Ryan Adams: Highlights From His Record Collection

Ryan Adams talks about music the same way he writes songs: abundantly. Sitting in his New York apartment one autumn evening, Adams — whose classic-rock-indebted new album, Cardinology, recorded with his band, the Cardinals, is out October 28th — spent three hours discussing his heroes and showed that he's been a passionate and omnivorous listener since his early teens. "Growing up," says the 33-year-old Adams, "I had a Grateful Dead Steal Your Face sticker on my skateboard next to a pentagram logo and a Danzig sticker. I couldn't differentiate."

Black Flag
"What the fuck is this shit?" Adams quipped after a friend gave him a tape of the hardcore pioneers when he was a teenager. "Soon afterward, I got my first tattoo: the Black Flag 'bars' logo on my left shoulder," he says. "For me, Black Flag represented what the Grateful Dead represented for an earlier generation. Listening to them, I had this moment where I said, 'I accept this music and this idea of fucking being yourself.'"

The Strokes' Is This It
While recovering from painful oral surgery and a bad breakup, Adams married his love of country music and the Strokes' first record: "I made a four-track recording of me covering Is This It on banjo, mandolin and pump organ. Fab [Moretti, the Strokes' drummer] begged me for a copy of it. I declined — some of it's bad, and some of it's just weird."

Emmylou Harris
Adams first heard the singer through his grandmother, who was a big fan. "[Emmylou] was one of my first crushes," says Adams. "I've always been into intellectual and artistic gals." Adams finally met Harris when she sang on his first solo CD, Heartbreaker. "I was overwhelmed by her voice and who she was," he says. "Thankfully, I managed to act low-key around her."

Sonic Youth's Sister
The band's 1987 release is the first cassette Adams bought with his own money. "When I heard this, I remember thinking, 'I have to get a guitar,'" says Adams. "I traded a skateboard and $70 for a Hondo Les Paul. I never paid the guy the entire $70. I still owe him."