“Welcome to Pax-Am,” says Ryan Adams. “This is where we make records.”
I’ve been writing at my own studio (PAX-AM) now for a couple of years, since it got finished, so most of this stuff stemmed from everyday writing there. It isn’t too different working here because I used to just go to other studios and spend a lot of money and a lot of time recording at their places, and this just made it a lot simpler. I think I worked out that I spent the same amount of money building this studio as I would have recording at other places, and it’s at home in LA. I just basically gutted the old house that was sitting on the parking lot area and built it from the ground up -- my own kind of Motown and my own vibe. I bring other people in to record, but not as part of the writing process.
But Pax-Am represents something even more profound: It’s the spiritual home Adams has been seeking for nearly 25 years.
“Ryan has been really smart about building his own little world in order to be able to create,” says Adams’ Hüsker Dü hero-turned-friend Bob Mould. “I always tell people environment is so important to the work, and you have to have a safe place to make your art. [Pax-Am] is almost like a party, and he’s the host with the most. And that’s really in stark contrast to the surly, almost mean Ryan Adams that I brushed up against years back.”
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