commercialized schmaltz and full of signature Cleo, Ok Christmas manages to find its own sonic space in the Christmas canon without just adding to all the Noel-hyped noise. However, according to Hanley, putting out a Christmas release isn’t exactly going to become a yearly tradition for the band.  

Kay Hanley: As fun as this was, we are one-and-done on the holiday EPs. A part of our annual gift is that we’re always going to try and do something different each year. However, we are hoping to have another regular, non-holiday, full-length album out sometime next year. We’ve already got like five or six songs ready to go, so that’s our plan.

The limited-edition "holiday candy" vinyl version of Letter’s to Cleo's Ok Christmas EP can be ordered directly from the band here.

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Photo Japanese Breakfast

Japanese Breakfast

Photo: Peter Ash Lee

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How Japanese Breakfast Found Joy On Her New Album 'Jubilee'

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After years of deep, consuming sadness following her mother's passing, Michelle Zauner, aka Japanese Breakfast, lets some light back in on her upcoming album, 'Jubilee,' which sees her exploring the optimism within her
Caitlin Wolper
GRAMMYs
May 28, 2021 - 2:21 pm

Up until now, Michelle Zauner's albums as Japanese Breakfast were mired in grief. It's more than understandable: They were written in the wake of her mother's death. But while Psychopomp (2016) and Soft Sounds from Another Planet (2017) mourned her mother's cancer and passing—both depicted in harrowing detail in Zauner's new memoir, Crying in H Mart, where she also reckons with her Korean identity—her upcoming third album, Jubilee, lets some light back in.

Of course, one can't emerge from grief by discarding it entirely; Zauner sits with the darker moments, too. On "In Hell," she describes keeping her mother's pain at bay near the end of her life: "I snowed you in / With hydrocodone / Layer by layer 'til you disappeared." Notably, that song is a former bonus track, reinvigorated for Jubilee. Why, then, does she put that track, and the similarly reimagined "Posing in Bondage," on her new, optimistic album? For Zauner, it's a "good reminder of where I've come from." Her mother passed six years ago, and she's processed that grief to the point where "time has healed a gaping wound, and it's something that I will live with forever, but it's less debilitating." Most importantly, she said, "I want to write about something else."

So on Jubilee, Zauner strives for joy. She said she feels "like I'm able to do things in my life now that aren't all clouded over with grief," and she wanted to explore that optimism in herself. From the bright, horn-heavy opener "Paprika" to gothic, dancey tracks, Zauner's Jubilee hinges on possibility and hope: She reminds herself that she's allowed to feel joy after this deep, consuming sadness.

GRAMMY.com caught up with Michelle Zauner to dive deep into Jubilee, which drops on Dead Oceans June 4.

I'm really curious about the timeline of working on the album and working on the memoir—did they overlap?

I was working on the book pretty intensely from probably 2017 to 2020. I sent out my first draft to my editor in October or September of 2019, so I kind of had this built-in break for three to five months where I just could not think about it, and it was in her hands, and I could go off and work on another big project. It was really time for us to start recording a new record, so I started writing and recording largely in 2019.

They are separate but, not to be cliche, they are interrelated in so many ways. Did you apportion certain ideas to one [project] or did they influence each other?

A good deal of the record has to do with my personal life in some ways, and a lot of it was the aftermath of where the book left off, [that] is actually the content of the songs. I think if anything, I wrote two albums that were largely focused on grief and then this whole book that really dove into that experience, [and then] I felt like I was actually really ready to fling myself to the other end of the spectrum and write about this other part of my life that is a bit more joyful.

That's actually what I was going to ask you about—this album is titled Jubilee, which means celebrating the passage of time. Was there a moment or catalyst, like "it's time to turn towards joy," or was it a slow realization?

I don't know if there was a catalyst, I think it was the slow processing of grief over the past six years, and it just made space for me—time has healed a gaping wound, and it's something that I will live with forever, but it's less debilitating, it's less of my primary focus. I feel like I'm able to do things in my life now that aren't all clouded over with grief.

It was definitely a conscious choice to be like, "OK, I've written two very dark albums and a whole book about grief, I want to write about something else," because I feel ready to do that and I'm interested in these other parts of my life and joy in particular. I think a lot of what I was going through was: "You're allowed to feel again, you're allowed to feel joy." A lot of the record is about struggling or figuring out how to do that or making decisions for myself that allow me to embrace that again.

I feel like "Paprika" really encapsulates everything you're trying to do on this record — it's very naturalistic, there's so much possibility. And then there are songs on the record like "Savage Good Boy" and "Kokomo, IN" which are more narrative and use personas. Why did you decide to do that?

It just happened organically. It's something that I've done before and I've always had a lot of fun with, and I think it's just like flexing this different type of muscle. I think I read something about billion-dollar bunkers in the news, and it inspired this whole narrative about a billionaire coaxing a young woman to live with him as the world burns around them.

"Kokomo, IN" happened because I was taking a lot of guitar lessons at the time and so of course I was learning a lot of Beatles songs, and adding all these sort of more interesting chord changes, a lot of major-7s and major-4s, these same type of very classic chord changes that made me write this very sweet, classic song of longing and teenage feeling. I just followed the natural narrative that the song created for itself.

You mention in your new memoir, Crying in H Mart, about being seen as a "bad girl" when you were a kid. The song "Slide Tackle" brings that up, too. Do you still think of yourself like that?

As a bad girl? [Laughs.] I'm so obsessed with striving to be a good person. My brain is very occupied, and I think a lot of my songs really boil down to "I want to be better, I want to be a better person." That song starts with "I want to be good / I want to navigate this hate in my heart / somewhere better." A lot of my songs are like that—I actually had to catch myself, because I'm like, "You can't start every song with 'I want.'" [Laughs.]

And "Diving Woman" [on Soft Sounds from Another Planet] also starts that way: "I want to be a woman of regimen." A lot of these are very simple ideas of "I want to be a more regimented person, I want to be in control of my emotions, I want to be kind to people," and I'm still a moody little f***er, but I try to get a better handle of that as I've gotten older and I definitely don't value that part of myself. I always want to be a better person.

You mentioned your guitar lessons, and I know you did a lot of work as a songwriter as you were creating this album.

I felt a little stuck and needed some brushing up. I've always been very willfully ignorant of music theory and thought it would hinder my natural songwriting ability, and I realized after years of touring and working professionally as a musician, I got to meet so many stunning musicians who have this incredible education that I've become quite envious of. I feel like that really inspired me to get back in and see what it could bring out in me that was new.

Did you like it?

I really liked it, actually. I was like, "This whole time there have been this many chords?" [Laughs.] I felt really stupid that I'd kept myself away from it for so long.

Between "Posing in Bondage" and "Posing for Cars"—this might just be me being prosaic—I thought a lot about  the word "posing," like posing for art, or even posturing. Those songs are so chilling and isolated.

["Posing in Bondage"] feels really fraught with tension and I think it's very delicate but also kind of industrial. The song was something that we put out with Polyvinyl on a 4-track series, and it was a very, very low-fi version of it that I don't feel like did the song justice and it's always been a song that I really liked. This was another song that I co-produced with Jack Tatum of the band Wild Nothing. He is just a real sonic wizard, he's a real tinkerer of tone, and he found this perfect balance of tension and these really unique sounds that give it this very fragile, vulnerable feeling. I really was happy to get it where it needed to be, and there's this almost Enya-esque vocals at the end.

Can you tell me a little about how "In Hell" came together?

That was actually a bonus song for Soft Sounds, for the Japanese deluxe edition. It was just one of those songs that stuck around and has haunted me for a very long time. I think it's a very beautiful and intense song and some of the greatest lyric writing I've done. It's very melodic and pleasant…I just felt like it didn't deserve to die as an exclusive bonus track, I really wanted more people to hear it. I think it's almost more devastating because it's on a record that's about joy, with a lot of warmer songs. I think it finds a good place there, sonically it fits, and it's a good reminder of what I've endured and that it's possible to experience happiness after these two incredibly dark moments in my life and comparing them. That song's literally about euthanizing my dog and comparing it to snowing my mom under with drugs, and it's spun into a little pop number.

Even as we keep talking about grief and sadness, we go back to Jubilee as a tribute to joy. What, right now, brings you joy?

I have a really great life, honestly. I have the greatest job, and I value that so much. I was kind of a late bloomer in this industry and it's allowed me to be so grateful that I've won this lottery and get to be a creative person for a living. I'm so overjoyed that I've found love in my life that's incredibly stable and very fulfilling, just endlessly fulfilling. Those two things alone—I've just won the life lottery, in that sense.

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Royal Blood

Royal Blood

Photo: Mads Perch

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How Do You Follow Up A Blockbuster Album? Let Royal Blood, Who Just Released 'Typhoons,' Explain

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Faced with following up their major-label, self-titled debut, Royal Blood made their second album while looking over their shoulders. For their third album, 'Typhoons,' they applied the lessons they learned—and now young bands can absorb them, too
Morgan Enos
GRAMMYs
May 25, 2021 - 1:47 pm

Ever hear of the "sophomore slump" phenomenon ? As a rock band, it's a formidable boss to face down. Often, with the first breakthrough album, there's been years of thinking, woodshedding and commiserating involved. With the second, you might have 25% of the creative and production time you had for your debut, if that. And you've got to write something better in every conceivable way.

For the British rock duo Royal Blood, their second album, 2017's How Did We Get So Dark?, had the potential to fall into the sophomore slump trap. Fortunately, they swerved around it: The album reached similar commercial heights as their 2014 self-titled debut album. Still, singer/bassist Mike Kerr and drummer Ben Thatcher, who just put out their third album as Royal Blood, Typhoons, last month, recall the experience of recording its predecessor as anxious and self-conscious.

"It was quite daunting," Thatcher tells GRAMMY.com over the phone from his Brighton bedroom. "We put all this pressure on ourselves to write something that's new, but still has what made Royal Blood, Royal Blood at the core of it."

So how did Royal Blood regroup afterward and make Typhoons, their most kinetic and self-assured album to date? For Thatcher and Kerr, concocting tunes like "Oblivion," "Million and One" and "Mad Visions" came down to clearing their heads, getting back to their original artistic thesis, and writing for themselves, not others. In the process, they uncovered some poignant advice for young bands who aren't sure how to outdo themselves in the studio and want to do so without driving themselves mad.

To mark the release of Typhoons, here's what Royal Blood did to make recording the album a pleasant, joyful experience, which, in turn, led to their most inviting and rewarding music to date.

They Cleared Their Heads

Everyone's relationship to sobriety is different, and Royal Blood offer no prescriptions for anyone's lifestyle. Regardless, Kerr feels he couldn't have had the wherewithal to co-create Typhoons if he hadn't given up drugs and alcohol beforehand.

"I went from one extreme to the other, really," Kerr admits to GRAMMY.com. "The first extreme being living that party lifestyle and doing that for eight years on the road without letting up at all. It was pretty consistent and it just got more and more intense." 

In an effort to stop "letting chaos into my life," he, with Thatcher's support, made the decision to become completely clean and sober.

"Honestly, I didn't really know what was on the other side," he adds. "It was stepping out into the unknown. It took a long time, looking back, to find familiarity. Addiction starts with feelings and it ends with feelings. There were a lot of pieces to pick up and a lot of reflecting to do. I had to rebuild myself from scratch. I had to relearn life from scratch."

A little over half a year after cleaning up his act, "A great sense of clarity descended on me,” Kerr said, “and, suddenly, these songs were coming out of nowhere. I felt sharper and smarter than ever."

"The lyrics are all so personal and so revealing," Thatcher remarks. "They're quite dark, in a way. It was a big life change for Mike in the process of this record. As he came out the other side, he had a lot of things to write about. That crashing with the upbeat, euphoric music, I think it's a marriage that works really well."

"Life is hard when you're losin'/Nothin' easy's worth doing," Kerr sings in "Hold On." "Save yourself, don't throw in the towel."

They Returned To Basics

At its core, Royal Blood work with the simplest of palettes: bass and drums. This made their 2014 a relative breeze. But with limitations comes freedom. So, did How Did We Get So Dark? have too many chefs in the kitchen?

"No, I think we had the option of getting too many chefs in the kitchen," Thatcher says. "And we didn't know how to write a second album. I think it's got some great songs on it; I just remember the process was a lot harder than this one."

For Typhoons, on the other hand, "It kind of went back to how we wrote the first one," he notes.

The making of How Did We Get So Dark? was leaden with the knowledge that people would hear it; Typhoons, on the other hand, consisted of two guys trying to come up with parts the other would like. 

And they only did this by sloughing off thoughts of how the public would perceive the results.

"You can't make music to please people," Thatcher says. "Nothing ever comes out well if you go in with that mindset. It's got to be a mix: You feel excited, and that's sort of how you can gauge it. Luckily for us, there's two of us in the band, so if something is rockin', we both connect to that and know instantly that we should pursue it. And vice versa: If one of us is not feeling it, then we leave it."

They Wrote Without Fear

By blocking out the imaginary naysayers, Royal Blood made an album full of joyful, interpersonal moments. Thatcher particularly loves the ending of "Million and One" ("It's just brilliant when that synth comes in"), the hook in "Mad Visions" ("When the chorus drops on that, it's just brilliant"), and the transition from that tune into "Hold On" ("Such a sweet mistake"). 

As for Kerr, he's psyched about "the big, ascending riff section in 'Typhoons,'" likening the harmonies to the Beatles or Beach Boys and the backing to a "massive, AC/DC stadium-rock riff."

Typhoons emphasizes a four-on-the-floor disco feel, which both Thatcher and Kerr consider to be a natural, if unexpected, development. "Our unique spin on it is that we sped it up. We used the ethos of having the guitar as the karate chop over the straight beats, like Angus Young does on those four-to-the-floor beats," Kerr adds.

And if some fans don't follow them into this next phase, it doesn't matter, as long as Royal Blood are authentically themselves. "It's about being what we've been shooting for," Kerr says. "It's about being fearlessly ourselves. We haven't attempted to change direction. This is a direction we were always going in."

Thatcher agrees, and touches on the simplest yet most philosophically bulletproof reason to ever sing or pick up an instrument. "I think this record has been written out of the joy of creating music for us," he concludes.

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Adam Duritz

Adam Duritz

Photo: Mark Seliger

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Adam Duritz On Counting Crows' New EP 'Butter Miracle, Suite One' & Finally Catching A Break From The Critics

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After years of touring hard and writing very little, Adam Duritz headed to an English farm, cleared his head and wrote the strongest Counting Crows music in decades: 'Butter Miracle, Suite One'
Morgan Enos
GRAMMYs
May 18, 2021 - 1:55 pm

Adam Duritz just made crawfish bread and the responses are bowling him over. In a recent episode of his cooking show—which has all but subsumed Counting Crows' Instagram account—Duritz gave a notoriously finicky New Orleans dish the old college try. The base elements are relatively simple—spices, veggies, crawfish—but to make it come out as anything but a pizza or a calzone is a Sisyphean ordeal. 

"It's near-impossible to recreate," he tells GRAMMY.com over Zoom from his home in New York City. "I'm on the verge of getting it."

The crawfish bread feels metaphorical for the GRAMMY-nominated band themselves. These days, some may not view them as toothsome as Cajun cuisine. But early on, the slightly mystical rock band with an eccentric leader was almost universally acclaimed. ("We couldn't buy a bad review," Duritz says.) But as he admits, a mix of factors—from tabloid drama to radio omnipresence to an increasingly poppy sound—undermined Counting Crows' image. That they had arguably never made a bad album was powerless against a thousand Shrek 2 jokes.

But as Counting Crows' new EP, Butter Miracle, Suite One, out May 21, wafts in, so does the true essence of the band, one unfairly obfuscated by snickers for too long. The suite's four songs—"Tall Grass," "Elevator Boots," "Angel of 14th Street," and "Bobby and the Rat Kings"—are plugged into their bulletproof inspirations, from Big Star to the Small Faces; Duritz is as emotive and poetic and beautifully skewed as ever. 

When the rest of the band kicks into gear, it feels like a self-evident argument for Counting Crows as a great American rock band—one that just made a big circle back to the artistic terrain of 1999's This Desert Life. And, Duritz says, the world is coming back around to them after years of being viewed as—in his words—"a joke." "I think the public must love us because it's been almost 30 years," he concludes. "The average rock career doesn't even exist."

GRAMMY.com caught up with Adam Duritz to discuss the long road to Butter Miracle, Suite One and the sometimes fraught dynamic between his band and the public.

Butter Miracle, Suite One

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

It's commendable that you spent the pandemic not feeling sorry for yourself but flexing a new muscle in your brain.

I get really anxious about that sort of thing. When you write songs and play music, there's a lot of your life where it's not easy. It's not an easy thing to feel like you're really going to do it [for the rest of] your life. There were a lot of years where I was struggling in the clubs where it was like: I don't have a future. 

I got a job, but I'm doing construction or landscaping. I'm washing dishes. Or there's some stretch of time where I don't have a job. It was 10 years in the clubs for me of an uncertain future and not being sure what's happening and feeling like a bum. To this day, coming out of a matinee at a movie theater into the sunlight gives me anxiety because it reminds me of a time where I didn't have much going on.

We took 2019 off. That was our year off of touring. Then, we were going to tour in 2020, and you know what happened. There were points during this year where it just felt like I'm back where I don't have a job. Which freaks me out a little bit. I know it's free-floating anxiety because I do have a job and I'll be fine anyway. But this whole last year and a half definitely made me feel anxious about not working at all.

You know, that app, Cameo? I started doing those because I was like, "I can't sit around and not do anything. I need to earn some money so I feel like I have a job. I've got to do it because it's driving me crazy."

When I listen to "Elevator Boots," I envision this Elton John-like soul that's leaping out of you while, in reality, you're on your couch. Your internal life is Queen-sized.

There was a point when I was writing and recording it where it felt like that. I was so excited about making this suite. Once I started writing it and got the idea for what I could do, I was champing at the bit to get in, record it and put it out. I wanted everyone to hear it.

Then we ran into a pandemic when we were 85% done with the record. In the last couple of days in the studio, we were going to take two weeks off and then bring the other two guitar players in, because they hadn't played on it yet. We were going to finish up their stuff, mix it and be done. 

This was the first week in March. We were sitting there watching the news in the studio [and saying] "Uh, this doesn't look good. At all." Sure enough, right when we hit that break was right when the quarantine came down. It wasn't until July that we finished.

To zoom out, I feel like the story of Butter Miracle, Suite One begins in the years after 2014's Somewhere Under Wonderland. What was going on with the band in that long stretch of time between albums?

Well ... we toured a lot. We were working. There's always a few years after we put out a record, but in that case, we did it for another three or four years, maybe. Up until 2019, because we had been working probably for a decade straight. Which, of course, was bad timing for a vacation. 

I started spending a lot of time over in England. My friend has this farm in the West. It's kind of in the middle of nowhere. There's no one around. Sometimes, my friend was there with his family. Sometimes, my girlfriend was there. But other times, I was alone. It was just me and their dogs and the horses and whatever wildlife there was, which is a s**tload. Miles and miles of hill and dale.

I hadn't wanted to write for a while and I found myself wanting to, so I rented a keyboard in London and got a friend to drive it down one weekend. I started playing it because I was by myself and I started writing. The weird thing about dissociation is that I don't retain things. I actually forget how to play the piano if I don't play all the time. Every time I start a record, I generally have to learn to play the piano again. It's not automatic.

That song ["Tall Grass"] starts out very simple, I think because that was all I could play at the time. And it opens up into a much more melodic thing, but when I finished it and played the whole song through, seeing how it felt, I was just vamping at the end, playing those two chords back and forth and singing, "I don't know why/I don't know why."

I switched to those two chords and it felt good there. I sang this line off the top of my head [croons] "Bobby was a kid from 'round the town." I said, "Oh, that's great. That's a whole different feel. That's not an extension of this song. That's a different song. I should work on that." I started, and then it occurred to me: "I can write a series of songs where the end of one is the beginning of the next. They can be different songs, but they can flow just like that."

When I finished that song, I did it again. I got really caught up in how cool that could—that idea of a four-song suite, or a series of four-song suites. I got really excited and inspired. Really inspired. It was the first time I wanted to create like that in a little while.

Was writing tricky for you in the preceding years?

Not tricky. I just didn't really feel like doing it. It wasn't that it was hard; I just didn't want to. I love the creative process. It's hard, but it's satisfying. Making records is even harder and even more satisfying. All of it I really love. It's not always the same when you put it out.

Everything up to that point is just you. You and your band. You and your group of people you always work with. It's nothing but your desire to create. When you put it out in the world, there's all this other stuff that comes back. A lot of other people's takes on it. Their criticism of it. Their insinuations to the negative about what it's about. This idea that you're pulling the wool over people's eyes. The weird relationship between artists and critics can sometimes be so antagonistic.

And there's a lot of s**t that goes with it that I don't like as much when it involves the rest of the world. I like making it, but I don't necessarily always like sharing it. At times in my life, the concept of writing and making art and putting it out there has seemed like the route to all my dreams coming true, and other times, it seems like just asking for trouble.

But also, I think music has been so central and important in my life that I didn't think other things were important at all. Happiness didn't seem at all central like leaving a mark did. But I think in recent years, I also got more into getting my life together. Being happier, maybe. Just learning to live a little more rewarding life than just killing myself to create.

Adam Duritz

Adam Duritz performing in 1993. Photo: Steve Eichner/WireImage​

How would you describe the dynamic between Counting Crows and the public?

It comes and it goes. There were times when we were everyone's idea of the bright new thing. We were great and everybody thought we were great. We couldn't buy a bad review. And there were years when I think we were completely dismissed and thought of as sort of a joke.

Then it comes back, and people seem to think you're good again and respected again. But you've got to learn that other people's take on you can only be so important. It's so variable. You can have a front row at a concert and it's all you can see, and they don't give a s**t. They're just f**king around and talking to each other and they're bored. But does that mean you should be pissed off and not play a good show? Because there are 10,000 people behind them you can't see. You don't want to be dependent on that front row ... You start to learn after a while that it's not worth investing too much in everybody's response.

It's really important that you be inspired and play great and that you want to be there and that you give it your all. You really need to be good for everybody. You can't see everybody. You don't know if they love you or don't love you. It's only so important how everybody takes it, but it does get to be a downer at times. But I think the public must love us because it's been almost 30 years, and the average rock career doesn't exist. The average rock career never even happens. It's a very, very, very tiny percentage of people that get signed, an even smaller percentage that actually put a record out. 

My view is that you guys are a great American rock band, full stop. Maybe the only true artistic successor to Van Morrison. But you said there was a point where people may have viewed the band as a joke. Why do you think that was?

Because you annoy the s**t out of people when you're really successful. On the very simplest level, having massive success on the radio means they will play you every hour. And that will annoy the f**k out of people! 

After a while, it's like, "I don't want to hear the same s**t in my car every day." They're not trying to sustain your career. It's the radio's business to play what people want to hear so they get advertising dollars. So, yeah. Too much success doesn't really breed more of it all the time.

The other thing is that music's different from other art forms. It's like our personal cool. [points to Love's Forever Changes album art on his T-shirt] We literally wear it on our shirts. It's the soundtrack to all our memories and moments in our lives.

It's really important to how we feel about ourselves. It's natural to love discovering something and feel like it's yours. You're one of the few who understands something. It's a whole other matter a year later when you have to share that band you love with that a**hole at the water cooler who loves the worst f***ing s**t! He's always playing something you hate, and now he likes your band, too.

At that point, it's not as appetizing to you. That's just human nature. Success breeds some backlash. Very few bands go through life without it. Someone like R.E.M., who has six indie records, that builds that slowly—that's like Teflon. Radiohead. Nobody's really sitting around thinking they're just boring and s***ty. We might not want to buy the record because we think it's too Radiohead, but we're not dismissing them.

There were years where we just didn't have reviews of live shows or records. They were like, "Here's Adam whining again while he's f***ing famous chicks." That just became the narrative. Then it kind of cleans itself up and rehabilitates itself ... Nobody goes 30 years and stays beloved. It's impossible.

I think you guys belong to a class of artists everyone's made up their minds about before actually listening. Randy Newman. Jethro Tull. Steely Dan. The Eagles. But when I sense that there's prejudice toward an artist for no good reason, that makes me love and defend them.

I read a lot of articles from people who like our band that begin, "Bear with me. I think Counting Crows is brilliant. I know, I know. But let me explain." They're apologizing at times. This lets me know that at least, at some point, someone told them [we weren't] cool. 

I think that goes around. There was a long period of time where people had made their minds up about us. I don't know how that is now. I can't tell. I certainly read a lot more open-minded reviews and responses to things. There were years when we couldn't get that. We get a lot of writers putting a lot of thought into what they think about us. Whether they like us or don't like us, or they think it's a good or bad record, it's not about some tabloid thing. It's about the music. That's come around for us in a lot of ways, which is a relief.

It seems like the time on the farm has given you a lot of peace and perspective. I imagine you as Van Morrison on the cover of Veedon Fleece with the two Irish wolfhounds.

Yeah. It was a Greater Swiss Mountain Dog and a Rottweiler!

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Juliana Hatfield

Juliana Hatfield

Photo: David Doobinin

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Juliana Hatfield On Independent Thinking, Living In A Nuance-Free World & Her Unflinching New Album 'Blood'

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The mighty singer/songwriter Juliana Hatfield just wants space to write songs—and making her new album, 'Blood,' entailed hiding out from the thought police
Morgan Enos
GRAMMYs
May 17, 2021 - 4:35 pm

Being a singer/songwriter doesn't just entail coming up with catchy melodies and lyrics. For Juliana Hatfield, who's written songs virtually nonstop for decades, freedom of thought is as crucial to her craft as anything.

Want a digest of Hatfield's thoughts on the matter? Consult her new song, "Mouthful of Blood," from her new album, Blood, which came out May 14. "If I say what I want to say/It might just get me killed," she warns. "There's no freedom in expression." (The song title alludes to what can happen after biting one's tongue.)

"I'm not necessarily on the side everyone thinks I am," Hatfield tells GRAMMY.com over the phone from her home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. "I'm not registered as a Democrat. I'm not registered as a Republican. I'm registered as an independent. I want the freedom to think independently, but it seems that more and more people are being punished for thinking independently."

Blood is heavy artillery against moral absolutes and a sword against scolds; its wealth of melodic information acts as a Trojan Horse for expressions unvetted by the cancel-culture brigade. Hatfield finds it tough to express the meaning behind "Mouthful of Blood" in particular. "Even when I try to talk about the song and what it's about, I stumble because I can't even talk about it," she says. "It feels dangerous."

But she does articulate her thoughts on the subject of censorship—along with so many other topics, internal and external. GRAMMY.com gave Juliana Hatfield a ring about freedom of expression, mining romantic dysfunction for lyrical gold and the inspiration behind every song on Blood.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Your record gets me excited about guitars again. For me, that excitement comes from how the vocal melodies interlock with the chord changes. Who are your favorite melody writers?

Well, the guy who wrote a lot of Olivia Newton-John's material, John Farrar. He's one—also, Jeff Lynne. I feel like the '70s were a great period for melody-writing. I don't know; I'm just going to keep saying things from the 1970s, because when I was a child then, that's the stuff that got locked into my brain. Also, people like Carole King and James Taylor. Carole King's a master at that kind of thing.

You can list as many people from the '70s as you like!

You know, just all the stuff that was on the radio then. I would listen to the radio and there were all these melodies, and I'd sing along without even paying attention to the lyrical content. The lyrics were just a melody delivery system and all I cared about were the melodies.

So many great melodies! Carly Simon's theme from The Spy Who Loved Me. "Nobody Does It Better." That's a great melody. Also, the theme from Mahogany—Diana Ross. That's a great melody. [quietly sings hook to herself] The melodies just go all over—up and down and all around. Great stuff.

Do you think of melodies in theoretical terms, or is it just your ear?

It's just my ear. I think of music theory in the same way I think of math, and I always hated math. Having to actively use my brain—I don't enjoy that. That's partly why I never listened to lyrics for a long time until I was well into my adulthood. I never paid attention. Because when I have to think about what I'm hearing, it disrupts the listening experience.

But I figured out how to pay attention to what the lyrics are saying because it does matter. I mean, obviously. And I think as I've learned how to be a better listener, I think my lyric-writing has gotten better.

How did "The Shame of Love" come about?

I was figuring out how to use GarageBand and how to record into my laptop as I was making this record. Making this record was my learn-by-doing experience. And I was encountering problems along the way because I hate engineering and I hate computers and I don't like digital technology.

This friend of mine in Connecticut named Jed Davis was walking me through whenever I would encounter a problem with GarageBand. He was helping me get past all the little bumps in the road. I told him I had all kinds of little snippets of chord progressions and riffs that I didn't know what to do with, and he said, "Send me whatever you have and I'll play around with it." So, he ended up putting some stuff together and that helped me finish it. 

"The Shame of Love" started when I sent him a short video of me playing acoustic guitar into my Photobooth camera on my laptop. It was [those] chords [that ended up] at the beginning of "The Shame of Love." He took that very recording and used it as the intro, and then he treated it a little bit in the rest of the verses. He programmed the drums. Another little chord progression riff I had sent him, he built and structured into a chorus.

Then, I was able to write lyrics and melodies over it and add some more guitars and things.

How about "Gorgon"?

"Gorgon," that was more a lot of me doing that one at home. Adding drums at the studio later when the studio opened back up. 

It's a continuation of my thoughts on intimate relationships. I'm not really a believer in that sort of existence. The norm, you know, of being partners with someone intimately over a long period of time. That's always been something that doesn't come naturally to me. It doesn't make sense.

I'm talking about that sort of thing. How what the other person expects and wants are things that I don't feel have anything to do with who I really am. The song twists the idea of a Gorgon, like Medusa, and makes the snakes into the other person's fingers.

It's like being touched when you don't want to be touched. When you're in a relationship, the other person assumes some freedom to reach out and touch you whenever he feels like it, but when you don't always necessarily want to be touched. The unwanted fingers in my hair are like snakes in my hair.

But also, [the song is about] feeling like I'm the person who turns my partners into stone because I'm not what they want me to be. I'm not the nurturing, attentive person that I'm always expected to be.

What can you tell me about "Nightmary"?

That was just about looking around me and being so disappointed with the way people [behave]—the lies and corruption and greed. It's totally exposed. It's all out there in the open. No one's even pretending. The liars aren't pretending they aren't lying. The greedy people aren't pretending they aren't caring only about money. The racists are being racist out in the open.

And how about "Had a Dream"?

It's another song about wanting the bad guys to be punished. I don't name names. It's nonspecific so I can think of whoever I want when I sing that song. Whoever I'm most angry at, I can envision that person as the one being punished in the song.

It's violent imagery, but it's so violent that it's kind of cartoonish. It's pretty over-the-top. [The line] “It was a very American dream” is a reflection of the violence in our culture and our country. That's what the song is about, also: The fact that there are more guns than people in this country.

How about "Splinter"? What can you tell me about that song?

That one's pretty resigned to things being discontented and exploring my own feelings of disappointment in myself. Feeling a little bit trapped, like there's no way out of this existence.

It sounds like you've been taking a lot of mental inventory these days.

Yeah, I have been. I mean, I've always been writing about what I'm thinking and feeling, but I think I'm taking a wider perspective. I'm coming to terms with things, which is probably good.

I have such conflicting things about almost everything. That in itself is an eternal subject for me: Conflict. That's what drives … well, every f**king movie is conflict. It's always going on inside of my head. Most of the time. Unresolvable conflicts.

Considering both sides of the equation seems to be out of vogue these days. We're all expected to take sides in some sort of moral binary.

Yeah, that's what "Mouthful of Blood" is about. How there's no room for any nuance. Also, no one can step out of line at all these days. Everybody has to choose a side and there are all these rules about what you can say or can't say if you're on either side. Even when I try to talk about the song and what it's about, I stumble because I can't even talk about it. It feels dangerous.

You're expected to have a certain set of beliefs depending on what side you're on. But I'm not necessarily on the side everyone thinks I am. I'm not registered as a Democrat. I'm not registered as a Republican. I'm registered as an independent. I want the freedom to think independently, but it seems that more and more people are being punished for thinking independently.

It must be so hard for people starting college today. It must be such a minefield out there in terms of trying to navigate all that stuff. Even some of the stuff we had to listen to when I was in Blake Babies in the early days, driving around in the van on tour.

You know that [Frogs] album, [1989's] It's Only Right and Natural?

Juliana Hatfield

Juliana Hatfield. Photo: David Doobinin

I don't, actually.

It's about gay supremacy. Kind of like joke-folk, but all of us were all so into it. We'd sing along and laugh our asses off. It was this secret cult thing that certain musicians knew about and were mad about. But I feel like nowadays, we couldn't even sing those lyrics out loud. It couldn't come out today. It came out in the '80s on Homestead Records.

Now, it feels so weird even mentioning it. I'll probably get in trouble for even mentioning it. It's a unique piece of work. You should check it out. I don't even know how it would sound, or how it would come across today. The album is kind of a masterpiece. It's like nothing you've ever heard.

Can you talk about "Suck it Up"?

"Suck it Up" is more specific to the idea of a creative person—an artist—going to a bank and trying to get a mortgage. This whole society is based on certain things: marriage, cohabitation, capitalism, consumerism, and also including homeownership. People are bred to believe that owning a home is something everyone should aspire to.

But it's not for everyone; that's one thing. If you're the type of person who doesn't have a weekly paycheck, no matter how much money you have, it's going to be difficult for the system to approve you for a big loan like that, because you don't have a steady weekly paycheck. That's exactly what the song is about.

It's kind of like "Mouthful of Blood" in the way that the system doesn't allow for nuance in speech or thought. Also, the financial system doesn't allow for nuance in ways of living. You can't just call and have a conversation. They punch your data into the computer, the algorithm feeds it back in numbers and you either cut the mustard or you don't.

Then, we have "Chunks."

It kind of speaks for itself, doesn't it? 

One thing I realized after I wrote it was that you could see it as a song from a feminine perspective. What it's doing is commenting on the way that men in this culture and other cultures—society in general—want and need and expect women to be friendly and pleasant and polite and quiet and demure. To obey. To follow the rules.

When a woman gets out of line and messes up her hair—screams, expresses anger, even intelligently—there's so much hostility. People try to destroy wild, angry women. That song is kind of describing that—what people want to do to women who step out of line. Any woman who is alive will tell you she's been told to smile. "Why don't you smile? You'd be a lot prettier if you smiled."

And how about "Dead Weight"?

I feel like I'm here, I exist to make music. I feel like I'm not good at anything else. The song "Dead Weight" is about how bad I am at relationships. I can never understand how anyone claiming to love me could love me. That's a completely serious feeling. I mean it. I would question it anytime anyone would claim to love me. I couldn't believe it! And that's what the song is about.

Some people might say it's self-hating, but I think it's really just being honest about who I am. As an artist, the personality traits that make me able to persist with making music are the traits that keep me isolated and alone.

Finally, how does "Torture" fit into the puzzle?

"Torture" is really specific to my hatred of computer life and modern technology in general. 

[While] sending files to Jed Davis or the studio via Dropbox or whatever, on the screen, it would say "Upload will be done in eight minutes." And then 20 minutes later, it would say, "Upload: Two minutes left." Then, two minutes later: "Upload: Three minutes left." 

It's lying to me. The time they're projecting on the screen is a total Kafkaesque gaslighting situation. Total lies being said to you. That's what the song is about: "What the f**k is going on?" It's maddening to me. It's just feeding you lies as truth. 

What I'm trying to do with my life is to always get at the truth and sometimes it's not easy.

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