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Ryan Adams Gets Pumped Up
Guitar Player 2004
By Andy Ellis

Since surfacing in the late ’90s with alt-country rockers Whiskeytown, ace songwriter Ryan Adams has pursued a stylistically and sonically varied solo career. His 2000 debut release, Heartbreaker, was a jangly, stripped-down affair, with an emphasis on acoustic tones, introspective lyrics, and moody vocals (including a duet with Emmylou Harris). A year later, Adams explored a spectrum of ’70s sounds with Gold, and then in 2002 he released Demolition, a collection of demos that ran the gamut from cello-backed flat-top to jangly power pop to pedal steel-infused country rock.

But there’s scarcely a whiff of Americana or rootsy twang on his latest album, Rock N Roll [Lost Highway]. Instead, Adams hits hard with huge, clangy guitars and a bold, churning sound that’s pumped up with rhythmic echoes, dissonant feedback, and crisp, open-string riffage…

On Rock N Roll, you play all the guitars yourself—a departure from previous albums where you shared fretboard duties. Why?
I was the only one qualified for the job, because I knew what the guitars sounded like in my head.

So you’d decided on a massive, chimey sound before stepping into the studio?
Yeah. I have a big fascination with that style of guitar playing. My adopted guitar sound—which I’ve been working on for the longest time—is a combination of tonality and structure. My favorite guitar albums include Sonic Youth’s Daydream Nation, where the guitars are very chimey and enigmatic, and strange and beautiful. I’m a fan of R.E.M.’s Peter Buck—especially his guitars on Fables of the Reconstruction and Lifes Rich Pageant. And I can’t say enough about Johnny Marr—he has such great structure and chime. I feel like a torchbearer for all these guys. They’re my leading lights. I love how they go exploring with their guitars and get lost, yet at the same time they create an instantly nostalgic vibe. Of course, this all leads back to the Byrds.

What guitars did you play on Rock N Roll?
Two Fender Tele Deluxes: a blonde ’72 and a weird purple-red sunburst ’74. I also used an all-original ’62 Stratocaster. I typically don’t like Strats—they can sound emasculated—but this one is a monster, with a little more beef than you’d expect. I bought it at Chelsea Guitars in New York, and they think it may have originally belonged to Bob Dylan. For acoustics—which only play a small role on this record—I used a Gibson Hummingbird and an early-’70s Guild D-25.

What about the electric 12-string?
That’s an ’80s Rickenbacker—a butterscotch Roger McGuinn model that belonged to the studio. I own a couple of 12-strings— including a Burns I got in England—but I’m not fussy about them. A 12-string is either going to work in a track or it’s not. If the guitar is in tune, I’ll take one pass. If it doesn’t go down easily, I lose interest and move on.
On songs like “Burning Photographs,” “Luminol,” and “Wish You Were Here,” your guitar pulses with a rhythmic echo. Did you track with delay or add it during mixdown?
There are no post effects on any of the guitars. The sounds you hear are exactly as I played them. I commit the effect to tape because then it can’t be altered later, you can’t take it back. When you capture effects on tape, you keep the guitars in their true form, and they stay very poignant, alive, and present. I think you start losing the signal when you add effects through the board, and you can’t make a rock record when you’re losing signal.

I only used one effects device for the entire album—a gray Boss stompbox [the RV-3 Reverb/Delay]. I have several. I keep one in my travel bag and one at my rehearsal space. They eat batteries really quickly, but I can get the sounds I want by messing with the settings. “Burning Photographs” came out of flirting with the echo speed.

What amps did you use?
A couple of vintage Fender Twin Reverbs that belonged to the studio. I like Twins because they’re universal—no fuss. I don’t like amps with too many buttons. Typically, I don’t use any distortion—Twins break up enough for my taste—but sometimes I’ll use an MXR Micro Amp to boost the guitar signal going into the amp.

Did you get your tremolo sounds from the Twin?
Yeah. Both tremolo and reverb, which I usually turn between 2 and 4. That’s just enough to get the cabinet moving and create some space, but not produce a big, obvious reverb.

Describe your tracking process for Rock N Roll.
We started with me on guitar and Johnny Yerington on drums. When we were happy with the groove, the engineer would pan my guitar track to the left, and I’d immediately double it and pan it to the right. I’d use the same tone, though I’d shorten the delay time on the Boss to get a percussive effect from the stereo separation. It’s all about headphones. I listen to the rough mixes while I’m traveling, and for clarity, I like to hear my guitars panned left and right. That’s how we mixed the album, too.

After doubling the main guitar, I’d switch instruments and overdub a track of lead or feedback—again through the miked amp. Following that third guitar track, I’d go into the control room and record the bass. Usually I’d run through a compressor direct into the board, but sometimes I’d use an old Ampeg bass amp. Once the song had bass on it, I’d lay down the vocal. If we felt the song needed percussion, Johnny would add it while I took a break. When he was done, we’d start another song. We’d work really fast—a song an hour.

What about the slide guitar on “The Drugs Not Working”?
That’s actually compiled from several tracks. John Porter, the Smith’s producer, and I played different parts, which we later combined to assume the role of one guitar. For the slide, John used an old white Jazzmaster in standard tuning. On another track, I detuned the B string to make it warbling and strange. The amp was a tiny 1×10 Ampeg that we had on 9, so it would cut up. A lot of different people worked on that song. It’s a big Frankenstein at this point. We don’t even know when or where everything was done or who did it.

What about the mysterious wah sounds at the end of the song?
One is a Fender Jagmaster, and the other is a Strat or Tele. I wanted a distressed sound that reminded me of Sonic Youth’s Sister. On that record, they had a lot of breakdowns where they made wah sounds that were really alien and wild. I got that effect by using open tunings and slowly moving the wah pedal to make the guitars growl.

What tunings?
I don’t have the foggiest clue. One string might be super low—like the sixth down to B, almost falling off the guitar—while two others would be the same note. I tuned with my eyes closed. I just thought, “I’ll find a really absurd tuning and use it for effect.” I wanted to turn the guitar into a percussive instrument, because I knew that the way the song crashes at the end, it would be okay to stretch and explore textures.

More Sonic Youth influence?
Definitely. I’m a total student of Sonic Youth—as are many people who use experimental guitar tunings. Without Sonic Youth, I might not have been so bold as to go, “Two seconds before recording this track, let me tune this guitar open, be weird about it, and see how it lands.” They had the courage to make mistakes, and that opened up a new vibe for me. Sonic Youth’s chords were so extravagant. Sadly, there’s no way to know what chords they were playing, because most of the tunings were written on the back of guitars that were stolen some time ago. The band had to relearn everything in new ways.

Do you ever use any traditional open tunings, such as open D or open G?
Only at home. I’ve learned Rolling Stones songs in “Keith” open G [a 5-string tuning that’s G, D, G, B, D, low to high], but I don’t feel I can take open tunings on the road and be aware enough of them to make a difference. So when we play “The Drugs Not Working” onstage, I just stay in standard tuning and run some dissonant chords through a wah pedal.

You’re known as an extremely prolific writer. How did you select the 14 songs on this album from the dozens you had available?
It’s very difficult because I’m a completist. If I had my way, I’d put out all 50 songs. But that’s not how you make records, so I have to let it go because otherwise it would drive me mad. There are many variations of what this record could have been. To find the version that became Rock N Roll, I listened to my friend [and Rock N Roll producer] Jim Barber. I’d say, “What do you think the record is?” Jim is able to go outside Ryan’s crazy, creative world and find a pattern—a way through the web of music. He wanted the record to kill, not waste any time, and be a fun experience that you don’t want to turn off. That doesn’t always mean the best songs go on, but it usually means the album contains the songs that best fit with each other in terms of creating a musical path. Each song has to be significant to the previous one, and all of them have to be significant to the whole. That’s the one part of the process I don’t get yet.

Adams’ 4-Track Mind
“I have three Tascam 414mkII cassette 4-track recorders,” reveals Adams, “one at my girlfriend’s, one in our rehearsal space, and one at my apartment. I keep them set up so I can immediately hit Record. A 4-track is a great tool because it lets me spontaneously capture ideas and come back later to turn them into songs. I just plug straight into the mixer. I’ve tried going through a Line 6 POD—I like all its delays and amps—but, unfortunately, it’s too extensive for me to learn. I can’t manipulate it without reading the manual, and I’m not a manual kind of guy. Hopefully, I’ll have a rainy night soon when I can figure it out.

“There are limitations to a 4-track, but the barriers set by having minimum tracks and not much EQ can actually help you open up as a musician. Instead of relying on gear to get an effect, you learn to modify your playing. For me, making 4-track demos is a labor of love. I have a lot of demos I want people to hear, so I’m hoping to put them on my Web site or release them on 7″ vinyl.”