Ryan Adams

David Ryan Adams (born November 5, 1974) is an American rock and country singer-songwriter. He has released 30 studio albums and three as a former member of Whiskeytown.

In 2000, Adams left Whiskeytown and released his debut solo album, Heartbreaker, to critical acclaim. The album was nominated for the Shortlist Music Prize. The following year, his profile increased with the release of the UK certified-gold Gold, which included the single "New York, New York". During this time, Adams worked on several unreleased albums, which were consolidated into a third solo release, Demolition (2002). Working at a prolific rate, Adams released the classic rock-influenced Rock N Roll (2003), after a planned album, Love Is Hell, was rejected by his Lost Highway label. As a compromise, Love Is Hell was released as two EPs and eventually released in its full-length state in 2004.

After breaking his wrist during a live performance, Adams took a hiatus and formed a backing band called the Cardinals, who supported him on his next four studio albums. In 2009, due to complications from Ménière's disease, Adams disbanded the Cardinals and took a break from music. However, he returned to the music scene in 2010, releasing his 13th studio album, Ashes & Fire. Adams released his 14th album, Ryan Adams in 2014.

In 2015, Adams gained attention for his cover album 1989, a song-for-song cover of Taylor Swift's album of the same name. In 2019, several women accused Adams of sexual harassment, leading to a delay in the release of three planned albums. Adams later issued an apology and eventually released six more albums between 2020 and 2022. In addition to his own material, Adams has also produced albums for Willie Nelson, Jesse Malin, Jenny Lewis, and Fall Out Boy, and has collaborated with Counting Crows, Weezer, Norah Jones, America, Minnie Driver, Cowboy Junkies, Leona Naess, Toots and the Maytals, Beth Orton, and Krista Polvere. He has written Infinity Blues, a book of poems, and Hello Sunshine, a collection of poems and short stories.

Early life

David Ryan Adams was born on November 5, 1974, in Jacksonville, North Carolina. He is the middle child of three, with an older brother and younger sister. His childhood has been described as "dysfunctional". His father left when he was five at which time he, his mother and his siblings had to move in with his grandparents since they became homeless as a result of the divorce. He has said in an interview, "I became who I am now because of my grandparents" and of his grandmother "...she was like a mother to me." His mother remarried when he was 13.

At the age of eight, Adams began writing short stories and limericks on his grandmother's typewriter. In his own words, "I started writing short stories when I was really into Edgar Allan Poe. Then later, when I was a teenager, I got really hard into cult fiction: Hubert Selby, Jr., Henry Miller, Jack Kerouac." At 14, Adams began learning to play an electric guitar his mother and stepfather had bought him and soon joined a local band named Blank Label. While they quickly disbanded, they did record a short three-track 7-inch record, in 1991.

Adams dropped out of Jacksonville High School in 10th grade, at the age of 16, subsequently moving into bandmate Jere McIlwean's rental house, just outside Jacksonville. Around this time, he played and performed with a number of local bands, most notably his and McIlwean's The Patty Duke Syndrome. After obtaining his GED, Adams left Jacksonville for Raleigh, shortly followed by McIlwean. The Patty Duke Syndrome broke up in 1994 after releasing a split 7-inch single with GlamourPuss.

Career

Whiskeytown

Following the breakup of his high school band, The Patty Duke Syndrome, Adams helped found Whiskeytown with Caitlin Cary, Eric "Skillet" Gilmore, Steve Grothmann and Phil Wandscher. Whiskeytown saw Adams move to alt-country, describing punk rock as "too hard to sing" in the title track of Whiskeytown's debut album Faithless Street. Whiskeytown was heavily influenced by a number of country-rock pioneers, most notably Gram Parsons. The band quickly gained critical acclaim with the release of their second full-length album, Strangers Almanac, their first major label release. A third album, Pneumonia, was completed in 1999, but record label problems delayed its release. It was eventually released by Lost Highway in 2001, at which time the band was effectively done.

Solo career (2000–2004)

Adams made his solo debut in 2000, with Heartbreaker (produced by Ethan Johns). Emmylou Harris sang backup on "Oh My Sweet Carolina". Other backing vocals and instruments were provided by Gillian Welch, David Rawlings, Pat Sansone, and Kim Richey as Adams embraced a style more reminiscent of folk music. It was met with considerable critical success, but sales were slow.

Adams released Gold, the follow-up to Heartbreaker, in 2001. It was well received. Adams, however, initially refused to promote the record through radio station meet-and-greets and other music-industry conventions, instead opting for more recording and some live dates. A video was eventually made for the album's first single, "New York, New York". The music video featured Adams performing in front of the city's skyline four days before the September 11 attacks. The video was played often on MTV and VH1 after the attacks and became Adams's breakthrough to mainstream music consumers.

Following the success of Gold, in 2002 Adams was blocked by his label from releasing his choice for a follow-up album. This would be the second time, the first being with Gold; Adams had recorded "the Suicide Handbook" which was rejected on the grounds that it was "too sad". The label opted this time around to cherry pick (without Adams' involvement) from four of Adams' recorded albums it had already dismissed as unreleasable (48 Hours, The Suicide Handbook, The Pinkhearts and The Swedish Sessions) to create Demolition, released in September 2002. Although the album garnered him more critical attention, it failed to sell as well as Gold. The same year, Adams produced Jesse Malin's first album, The Fine Art of Self Destruction, and later worked with Malin to form the punk-rock group The Finger (under the pseudonyms, "Warren Peace" and "Irving Plaza" respectively), who released two E.P.s which were collected together to form We Are Fuck You, released on One Little Indian Records in 2003. He also starred in a Gap advertisement with Willie Nelson, performing a cover of Hank Williams's "Move It on Over".

In May 2002, Adams joined Elton John on CMT Crossroads, which brings together country artists with musicians from other genres. During the show, John referred to Adams as "fabulous one" and spoke of how Heartbreaker inspired him to record Songs from the West Coast, which at the time was his most successful album in several years. Also in 2002, Adams reportedly recorded a cover of The Strokes' debut album Is This It, though it has never been publicly released.

In 2002 and 2003, Adams worked on recording Love Is Hell, intending to release it in 2003. Lost Highway Records deemed that it was not commercially viable and was reluctant to release it, leading Adams to go back to the studio. Two weeks later he returned to Lost Highway with Rock n Roll, which featured guest musicians including Melissa Auf der Maur, Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong, and Adams's girlfriend at the time, Parker Posey. Adams' songwriting received additional exposure when Joan Baez included his song "In My Time of Need", from his debut release, on her 2003 album Dark Chords on a Big Guitar.

Also released in 2003, Adams formed a punk band called The Finger with Jesse Malin, Colin Burns, and Johnny T. Yerington.^[1] The name derived from notorious early/mid-1990s Raleigh, North Carolina rock band Finger, of which Adams was a big fan. This light-hearted project allowed both artists to return to their punk backgrounds (Adams began his music career as singer for The Patty Duke Syndrome and Malin began his career in the hardcore punk band Heart Attack and more famously as the lead singer of D Generation). They began by releasing two EPs: We Are Fuck You and Punk's Dead Let's Fuck which were later collected to form the album We Are Fuck You that was released in 2003.

Adams and Lost Highway Records eventually agreed that the label would release Rock N Roll as well as Love Is Hell, on the condition that Love Is Hell be split into two EP installments. Rock N Roll and Love Is Hell, Pt. 1 were released in November 2003, followed by Love Is Hell, Pt. 2 in December. Both albums were well received by critics, and in May 2004 Love Is Hell was re-released as a full-length album.

Love Is Hell included a cover of Oasis' "Wonderwall", which Adams had previously performed live, and about which Noel Gallagher once said, "I never got my head round this song until I went to [see] Ryan Adams play and he did an amazing cover of it." The song earned Adams a Grammy nomination for "Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance".