You guys, Ryan Adams’ new album, Ashes & Fire, is out today, so it shouldn’t come as any surprise that the video for the LP’s first single, “Lucky Now,” has been released — and he was also on Conan last night to perform the song, though you would have had to stay up way late to see it, as the airing of the show was pushed back two hours due to baseball playoff games running long. I can just see the occasionally volatile singer/songwriter tossing some chairs across a room over such a thing — just a couple of days ago he cut short an interview with LA Weekly when he didn’t like the line questioning he was receiving.
Heartbreaker and Ashes and Fire feel like bookend albums. Is love a stronger muse than heartbreak?
I think it would be wrong to consider Ashes and Fire a love album. The record is obsessed with time. I believe that there is a kinder view of the self on this record. I’m passing through my own life as a ghost, and looking at these pieces and places in my life. I’m looking at California, and the idea of being lost and found at the same time.
It’s a very gentle record. I took that as a reflection of you being in a good headspace.
I think that’s very bizarre. These are albums. If somebody asked me straight out “are you in a good headspace” I’d say yes. I wasn’t living in a basement surrounded by cockroaches, fucking drinking Robitussen, ever, when I made records. I just think it would be a weird thing for somebody to make a judgment on me based on the records. I would never say, ‘The new Danzig record is pretty dark. He’s in a real bad place. We better go give him a hug.’ I don’t begin to pretend or understand Danzig based on a record.
On the surface, it seems like you and Mandy Moore are polar opposites. Could you pinpoint a specific moment when you realized you wanted to spend the rest of your life with her?
I understand why you would be interested, and I understand the question, but you should know that I don’t discuss my personal life.
Ryan Adams is back, you guys! Here he is on Conan last night early this morning…
