The No-Hit Wonder

By Josh Tyrangiel

The photograph on the coffee table captures a perfect moment of joy. It is a Halloween night in the mid-'80s, and Ryan Adams, 11, is in full Kiss make-up, thrusting out his chin and sticking out his tongue like a tiny Gene Simmons. It's an image worth lingering over because in the here and now--early fall in his East Village apartment in New York City--Adams is doing a fair impression of an 11-year-old brat. We are supposed to be talking about his new album, Rock N Roll, but Adams has decided to chain-smoke and open his mail. "Why does my mom keep sending me QVC stuff?" he mumbles. "Oh. A book light. F___, yeah!"

For the past decade, Adams, 28, has been the next big thing in American songwriting, with everyone from Willie Nelson to Elton John championing his gorgeous, heartbroken melodies. And for the past decade, Adams has done his little-boy best to keep the masses away. He eschews flashy videos and meetings with radio programmers who might promote his music and frequently omits his most popular songs from his concerts just to give the devoted a glimpse of his stubbornness. He also releases great avalanches of material when the approved method is to pace oneself. Rock N Roll, due out Nov. 4, is typical Adams; the songs are all ache and attitude--classic-rock gold--but Adams has paired them with a simultaneously released, 14-song EP, Love Is Hell, which he accurately describes as "suicide music," a series of pulseless love dirges. The pairing is guaranteed to confuse everyone, which was probably his intent. Says Luke Lewis, president of Adams' record label: "Ryan's never been a pain in the ass to me personally, but professionally he's a handful."

Conversationally, Adams is more like a boulder--immovable at first, but when he gets rolling, it's with considerable force. Told that Lewis believes he needs just one radio hit to establish him in the public's mind as a major artist (Lewis cites Neil Young's Old Man as an example of such a breakthrough), Adams snaps to attention. "The other day I was reading this article about Beck," he says. "He's tremendous. But he's been on this tour where he's playing his new record, and still, pretty much the last song he has to play is that Loser song. So no thanks, I won't base my career on one song."

If this seems like the bluster of someone who can't write a hit, it isn't. Adams has several songs--The Rescue Blues, Nuclear and, from his latest album, So Alive--that could be rock standards with a little promotional effort on his part, but he hates the thought of being imprisoned by popularity so much that he scolded Elton John for boosting him. "I was becoming a catch phrase," says Adams. "There's nothing worse than being the thing that uncool people buy because it makes them feel cool."

As Adams ventures into unchartered levels of unlikability, his girlfriend breezes in. "Hi," says Parker Posey. (Adams has previously been linked to Winona Ryder and Beth Orton.) Joining the conversation, the indie-film princess helps mollify her boyfriend a bit. "I don't want to be obscure, but I also don't want to make a bunch of money and then have to walk away," he says. "That happens. People do everything right, have a few hits, and then popular culture gets exhausted of them." Adams is comfortable selling a few hundred thousand records, flying coach and worrying about rent so long as he gets to do whatever he wants with his talent, like playing in side projects and releasing material when he pleases. "That's a deal that makes sense to me," he says.

Lewis nevertheless believes that an Adams breakthrough is possible with Rock N Roll; the radio sure could use his tunes. But the mountain of popular culture does not go to Muhammad, and Adams is so inflexible that he seems increasingly unlikely to visit with popular taste. "I'm easy to hate, and rightly so," he says. "I'm a believer in my own talent, and I'm egotistical enough about what I do that if someone yells out, 'Bryan Adams' for eight songs"--as someone did at a 2002 concert--"I will stand up and make a fuss. I use Dylan and the Stones as my models, not because I think I'm as good as they are but because they made a bunch of supposedly f___ing horrible career choices that were right for them. So, you know, hate me and call me arrogant or whatever. But enjoy the songs." Just not too much.