In the years before Counting Crows became one of the biggest success stories of the mid-90s, frontman and chief songwriter Adam Duritz was a man of many bands. The Baltimore-born and California-raised singer was into all sorts of music, so he played all sorts of music. There was The Mod-L Society, who specialised in jangly power-pop, a psychedelic rock crew called The Himalayans, and the atmospheric new wave of Sordid Humor, for whom he provided backing vocals.
There were even a few different versions of Counting Crows before the one that he hit the jackpot via their 1993 debut album August And Everything After. An album that sounds like Automatic For The People-era R.E.M. in confession, its stirring mix of emotive ballads, contemplative alt.rock and hook after melodic hook sold more than seven million copies.
