Ryan Adams: It started with a quiet buzz. Now he's really taken off

Interview, Feb, 2002 by Elton John

ELTON JOHN: Thank you for coming to Atlanta, Ryan. First of all, I have to say that ever since I heard your first solo album, Heartbreaker [Bloodshot], when it came out in October 2000, you've been one of my favorite recording artists. In the fall, you released a second solo album, Gold [Lost Highway], and you've put three albums out with [your former band] Whiskeytown. The latest, Pneumonia, came out last May, right?

RYAN ADAMS: Uh-huh. We made Pneumonia in '99, but then everyone in Whiskeytown kind of went their separate ways.

EJ: Do you think it's weird that two years after you recorded it, the album finally comes out and hits the charts?

RA: Yeah, it is. I met this person at a party two. nights ago, and she was a fan of Heartbreaker, and she goes, "I just got the Whiskeytown record and I'm confused," and I said, "So am I." That's the only way I know how to respond.

EJ: Are you the only musician in your family?

RA: Basically. My brother is, for lack of a better term, a mathematician. I remember when he was in his senior year in high school, he was tutoring linear algebra to college students, which amazed me. I, on the other hand, was screaming at the top of my lungs to Black Flag records [John laughs] and was really enthralled with reading. This sounds very cliched, but it's true. I was reading beat poetry and keeping journals and writing. My goal early on was to be a journalist and then to maybe become a writer. Music was one of the things that happened on the way, by accident.

EJ: When you were growing up, what things did you like to listen to?

RA: I guess my initial turn on to music was Black Sabbath and Prince.

EJ: Seeing you live, none of those influences really come out.

RA: No, but that's what I would listen to when I was painting or making art or writing. And I didn't really listen to music very much until, all of a sudden, somehow it just made sense to me. I was attracted to it just as hard as I could be attracted to anything. The record that I remember the most is Damaged by Black Flag, which changed my life in every manner. I was in such a small town and a bit different, because a lot of people in my hometown [Raleigh, North Carolina] didn't aspire to art...or to much of anything.

EJ: Heartbreaker is such a beautiful album, and yet it got hardly any radio play.

RA: I don't think we got any radio play.

EJ: That's disgusting.

RA: But I don't think anyone's to blame. People will seek out music they desire, but to talk about why it wouldn't get airplay is ridiculous. I'm just glad I got to make the record. The funny thing is that so many people have taken to it. Since then, I've had great moments of artistic doubt about what to do next, because I thought, Well, crap. Everyone likes this record so much, how can anyone possibly like anything later?

EJ: Everything is perfect on the album--every song, the instrumentation, or the lack of instrumentation. The simplicity. And that's what touched me. It was so beautiful and so well recorded, and the melodies were just sensational. I'm kind of envious because I don't write lyrics, I just write melodies and that's where my feelings come from--inside. That's how I express myself. But I've always thought it's incredible that people have the ability to notice things and write their feelings down. I could do it really well when I was in rehab.

RA: Right, it was like an exorcism.

EJ: Yes. Like, "Get this thing out of here." I think you are very eloguent. When you're onstage you have, as they say, the gift of gab. You are very, very good at talking.

RA: One of my closest friends said that he feels like I'm more comfortable up there than I am in my own life, and the irony of that doesn't escape me at all.

EJ: I found I was much more comfortable onstage than I was offstage, and hence I wore the big glasses because I was really shy. Onstage I was very in-your-face and outrageous.

RA: Isn't that funny, though? I always find that artistic personalities have an amazing ability to create fires out of nothing. They are propelled to want more, and to want to build things up, but the hardest thing is putting out those fires at the end of the day. You could talk about Jim Morrison or jazz musicians who were just these minds that worked like machinery that never stopped, until the grease goes dry and the gears break.

EJ: That is definitely true with me. Although I'm much better now, I think it's true of most performers. Especially the major stars like Judy Garland. There's no balance. They're safe onstage but once they get off, they have no clue about what goes on, and I didn't either.

RA: It's funny, because lately I've come to this very strange conclusion about romance and how it influences my music. It's almost like I see things and immediately they will come out in a song, unconsciously. And I wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing, but I knew not to judge, you know?

One of the greatest things I've learned from writing songs is that it really shouldn't be any different than taking notes or being a journalist or a photographer or a painter, or even just being someone that is really into their surroundings or their friends. The best thing to do is just to go with it. just kind of feel like, you get on the ride--