"Inheriting The World": An Interview With Matt Malley From Counting Crows
- Breanna Macomber
- Aug 14
- 16 min read
Counting Crows was one of the most ground breaking bands to come out of the 90's. With radio hits like "Mr. Jones," "Round Here," "A Long December," and "Hanginaround" just to name a few, comes a band from humble beginnings and after speaking with Matt, seems like even more humble musicians. Matt was the bassist in the band from 1991 to 2005, which is notably one of the highest points in the band's career. Matt and I talked about projects that he's proud of, yoga and meditation, music that inspired him, his love for aviation as well as the thing that bridges our generational gap - our love for Counting Crows.
Mr. Dog and Early Beginnings:
B: I wanted to talk to you about the band, Mr. Dog. You talk about it being one of the proudest projects you were a part of. What was that experience like and what made it so great?
M: Mr. Dog was the band right before Counting Crows. It was a band that when the singer broke it up, it really broke my heart. That was the greatest band I ever played in that the world didn't know about. In the same way that Dave Bryson, who partnered with Adam, he partnered with a guy before that named Michael LaBash. Michael was a lot like Peter Gabriel or Brian Ferry. It was the mid to late 80s, so Mr. Dog was very much an 80's band with a synthesizer. After we broke up, for months there, all I felt was a sadness and a loss because the band was so good. They weren't good in the sense that we can play jazz or we can play all these hot licks but they were good in the sense that there was a vision. This guy Michael had a vision of how music should sound and we were all very happy to help him paint his picture. There's a song that Counting Crows did with Adam called “Love” or “Only Love,” and that was actually a Mr. Dog song. The original version is somewhere to be found on YouTube.
B: What genre was Mr. Dog? Was it rock?
M: It was rock music but heavily affected rock music with synthesizers and a gated snare drum, which is the classic 80s sound, with a gated reverb on the snare. The drummer played electronic drums mostly.
B: You've mentioned before that when you were 27, you were planning on moving to Oklahoma to go be an air traffic controller? How did that come about?
M: In fact, I was at a crossroads where I literally had to make a decision. I was going to become an air traffic controller because I love airplanes and I've always loved airplanes. I used to build models when I was like 12 to 16. I would build all the World War II fighter planes. There’s a beautiful plane called a Spitfire. It had these elliptical wings and I remember my heart would ache at the beauty of the wings of a Spitfire as I would build a model. I genuinely love airplanes. I’m a lifetime aviation nut and I was going to become an air traffic controller because of the security of that. I was 27, I still hadn't done anything with myself. My parents were getting sad that I'm still in the house. I was happy to go get a career in something and I almost did it. I was at a crossroads because the band was about to sign to a major label and it's a big commitment. It means I'll have to put off being an air traffic controller and then I'll be too old to get hired. You can't get hired at 30 because you need to put in like 20 or 30 years for the career. But a friend of mine, this lady that I do this type of meditation with as I'm spiritual and I go to India, told me about this story. It might be a Christian story. It's about this dude in a house and this flood comes in. You’ve probably heard this, but the flood comes in and then starts going all over his house and it floods his living room. So he ends up on the roof of the house. He's thinking “I'm probably going to die. God, please help me.” And he's waiting for this opportunity to show up. So a boat comes and they say, “Hey, get in the boat we'll help you.” He said, “No, don't worry, God's going to help me.” So then a helicopter shows up and drops the hook and he says, “No, no, I'll wait, God's gonna save me.” So he dies. He goes to heaven and he says, “God, why didn't you help me?” And God said, “Well, I sent a boat and a helicopter.” Which meant to me that she was saying this band is here and they're signing with a major record label. Just do it, you know? I'm so glad I took her advice.
B: Coming from somebody who wants a creative career path, when you start getting closer to 30, it feels like you have to make some decisions. In your case, was it really just that push that you needed to make that decision to go with Counting Crows? Because you had already been with other bands and you had given them a shot. Did it feel the same doing that with Counting Crows?
M: Having a record deal is a really big shot but it doesn't mean we made it. It means we get a really nice slow ball and we can hit it out of the ball park - if we're lucky. But right now we're up to bat. That's all a record deal means. But I never had that - none of us ever had that offer in our lives. So I knew that things were different, but I also knew that even though we're going to get signed to a major label, the chances are one in a million where we're gonna have a hit record. I was shocked - all of us were shocked because we didn't make a record for it to be a hit. We obviously didn't sound like Nirvana, which was selling at the time. We made this folky-acoustic album, August and Everything After but it became a hit. I remember that when we had that opportunity, it wasn't an easy decision because becoming an air traffic controller meant security. I remember thinking about how I can have a little condominium, a new car and I could eat out at a restaurant ordering what I want. It was that compared to living with my parents or working in a McDonald's or something. I mean, it was just a life raft. I picked the risk over the life raft and thankfully, it worked. But I tell you, 27, you're still a kid. Don't pressure yourself too hard.
B: I'm sure a lot of people probably ask what you would do differently if you could turn back time but in your case, I would like to think you wouldn't do anything different because it turned out pretty great. Was there any piece of advice that you've learned along the way that would've put your anxieties at ease early on?
M: If there’s something I could tell your generation it would be to go easy on yourself. Don't be hard on yourself because when life happens to you and you inherit the world, which you're about to do, your job is often not your plan. Oftentimes, people fall into careers that they didn't go get their degree for. Things happen by mistake. You just fall into these other things and as long as you have your antenna up and your desire is there to do something with yourself and not just be a vegetable or a drug addict or something, the world is going to present itself to you. Opportunities are gonna come and when you see them, grab them. See what happens but go easy on yourself. I was so hard on myself. I hated myself for living with my parents. Now I look back and one of them is gone. My mom's 97 now and has dementia. I think those were golden times. I had no worries, even when I was in my mid-20s and all my friends were embarrassed for me. I've learned that in India, you live with your parents until you're married, so that uniquely kind of white European-American culture is how you have to move out of the house and make something of yourself like the rest of us. That weighed war on me. It made me not like myself. If I could do it again, I'd just appreciate that my parents let me stay with them. And I would have picked different friends that wouldn't have given me a hard time over something like that.
B: That’s good advice. It's good to just hear also because I have friends who I met when we were all pursuing these creative things when we were in our early 20s but then they've kind of dropped off of it. For me, I just don't really see a life without being creative. I don't know what I would do as a career option if it wasn't writing or music or comedy in some capacity.
M: Money isn't the answer. Obviously, you don't want to become homeless and you don't want to starve. But chasing after money in your life is no way to live a life. Not to get philosophical or anything, and I think everyone knows that innately. For some reason, we all fall into a trap at some point where we think money is gonna be something that we can be secure with.
B: Is there a moment in your career, it could be Counting Crows or not, that felt very defining or you felt like it was a big moment for you?
M: When you're a musician in high school and you go to a guitar center or a guitar store, I would sit down and plug in a bass and I'd place as fast as I could. I would get an employee or two or other customers say, “You're a monster man” or “How long have you been playing?” I would just be doing these chromatic beginner things and hoping I can impress people. Then when I was 28 or something, when we'd started our first record, our producer, T-Bone Burnett, got a hold of me and said, “Okay, slow down. What is Adam doing with the song?” He made me a bass player to a songwriter. That opened the whole other window. He had me listen to a song by The Beatles called “Baby You're A Rich Man,” He had me listen to Paul's bass on that. It's not technically difficult, but what he's doing is so unique, so "in the pocket" of the drums. Since then, I discovered “Midnight Train to Georgia" by Gladys Knight and every bass player should listen to that because it doesn't do anything boring. It also sits in its own zone. It helps everything else with that song and it's a study. That song, “Midnight Train to Georgia" is a master's degree in songwriter's bass playing to me. When T-Bone got a hold of me on the first recording session, that was a defining moment that made me from a child into a man in terms of a bass player.
Zeppelin and Mozart Hippies:
B: Counting Crows were a huge part of my upbringing. I remember Sunday mornings being cleaning day, spaghetti sauce and Counting Crows. I know you've mentioned before that Zeppelin and The Beatles being those inspirations for you. Was it musicianship that got you interested in them or was it something else? Was it just because everybody else was listening to it?
M: That's a really good question. In the case of Zeppelin, looking back on their mystique, they have sort of a celtic mysticism that they opened a portal to. It’s more than even the band, it's the players. The players are first class players. All three instrumentalists - Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and John Bonham. They’re just the best in rock and roll. Robert Plant is just such a beautiful singer but Zeppelin led me on a path into folk rock. They led me into the folk of England and Ireland - the UK and Ireland, really. That music is like my religion. The main bands of that genre are Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span and Pentangle. They're very under the radar but those are the bands that inspired Zeppelin. Zeppelin is also confused for being a hard hitting, hard rock and even a heavy metal band but they're not that at all. They're more like a “celtic world” rock band than a hard hitting band. They're more folk music than rock. They went into the roots of England and made their band in that vein. Plus, being a Boomer, they're just like one of the classic top bands. The Beatles are like Mozarts that kept reinventing themselves. I mean, if you hear something like “Eight Days A Week,” they're like a boy band but four years after that, you hear “Dear Prudence” and they're just these Mozart hippies. They changed so much in a seven year window. Nobody's like them.
B: I don't know how I found The Beatles but I just remember randomly having a CD when I was in middle school that I just played all the time. It was just something I would have on when I was going to bed and it just really unlocked something. I was like, “Ooh, maybe I want to write a song." Then I would try to write my own songs and stuff in middle school. It's crazy. It's such a cool experience, especially with the same band between you and I. That's so cool.
M: Yeah! In fact, that’s a great point you make. It's songwriting - that’s what grabbed me as a child. I remember I was in high school, I think, or maybe right after so I was in my late teens. I have a friend who's sort of a music aficionado. He's a record buyer for one of the big record stores in LA now, but he knows everything about everything. Every jazz artist that played in this band and that band, etc. I remember he would tease me because I had the Greatest Hits of The Association. That's a band from the 60s that had songs like, (singing) “Who's trippin down the streets of the city?” Everyone knows “It's Windy.” I was in love with this song called “Never My Love” by The Association and my friend John teased me saying, “Why do you listen to this horrible song? Why don't you listen to Miles Davis?” It's because the songwriting got me. It wasn't the instrumentalists. If you put on “Hey Jude,” the writing on that is like the top of the mountain.
Counting Crows:
B: I'm in a weird cusp between Gen Z and Millennials which is an interesting place to be since they don't like each other. When I talk to millennials, they know “Mr. Jones" but when I talk to Gen Z, they know “Accidentally In Love” because Shrek has just consumed their lives. If you could go into the Counting Crows discography, when you were a part of it and hand pick a song that would be the song the world will know Counting Crows as, what would the song be?
M: Well, the world’s going to remember "Mr. Jones" and that shows up on the YouTube numbers. 350 million views that have been tracked. Everything else is like 40 million or much less which, of course, is still great. But I'm proud of that one. There's some super good songs on every record from Adam. In fact, their new release, that I'm not on, I love the song “Under the Aurora.” That's why I love the band. That's why I’m a fan of Adam. Plus the song right before it - "Virginia Through The Rain” - is another good song. That's what a songwriter is. I know I'm going on a tangent, but the song that I pick as one of the greatest is probably “All My Friends” from the album This Desert Life. I was in the band at this time and it reminds me of Burt Bacharach because it's got a timeless, pure, songwriter quality to it. I always felt like the band could have done more justice to Adam's music. I think between the producers that worked with us and just the feeling of sleep deprivation, we're not doing the songs justice on what they could have been. If Adam had brought a song into The Wrecking Crew, who were the guys that played on The Beach Boys records, I feel like a song like “All My Friends” would have gotten a boost that was even more than we could have given it. I'm not saying we let it down or we ruined it, but it just could have been seen for what it was, which was a timeless song and not an “early-2000s-L.A.-Americana” song. There could have been a wider net cast to capture what a song like that wants to do in the world.
B: It's very timeless. It's still very accurate because it's all about emotion and the human experience. To me, it feels like as long as humans are experiencing things, that's going to be a timeless song, you know?
M: Exactly. (quoting the song) “Now I'm 33 and it isn't me” Adam sings about getting older and when you're right in that age group where your friends are trying to get married and move on in life. It felt like he was being left behind and it's like you say, it's a human experience. That's my favorite song.
B: Before I went to the concert on June 13th, I wanted to go from the beginning and listen to the entirety of the discography. I forgot that there was an August and Everything After Deluxe Album which is what we had on CD when I was younger. Some of those demos I totally forgot existed. "Shallow Days" is truly one of my favorite songs. I don't know why it never got the justice of being on an album.
M: I remember we did a version that was very drone-y and seamy but we tried to get it going. We just couldn't get something that everyone liked - that Adam liked - especially, where everyone was at peace with it. We tried to record "Shallow Days" for August And Everything After. That was during the very first incarnation of Counting Crows. There are four songs, I think, four or five, that was another band that Adam and Dave had before I joined before we became a four piece. It was Lydia from Mr. Dog on keyboards, Dave Bryson from Mr. Dog, Adam, and then a dude named Toby Hawkins on drums. He's a great drummer, too. The bass player at the time was Marty Jones, who Mr. Jones was written for. He played on Shallow Days and the three or four other demo songs.
B: The "Omaha" demo was so different before Charlie, that we could do a whole conversation just on him. What an incredible addition to Counting Crows. In my opinion, he really gave you guys such a unique sound. Seeing him live was incredible. He got up on the speakers with his accordion and a spotlight in the beginning of "Omaha." It was epic. I think "Omaha" and "Rain King" were two of my favorite songs live.
M: I remember him doing that. But yeah those demos are more R.E.M. inspired. I listened to them in my car like it was one of my favorite records. I love those demos. "Mr. Jones" was pretty similar to the demo. "Omaha" was electric and T Bone Burnett is the one who stripped us all down and said to add accordion on this song.
B: I wonder how he made that connection. That's incredible. Recovering The Satellites, which was the next record you were on, felt like a huge difference in the comfortability and the confidence in everybody. There are certain things that make it feel like a continuation of August And Everything After like in "Good Night Elizabeth" where Adam brings back the "Rain King" reference. What do you remember about making this album?
M: Satellites was a fun album because we knew we hit rock band status and here we are going in to make our second record. We were all giddy plus we're all still young. We're in our early 30s. We worked at another big house in LA, just like the first album but it was just a very, very exciting time. That record ended up being released as a number one record which was just super cool. It was the number one rock record. I had a friend Ursula, who was a flight attendant and had this shift going to Japan then back to San Francisco with United at the time. I said, "Ursula, I think that I heard we had number one recognition." She said, "Yeah, I can see it in the gift shop here. It's on billboards in Osaka." It was awesome. It was just a giddy, exciting time and some real magic is on the record. I think the whole record's brilliant. There was a risky song Adam did with us that's called "Marjorie Dreams Of Horses." It's this sort of waltz-y swing song and Gill, our producer, made a wise choice of not letting us overthink it. We did a few takes and he told us to work with that. That song is another one that I think could have been better if it was played by studio veterans of the era. Like people who were in their 60s at the time but played on Glen Campbell records. Glen Campbell himself was one of them, too. But still, we pulled it off and I'm happy with it. I think it was super cool.
B: I love that you brought up Glen Campbell. I love Glen Campbell so much. I think I have his vinyl right next to me. Do you have a favorite song from him?
M: Yeah, "I'd Build A Bridge" from Rhinestone Cowboy. It brings me to tears every time. I think about my dad who passed away in '03. I've grieved for him for 22 years now. I'd become obsessed with World War II. He was a World War II vet so I've seen all the documentaries, read all the books, etc. I think it's a form of grieving. And I wasn't even really close to him. We didn't say "I love you" or go to baseball games but he was like a hero of mine. And when he died, it just ruined me. So if you ever want to see me cry, put on "I'd Build A Bridge" by Glen Campbell.
B: I'll have to listen to it. Going back to Recovering The Satellites, the song "Have You Seen Me Lately?" feels almost like a sequel to "Mr. Jones." Like it was the aftermath of "Mr. Jones" or becoming famous and losing yourself. What Adam was saying was kind of sad. Almost like he's screaming for somebody because he lost himself.
M: Yeah, it's like a cry for help. you know? Adam's funny. He's a duality. He suffers and he writes songs from suffering but he's also one of the most euphoric people I've ever known. He's got a joy - an appetite - for life that is very rare. Name a subject and he probably knows a lot about it. Maybe not anthropology or something but the best restaurants or definitely the best music. He's got an unquenching appetite for everything to do with music and the making of a record. So here's this guy who's singing about losing pieces of himself but really knows all of himself at the same time. He takes the biggest bite out of life whenever he can. He's got a duality in that sense. His artistic expression is through the lens of suffering but he doesn't really suffer.
B: I also wanted to talk about Across The Wire - the live album. That version of "Mr. Jones" was probably played more in my household than anything - even still. I feel like it touches on this "prodigy" idea and Adam kind of introduces the idea of if you want to be a musician, then just learn how to play music.
M: Believe it or not - I haven't listened to Across The Wire
B: What?! It's so good!
M: Well, thank you! I toured all those songs so hearing that is like a concert or one of the nights in the fourteen years I was in the band. But yeah, in the beginning, he's referencing that song "So You Want To Be A Rock 'N' Roll Star" from The Byrds just to the tune of "Mr. Jones."
Inspirations Today:
B: I don't know if there's anything else that we didn't talk about or if there's anything that comes to mind that you'd like to mention. If so, I'd love to hear about it.
M: Well, on the spiritual side of things, there's this yoga guru that passed away that I'd love the world to know about. There's no money involved, there's no degree or certificate that says you reach some state of awareness and because of that, nobody's interested in it in the western world. You can learn all about it on YouTube. It's Sahaja yoga and meditation. To me it describes a machinery inside of us with the chakras and the kundalini. It doesn't just describe it but gives you the chance to try to wake it up. I'm still trying to wake mine up.
Written By Breanna M.
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