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Ice-T In 1993

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Nearly 30 Years After Their Debut, Body Count's 'Carnivore' Is The Thrash-Metal Band's Most Fully Realized Album

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Led by iconic rapper Ice-T, the L.A.-based seven-piece keep their socially conscious themes consistent and the music louder than ever on their seventh studio album
Katherine Turman
GRAMMYs
Mar 10, 2020 - 11:06 am

In early 1992 Ernie Cunnigan visited the Burbank office of Howie Klein. The guitarist (who goes by Ernie C.) and the then-president of Reprise/Warner Bros. Records were listening to the upcoming self-titled debut from Cunnigan’s band, Body Count, fronted by his Crenshaw High School buddy Tracy Marrow, already famous as rapper Ice-T. Ice, with the savvy creative connectivity that guides his multi-hyphenate media career to this day, introduced his forthcoming metal band in 1991 via tracks on O.G. Original Gangster, his fourth album.

It's not unusual for high school pals to form a band. What was unusual, though, was that Body Count was a hardcore thrash metal band comprised of all-black musicians, with point-blank lyrics that were both insightful and incite-ful concerning racial and social inequities and the climate of America. Listening to the 18-track debut, Klein praised it, while voicing concern about the lyrics of "Momma's Gotta Die Tonight," a song about the matricide and dismemberment of a racist parent. Turns out it was the last track, a ditty called "Cop Killer," that should have given the executive pause. 

While Klein was and remains stridently opposed to censorship and is a dedicated free speech advocate, Body Count, per the era, was released with a parental advisory sticker (as was Original Gangster). Less than two months after Body Count dropped, Los Angeles exploded in fiery violence in reaction to the acquittal of four policemen in the beating of Rodney King, as well as the shooting death of black teenager Latasha Harlins by a Korean grocer. (The grocer was given only probation.) It was the worst possible climate for "Cop Killer," with lyrics including "F**k the police, yeah!" and shout-outs to then L.A.P.D. chief Daryl Gates, Ice's "dead homies" and King. The blowback went all the way up to then-President George Bush, and though Time Warner supported Ice-T in his fight against the song's opponents, he eventually pulled the cut from new pressings of the album.

Currently, streaming services including Spotify and Apple Music offer the version sans the group's most (in)famous song, replacing "Cop Killer" with "Freedom Of Speech" from Ice's 1989 solo album, The Iceberg/Freedom of Speech...Just Watch What You Say, edited to add samples of Jimi Hendrix's "Foxy Lady" and the voice of political punker Jello Biafra. On YouTube, "Cop Killer" has more than 1.5 million views, with most of the comments thoughtful and positive, understanding the intentionally incendiary messages Body Count was delivering. Ultimately, if Body Count isn’t a classic record in the way that critics consider Nirvana’s Nevermind or Public Enemy's It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back to be, it’s an important and groundbreaking one. As Ice-T has said, Body Count is: "a protest record,” not the norm in the metal world, but still the way BC's songs operate today.

Indeed, 28 years later, things haven’t changed. Biafra is also on Body Count's powerful new album, Carnivore. Police actions like "stop and frisk" (the NYC law enforcement program that was proven to disproportionally target black and Latino men) wasn’t legally discredited until 2014. Body Count’s one-time bassist, Lloyd "Mooseman" Roberts III, was murdered in South Central Los Angeles in 2001 in an accidental drive-by; in the last 12 months, 126 black men were killed by guns in L.A. County, as opposed to 23 white men. And Ice-T and Body Count are still raging against the machine.

Ice-T enjoys pushing buttons lyrically, and if they’ve sometimes been heavy-handed or misguided ("KKK Bitch" or "Bitch In The Pit"), Ice-T is a politically eloquent, passionate and personal songwriter, which can be too easily overlooked given Body Count's volume-heavy metal chops and Ice's delivery, a speedy vocal style that’s been traditionally more aggro-rapping than melodic singing.  

That said, Carnivore is Body Count’s best album to date; it’s the most fully realized musically, and there’s a cohesion to the vocals and music that led Body Count bassist Vincent Price to lay out the band’s growth in a Metallica timeline: "Manslaughter [2014] was basically Kill ‘Em All; Bloodlust [2017] was our Ride The Lightning, and Carnivore’s our Master Of Puppets."

He's not wrong, and though Ice-T’s more than 20-year stint as detective Odafin "Fin" Tutuola on Law and Order: Special Victims Unit has precluded lengthy Body Count tours, the buzz is loud for this seventh album.

Ice-T may be the original gangster, yet he’s patient, articulate and fervent in explaining songs and motivations to audiences and the press alike. "When I'm Gone," featuring Amy Lee of Evanescence, was inspired by the killing of Nipsey Hussle. It’s a reminder, as he says in the tune, to "tell the people that you love, that you love them now. … Don't wait; tomorrow may be too f**king late."

His prolific musical social criticism and seemingly left-leaning views are thoughtful and targeted, despite the vitriol of so many Body Count songs. In the nearly 30 years since founding his revolutionary band, Ice-T observes, "I think you’ve got less racism; less people, but more avid racism. It’s unnerving to think that we’ve come so far but there’s still so far to go." As he advised in a 2017 interview, "Don’t just be angry. Know what you’re talking about so you don’t alienate someone who should be an ally."

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Lamb Of God

Lamb Of God

Photo: Travis Shinn

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Why Lamb Of God Frontman Randy Blythe Is Rejecting The 'New Abnormal'

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The singer for the five-time GRAMMY-nominated metal quintet gives an inside look into the pointed social commentary behind the band's eye-opening self-titled eighth album
Katherine Turman
GRAMMYs
Jun 18, 2020 - 7:11 am

During his more than quarter-century as frontman for five-time GRAMMY-nominated metal quintet Lamb Of God, singer Randy Blythe has been on the receiving end of questions from journalists ranging from inane to tough. But in the heated spring of 2020, as conversations and actions about systemic racism become omnipresent, he is now asking himself those same "uncomfortable questions."

On Instagram, accompanying photos he shot from a June 2 Black Lives Matter protest near his Richmond, Va., home, Blythe was characteristically frank: "I'm a white man with black friends. In this time & beyond, I must ask myself what that really means—in fact, I must ask myself UNCOMFORTABLE QUESTIONS about what FRIENDSHIP ITSELF means." He goes on to mention his musical side projects that feature Black members, as well as his time performing as "the only white dude" in his favorite "legendary black punk rock group" (Bad Brains).

But it was the issues brought to light by the killing of George Floyd, at the hands of Minneapolis police, last month that truly changed the conversation Blythe is having with himself, as it has for many. When the singer meets his Black musician friends, across every genre, Blythe says they hug and call each other "brother." 

"So what does that truly mean to me?" he wonders on Instagram. "Is it just a cheap word for me to throw around in MY world—the safety of a metal festival backstage dressing room where their faces look different than almost everybody else's there?" 

To generalize broadly, metal has largely been the province of white, blue-collar suburban males. Even Body Count, the pioneering all-black metal band who formed in Los Angeles in 1990, attracts a predominately white crowd, despite the fact that the band is fronted by gangsta rap pioneer Ice-T.

In 2013, Canadian-born, New York-based journalist, scholar and metal fan Laina Dawes published "What Are You Doing Here? A Black Woman's Life And Liberation In Heavy Metal," an acclaimed book that explores race, gender and heavy metal. She recently penned an article for metal/rock magazine Metal Hammer, writing, in part, "Black folks in the metal scene are realizing that some of their non-black and white friends – folks they hang out with at a metal show, talk to online or in some cases, are bandmates – are racist. Not uninformed, or simply naive, but balls-out racist."

Read: Skin, Lzzy Hale, Reba Meyers On Women Rocking The Metal World

Blythe, 49, is not uniformed, naive or racist, yet he notes that the phrase "'I'm not racist, I have Black friends,' is a pretty common thing you hear white people say- I've said it myself," he writes on Instagram. "Again, what does that really MEAN? It's UNCOMFORTABLE for me to ask myself this question, but there are A LOT of uncomfortable conversations that must be had if things are to get better … So I cannot have black friends only when it is convenient & safe for me to do so, not if I want to look them in the eye the next time I see them."

While he doesn't call himself an activist—though he's attended Black Lives Matter protests and has documented them on camera—Blythe literally stands up for what he believes, and by dint of his fame, combined with reasoned demeanor, people take notice. 

"I let my words, actions and art speak for themselves, you know?" he tells the Recording Academy by phone from home. It's a not-uncommon refrain for artists, but it's not lip service for Blythe.

"Routes," the fourth single off Lamb Of God's new self-titled album, out Friday (June 19), draws from Blythe's experience protesting, in person, against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). Its lyrics are gripping: "A black snake beneath the ground / Extinction dripping from his mouth / Poisons water, hearts of men / Who choke the sky and rape the land." The very intentional guest vocals on the track are from Testament singer Chuck Billy, who's born to a Mexican mother and Native American father of the Pomo Native Americans, an indigenous people of Northern California. 

Blythe's convictions are well-suited to Lamb Of God's articulate, informed songs and albums, which have earned the band gold records, with 2009's Wrath hitting the No. 1 spot on Billboard's Hard Rock, Rock and Tastemaker charts and No. 2 on the Billboard 200. They repeated those No. 1 positions with Resolution (2012), while the band's last album, VII: Sturm und Drang (2015), debuted at No. 3 in North America and in the Top 5 in several countries. Alongside Blythe, Lamb Of God comprises guitarists Mark Morton and Willie Adler and bassist John Campbell; drummer Art Cruz, who's performed in and toured with the band intermittently since July 2018, makes his recording debut with the group on Lamb Of God.

As the band's eighth album, Lamb Of God is an eye-opener on every level: It kicks off with the spooky, slow, gloom-to-a-scream of the cri-de-coeur of "WAKE UP" in "Memento Mori" and ends with "On The Hook," a speed-metal, mosh-pit-worthy rager about opioid addiction.

With Lamb of God, the band created excellent, pointed social commentary bolstered by equally powerful musicality, well-suited to Blythe's biggest concern: climate change. On album track "Poison Dream," featuring Hatebreed singer Jamey Jasta, Blythe rails, "Fortunes made on misery / A burning river, a black sea … Toxic temple and polluted bliss / Residuals for evil men / I never had a choice in this / sacrificed for their profit." 

"I realized that every single place I've ever lived has had water pollution," Blythe, an avid surfer, reflects on the song's genesis. "Right down the road from Jamey is some sort of manufacturing plant that spills tons and tons of shi*t into the river there. He and I talked about this, and it's against FDA regulations. But because they're bazillionaires, it's just easier for them to pay the daily fine." (The song's final lyrics capture this dilemma: "Because you're not a human being, just a fine to be paid / Just the cost of doing business in their cancerous trade.") 

Read: Meet Armageddon Records, The Record Store-Turned-Label For Punks And Metalheads

Blythe has a gift for transforming his outrage toward miscreants into words, but he doesn't want to spell things out too clearly for listeners. "I decided against doing a track-by-track thing on this album because I think it destroys all the mystery of the music; it's destroying art, in a way. I think people should look at things and take it in; I don't want my hand held." 

Rather, he opts for the way he came up consuming music: not having an artist give a raison d'être behind every musical move, not being able to look up the minutiae on Wikipedia. For Blythe, not having a "guide" during his musical coming-of-age allowed him to internalize the music.

"It let me make it my own," he explains. "If I say, 'This song is about this and this song is about this,' [then] someone is going to listen to it with that in mind. When you make art, you let it loose into the world. It becomes everyone's. I don't want to deprive anyone of that experience." 

That said, Blythe will give some hints to his passionate process: "Every single one [of the songs on Lamb Of God] relate back to my concern with the environment, from the first one, 'Gears,' because it deals with the industrial revolution, which has a massive, massive, massive impact on the environment. That's how we got here, you know?"

The song "Memento Mori"—the title means "an artistic or symbolic reminder of the inevitability of death"—refers to "the universe in the palm of your hand," which is a pretty clear description of the world's addiction to small screens. 

Once a former alcoholic, the now-sober Blythe recently battled a new addiction: the pull of endless information. 

"I'm addicted to 'more,'" the dread-locked singer says. "More of everything. More alcohol, more drugs, more books, more whatever. For me, and this is something I've had to institute again starting yesterday, I'm going down the news and Instagram rabbit hole. I found myself, and that's where ["Memento Mori"] stemmed from, doing constant consumption of news, mostly."

His digital fixation got so intense—he says he was checking up to 15 different news sources on the daily, from "super tree-hugger left" to the "weirdest alt-right" sites, in search of "some objective truth"—he had to install a VPN blocker to restrict use of certain apps and websites. 

"It was driving me mad," Blythe says, "and I was wasting too much time on Instagram in the studio while I was tracking, just mindlessly looking, under the pretext of 'keeping up with my friends.'" 

Yet, he understood that "if I'm keeping up with my friends, I'm talking to my friends," he reflects. "I'm not looking at their posts, what they did yesterday." Rather than attempting to parse a million discrete sources, or give in to his screen-news addiction, Blythe opted to reach out to those very friends. 

Read: Death Angel Drummer Will Carroll Opens Up About Fighting COVID-19: "It Looked Like I Was Going To Die"

"During this pandemic, I've wanted to stay informed," he says. "But after a while, it comes down to me being responsible for my own health and looking at things objectively, trying to make a semi-educated decision. For me, it looks like talking to my friends who are in the medical professions, in [Emergency Medical Services], who are New York City firefighters, who are scientists. Because I'm not a smart guy, I got to call my smart friends [and] say, 'Guys, tell me what in the hell is going on and what I need to do.'"

When it comes to climate change and going green in the context of the music business, Blythe doesn't shy away from the tough questions—nor does he have all the solutions. There are groups such as REVERB, a nonprofit environmental organization that works with musicians to reduce the environmental impact of their tours. But it can be prohibitively expensive for a band to truly "go green." 

"For touring, that's a frustrating thing," Blythe, who drives a 10-year-old truck he plans to replace with something more ecofriendly in the future, says. "I reached out to our management because there are tour buses that run on biodiesel. And there are hybrid buses, but they're very few and far between and very expensive to maintain. Our carbon footprint as a band is huge. It's massive, and it's distressing to me, because we're either in a plane, a train, on a boat, a bus or in a car on the way to the venue. We've taken every single thing to a venue except for a helicopter so far, and all of that runs on fossil fuels.

"It's important to do what you can and recycle and all that stuff, but I think that the bigger question that needs to be asked is, 'How are we going to move away from these fossil fuels—period?' Because on a purely pragmatic level, fossil fuels are a finite resource. Why? Because they're made out of fucking fossils, things that died millions of years ago, and it become compacted in the earth and turned into coal and oil and gas and all that stuff." 

The singer has hopes that today's younger people—the Greta Thunbergs and future generations—will put words into action. "There's a population explosion, and we're using up these resources more and more and more. That means we do not have millions of years to wait until, you know, stuff turns into oil."

"On a purely pragmatic level, on a common sense level, this is where it drives me crazy" he furthers. "On a common-sense level, wouldn't we start looking for a replacement now? And implementing that now? Oil [lobbyists] and all that stuff, they care about profit margins, and that's it. That is disgusting to me; it drives me insane." 

Fortunately, Blythe has music, especially his ultra-energetic and intense live performances, as catharsis—at least he does when there's not a pandemic. Lyrics and interviews serve as a form of activism, education and personal accountability for him, too. One of his crucial goals is to always work on keeping his "moral compass correctly calibrated." That said, he acknowledges, "I'm a human being and I make mistakes and I say stupid shit just like everybody else, but overall I'm a pretty good guy." 

"I exist outside of my band. I think that's a misconception that people have," he furthers. "I am a human being; I am Randy Blythe, first and foremost. I believe what I believe, and I say what I want to say, when I want to say it, how I want to say it, without any regard whatsoever, as long as I'm not doing harm. And as long as I am speaking the truth as I know it, because I believe the truth is empirical." 

On the Lamb Of God track "Reality Bath," Blythe urges listeners to "Reject the new abnormal," warning against slipping into "dull indifference / when horror has been normalized a cynical defense." The lyrics dig deeper into his hopes. "The strongest hearts will raise their voice against the murderous tide: No! It can't go on like this! / Millions of voices echo in the darkness, screaming: No! I won't accept this!" 

The track ultimately concludes with the man who is not an activist growling his pained and passionate truth: "The faint of heart will fall in line, but I will not submit."

Nearly 30 Years After Their Debut, Body Count's 'Carnivore' Is The Thrash-Metal Band's Most Fully Realized Album

Alicia Silverstone as Cher Horowitz in 'Clueless' (1995)

Alicia Silverstone as Cher Horowitz in 'Clueless' (1995)

Courtesy Photo: CBS via Getty Images

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How 1995 Became A Blockbuster Year For Movie Soundtracks

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From 'Clueless' to 'Dangerous Minds,' soundtracks were big business in 1995, but the year's hits offered no clear formula for success
Jack Tregoning
GRAMMYs
Aug 9, 2020 - 4:00 am

Mariah Carey, Alanis Morissette, 2Pac and The Smashing Pumpkins all had No. 1 albums in 1995. Despite such hallowed competition, four movie soundtracks also topped the Billboard 200 chart that year. Two were family-friendly Disney behemoths: Pocahontas and The Lion King, the latter still powering from the previous year. The other chart-topping soundtracks, for the Michelle Pfeiffer vehicle Dangerous Minds and the stoner comedy Friday, were no one's idea of kids' entertainment. 

Beyond those No. 1 spots, 1995 marked a fascinating midpoint in a soundtrack-heavy decade. According to a New York Times report, a new release CD that year typically cost anywhere between $13-$19. At that price, a soundtrack needed major star power or an undeniable concept. 

For movie studios and musicians alike, the format was rich with opportunity. However, there was no certain formula for success. Some soundtracks were guided by a single producer, while others drew on a grab bag of then-current songs. Several featured one clear hit that eclipsed the soundtrack, or occasionally the movie itself. For all their differing approaches, the soundtracks of 1995 epitomized the energy and audacity of the decade, while also establishing tropes for the next 25 years. 

The Bodyguard: Original Soundtrack Album (1992) set the bar high for the decade. With a 20-week reign at No. 1, it remains the biggest-selling soundtrack of all time. Whitney Houston performed six songs on the album, including the titanic power ballad, "I Will Always Love You." (At the 1994 GRAMMYs, the track won the GRAMMY for Record Of The Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female, while the soundtrack itself earned the Album Of The Year award.)

While The Bodyguard magnified their commercial potential, movie soundtracks like Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994) framed the medium as an artistic showpiece. Throughout the '90s, Tarantino and fellow indie auteurs Paul Thomas Anderson, Richard Linklater and Spike Lee made music a key character in their films. (The latter continues the trend on his latest movie, Da 5 Bloods, alongside six-time GRAMMY-winning composer and trumpeter Terence Blanchard.) Both instincts, for commercial returns and artistic validation, were well-represented in 1995. 

Read: 'The Bodyguard' Soundtrack: 25 Years After Whitney Houston's Masterpiece

Batman Forever (1995) epitomized the big-budget, mass-appeal mid-'90s soundtrack. Spanning PJ Harvey to Method Man, the 14-track set employed some tried-and-true tactics. First, only five songs on the track list appear in the movie itself, ushering in a rash of "Music From And Inspired By" soundtracks. Second, its featured artists largely contributed songs you couldn't find on other albums: According to Entertainment Weekly in 1995, U2 landed a reported $500,000 advance for "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me," an offcut from the band's Zooropa album sessions. 

Most significantly, Batman Forever backed a surprise smash in Seal's "Kiss From A Rose." Originally released as a single in 1994, the ballad blew up as the movie's "love theme." In its music video, Seal croons in the light of the Bat-Signal, intercut with not-very-romantic scenes from the film. Outshining U2, "Kiss From A Rose" reached No. 1 in 1995; one year later, the song won for Song Of The Year, Record Of The Year and Best Male Pop Vocal Performance at the 38th GRAMMY Awards.

Both Bad Boys and Dangerous Minds had their "Kiss From A Rose" equivalent in 1995. Diana King's reggae-fusion jam "Shy Guy" proved the breakout star of Bad Boys, transcending an R&B- and hip-hop-heavy soundtrack. Meanwhile, Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise," featuring singer L.V., the key track on Dangerous Minds, became the top-selling single of 1995; it won the rapper his first, and only, GRAMMY for Best Rap Solo Performance the next year. 

Other soundtracks from 1995 endure as perfect documents of their time and place. Clueless compiled a cast from '90s rock radio to accompany the adventures of Alicia Silverstone's Cher Horowitz and her high school clique: Counting Crows, Smoking Popes, Cracker and The Muffs. Coolio, the everywhere man of 1995, contributed "Rollin' With My Homies." 

From the same city, but a world outside Cher's Beverly Hills bubble, came the Ice Cube- and Chris Tucker-starring Friday. Its soundtrack took a whistle-stop tour of West Coast hip-hop and G-funk via Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, Tha Alkaholiks and Mack 10. True to the era, the music video for Dr. Dre's "Keep Their Heads Ringin'" is half stoner comedy, half cheesy action movie. 

Waiting To Exhale, the 1995 drama directed by Forest Whitaker, boasted a soundtrack with a clear author. Babyface, the R&B superproducer with 11 GRAMMY wins for his work with the likes of Boyz II Men and Toni Braxton, produced the set in full. Following Babyface's co-producer role on The Bodyguard soundtrack three years prior, Waiting To Exhale featured two new songs from the movie's star, Whitney Houston. 

Read: 'Score': Soundtracks take us on an emotional ride

Houston's "Exhale (Shoop Shoop)" and "Why Does It Hurt So Bad" led a track list that also featured Aretha Franklin, TLC, Chaka Khan, Mary J. Blige and then-newcomer Brandy. A powerful showcase of Black women across generations, the soundtrack has prevailed as a standalone work, going on to receive multiple nominations, including Album Of The Year, at the 1997 GRAMMYs. In a crowded year for soundtracks, which also included Dinosaur Jr. founder Lou Barlow's work on Larry Clark's contentious Kids, Waiting To Exhale demonstrated the power of a singular vision. 

For the most part, the soundtracks of 1995 tried a bit of everything. The previous year, The Crow: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack went all-in on covers, including Nine Inch Nails overhauling Joy Division's "Dead Souls." That trend continued into 1995, from Tori Amos covering R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion" for Higher Learning to Evan Dando's update of Big Star's "The Ballad Of El Goodo" in Empire Records to Tom Jones gamely taking on Lenny Kravitz's "Are You Gonna Go My Way"' for The Jerky Boys movie. (Is there a more '90s sentence than that?) 

Elsewhere, the Mortal Kombat soundtrack blended metal and industrial rock (Fear Factory, Gravity) with dance music (Utah Saints, Orbital). For every Dead Presidents, which zeroed in on '70s funk and soul, there was a Tank Girl, which threw together Bush, Björk, Veruca Salt and Ice-T to match the movie's manic tone. 

Continuing from their '90s winning streak, grown-up soundtracks have proven surprisingly resilient. In an echo of Babyface's role on Waiting To Exhale, Kendrick Lamar oversaw production on 2018's chart-topping, multi-GRAMMY-nominated Black Panther: The Album, uniting an A-list cast under his creative direction. On the same front, Beyonce executive-produced and curated The Lion King: The Gift, the soundtrack album for the 2019 remake of the Disney classic, which spotlighted African and Afrobeats artists. In 2016, Taylor Swift and One Direction's Zayn recorded "I Don't Wanna Live Forever (Fifty Shades Darker)," pitching for the movie tie-in bump enjoyed in 1995 by Seal and Coolio. (The millennial stars stopped short of including scenes from the movie in their music video.) 

Like Batman Forever back in the day, the DC Universe continues to put stock in soundtracks. Both Suicide Squad (2016) and its follow-up, Birds Of Prey (2020), are packed tight with to-the-minute pop, R&B and hip-hop. Each soundtrack reads like a who's who of the musical zeitgeist. In 1995, Mazzy Star, Brandy and U2 grouped up behind Batman. In 2016, Twenty One Pilots, Skrillex and Rick Ross powered the Suicide Squad. In 2020, everyone from Doja Cat to Halsey to YouTube star Maisie Peters form Team Harley Quinn. 

As 1995 taught us time and time again, nothing traps a year in amber quite like a movie soundtrack. 

How 1995 Became The Year Dance Music Albums Came Of Age

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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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