Adams says now is the time to 'step back' from music

Jan 14, 2009
Ryan Adams has announced he is leaving The Cardinals, the band he formed and has fronted since 2004.

Writing in a lengthy blog on Cardinology.com, Adams said that he will quit the band at the end of their current tour, which ends in Atlanta on March 20.

"Atlanta will be my last venture with the band," he wrote. "I am grateful for the time we have had and maybe someday we will have more stories to tell together. I am, however, ready for quieter times."

Adams hinted that he would be taking a step back from music altogether, saying that he has "a whole lot of living and learning to do" instead.

"Maybe we will play again sometime and maybe I will work my way back into some kind of music situation but this is the time for me to step back now," he wrote.

In their early days, The Cardinals also featured JP Bowerstock - the so-called 'guru' who taught The Strokes' Julian Casablancas, Nick Valensi and Albert Hammond Jnr to play the guitar.

The Cardinals officially released three albums together, although they also often played on Ryan Adams solo material, as well as 'Songbird', the 2006 album by by Willie Nelson, for which Adams was producer.

The band were handpicked by Noel Gallagher to support Oasis on their recent North American tour.

Writing on his blog, Adams dismissed the touring lifestyle as "soul destroying".

He wrote: "This is not much of a life; not glamorous like those ridiculous videos a long time ago television played. And no, it is not monetarily as rewarding as people would like you to believe. And yes, it is soul destroying. Especially when you spend your life trying to write about the really difficult stuff and you stand there losing your way and people yell at you like you were in a circus. When it was your dream to matter and you realise one day, it never mattered - I mean, I am a punchline and a footnote."

Adams is now set to release a book, called 'Infinity Blues', on April 1.

He has called the publication "the jewel of my life's work".

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Ryan Adams' drug problems and public tantrums have often overshadowed his music. But Cardinology may put an end to that. His first release in a year — notable for a guy who put out three (albeit spotty) full-lengths in 2005 — it's the record he has spent the past few years promising but never quite delivering. Drunk on melody, high on musical history, but all his own, the record throbs with great playing and singing, and thrums with hope without pimping easy platitudes. It's one of the best things he's ever done.

Cardinology is a classic-rock record to the bone, nodding to influences that Adams has conjured before but never so well: the country rock of the Grateful Dead and Gram Parsons, the arena anthems of U2. It begins with four killers in a row: "Born Into a Light" prays for faith amid troubles over a Tex-Mex melody, weepy pedal steel and gospel-tinged vocals; "Go Easy" is a breathless love pledge with heartland-rock hooks; "Fix It" is a plea for psychic repair that meshes a slithery R&B groove with a soaring Bono-style chorus; and "Magick" is pure mindless garage-rock pleasure, notwithstanding the geopolitical apocalypse lurking in its lyrics ("You're like a missile strike/Government goes underground/Warhead on legs/What goes around comes around"). Then things settle down a bit — but despite overcooked nautical metaphors on "Sink Ships," they never slack. Cardinology's riveting finale is "Stop," a fragile piano ballad sung in a shaky voice that slowly gains strength and takes flight. It's clearly about rehab, and while rehab rock may be a bit of an oxymoron, Adams — who has reportedly cleaned up — defines a genre here. If it helps undermine some of the bogus junkie myths about hard drugs and creativity, all the better.

U.S. psych rock zombies the Cardinals release a new record titled Cardinology
on October 27th in UK/Europe and 28th October in the USA
"the study of guitar astrology and jam technology. And with songs even."
recorded at Electric Lady Studios in NYC
produced by the Cardinals and Tom Schick tracklisting is :

1. Born Into A Light
2. Go Easy
3. Fix It
4. Magick
5. Cobwebs
6. Let Us Down Easy
7. Crossed Out Name
8. Natural Ghost
9. Sink Ships
10. Evergreen
11. Like Yesterday
12. Stop


“Stop” (the only slow song on Cardinology) will be featured on A&E’s “The Cleaner” on September 30

Preceding the album will be the first single, ‘Fix It’, which will be released on radio on September 23. Available for digital download on oct. 7th, according to Lost Highway.

The band will celebrate the release with a performance on The Late Show With David Letterman on October 29.