Ryan Adams Quotes

In between 15 and 20 - probably at around 17 - my interests switched from hard rock to punk rock. And then by 20 they were circling out of punk rock back into Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, the stuff that I didn't get to when I was younger.

In my songs, I'm not saying something that's never been said before. The have lyrics aren't going to blow people away. It's the emotion and the melody that drive it home.

I was a fan of heavy music - first metal, then punk, then hip hop.

The thing that will never go away is that connection you make with a band or a song where you're moved by the fact that it's real people making music. You make that human connection with a song like 'Let It Be' or 'Long and Winding Road' or a song like 'Bohemian Rhapsody' or 'Roxanne,' any of those songs. They sound like people making music.

There's so many STP songs that are just classic to me, and just so influential in my musical growth.

The Go-Go's were a frothy pop band. I wanted to do music that had a harder edge.

What I do is a bit broader in scope than a heavy metal band like Iron Maiden, Motorhead, ACDC and so on.

What I love about Zeppelin is that you can listen to their entire catalog and kind of see where they were at in the moment.

I had all these raw, gritty rock records that really inspired me sonically, and so I think everything I listen to when I started writing my own songs kind of came out naturally, and it created this new sound.

I was born into hip hop and reggae, and then I started listening to more hardcore and punk bands like Bad Brains and the Suicidal Tendencies; they opened up a whole new world for me. They had something to say, and I could relate to them.

My uncles listened to rock and roll like Led Zeppelin. We had MTV, so I saw Adam Ant and Boy George and Def Leppard.

All that really moves me is music.

When it comes down to it, it's all about good music and what makes people react. That wins over everything else.

The reason I connected with music was because of the stories that people were telling and making me feel when I listened to a song.

Your knowledge remains limited if you just listen to your songs but you grow as a singer when you listen to other singers' work - their style, accent and modulation. You end up absorbing new things.

More than a quarter of a century into the band's career together, it's inspiring to hear Melvins continue to deafen new generations of listeners.

When I write a song, I want to write something that is really catchy and says something that might actually touch somebody.

'Master of Reality' rules; it's one of my favorite records of all time. It has some of the most evil riffs on it - and some of the sexiest riffs as well.

All my songs encapsulate a particular emotion.

I was really into metal when I was growing up. It was just something I thought I could do and wanted to try.

I can't bring myself to release an instrumental album because I feel like I want some meat on the bone. Something to chew on, lyrically and content-wise.

Songwriting has become such a big part of what I do that emotions and the melodies that accompany them blur into one.

My first influences for playing were Johnny Ramone and Jimmy Page, the same as everybody else. Joe Perry. The guys in Alice Cooper's band, whatever their names were. Mick Ronson from David Bowie. You know who really influenced me to write songs? Iron Maiden.

People say I sound a lot like the Ramones and it's probably because I'm influenced by the same '60s groups, but I was never a strict Ramones fan.

It wasn't just music in the Ramones: it was an idea. It was bringing back a whole feel that was missing in rock music - it was a whole push outwards to say something new and different.