Ryan Adams seems a little wary of being pinned down – or, more pertinently, of saying the wrong thing. Over the phone from California, the acclaimed singer-songwriter comes across as someone careful with his words – he often asks for specific rather than vague questions, and always searches for subtext. Even a query about how an audience appears to Adams when he’s up onstage prompts the musician to repeatedly refine what is being asked of him.
“Is there a specific… I mean, is there a specific… There must be a specific question you’re meaning to ask,” Adams says. “Because of course we see people out there, because there are people in the audience. But do you mean like, do I see one person in particular?”
Kind of, I say. I try again: I was just wondering because I thought it must be interesting to play emotional songs while making unbroken eye con…
There is an agonisingly long delay on our line, so Adams’ voice cuts back in – I have accidentally interrupted him.
“Am I looking for somebody?” he says. “Do I keep my eyes peeled for somebody?” He asks the question back at me. “‘Do you keep your eyes peeled for somebody?’” And then he laughs. I laugh too, but I’m not entirely sure what I’m laughing at.
“I’m usually in the song,” he says, trying to get at the heart of the question. “I’m wrapped up in the song, so I’m not necessarily thinking about anyone in particular. Or even if I was looking at somebody, we’re not exchanging… It’s a hard feeling to describe.”
There follows what feels like a very pregnant pause. “I don’t know how to appropriately describe to you what I’m trying to say … I’m in the song playing it, so it’s a different kind of surrender to an audience member in the show. But together we are making one outcome. Yet no exchange happens that breaks that inertia of what we’re doing with the music.”
In the past, Adams’ wary, careful attitude has thrown off a lot of journalists – and to be honest, it does make him an intimidating person to speak to. But it makes a lot of sense in the context of his work, too. After all, Adams’ albums have a kind of beautiful precision to them – no line of a song like ‘Do You Still Love Me?’ is wasted, nor does it ever mean anything Adams doesn’t want it to mean. You listen to Prisoner, his new record, and you just understand; you deeply understand him and what he means, and you deeply understand yourself.
Of course, there may be another reason for Adams’ desire to only answer questions that he fully, categorically comprehends: the artist has had his fair share of prying interviewers over the years, journalists keen to push him into revealing something he might not want to reveal. He has had reporters variously nag him for dirt on his split with Mandy Moore; try to probe him about his sobriety; and, in a particularly egregious Q Magazine article, cruelly suggest that he “shrieks” about his struggles with the debilitating Ménière’s disease.
But get Adams onto the subject of his pre-show rituals, and that wariness begins to melt away. He is, if not a creature of habit, then clearly a performer who invests a lot in performing – he commits himself to it wholly.
“Every day [ahead of a show] is a full day of preparation,” he explains. “The way that our shows go is that we wake up and that day is then just about playing the show. We’ll have soundcheck, which is usually a couple of hours long, but we need that time to just jam and make sure that the sound is good. Then we usually learn a couple of songs that we haven’t learned, cause it’s a deep catalogue, you know?
“[Then] the guys and I just talk and chill out and I’ll start casually writing out the setlist, because it’s 25 songs long and you need to make sure that it is structured in just the right way. And then an hour before the show, the band and I just hang out together and get a groove going to talk about the show … I mean, when you’re playing 25 songs, it creates this environment where you’re kind of trust-falling each other.”
When you’re playing 25 songs, it creates this environment where you’re kind of trust-falling each other.
That level of preparation has become particularly important given the size of the shows Adams is now playing. His upcoming Australian tour, for example, will see him hit up arenas around the country. “We’re playing on this huge stage which is made of big stacks of huge televisions that run different found footage [clips], and then they work together sometimes to play these different colour motifs,” Adams explains.
“It’s nice too, because in the middle of the rock show I can go into the middle of the stage and just play completely unplugged.” He laughs a little, and this time I understand exactly what he’s laughing at.
“I love the idea that we can do anything up there, that I can go to any part of my catalogue and move around and have it be the biggest rock moment to just me with my acoustic guitar with the lights, as though I am playing in the middle of a starry field.” His voice goes warm. “I love that versatility.”
Prisoner is out now through Blue Note/EMI. Ryan Adams plays the Hordern Pavilion on Saturday May 27 as part of his Australian tour. Tickets are on sale now.
