Ryan Adams Band • Page 2

Really cool, wish I had the money for it right now haha

 

Thank god today was payday haha

 

That's cool, but yeah, not gonna drop $72.99 on that.

 

Re: 48 Hours, 20/20 boxset etc. Ryan has said that it will pretty much never happen


STEREOGUM: What about that box set of the various unreleased albums, is that still going to happen?

ADAMS: I don’t understand what people don’t get about that. It mystifies me. People go, “Whatever happened to the 20/20 boxset?” I always want to go like, what are you fucking talking about?

STEREOGUM: Well, it’s been rumored on and off for years.

ADAMS: Yeah, like in 2003 or ’04 or something. I talked about it then. Trying to release unreleased records. But those records are common knowledge now. Like, “When are you going to release The Suicide Handbook?” When people call it that I’m like, “Why do you call it that?” It was actually originally called Commercial Suicide. It wasn’t called The Suicide Handbook because the record I wanted to release was just a double record of acoustic performances and string sections. The version that leaked, they don’t have the strings on it. It’s so known. The toothpaste left the tube so long ago, I’m not going to try to put it into a new toothpaste container. Why would I do that? [laughs] And also I can’t release anything that’s been previously released. I own all my unreleased masters. And then Universal, before I left, if it came out, they owned that. So that means a couple of songs from Commercial Suicide Handbook that were on Demolition make it an incomplete record, and then there was a record I did with Ethan at the end of Gold, it wasn’t really a record, it was just a session. We called it 48 Hours because we made it in 48 hours. And like … the reason it leaked is because my record label would put Lost Highway stickers on it and send it to people.
What I would find is that I would go and make the sessions and before [the songs] had any chance to be considered for anything, they were being shared. Not by me. I didn’t even have a fucking computer then. You can actually find copies still but they’re on eBay. They’ll say “48 Hours Sessions, Lost Highway Records” with a white label. So what eventually happened was twofold. By sharing them to the point where they were getting bootlegged so commonly, it destroyed the value of anything they could’ve ever been. And also the ones they decided to release on Demolition, by making a compilation of all the demos — which was not my idea and not something I wanted to do — they basically interrupted my ability to ever later claim ownership of those records and try to sell them that way.
But you know, I started PAX-AM, and so far we’ve done 7-inches of older stuff. I released the complete sessions around Easy Tiger as III/IV. Originally that record was going to be more rock and have some of those acoustic songs interlaced into the record. The record became what it became out of necessity and those tracks fell by the wayside and I wanted to release that. I’ve made so much music since that people don’t know about. Black Hole record, no one’s heard that. Which is awesome. I made this fucking sick record in New York right at the end of my contract with Lost Highway. I went to Electric Lady with my friend Johnny and made this big sprawling session, and I’ve released only a couple of little things on it, but it gave way to things like “Do I Wait” from Ashes & Fire. I did a Record Store Day single with that, a song called “The Darkness.” That session is so shit hot and I love it. I’ll probably put that out at some point. There’s a couple of other things, but they’re more recent.

I make music, I’m in the moment, I still play live. It would be the worst, possible, most ignorant idea ever and it would be stupid to go, “Hey you guys, I’m going to release this box set of shit you already have online that you’ve listened to forever, except it’ll be incomplete. Because some of these tracks are already on Lost Highway records and if that version exists you can’t have it. So I’ll sell you something you already have, but the incomplete version.” I mean, maybe at this point I could call it 14/9 or something, because the vision would be really impaired. It wouldn’t even be “hindsight is 20/20,” it’d have to be a decimal point and a couple of random numbers. That’s never going to happen, ever, nor should it ever happen, and nor do I think anyone, if they really thought it through, would really want to own it, or would think it would ever be a viable thing. It can’t. It cannot exist. But there’s still my very first four-track recordings up to like, 2005, when I still used cassette four-tracks. I assembled all of them in one place. I found that stuff. I found a shit ton of stuff around the Heartbreaker sessions, all this great stuff. I’m so stoked about that.


Via

 

Fucking Lost Highway, man.

 

I dropped the cash for the Heartbreaker Deluxe. As I pre-ordered I was thinking, "Man. This is expensive." Didn't stop me.
If I'm being honest though, Ryan could release 2 LPs of fart noises and I'd buy it.

 

Yeah, I felt the same. But having been to a couple of shows recently at Mercury Lounge, I want that DVD haha. Plus, all of the old pictures and stuff will look great on my shelf. This is just the thing to tide me over until the Red Rocks show in August.

 

It's been about a year since I first dove into Ryan Adams and his discog. I've only really listened to about 20% of it and still can't get enough. Outside of III/IV, Cold Roses and his Self Titled. What should I get into next? I dig Heartbreaker, some songs are a little too slow and sad for me. Idk.

 

Not precisely how I'd rank his discography and it's missing the self-titled, but this is a good rundown.

 

Oof, do not like that ranking at all. I usually disagree with how music publications tend to cover Ryan's work, though.

 

I think III/IV is incredible. Jus sayin.

 

Love Is Hell.
Also, seek out some of the unreleased stuff from 20/20 he talks about in that interview. There is some really good stuff there.

 

Curious as to your rankings? I'd probably do a top five like: 1) Cold Roses, 2) Heartbreaker, 3) Self Titled, 4) Jacksonville City Nights, 5a) Easy Tiger, 5b) Love Is Hell. But that changes around a lot minus the top 2. I have a hard time ranking him because some of the albums that I'm not as high on have single tracks that I love with his best stuff.

 

Yeah, he's incredibly difficult to rank. Like, what do you do with 48 Hours? What do you do with something like 1989? There are a lot of oddities in his catalog that make it difficult. Maybe that's part of the reason I don't like that list: just ranking his studio albums seems...wrong to me, somehow.

With that said, my go-to top three is always Self-Titled, Gold, and Love is Hell, probably in that order. I'm conflicted on Heartbreaker, because the songs I love I really love, but there's also some stuff that has just never been very engaging to me. Cold Roses is great too, but has always been harder for me to get a handle on, I guess since it's a double? I don't know.

 

Yeah I get what you mean. I guess for me the ST is probably my favorite song-to-song but Heartbreaker and Cold Roses just reach much higher highs for me personally. I still dream that he'll one day see the value in putting together a rarities and unreleased compilation, even despite what he said in that interview haha.

 

Oh yeah, self-titled is pretty easily his most consistent and cohesive. I think Ryan has gotten better at making records, even if he's maybe not writing the best songs of his career right now.

 

Anyone listen to the new deluxe tracks on Spotify? "Hairdresser On Fire - Outtake" made me so happy.

 

Well, Gold is his best record, so you should listen to that. Make sure you have the full 21-track album... sometimes side 4 gets lost.

 

Deluxe is a ton of fun to hear but it mostly just makes me happy that he released it at all. "Goodbye Honey" and "Locked Out" are both great.

 

Can't believe Petal in a Rainstorm didn't make the album. That's a great song.

 

It just makes sense to me that Heartbreaker and MMJ's It Still Moves are both getting the deluxe reissue treatment within a couple of weeks of each other. Both are/were incredibly formative records for me that strike a similar part of my soul.

 

I'd forgotten how perfect a song "Come Pick Me Up" is. All the emotions come out for that one.

 

The response when he plays it live is wonderful, too. I've only seem him twice but he played it both times and the atmosphere in the room each time was something else.

 

God I bet. I've never seen him before, but he's playing Summerfest in Milwaukee this summer, so my friend and I are hoping to drive up from Chicago to catch his set.

 

Just started getting into Whiskeytown. I am happy about the decision.