"Mr. Jones" Backlash Made Adam Duritz Self Conscious

I remember watching Mr. Jones on MTV and I loved that fucking video man and I loved that you dancing in that, was it like a living room or something like that? Yeah. I'm like, I want to be that free. Like you seem so loose. You are so in the moment. I remember thinking that. I remember talking to a friend of mine that night after a show, I was at a bar, I was like, you ever see that Mr. Jones video? I go, when that dude's dancing, I go, I want to like figure out how to get there. Shit I want to be that free. You know, it's a weird thing. I used to, I'm going to take this off for now. I used to be, for me, you know, life is often very awkward and uncomfortable, but not on stage. You know, like on stage I always felt like, well, this is the one place on everything I do is fine. So when I started, you know, making videos at first, it was just like, this is apps, this is easy because all I got to do is do the stuff I'm going to do, you know, and there's nothing wrong I can do. I can just be as free as I want. And that lasted about a year and a half, maybe two years, something that like getting really famous out of nowhere. And then, you know, all the kind of backlash that comes with it. I noticed a couple years later, I was a lot more self-conscious. I'm still on stage. I never think about anything. When I'm playing it, nothing bothers me. But in front of cameras, I got really self-conscious in front of cameras after sometime in the middle of our second record. I just noticed that I started to suck on, not suck on video, but definitely not like that Mr. Jones video. You became aware that so many people were watching and criticizing you or like, what was it? I think it was that, you know, because at first I just, well, didn't care. And I just thought that there's nowhere in the world I'm more comfortable to hear, so I'm fine. And then I think on our second album, when we got a lot of backlash and you get a little too big and everybody, you get, you annoy the shit out of people being, you know, especially because in a band, because you get a really successful song, they're going to play it on the radio every five minutes. After a while, it's like, God, who wouldn't get sick of it? And then you get some backlash after that. People say some terrible things. And then I started thinking about like, what do I look like on film? Then I got really self-conscious, you know, what's this pants? Does this song make my ass look big? You know, and I noticed that I got kind of crappy just in front of cameras, not the rest of the time. And not like cameras when I'm on stage at a concert. Like you play a big festival, there's lots of cameras and nothing bothered me there. It's just kind of sometimes on TV and in filming, I got kind of self-conscious and I'd never been that way. The press stuff, like that kind of stuff got yourself- I think so. I mean, I don't really know what caused it exactly. The only reason I would say I think you're right about that is that it happened then. And that was the first time I'd experienced that because no one said anything bad about you when they don't know you exist, for one. And then on our first record, we couldn't buy a bad review. But by our second record, we weren't even getting- it was like, forget him. He's fucking this chick, so I don't have to forget his music. And then like, he got fat, whatever it would be. And a nationwide- a national publication calls you fat. It's like shit. I remember getting a review in England once and somebody called me Ponce as a fishmonger's cat, which I suppose fishmonger's cats eat a lot. Ponce? Is that chubby? Ponce? I thought it meant chubby, I assume. I guess. I don't know. Just sounded bad. That's so British. Just being compared to a fishmonger's cat. The fact that fishmonger is involved at all as a word when they're talking about your concert seems like a bad sign. There's a thing that happens when people discover you and they find out about you and you haven't gotten big yet, especially for bands I think, where they love the fact that they're the first to tell their friends, you've got to listen to this band, you've got to listen to this album, this is awesome. But then when you get really big and other people like it, and too many people like it, then you're like, oh man, they were good in the beginning. Well I think that music, unlike almost everything else, it becomes our personal cool. We literally wear it on our shirts. It defines who we are. We talk about this genre or that genre as being our gang almost. When you're discovering stuff, yeah, it's really cool. And then when you have to share it with that guy at the water cooler who likes the fucking worst music, that guy who's been coming in for years and he's just listening to outer shit and now he loves your band too and you're like, I don't want to share this with Captain Asshole over there. I've never understood that because why can't people with terrible taste also like great things? Great things are great no matter what. Everybody loves The Godfather. Whoever says that movie sucks, nobody but people who like terrible movies still like The Godfather. Well I think it's less because they now like it as opposed to you were in a club without them and now you're in a club with them. And that just sucks because you didn't have to be in a club with them before. It's human nature. I mean I get it. I didn't like it when it landed on me but yeah, I mean I get it. Well and it happened to you pre-social media. You guys were just getting reviewed by experts. You weren't getting shit on by the general public yet. No I mean but that was kind of, that was a good thing for one but I was really into, right well it's, for me it had happened when I was kind of already into social media because I remember moving down to LA after our first album and that year while I was writing the second record discovering that AOL had these message boards. This is 95 say. I realized that AOL had these forums and message boards for all the bands and it suddenly occurred to me well I could just go on there and talk to people because when I read it they were worried about were we ever going to make a second record? Were we going to shit? Did we exist anymore? Like what, all the questions that you wonder about your band between records and it suddenly occurred to me well I have the answers to all those questions. You know I could just go on there and it took me a little while to convince the people on there that I was me but understandably. Of course. But eventually I did and then we sort of started this kind of community there way before other social media but it occurred to me because the rest of the time you can't get to your fans except through, or you couldn't then, except through the radio, the DJs and the press. So like you don't really get to give anybody your own words they got to be filtered through everybody else. Right. And the AOL thing was a chance to just like what Twitter and everything is now. But it occurred to me back then it was really cool and when people started then I got into arguments with our own fans. I've always done that. Like what kind of arguments? Well you know like I don't think I'm who they think I am. Who do you think they think you are? A classic rock guy driving around in a pickup truck. Why would they think that? Like going to drive in movie theaters because that's this Americana dream vision of like we all sit around you know going to drive ins and living some dream of a Springsteen song that Springsteen isn't even any part of you know. I would go on there and I'd be like have you guys heard the first Justin Timberlake album? It's amazing. It's got like Timberland and the Neptunes doing all the songs and I would try and make this thing to tell them like you should listen to this. It's brilliant music and they just they couldn't grasp the Justin Timberlake thing because in their mind in sync was the guy at the water cooler. Right. You know and so like I would get in these captain's. Fights with them like you guys don't know shit about music you're just like you're in this little niche. Rigid. You know you like us and I think that's very smart and intelligent shows a lot of wisdom but you're limited and I get in all these fights with them. 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