Ryan Adams

[DudeAsInCool]

The AV Club sat down with Ryan Adams recently to discuss his new album, Easy Tiger, and his work to date. Here is an excerpt:

AVC: You said earlier that you write and record songs to understand other styles, and because you hear a new sound in your head. How does that work exactly?

RA: Well, sometimes when I'm playing music, it's because there's a song that I'm imagining. From playing music so much, and playing guitar as much as I have, or piano, it's very easy for me to, in a daydream-type state, just sitting around, I can picture, or I can sort of… [sighs.] 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… I don't know, the way you can close your eyes and envision parts of movies, maybe? That's normal, right? 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. Or I'll be humming something—not really humming, but in my mind I'll be humming—and I'll realize that it isn't anything I've heard. It isn't something from a record. And I'll really like it, and I'll not want it to go away, so I'll sit down and physically find a guitar or piano and play it once. That's the way to ground it, to bring it into the world so that it doesn't go away. There'll be a melody in there, but I won't necessarily know all the words. Sometimes the words happen too. But sometimes it'll just be the melody with a few words sticking out.

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.

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