A reinvigorated Adams returns to the PAC

A recent headline in The New York Times said it all: "Ryan Adams Didn't Die. Now the Work Begins."

No, he's not dead. Quite the contrary — instead the prolific singer-songwriter recently released his ninth solo album — "Easy Tiger" — after eight years. Nine studio releases and yet one of the most respected newspapers in the world proclaims — and boldly so — that the work is only beginning for the North Carolina native.

The answer, however, was found in another recent interview Adams conducted — this one with Rolling Stone magazine in which he admitted, "My life had no other purpose, I was doing nothing but working and getting high."

Adams released his first solo effort — "Heartbreaker" — in 2000 and by the time he released a trio of albums in 2005 — "Jacksonville City Nights," "29" and "Cold Roses" — he had already added five solo releases — "Gold," "Demolition," "Rock N Roll," "Love is Hell," as well as his debut — to his already impressive catalog — three albums with his previous band Whiskeytown — along with two other unreleased albums.

"I'd wake up, work, work, work, go for a drink or two, and then be exhausted," he was quoted as saying in Rolling Stone. "So I would have to take drugs to keep my physical being going in order to never have to stop working in the night."

"There was intense loneliness, end-of-the-world stuff going on in my mind, bottomless depression," he later told the Times. "Without exaggerating, it is a miracle I did not die."

Critics and collaborators have long since referred to him as temperamental and erratic, however, in looking back at his intoxicated 20s, Adams carefully describes his well-documented attitude as "antisocial."

Barreling through life, the 32-year-old has done as much to enhance his status as a cult figure as he has done to solidify his place as a profound songwriter.

At age 16, he dropped out of school at the end of the first week of 10th grade, He did this despite the fact his mother was an English teacher. In the five years he was a member of the critically heralded Whiskeytown, his bandmates found him increasingly difficult to deal with. In fact, by the time they recorded their third and final album, only Caitlin Cary remained a co-founding member.

Adams has accosted numerous critics for writing negative reviews and documenting his many on-stage meltdowns — the most recent of which took place just a month ago in Minneapolis.

Some things never change.

Complaining about the sound monitors, Adams abruptly left the stage to a smattering of boos without returning for an encore.

Given the fact Adams and his band — the Cardinals — had played a 70-minute show, the so-called meltdown paled in comparison to his 2003 debacle in which he rambled his way through a show at a slightly smaller downtown venue — First Avenue — griped repeatedly about the sound system, played several songs twice and lambasted Minneapolis icon Paul Westerberg.

To this day, he still publicly denounces his record label — Lost Highway — which is, for the most part, widely respected as an artist-friendly atmosphere. In any case, in the aforementioned Times article, label executive Luke Lewis downplayed their strained relationship.

"We've actually contrived a few fights, to be honest," Lewis was quoted as saying. "It wasn't lost on either of us that it's not a bad thing for him to be the petulant child of a record company."

Even fans and concert-goers — those who one would imagine he creates his art for — have not been left out of his defiant and sometimes self-destructive behavior. In 2002 he had a well-documented, on-stage meltdown in Nashville after a heckler broke his spirit following a request of Bryan Adams' hit, "Summer of 69."

By the time a then-reckless Adams stumbled off the edge of a stage in London, shattering his left wrist, there was a serious cause for concern, as Adams himself recalls, rightfully so.

"I snorted heroin a lot — with coke," he told the Times. "I did speedballs every day for years. And took pills. And then drank. And I don't mean a little bit. I always outdid everybody.

"I was running the risk of becoming one of those people who talks to himself all the time. … I was creating as much distance from people as possible so that, in the event that something terrible happened, it wouldn't hurt them."

Something did in fact happen, but it was by no means terrible.

Ryan ended a decadelong addiction to drugs and alcohol, using valium therapy and by occasionally attending Alcohol Anonymous meetings. Sober for more than year, Adams also reunited with his former manager, John Silva.

"I just crawled back," he admitted to the Times, "and said, 'Look, I made a mistake, many mistakes — I don't know what to do.'"

What he did was to simply go back to work as a songwriter, this time with a renewed vigor.

First he posted 18 albums worth of material on his Web site. Then he wrote more than 100 songs for "Easy Tiger," which was culled down to 13. And now he told Q magazine about his intention to release a box set — "20:20" — consisting of live tracks, cuts not included on "Easy Tiger," and material from the two previously unreleased albums — "48 Hours" and "The Suicide Handbook."

"To think about falling off a bicycle ... or whatever the most horrible sports-accident thing you can think of," he professed in Rolling Stone, "that doesn't cover what it would be like for me to imagine drinking or doing drugs again."

Keith Ryan Cartwright is a freelance entertainment journalist.