Interview: Ryan Adams, guitarist and singer-songwriter

It feels a little odd to be welcoming Ryan Adams back. Since the acclaimed alt.country singer/songwriter hit the ground running in 2000 with his debut solo album Heartbreaker, he has barely stopped for breath, never mind a break. If Adams is known for anything, it’s for an unstemmed flow of material, which extends way beyond his already prolific official release schedule to include punk and metal side projects and other online curiosities. And did I mention the two poetry collections?

With a perpetual touring schedule to match, not to mention a long-time affair with ye olde drugs and alcohol (which ended in 2007), something had to give. In 2004, he fell off stage into the orchestra pit at Liverpool’s Royal Court Theatre, breaking his wrist. At least it was obvious to his fans why he had to cancel that tour. What was not widely known was that he had also been struggling with tinnitus, vertigo and other ear complaints from as far back as 2000. Gigging in general had become increasingly difficult.

“What I actually misunderstood as stage fright was a series of different things that were going wrong with my body,” he says. “I love to be on stage and to play but at the same time I would be up there and all of a sudden I would be incredibly uncomfortable.”

Eventually Adams was diagnosed as suffering from Ménière’s Disease, a degenerative illness which attacks the inner ear. Symptoms include hearing loss, balance problems, nausea and vertigo, which was exacerbated in Adams’ case by sudden changes in lighting levels – an occupational hazard at gigs.

“It has nothing to do with volume,” he clarifies. “I could play guitar in The Melvins [cult US punk act who influenced grunge] and it wouldn’t matter. It just matters how much sleep I get and how well I take care of myself. I can’t just continually travel the world non-stop and drink coffee every day and eat like shit. I have to have limits.”

So he did stop, announcing a hiatus in 2009. He didn’t play a note of music for a year while he sought treatment to curb the decline in his condition. A year is a long time in Ryanland. Long enough to release three albums, as he did in 2005. But it appears to have been for the best as he has now returned feeling physically, and apparently musically, rejuvenated, with new album Ashes & Fire justly hailed as his best work since Heartbreaker. He just needs to be careful about how he handles the fresh demand for him to perform.

“I’m still doing too much, I really am. I haven’t had a Ménière’s episode in a while but I’m definitely doing as much stuff as humanly possible on the line of acceptability.”

Adams wouldn’t be the first rock musician to suffer debilitating tinnitus. With therapy, he has learned to cope with it. But it is a grave prospect for a musician to lose their keenest sense. Having settled the mystery of his symptoms, however, Adams is pretty sanguine about what the future holds.

“I’ve already lost hearing but I still have 50 or 60 per cent in my left ear, which is not bad. I don’t know that I think about it that way. I just think about working with what I got.

“I’ve always kind of been that sort of person anyway, working with what I got. I wasn’t the quickest study on guitar or bass or drums, but I played them all anyway. I was a visual artist and a writer and I wasn’t good at that either, but I did it anyway.

“Then I did my Whiskeytown band and we weren’t very good but we did it anyway and then I went solo with the name Ryan Adams, and I thought, ‘Well, it’s what I’ve been called my whole life, I’m going to keep it,’ even though I figured there’d be ridicule at some point, and that happened [Adams infamously didn’t react too well at an early gig when one wag requested he play Summer Of 69] and I did it anyway and then I broke my wrist and I relearned how to play guitar when I couldn’t even pick up a pencil.

“I had to relearn how to use all my fingers and I did it anyway and now I’ve figured out that I was suffering from Ménière’s disease and I get up and I live my life, I do it anyway.”

Steady there, this is all starting to sound like a Martina McBride song…

“When people say doubt is the enemy of art, it really is true. It’s what stops people from being themselves and doing what they want to do. So many people are doubtful when they really should just be joyful.”

Adams was quoted a couple of times in his chaotic twenties saying that he felt he wouldn’t be able to figure his place in the world until he was in his thirties. Adams turns 37 next week, is two years married to singer/actress Mandy Moore, clean and sober, and has just hit a career high with the exquisite, mature, understated yet nakedly emotional Ashes & Fire. So how does he feel returning to that identity conundrum? “I think I knew who I was more before.” Oh.

“Strangely in my thirties I’ve started to believe that the bigger act is to let go of the idea of individualism and to immerse yourself in joy and realism. For me, realism is romanticism. I do believe that there are so many incredible things in the world and so many of those things are artistic that it would be a shame not to completely lose yourself in all of them because you wanted to hold on to some stupid idea of who you thought you were.

“That’s why I write the songs that I do, but I listen to grindcore and Norwegian black metal. For me it would be silly to say I’m only going to be a folk musician and I’m only going to read John Steinbeck novels. It’s like, ‘F*** that.’ Be everything.”

• Ryan Adams plays Edinburgh Festival Theatre tomorrow. Ashes & Fire is out now on PAX AM.