| Ryan Adams woulda had every right to be a snot. He came from one of the coolest alt-country bands never to erupt from the underground. And he had the savvy to leave Whiskeytown in their dust before they had a chance to burn out or fade away.
Then there were the solo albums, starting with 2000’s Heartbreaker, a hopeful house of mirrors soundtrack that stroked and smoothed anyone either newly into or newly out of a good or bad relationship. He was the only artist who could get away with putting out that album cover for Gold, dominated by himself and a massive American flag, mere days after 9-11, and not had his motives questioned by folks who don’t understand CD jackets are printed months in advance.
Ominously, things changed – things faithful but jilted Whiskeytown fans found unsettling, even distasteful. Like the family of an alcoholic overlooking a dozen too many sick days, no one wanted to talk about the elephant that had entered the room – mainstream popularity. Adams appeared on Letterman. Then, as if that weren’t enough, he popped up in a Gap ad, with that glossy sweet ass glued upon billboards bigger than boarding houses.
There were other oddities, like a string of dates opening for the Stones. And then last fall, Demolition, his third solo album, which despite the polished gems among the 13 tracks indicated the well might be in danger of running dry. Of course, there were signs throughout it all that the punk ethic of Whiskeytown remained intact, including an episode in which Adams booted someone out of a show for requesting Bryan Adams’s "Summer of ’69."
Yes, with talent, good looks, Letterman and the Stones under his belt, and a past dotted with eruptions of truth and emotion, Ryan Adams had every right to be a snot. But a phone conversation with the prolific songwriter from his New York home revealed not one whiff of attitude, but only the fact that his southern accent, so apparent on Whiskeytown’s Stranger’s Almanac (1997), has been smoothed over during his residency in the Big Apple. A chat with Adams indicates that he would perhaps be happy if the other traces of his past vanished like the accent did.
Of Whiskeytown, he says, "I don’t really listen to those records much. Once every couple of years I’ll pull one out and have a laugh, I guess ’cause it was so long ago and I was so green when I made those records. I was such a Southerner. I’ve been living up here for about… eight years and it’s just worn off."
But he’s not picking on Whiskeytown because of his well-publicized personality differences with the band members. Rest assured, he’s not fond of any of his solo albums either, except the forthcoming Rock ’n’ Roll and Love Is Hell (Part I and II), all to be released before Christmas.
"I don’t like any of them. I usually like the one I just did. The one people seem to talk to me the most about is Heartbreaker, which I understand, but it is sort of annoying because to me Heartbreaker is incomplete. I think that some of the best things that were written for Heartbreaker didn’t go on (it)."
Instead, those songs ended up on an unreleased album, The Suicide Handbook. Adams hopes the songs will appear next year, when tracks from it and some other "phantom" albums are collected and released together.
In an industry where the majority of bands spend entire careers chasing the tail of their first album, Adams delivers two or three albums annually to his record label, which is generally more than the marketing department can handle. This explains why albums like The Suicide Handbook have yet to appear. In the meantime, he and his label confer regarding which album to release and tour each year. "I’m doing the creative end of stuff and don’t think too much about the other end of it,’ says Adams. "For me it isn’t so much about the results – it’s really about the process. I like to write songs the way that somebody that maybe likes to play tennis, plays tennis."
Adams has refrained from touring for most of this year, as he considers making albums "a joy." and touring "real work, really hell."
Although he’s been on the road during most of his professional life, he dislikes touring so much that he has found a method of not having to attend sound check – just keep the stage arranged in the same way every night – but even though 2003 was his "year off", he did play nine dates with the Stones.
The owner of many of the Stones older bootleg albums, Adams (who began his career as a drummer for a punk band called Blank Label) has a soft spot for rock’s highest profile fossils.
"If I had a chance to see the Rolling Stones in the ’70s, I’d pretty much be done ,too. You know, ‘I’ve seen the top, I’ve seen the best of it.’"
As for this tour, "They were awesome every night. They’re still totally all nerves before every show," he says, adding that they changed parts of the songs and the set list every night.
With regards to the Stones’s infamous closed-minded audiences, Adams’s punk attitude re-emerged. "I played to spite them. I didn’t play any recognizable songs. I think I played only songs written for that little tour and then I just sort of lived inside those tunes. When you’re opening for the Stones, it doesn’t matter what you play because 90 per cent of the audience doesn’t really care. We covered a Grateful Dead song opening for the Stones, which I thought was ballsy as fuck."
Being ballsy is not something that Adams usually has to worry about, but Adams seems to be finding a way to survive the merciless beast known as rock and roll. He’s avoiding the personality conflicts that plagued Whiskeytown by spending a lot of time alone while on tour and showing up for just a quick beverage before the show. "I’m so not done. I’m just now at a point where I am starting to have a handle, (getting) comfortable, with what I’m writing." |
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