Ryan Adams is cutting back on what he calls his ego-driven solo work to focus on his songwriting partnership with The Cardinals, he tells Tony Clayton-Lea
'SAD MUSIC at its best," said Ryan Adams in 2000, around the time of the release of his debut solo album, Heartbreaker, "can be found in country and folk." Adams had broken up with yet another girlfriend and the result was a collection of Dylanesque material that harboured skill, talent and, of course, an unerring ability to mess up.
Recently in Dublin, in the kind of hotel that Jacksonville, North Carolina-born Adams was raised far from, he spent most of our 30-minute chat doodling on headed hotel notepaper; he was fashioning in his own quite intense way a facsimile of a picture of a model. Sitting on the other side of the table is Neal Casal, a very fine singer-songwriter in his own right, but at present, with Adams, a member of The Cardinals, a country rock band zealously attempting to ignore the fact that people will always be interested in anything that Adams does, irrespective of who he surrounds himself with.
Casal is also doodling, opting to speak occasionally, when the mood strikes him. They are, to all intents and purposes, cast from the same mould: two singular singer-songwriters casting aside the pressures of the solo spotlight and, theoretically at least, subsuming themselves in a band environment - but they are not the same. Casal seems otherwise occupied, barely looking up from his scribbles; Adams, on the other hand, is a veritable adrenalised multi-tasker. At the same time as he's almost breaking the lead in his pencil shading in contours, he is rapidly explaining why, after years as a solo artist of some reputation (and a talent that fluctuates from inspiring to infuriating), he is melting into being just one of the band.
Adams, it seems, is simply tired of being the whipping boy for those people who, over the years, have seen him as being the epitome of spoiled, disorganised and difficult to handle.
"No matter what people say or do we're still going to sound like a band, we're going to play like a band. I don't think I've lost a single fan from The Cardinals being around. And for the first time in my life I've participated in albums (2005's Cold Rosesand Jacksonville City Nights) that have debuted somewhere in the vicinity of the Top 20. That's really new for me. Not that you should measure success by monetary gain, but the quality of the work has certainly improved. They're records that I can listen to, which is interesting because I can hardly listen to a lot of my solo material."
Interesting point: Adams's solo albums form the spine of his appeal. Imbued with a distinct sense of someone cracking up under the anxiety of love and life going wrong, at their best they channel the bohemian country spirit of Gram Parsons (with whom, coincidentally, Adams shares November 5th as a birthday): wracked with grief and full of love, yet utterly unsure how to assuage the former or maintain the latter. At their worst, they are simply mediocre and self-indulgent. And yet such is the intermittent high-grade quality of the songs there isn't one rootsy/alt.country/folksy album of his you wouldn't want to have in your collection. The sole aberration is 2003's Rock N Roll, recorded spitefully as a riposte to his record company (Lost Highway) when they refused to release Love is Hell, Pts 1 2, a superb collection that Adams regards as a solo-career high point. The common thread of all of these records is a marked degree of lyrical self-loathing and the public knowledge that Adams was slowly drinking and drugging himself to a point of personal numbness and career suicide. Or perhaps even the other way around.
Things have changed over the past few years, however. Although as prolific as ever, Adams admits to cutting back on the self-loathing lyrics and to alleviating what he terms "ego-driven" music. "I began to think that, having followed Neal's career for some time, I was occasionally making half-assed music, stuff that I was never really satisfied with." Plus, he adds as he negotiates a tricky angle with the pencil, he desperately needed to belong to something. "You make sacrifices when you're a singer-songwriter. It's your job to be in front of people constantly. The idea that people are ever going to know who you really are, or that they're ever going to know you after the construct of what they see on stage, is very slim. I haven't had any success romantically, really, because the job is so demanding and the construct of the personality is different from the creative one. Yet underneath that stuff is a regular person that wants to do simple things such as talk about nothing. For me, working with Neal and the idea of what we're working for, which is essentially not wanting to jump through fiery music-industry hoops any more . . . means that the solo years are now over.
"In other words, there gets to be as many Neal songs as Ryan songs, as much co-writing as possible. Neither of us has to worry any more about stuff like that. Neal is much more patient, anyway, whereas I can lose my temper." Casal looks up from his notepaper. "Having enjoyed a solo career for some years I understand the humiliation aspect. I know what it's like to be the principal person in front, singing. Perhaps that perspective has helped. But I have to say that not having to be the only person on stage is totally great, completely joyous and very familial."
IT SOUNDS AS if the collaboration process has set him free. No man is an island, and all of that. "It's elementally true that people are ultimately going to look for a sense of community," says Casal, before casting his eyes down again to resume drawing.
"As far as I'm concerned," proffers Adams rather pointedly, "my isolated sense of creative identity still exists, but it's nice to be able to walk down the hallway of a hotel and actually chat with people. It isn't like I'm not aware of people knowing and talking about what my songs are like.
"Sometimes it's good to know that when you think you've written something of value there's someone else to respond to it. I'm thinking that something like The Cardinals has happened on purpose; maybe this is the universe's kind way of settling some egos. It's likely that if we had all started in the band then we would have failed miserably. People need stepping stones of experiences.
'THE MISTAKES OF a solo artist and the flaws of material that drips with self-loathing, which is something that solo artists are prone to, are there to be made. I can hear that kind of desperation in some of Neal's music and in most of mine. And you know what? You can only really stomach that if you are alone, because it really does eat you alive. And here's the thing:it's only funny and seductive when you're young. I'm 34 now, and I know that there are some early songs of mine that are almost intolerable to sing for their content. But that's the nature of the work."
And the appeal, surely, for those whose perception of solo works is that they are more intrinsically honest and focused than the band format? "Not necessarily true," remarks Adams. "There are a lot of masks worn." With that, Adams finishes his doodle with a couple of graphite-breaking flourishes, autographs it and hands it to me; it is exceptionally good and by the time you read this will be framed and hanging on a wall in the north wing.
The following night The Cardinals are due to play a gig in Dublin's Ambassador. I comment that performing live in an honest, communicative fashion is one of the few things left unhindered by strides in technology.
"That side of things is crucial to people like us," says Adams. "There are the diminishing returns of record sales. But everything goes in cycles. The Roaring Twenties-esque season of celebrity is kind of over now - the stomach is eating itself. Now, we're really going to have to see if the collective dream of the band is going to be sustainable. Albums allow us to come to people. All we need to know is whether people will support us and I think they will. It's a question of time, faith and persistence."
And you, too, Ryan? He knows what's being implied. "I'm like an open book, yet I'm also extraordinarily reclusive. There's a balance there these days."
Cardinology by Ryan Adams the Cardinals, is on release through Lost Highway
