Counting Crows frontman Adam Duritz will have his record exec hat back on when Chicago's Blacktop Mourning debuts on his new label Tyrannosaurus Records in May.
Blacktop Mourning is fronted by Joe Levand and lead by 18 year old guitar prodigy Max Steger.Duritz discovered the band via The Net. "Adam heard our music on MySpace" Max Steger tells Undercover News. "He sent us a message. He was going to put a label together and asked us to send him some demos of some new songs. We did that. We did some acoustic recordings of some new songs. He fell in love with them and was really blown away. He asked us to meet him at his concert when he was coming to Chicago. We went backstage, met up with him and the rest is history".
Duritz had a hand in producing the album with Max. "He co-produced it with me and he also sang on four of the songs," Max says.
As yet though, the collaboration has not made it to the stage. "We haven't performed them with him live yet but we want to in the future," he says.
Earlier in his career, Steger had a call from Atlantic Records founder, the legendary Ahmet Ertegun. "I did talk to him on the phone a lot," Max says. "I started playing in blues clubs when I was 12 and he saw some footage of me playing at a famous blues club in Chicago called Buddy Guy's. He called me up and we talked occasionally. I never met him in person but we talked a lot on the phone".
Blacktop Mourning will release their debut album 'No Regrets' on May 15 on Tyrannosaurus Records.
