Ryan Adams: the cardinal sinner

Now 34, Adams spent much of his 20s severely intoxicated.

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RYAN ADAMS opens his mouth and words gush out like water through a breach in a dam. The North Carolina-born singer is on a tour bus late at night, still sweaty after a show in Birmingham with his band, The Cardinals, and there's no stopping his flow.

"We're havin' fun, man, bringin' the jams to the people. Each day is a charming experience. We keep a hard-core touring schedule, exhausting, you know, but we hang in real tight. The gentlemen in this band know each other so well now, musically and personally, that we have a telepathic connection. It's a very shiny time. The fans really feel how beautiful it is, too, you know? It's wholesome and romantic and special."

If I'd been talking to Adams a few years ago and he'd sounded like this, I would have assumed he was stoned, and I would most likely have been right. Now 34, Adams spent much of his 20s severely intoxicated. He snorted speedballs of heroin and cocaine every day for years, then took the edge off with prescription pills and washed the whole lot down with gallons of booze.

It was, he says, his way of dealing with insomnia, depression, shyness, and the "surreal, strangely isolating nature of fame", but it nearly killed him. Worried about his increasingly erratic behaviour falling off the stage, abusing critics, cancelling tours, ejecting hecklers from venues close friends encouraged him to try rehab. In the end, he got clean and now says he has been sober for the past four years.

"I've knocked that stuff out for good, man, but before I did that, I turned those experiences into some good songs. I don't want to paint myself as just a junkie or an alcoholic, because I was also a really hard worker during my 20s. I didn't really mix the drinking and the drugs with songwriting, and those songs I wrote in my 20s had a lot of hope in them that was probably pretty useful to other people in shitty situations. They could change people's day, those songs, or even their lives."

They certainly changed mine. The songs on Adams' 2000 debut, Heartbreaker, are some of my favourites. Recorded with Emmylou Harris and Gillian Welch, "Come Pick Me Up" and "Sweet Carolina", in particular, hit me like a haymaker. 2001's Gold LP is also studded with poignant gems, as are Cold Roses and Jacksonville City Lights (both 2005).

Elsewhere, Adams' career has been a case study in poor quality control as he bashes out albums at an alarming rate, each containing a couple of priceless songs amidst a sea of so-so material.

New album Cardinology is his 10th solo album and he cut three albums before that as leader of the band Whiskytown. He also releases a truckload of material online under a variety of aliases, and has a five-CD box set due next year.

"Well, I've always put out a lot of records because for me they're just a starting point, then those songs grow over the years as we play live," he says. "The songs on the records are just the first chapters in a book that's still being written, and you know, a creative person has to do their thing without taking too much notice of critics. If I listened to music critics, I'd be making sad country records all my life, but sometimes this band wants to sound like The Stones or Grateful Dead or Oasis instead, so that's what we do."

In the past few years, sobriety has slowed Adams a little. Some critics have lauded 2007's Easy Tiger and now Cardinology as evidence of a return to form, but leaving aside a couple of standout tracks, both are relatively dull. Neither is a patch on the early solo albums that had overheated fans making room for Adams at the altar beside Bob Dylan, Neil Young and Leonard Cohen.

But Adams doesn't really want to talk about his early albums. As he speeds down an English motorway towards London, it's all about the brotherhood of the band.

"I love being in The Cardinals, man. We're like an incredible band of musical pirates. It's a beautiful exploratory dance between us on stage, with three of us up front locking into these three-part vocal harmonies, and Brad's up the back locking the beat down and Chris has got the bassline super Motown-ed out, it all just clicks."

RYAN ADAMS AND THE CARDINALS
Cardinology (Universal)
Relatively dull

* Ryan Adams and The Cardinals tour dates: February 3, Wellington Opera House, (all ages) Ticketek 0800 842-538 or www.ticketek.co.nz; February 4, Auckland, Powerstation, (18-plus) Ticketmaster (09) 970-9700 or www.ticketmaster.co.nz.