Ryan Adams
Ryan Adams
Ryan Adamsis an American singer-songwriter, musician, producer, poet and painter. He is best known for his prolific solo career, and as a former member of alternative country band Whiskeytown, with whom he recorded three studio albums. In 2000, Adams left Whiskeytown and released his first solo album, Heartbreaker, to critical acclaim. The album was nominated for the Shortlist Music Prize. In 2001, Adams released the UK certified-gold Gold, which included the hit single, "New York, New York"...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionRock Singer
Date of Birth5 November 1974
CityJacksonville, NC
CountryUnited States of America
On 'Heartbreaker,' I had to sing those songs. I drank the way I did those songs. I ate the way I did those songs. I communicated the way I did those songs. With 'Gold,' I was trying to prove something to myself. I wanted to invent a modern classic.
When I'm in New York, I just want to walk down the street and feel this thing, like I'm in a movie.
There is this strange fog of being a young man that I would refer to as soft time. Time does not go forward there. It's a series of doors that kind of wind back into one another, like a series of doors in the upper floor of a house. You revisit the same lessons over and over again, or you choose to ignore them.
The band got a bad bug on the way back from Japan that just kept wearing us down.
I want to keep him as far away from the real world as possible,
It's a neat community. I'm excited about the growth that's occurring in Little Elm.
It is awesome. They thought we were losing all our starters (from last year), and we come back and we just show them that we all can do it. It doesn't matter who it is.
If I could find my way home/ Where would I go?
He's mythological to me, like Zeus or Thor. I don't want to dispel all the myths and mysteries that surround some of his stuff, which I think is just absolutely phenomenal, inspiring and righteous.
I like the fact that this record is not so self-serious.
I can sort of will that stuff to happen to me if I put myself in the right headspace. Then I can actually get to a space where it won't just be one song that comes through, but a series of them.
For any producer I've ever worked with, their toughest job is to convince me to not to obscure my vocals. A lot of people don't like the sound of their own voice on, like, cassette tape or something. It's like that for me, and other songwriters I know. Like, "Oh God, that's what I sound like?"
I always have to remember that I am the narrator, but it doesn't have to be about me. A lot of songwriting is about trying to use what part of me is valid in telling the story. I don't want to overcook it, you know? Sometimes it seems that's really where the work is.
I like things that reach a little further and are a little more abstract, but I don't think that's what I do naturally well. How I write naturally is probably what's furthest from me, and the most removed from what I understand.