Some people will always like the alt-country troubadour, while others prefer the unhinged punk and metal enthusiast. There are old-school fans who will continue to see every album through the impossible lens of Heartbreaker. There are those who will always pine for the Whiskeytown days. Ryan Adams is many things to many people. My concern was only heightened when I learned III/IV and the metal-experiment, Orion, were also the result of that period in his life. Easy Tiger had been my favorite release in quite some time, but the disjointed performance (as entertaining as it was) left me questioning the overall health and well-being of the man behind the music. It was a sit-down show, and although the Cardinals were with him, it felt very much like a solo, mostly-acoustic set. His stories were bizarre, hilarious, and sometimes completely incomprehensible. Sobriety didn’t exactly equate to a newfound focus on stage. I remember the banter more than the music that night.
Adams had recently been diagnosed with Ménière’s disease and had quit using hard drugs and alcohol. My wife and I had just started dating and I took her to see him perform the Zellerbach Hall at UC Berkeley. The last time I saw Ryan Adams headline a show was in 2008. That’s not to say playing at Red Rocks is anything less than phenomenal, but I have personally witnessed the man show the same enthusiasm when speaking about his cat, or how he came to the decision to name his debut album after a Mariah Carey poster that hung in his room. The prolific singer-songwriter from North Carolina is notorious for finding the spectacular in the most mundane aspects of life. And while the exclamatory nature of his remark would have seemed a little unnecessary coming from anyone else who had already performed the fabled venue a few times prior, it was almost expected from Ryan Adams. The place was the Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, Colorado. The ‘bunch of people’ were made up of fans from across the country. The thing which had just happened (and was still happening) was the last performance of their short summer tour. Ryan Adams was speaking to Mike Viola, the guitarist for his latest band, The Shining. "Mike, look at that! There are a bunch of people right there, look! They are right there!!!” Adams continued to steadily release solo material, with his 2014 self titled release achieving his highest charting places on both the US billboard charts and the UK charts. They were highly concerned that the highway would have to be shut down during the performance due to the demand for tickets.
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His next release though 'Easy Tiger' managed to break the top ten due to his new found exposure with The Cardinals, during the heights of his fame Adams was scheduled to play Stonehenge when the Stonehenge society had to cancel the gigs to an overwhelming response to email or call-in for free tickets. He also released a solo album titled '29' which was a momentous failure, charting at #144.
In 2005, Adams joined rock band The Cardinals to release a couple of albums with them in the same year, both of which made the top thirty on the US Billboard charts. For the follow-up to this Ryan was frozen out by his record label who hand picked tracks from four demo albums that were never released to create 'Demolition' and although this was a critical success, it did not sell as well as its predecessor 'Gold'. His second album 'Gold' was received positively by fans and critics, yet Adams was adamant he did not want to promote the album through conventional methods such as radio interviews and meet & greets and instead opted for live dates and further recordings. In 2000, Ryan Adams pursued a solo career with the release of his debut LP 'Heartbreaker' which was produced by Ethan Jones and gained the singer a nomination for the Shortlist Music Prize. This is the time in which he developed his alt country style, the band released three albums together and achieved moderate success. After the split of the latter, Adams went on to form Whiskeytown with Caitlin Cary, Eric "Skillet" Gilmore, Steve Grothmann and Phil Wandscher. Adams dropped out of school at an early age and went to live with bandmate Jere McIlwean, he was intent on pursuing his music career and played with two live bands at the time, Ass and The Lazy Stars and The Patty Duke Syndrome.
When his parents brought him an electric guitar for his fourteenth birthday he played it constantly and ended up joining a local band called Blank Label. As a young child, Ryan was known to be obsessed with poetry and cult fiction, enjoying the works of Edgar Allan Poe, Hubert Selby and Henry Miller.
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