The American Songwriter Blog: Ryan Adams Puts Hiatus on Hiatus

More Ryan Adams, with Extra Cheese.

Apparently, Ryan Adams hasn’t lost enough. Not a month ago, the heartbreaker himself scribed lengthy farewell to the music biz on his “Cardinal Cave” blog, saying, “i lost more than anyone will ever know [sic], ” and citing melodramatic shortfalls in his ambitions as a musician, the binge-and-purge dispassion of the industry and, perhaps his only unaffected reason, inner-ear health concerns that had only been exacerbated by a decade-and-a-half on stage. Not a week ago, that post has been deleted and replaced with not only more blog posts – what was originally to have been the first thing to go, seeing as journalists only reprint everything he says “out of context” – but an iTunes-exclusive Valentine’s EP donning a heart-shaped pepperoni pizza for its cover art and wittily titled Extra Cheese has been released today. Now, all of this may just be the final death rattle for Adams’ illustrious career and all the bitter feedback from media who bit the “goodbye” hook in the first place may, in fact, be misplaced. Maybe Ryan Adams is calling it quits and maybe he’s not. After all, the EP is just a collection of seven old songs wrapped in a pretty new package – but for a studio version of fan favorite “Hey There, Mrs. Lovely” that, according to user reviews, is well worth the $3.99 price tag – and no other tour dates have been added after what is supposedly his final show at Atlanta’s Fox Theater next month. On top of that, either “Cardinal Cove”‘s Web address is having some “page not found” technical issues or has gone totally defunct. Such confessional singer-songwriters as Adams’ are no doubt prone to poetic rants about a fickle industry, when, actually, they’re the fickle ones. No doubt, for such an endlessly influential songsmith as Adams, leaving a life on the road playing to one sold-out crowd after another would be difficult to abandon cold-turkey. Given his track record over the last month, though, there’s really no telling what the guy might do. One thing’s for sure: Tickets to the Fox Theater come March 20th are going to be in short supply.