Ryan Adams Quotes
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I'm a pretty bad troubadour. I'm more of a music fan who got away with making records.
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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.
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If I had a reed made of lightening I could blow the sax all night... I don't know where one would acquire a reed made of lightening but I would imagine that Bill Clinton has one.
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Caitlin Cary and I were always talking about X when we talked about whiskeytown, before it became an actual band. We like the concept of there being no real front person in X, yet this kind of switch up of vocals and really their sheer power, and their ability to sort of bastardise punk rock and midwetsren rock and even country into their own sound.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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It's hard to be bipolar and bicoastal at the same time.
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I think I've been incredibly raw my whole career. A lot of people spend a lot of time trying to look cool and spend time being guarded and putting up walls. I just never had the time. It seems more honest to say, 'Hey, this is who I am.'
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The good thing about playing the guitar: You can take on different kinds of music. I'm always doing something different from the last thing I did because I have the shortest attention span on earth.
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Forever only takes its toll on some
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I have found in black metal the lyrics are profoundly beautiful... a pathos and mythos at the same time.
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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?"
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The process of making music is more interesting to me than the end result. If I was a cook, I'd be more interested in cooking food than eating food.
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On Heartbreaker, I had to sing those songs. I drank the way I did those songs. I ate the way I did those songs. I communicated the way I did those songs.
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There definitely isn't a structure anymore to how I get ideas. A lot of times I'll just write down a phrase, or I'll have an idea that's attached to just a few chords. Other times, it's work.
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You could eat sushi off my bookshelf. My cleaning regime is like a battleground. I'm Genghis Khan and my cleaning products are my Mongolian army and I take no prisoners. The rest of my life is an experiment in chaos so I like to keep my flat neat.
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I was never much of a bass player.
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There is nothing wrong with loving the crap out of everything. Negative people find their walls. So never apologize for your enthusiasm. Never. Ever. Never.
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I'm a big music fan outside of the music I make.
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It would be really nice to make a record that would be super-fun to play live - a record that would be funny, with a little bit of heart.
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Maybe I am a jerk sometimes. Maybe I'm not. I think most people are kind of a jerk once in a while.
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Some things were made to be felt