Ryan Adams Quotes

Being in a band is always a compromise. Provided that the balance is good, what you lose in compromise, you gain by collaboration.

It was really hard to find people to come over and play guitar and sing and write songs together. So that turned me into a songwriter that way, just so I could be able to play with other people.

I play the living hell out of my guitars daily, and as sure as the sun rises in the east, killer licks, ideas, grooves, patterns and songs erupt every time.

Keith Richards has some sort of quote that says 'it takes two people to write a song,' and I'm of that school of thought, too.

I'm lucky to be collaborating with a lot of great songwriters/producers - and it's all about chemistry!

All of a sudden there's a song - there in your hotel room playing your guitar - and you write it, and two or three years later it will come true. It keeps you on your toes.

Well, it grow together. It's like, first time I try to write a song is the first time I try to play the guitar. And so I can write a song without the guitar. But it really grow together. I really like stay with my guitar. But it just happen, is the inspiration come through man. Because, I personally, it look like, could I write a whole heap a tune, it look like. But I pick special tune to write. Cause a man can think of plenty things. Yuh know wah ah mean.

When I used to write songs, especially on my own, it was just me and a guitar.

When you're in a band and write a song on your own, it isn't fully realized until it goes into somebody else's ears.

I think I always thought of the guitar as the vehicle to be able to make some musical idea up. The only appeal to learning more chords was having more chords to put into songs. I never got too wrapped up in becoming technically good. So writing songs happened pretty simultaneously with learning how to play the guitar.

I have this really beautiful Martin guitar, and it just kind of writes songs for me.

When you're songwriting, it's like talking about your own life experience. When you're with a band, you have to compromise.

Everything I've done feels like I'm just as much a part of it as if I was the producer. It's still the same job: all of us together figuring out the common good for a song. That's the only thing that matters. It's not like, "I'm the boss, and I'm gonna tell you what to play."

I do like writing songs in a band. When it's rock, it's such a different kind of dynamic, obviously.

It would be fun to write with Adele, actually. She seems like a fun girl to write with.

When you're in a band and there's five of you, you have to accommodate five people in every song.

I sit down and create atmospheres, start playing guitar or piano and just sing whatever comes out of my mouth.

The wonderful thing about rock music is even if you hate the other person, sometimes you need him more, you know. In other words if he's the guy that made that sound, he's the guy that made that sound, and without that guy making that sound, you don't have a band, you know.

When I graduated high school, I bought a guitar and, at first, didn't really think I'd get into the songwriting thing as much as I did. But after learning a few songs of other people's to play on the guitar, I got bored with that and just started writing songs on my own, and that's kinda how it came about.

But it can be hard to experiment when you're in a band.

We really try to make sure that the band writes the songs, not just one person.

Songwriting is a give-and-take process, and it can lead to some good, healthy debates.

I wrote my first song at 6. I spent every day with the guitar, and I just made up songs.

I've been in very many situations where I've not liked the other members of the band or they have not liked me. I grew up presuming that's the way music was made. It doesn't need to be that way. It's taken me years years to find that out.

I've worked with a lot of people on music and often times those things don't work out.