"I'm so tired of talking to dumbasses," Ryan Adams says, laughing wistfully and thankfully excepting his present company from the litany of fans and scribes who want the skinny on the alt. country/No Depression/y'alternative scene from the 23-year old singer/songwriter who's been deemed by many it's potential messiah.

A font of creativity, anarchic charm, and hunky dishevelment, Adams has been on the road for a year promoting his bandWhiskeytown's major-label debut, Stranger's Almanac, and it's taken its toll. The once fashionably dissolute Adams is undergoing a little lifestyle engineering, his band's lineup is endlessly in flux, and the crucible that is life on the road has all combined to make Adams, by his own admission, a little risible.

"Like this last guy," Adams says, working himself into a lather. "All he wanted to talk about was, why do I think our band is alternative country? I don't even think that at all. I like country music. Why would I want to be an alternative to it? Travis Tritt, man. That's alternative country, 'cause it's not country."

"And you know, Uncle Tupelo was the first band to ever use pedal steel or fiddle," Adams deadpans. "They started it. So it's only fair that we get compared to them."

Okay, point taken.

In truth, Adams is an affable guy, a natural raconteur, and a man who is, to say the least, fired up about what he does for a living. Sentences tumble from his lips, and he speaks with wonder about criss-crossing America repeatedly, touring Canada, and his forthcoming trip-- his first -- to Europe. "I know every state," he says. "Been to the desert. Had all these great experiences. I'd never trade this life for anything."

But, he admits, realizing your dreams can be disillusioning, too. "I used to imagine these places before I saw them, and there was that romantic notion of imagining them as being bigger and huger than they actually were. But then you actually get the reality of it. It's made me more of a realist as compared to a romantic, which I think is good."

If you want to visit Adams' romantic phase, look no further than Stranger's Almanac, a collection of songs reflecting a psyche rubbed raw by heartbreak and small-town ennui. The occasional banjo/pedal steel/fiddle arrangement may be deceptively chipper, but songs like "Excuse Me While I Break My Own Heart Tonight," "16 Days," and "Everything I Do" are guaranteed to put a tear in your beer, while songs like "Yesterday's News" and "Dancing With the Women at the Bar" make the most indelible connections between boredom and barstools since -- sorry, Ryan -- Uncle Tupelo's first two albums.

Adams admit that those songs hit pretty close to home. "At this point in my life, I wouldn't go out and write a record about me. I did that in the most hardcore possible way with Stranger's, to my own embarrassment. I wouldn't let that happen again."

And yet, he has to go out and perform those songs night after night. Does that reopen those old wounds, or help them to heal? "Now I just get pissed off and turn it all to anger," he says, which explains a lot about the band's live show, which tends to be a little more, um, aggressive, than their album. "It's kind of like using up whatever's left in that little jar," he continues. "When it's all gone, you're done. With three more shows to go on this tour, I'm just eating the jar. I'm not pissed, mad, excited, or sad about any of that shit anymore."

Adams likens songwriting to "high therapy." The best thing you can do when you're mad about something, or excited, he says, is to "turn it into something tangible, and then smash it. Whatever they call those therapy sessions where they give people those Nerf bats and they beat the shit out of each other, throw food or small animals at each other, there's no point in that. Just buy a guitar."

Clearly, Whiskeytown has not been sitting down for any group therapy lately. Instead, the band has been hemorrhaging members lately, including guitarist Phil Wandscher, who brought Stonesy sensibility, if a certain volatility, to the group. Adams simply shrugs at the mention of his revolving-door policy (drummer Skillet Gilmore, who had quit the band, has since returned). "I don't know why some people leave and some come back," he says. "Sometimes they get fired. And sometimes all of us hate them and make them go away. Some people have gotten sick from drugs, and some have gotten sick of the lifestyle. I don't think any of it was preordained, it just happened. You know, sometimes it's like, 'either this motherfucker leaves or I'm gonna quit.' So what do you do? The only tragedies I can think of is the times a person in the band should have fucking not been in the band and knew it, and then finally left. The only tragedy is that we had to put up with whoever that was."

Chaotic lineup shifts have done nothing to curb Adams' creative spark. Indeed, they may have served to keep it lit, as has his recent penchant for sobriety. "I quit everything," he says proudly. "I still drink coffee and smoke Pall Mall cigarettes, but what old man doesn't? I just resorted back to what I was like before I did any of this stuff. I got tired of it. I'm not saying I won't go back, but I doubt I will. I already know everything about it. I probably have enough of it left in my system where I can just be high for the rest of my life."

The resultant burst of energy has created a considerable backlog of material for the band. "We've probably got close to like 80 to 100 songs to choose from for the next album," Adams says. "'Cause I just won't quit recording. If I have a day off, I find the studio in town and give 'em $50 and go record." The coming months will see a reissue of the band's independent debut Faithless Street (including a bonus CD's worth of demos and previously unreleased tracks), plus a host of projects that haven't completely been worked out yet. The possibilities include an Adams solo album, a string of singles released on an indie label, and an EP that was recorded with the new band lineup augmented by fellow Raleigh, North Carolina, resident Ben Folds on piano.

As Adams himself explains, "We're so ahead of ourselves, it's fuckin' fantastic."

Dan Durchholz