Latest Ryan Adams Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• What I love most in life happens to be the very thing that I do day-to-day, as my work. What would be my hobby, you know, happens to be my actual job. So I'm very lucky. Even if I didn't want to do as much work as I do, I'd still feel compelled to, because I so longed to be a full-time artist, and since I've been given that opportunity, I'd never want to let down the gift.

  Ryan Adams

  Jobs, Opportunity, Artist

  Interview with Noel Murray, www.avclub.com. June 28, 2007.

• I do craft songs, that this is designed. It's almost like the song was written to produce this desired effect. And it probably really works for somebody. It's maybe somebody's favorite tune, and it's really hard to come down on that, even if I feel a little embarrassed for it. Because some songs are written like a commercial, and that can be a little strange.

  Ryan Adams

  Song, Crafts, Littles

  Interview with Noel Murray, www.avclub.com. June 28, 2007.

• The weirdest thing I've been fascinated with nowadays is the new contemporary country music, which to me sounds like very strange '70s pop, and sometimes like rock music. But some of the themes in there - maybe it's because I know how the songs were written, but it really does sound like it was written by two or three people, with the idea to appeal to the most general audience.

  Ryan Adams

  Country, Song, Rocks

  Interview with Noel Murray, www.avclub.com. June 28, 2007.

• To conceive music, to execute it in front of others, to make it so others can do it...it can be pretty humbling, and kind of scary. So yeah, I don't really feel in competition with anybody. Not because I feel elitist, but because I have enough self-competition. I'm always struggling.

  Ryan Adams

  Struggle, Self, Scary

  Interview with Noel Murray, www.avclub.com. June 28, 2007.

• I'm a big music fan outside of the music I make.

  Ryan Adams

  Fans, Bigs, Music Fans

  Interview with Noel Murray, www.avclub.com. June 28, 2007.

• Not to discount my music, but I'm always suspicious of the music that I make on some level, as to how valid it is. Or maybe not "valid," but how important.

  Ryan Adams

  Important, Levels, Discounts

  Interview with Noel Murray, www.avclub.com. June 28, 2007.

• It's hard to view myself sometimes as even in the same league as other musicians, mainly because there's so much music before me. I feel overinformed by different styles and different possibilities.

  Ryan Adams

  Views, League, Style

  Interview with Noel Murray, www.avclub.com. June 28, 2007.

• I don't think, that all my stuff could've been records. Some, maybe. The ones that I really wanted to be records, those are the ones that are going into the box.

  Ryan Adams

  Thinking, Records, Stuff

  Interview with Noel Murray, www.avclub.com. June 28, 2007.

• For me, a record is valid when I actually hold the vinyl. Like, I've worked on the art for a while and I see the vinyl and I go "Ooh, it's an actual LP. How cool is that?" That's very sacred to me. You can't take that back, you know?

  Ryan Adams

  Art, Records, Sacred

  Interview with Noel Murray, www.avclub.com. June 28, 2007.

• I always have to remember that I am the narrator, but it doesn't have to be about me. A lot of songwriting is about trying to use what part of me is valid in telling the story. I don't want to overcook it, you know? Sometimes it seems that's really where the work is.

  Ryan Adams

  Trying, Use, Want

  Interview with Noel Murray, www.avclub.com. June 28, 2007.

• A lot of my songs, they're like puzzle pieces, and there's just one way to put them together. You could, if you needed to, get the scissors out and cut up things to make them work. But I don't want to do that.

  Ryan Adams

  Song, Cutting, Together

  Interview with Noel Murray, www.avclub.com. June 28, 2007.

• I like the idea that within the structure of the song, some kind of built-in improvisation keeps them fragile and in their moment, so that I'm not projecting so much, so that my perception of the song doesn't interfere with what its real body is. Sometimes it's like telling a story that I heard in passing, and I don't want it to become completely mine.

  Ryan Adams

  Song, Real, Ideas

  Interview with Noel Murray, www.avclub.com. June 28, 2007.

• I think that music, or at least the kind of music that I make, benefits greatly from improvisation.

  Ryan Adams

  Thinking, Benefits, Kind

  Interview with Noel Murray, www.avclub.com. June 28, 2007.

• I can sort of will that stuff to happen to me if I put myself in the right headspace. Then I can actually get to a space where it won't just be one song that comes through, but a series of them.

  Ryan Adams

  Song, Space, Stuff

  Interview with Noel Murray, www.avclub.com. June 28, 2007.

• Sometimes an idea from six years ago will come to me out of the blue. And maybe I haven't even seen the lyrics I wrote down, but I'll just have this physical memory of having written it, and in my mind I can see the piece of paper, and the words I wrote down, and then by muscle memory, I'll remember the chords that go along with it.

  Ryan Adams

  Memories, Ideas, Blue

  Interview with Noel Murray, www.avclub.com. June 28, 2007.

• It sounds like I'm channeling or something, and I don't really fully understand what it is. I'll get a piece of paper and write down what I think is coming to me. And I'll play it once. Whether it's being recorded or not, I can then usually remember it for a sometimes shocking amount of time.

  Ryan Adams

  Writing, Thinking, Play

  Interview with Noel Murray, www.avclub.com. June 28, 2007.

• You can imagine several scenes from Star Wars? The way they looked? For me, that's how music is. Sometimes I'll be developing riffs for songs, just while I'm sitting around and not playing.

  Ryan Adams

  Song, Stars, War

  Interview with Noel Murray, www.avclub.com. June 28, 2007.

• This is going to sound crazy, but I can hear music in my head. I can imagine a piano or a guitar playing, and I can sort of think out.

  Ryan Adams

  Crazy, Thinking, Guitar

  Interview with Noel Murray, www.avclub.com. June 28, 2007.

• I got on the phone with the president of my label and I said, "Obviously, I write songs in a lot of styles and play a lot of different kinds of music. We're getting toward the end of our business collaboration. If you could envision a record that you wanted to hear from me, what kind of record would it be?" It wasn't like asking him to fill an order, it was really just a conversation. For all the things I'd ever asked him, this was one thing I'd never asked, and I don't know why. So I was curious. And the thing that he was most interested in hearing was a solo record.

  Ryan Adams

  Song, Writing, Order

  Interview with Noel Murray, www.avclub.com. June 28, 2007.

• It's really very easy for me to be in The Cardinals, because I bring my voice, my guitar, and my songs to them, and then we all play around to find out what works.

  Ryan Adams

  Song, Guitar, Play

  Interview with Noel Murray, www.avclub.com. June 28, 2007.

• For any producer I've ever worked with, their toughest job is to convince me to not to obscure my vocals. A lot of people don't like the sound of their own voice on, like, cassette tape or something. It's like that for me, and other songwriters I know. Like, "Oh God, that's what I sound like?"

  Ryan Adams

  Jobs, Voice, People

  Interview with Noel Murray, www.avclub.com. June 28, 2007.

• I like things that reach a little further and are a little more abstract, but I don't think that's what I do naturally well. How I write naturally is probably what's furthest from me, and the most removed from what I understand.

  Ryan Adams

  Writing, Thinking, Littles

  Interview with Noel Murray, www.avclub.com. June 28, 2007.

• A lot of the songs I write are like songs that I've never been able to find on any record, but that I've always wanted to hear. Or maybe in a style I already loved, but I was looking for something in it that I wasn't hearing yet.

  Ryan Adams

  Song, Writing, Style

  Interview with Noel Murray, www.avclub.com. June 28, 2007.

• I don't think I've ever gone on stage to be an asshole. I know one thing, from the past, and that's that my intentions always began in a pure way. I really want to just try and play the songs.

  Ryan Adams

  Song, Thinking, Past

  Interview with Joshua Klein, pitchfork.com. July 23, 2007.

• That's why I played music; my social skills were limited. I think a lot of people that experience that pick up guitars, because they can't communicate otherwise.

  Ryan Adams

  Thinking, Guitar, Skills

  Interview with Joshua Klein, pitchfork.com. July 23, 2007.