I like to read comics, and I'll listen to records, and I like to play pinball.
— Ryan Adams
I don't know any jazz stuff. I don't know how to jam in that way. So jamming, for me, is writing a tune.
When I was in high school, I remember, on my Converse sneakers, on one side, I had written 'Social Distortion,' and on the other side, I had written 'Guns N' Roses.'
When you make a heavy record, there should be a point where you say you don't want to share it, but then maybe you come around.
I'm a goofball. I'm always changing my mind.
I am aware of the depths of heartache I'm experiencing but also how foolish it is to think that the things we have are permanent. They're not.
For me, what I learned is that I went for a long time without making music when I was married, and I think some of that was because - it was a little bit unfortunate - but it didn't make sense in the confines of my marriage for me to be the musician and the writer, which requires a lot of focus and attention.
Ultimately, however bad a situation is for people, especially if it's a condition of love or some internal dialogue, I think most people would agree that when you look back on it, those times are well remembered.
I see this beautiful and tragic world, and I do my best to describe it, because it's been crushing to me since I was a kid. It seems to be how I connect.
There's all these musicians in the world, and anybody that takes enough time to create a record or even think about the fantasy of rock & roll, it's a vulnerable place to be in, it's a huge thing to do.
I think I've been incredibly raw my whole career. A lot of people spend a lot of time trying to look cool and spend time being guarded and putting up walls. I just never had the time. It seems more honest to say, 'Hey, this is who I am.'
To make a song is a gift, and once it's done it keeps evolving and changing and becomes a tool to interact with other people. It's like a conversation.
When I start working on a batch of tunes - like roughly 10 solid tunes - I always know there'll be another 10 to follow, because for every song I invest a lot of time in, there's another song waiting behind it.
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.
I was a nervous young man. I wanted to do so many things. And I was so enthusiastic and earnestly in love with so many things that I tried too hard. I tried really, really hard. And I made a lot of mistakes. I was afraid of a lot of stuff. And I kind of feel bad for that person I was.
There definitely isn't a structure anymore to how I get ideas. A lot of times I'll just write down a phrase, or I'll have an idea that's attached to just a few chords. Other times, it's work.
My entire life, I wake up, and at some point in the afternoon, I head toward some kind of musical recording device. My entire life.
For me, the best thing you can do as a man in loving someone is to do your best, go on that walk, and at the end of that walk be as much of a gentleman as you were in the beginning.
I cannot say that I know a lot about scales, but I can write songs.
I was an earnest young man who just wanted to make music.
I used to be so excited when I saw my name in print.
Man, I loved The Smiths so much. I thought they looked awesome, and Morrissey had hearing aids like my Papaw.
I can sing the saddest song with a bunch of people, and the feeling of sharing that energy activates in a way that either heals it or makes me feel like I've risen a thousand miles above it into space, and I'm staring down on it as a little dot.
People call me and they want talk, they need to get something off their mind, I got all the time in the world for them.
Writing and creating, those things come to me on their own. I feel like... you sort of summon them and it's like allowing the universe to enter your heart in an entirely different way to what it normally does. It's like inviting that energy of the universe to enter into your craft in a way where it has a meaning.
I think that we live in a time where it's easier to be suspicious of dedicated men and women, people dedicated to their craft, because the world around them inspires them to be lazy. It inspires them to be negative. It inspires them to be snarky.
Fame is an unnatural construct and those who go in search of it are the least likely to find it.
Collaboration has become really integral to my process. I play music so that I can spend time with my friends and communicate in that way. I experience so much joy in that process, because, you know, it's those times of getting together and playing music and all that comes with it that are the best for me.
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.
When I'm in New York, I just want to walk down the street and feel this thing, like I'm in a movie.
Music is my thing. It's my thing; it's what I love. It's what I do. It's football to me; it's Christmas to me; religion to me; poetry to me.
My intentions have been, and are always, to just really get behind what my ideas are musically and to just ride this thing out, cause it feels good, and I think for the most part it's good music. Even when it's not, I'd like to still search for something that could be even like a little bit mind-blowing or shocking to me.
I'm like an '80s kid. I was born in the mid-'70s. By the time the '80s kicked in, I'm listening to Dead Kennedys, but I'm also listening to Simple Minds.
I'm hyper-focused on loss. But I know it's just the impermanence of being here.
In the three years that nobody heard music from me, I made more music than I've ever made.
If you don't have an outlet, you become a criminal - or misanthropic.
'Prisoner' is not a direct 'I've just been divorced' album, although that fire is burning very well on the record.
Sometimes a break-up song is perceived as that because that's what the person who's hearing it needs.
When I started, the music I would be drawn to would be heavy metal and new wave like Black Sabbath - things that seemed more shocking - and then, of course, eventually I would find bands and writers who were laying things out very clearly and whose words felt very sharp to the touch and sharp to your feelings.
I could fall asleep at 10:30 watching 'Hill Street Blues.' I might wake up at 1 A.M. and have a riff in my head.
Part of the joy of music is listening to lots of different kinds of music and learning from it. Specifically for me, I like writing songs that move me, and what moves me are beautiful songs on the piano or the guitar and really, really heavy music.
Maybe I am a jerk sometimes. Maybe I'm not. I think most people are kind of a jerk once in a while.
You could eat sushi off my bookshelf. My cleaning regime is like a battleground. I'm Genghis Khan and my cleaning products are my Mongolian army and I take no prisoners. The rest of my life is an experiment in chaos so I like to keep my flat neat.
I've gotten to a place where I still love to play and sing, but I don't have any ego agenda left, outside of just wanting to stay in a creative place and play music. I much prefer to sing for somebody else, and to somebody else.
I routinely never discuss my marriage. It's nice to have things in my life that are totally mine.
I have found in black metal the lyrics are profoundly beautiful... a pathos and mythos at the same time.
I think it would be wrong to consider 'Ashes and Fire' a love album. The record is obsessed with time. I believe that there is a kinder view of the self on this record.
