(Photo via dradamsfilms.com)

Singer-songwriter Ryan Adam's greatest strength or Achilles' Heel (depending on whom you ask) is that he is too damn prolific -- often releasing a few records within the space of a year. Turns out this is an asset when it comes to blogging, as Adams, 33, single and embracing his sobriety, sometimes posts several times a day. At D.R. Adams Films Inc., Adams chronicles his shopping and museum trips around Manhattan, publishes his poems, and displays a profound fondness for fashion and comics. He also posts short films like History Lesson and Margaret that nod, slightly, towards Woody Allen's neurotic characters, and, finally, he uploads song demos, whose topics include, well, making demos on a Saturday. The only danger of Adams slowing down is his own attitude -- he says he "hates" blogging and has hinted that he may even shut his site down. Jeff Johnson caught up with him.

From reading your blog, it looks like your life is pretty fun right now. You're making music, art, poetry reading books and going shopping. It's a position a lot of people would like to be in.

Do you really think that? I don't know that my life is any different or any better than anyone else's. I think most people have a daily routine or a job that they enjoy more than people imagine. I've had a bunch of different jobs. I once worked at the end of an assembly line for frozen bread. It was really heinous, but there was something about it that I dug. There was repetition and we could do what we wanted half the time, just as long as we paid attention to the assembly line.

I'm saying this from the perspective of someone who reads your blog at my desk at work.

I work 9 hours a day! [emphatically] I have to do a lot of work, not only on my songs, which sometimes take a long time, but then I have to travel to show them off. You know, musicians don't ride around on jumbo jets with our names painted on the side, or have helicopters like in the videos. We ride planes like everybody else. And we do it for nine months to a year and a half and it messes you up.

There was a line in the short film you posted, History Lesson: "Making it work, isn't that what being grown up is all about?" I found that funny, but a lot of what's on your blog is about trying to be at peace with yourself after a turbulent last couple of years. Does the blog help you?

Uh, no. It's just quicker. If the blog itself is a blank page, its capabilities for uploading a movie or music or poetry or photographs of art -- if it's a place for all of that to be joined together as one piece, then I guess the blog itself is an art form.

A multimedia journal?

No! Blogging, first of all, is kind of bizarre and I hate it. I was so put off by the idea of creating a blog, the only thing I could do was make one. So I conceptualized it. I look at it as one piece of art.

Do you feel you're in a period of hypercreativity?

I don't feel like it's hypercreative. I haven't changed in terms of my artistic habits, ever. I have a life that doesn't involve art, but that part of my life usually is about watching movies, reading, or going to see art.

Does being sober help?

Yeah. [laughs] It's nice not to be, like, poisoned.

Did you put as much energy into getting drugs as you do into the projects you're doing nowadays?

I didn't really put any focus into getting drugs at all. It was easy. I decided that it just didn't have any relevance in my life any longer, mainly because some of my more in-depth ideas people would just [respond], "Oh, he's high." But those ideas were all legitimate. I worked sober 10 fucking years! I didn't stumble into grace. I took my beatings and lashings. People have discounted more of my records than said any of them are good. Even though I know the truth. I know that the work speaks for itself.

Do you edit all of your own films?

Yes. I started making movies because I'm sober, and on tour there's a lot of time. Our buses roll at night, so we don't hang and party. To occupy my time, I decided that I'd learn iMovie really well. And I'm still learning it.

Would you like to make a feature film one day?

That would be great. I'm weary to say that I'm ever going to be able to do that. I've read quite a bit about Woody Allen -- not just his books, and his plays, and I go to see his plays whenever I can -- but about how things went for him and it seems to me that when he was able to make a movie a year, start at the same time every year, and be the director and producer of those projects, that's when his genius outed itself in its complete form. I think that's because he was taking the ultimate risk. And there was no one to say what was film and what wasn't. And I wouldn't do it unless I had that same opportunity -- and there are tons of people who want to have that same kind of control over their films and are more advanced in their processes than I am.

Are History Lesson and Margaret homages to Woody Allen?

Not really. More an excuse to hang out with my friends. Those were all made in an hour, with a Sony digital Elph with 3.1 pixels, which is horrible. The camera I'm shooting [with] is smaller than my back pocket. Style-wise, there are definitely going to be Woody Allen influences, because in my opinion he is a master. But I don't know if they're homages to him. In both, I was trying to tell a story about a woman and her relationships [with] herself and sister and the world.

Margaret came from the perspective from a woman I was introduced to, Cate Holstein, the fashion designer, who I met through Philip Andelman, a wonderful photographer. He's incredible. He makes videos for Jay-Z, and he's my muse for filmmaking. I think I actually just make them to see what he will say. But they're not masterpieces. It's not Masterpiece Theater. It would be a lot different if I had to say, "Oh Keanu, we have to take a fifteen minute break so I can charge my Elph." I unfortunately don't have that problem.

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