Ry's apology

[100pacer]

This deserves it's own thread.

Cards forever.

--

An Open Apology to Cardinals, CardinalFam & Fans

To All,

This is Ryan. It is quite early on Friday and I need to say a few things.

I would like to apologize to my friends in the Cardinals, who are like family to me, to our management and our Wise Elders who have taken great care of us and myself for so many years , to Steve at Nasty who is rational and protective and understanding and knows more about comics than anyone I know (which is a lot) to CardinalCrew who build the dream in real time for all of us, day in and out

and to you, Cardinal Fans,

I owe you an apology an explanation and wish to end the cycle of madness my sickness turned craziness created.

I am deeply sorry for how I reacted to my illness, and the defeat I felt on the last tour and the outrageous way I reacted and blame i placed unnecessarily on others.

I was wrong.

I could not be more filled with regret and humbled at my own inability to be mindful during my time of crisis.

The truth is, I know better and am not naturally inclined to this behavior. It is something I felt like was long past me, but I am obviously still learning how to deal and how to cope with my own misfortunes and the sometimes trying world of trying to please many and maintain my own sense of worth and dignity.

I made an awful mistake.

It is no fun to be away from home and to get sick, and even worse to be a singer and lose the very thing which holds me to the Cardinals as ONE part of a much larger, far more precious dream which has been the integration of myself and my abilities towards the band, and a greater musical and creative endeavor which is sharing my work and my heart and my soul and my mind and also my weakness with those I love and trust and also SO MANY OF YOU who carefully came along to explore this idea with us.

I am sorry I let you down. I let myself down too.

CARDINOLOGY and our band The CARDINALS has been the work of so many years traveling, a dream Brad and I had all the way back to before I even recorded my second ever solo album Gold, a mutual dream Neal Casal and I shared so so many years ago, in fact, before I made Heartbreaker, and the trust established between Chris and Brad which led him from the furthest recesses of space to join our noise machine and Jon Graboff who is, in my opinion, the authority on not only the advancement of Steel Guitar playing into future realms but also now an obvious fashion icon (loud autumn colors- Jon’s socks and sneakers- coincidence??? i think not)….. I apologize to you from the bottom of my heavy metal heart.

I do not deal with defeat well, nor sickness, and in my brief tenure as someone who had a rather upsetting and rough time of it for so long plugging back into the Matrix of Reality has not been as easy or as painless as I imagined. I make a lot of mistakes and my margin for error is widened by senseless pride when I know I am faced with things I so want to change but cannot.

It is obvious to me it is ME to has to learn to adapt. I see the constraints I put on myself and I also see how hard I work and how often I over-work to try and correct my past. It is the good work and it is also humbling in that I am lucky enough that I maintained any sense of purpose as I have let myself down so so many times since I began my journey musically. And I have let others down so often that I am constantly embarrassed of my actions.

I am struggling more often than not to forgive myself for behavior I adopted long ago to “quick fix” whatever is before me in order to just get to a next step where I might improve things, myself, or my relationships not only in the musical world but otherwise and it can be more than exhausting as I sometimes only see the negative- this is not healthy thinking and NOT setting a good example.

I must continue to fight against this notion of ego and pride and feeling attached more to the negative voices from the crowd and not the positive.

Sometimes that voice seems to me simply an echo of my own self-opinion and this will always be “MY” struggle and I must continue to learn from my mistakes and call myself out when I confuse that with my friends or the fans or our team, because I always know at heart we are working together now, and this was something I dreamed of, and something that has nurtured me back to spiritual and musical health as well as mental.

Having said all this, long-winded as I am known to be, I simply dislike letting anyone down ever, and this is inevitable as it is simply impossible to please everyone.

When I lost my voice at the end of the last tour, when I least expected to having felt like I was through the thick of the horrid flu that more or less knocked nearly each of us out on the band bus, I was terrified. I was not prepared for how to handle the situation. I struggled to continue but I also knew that the more I was attempting to overcome the situation by continuing to sing the more in jeopardy I was putting myself and the band as singing with a broken voice can cause irreparable damage to a singing voice- and we had already reluctantly cancelled two shows in the mid-west which we were dying to play.

Long story short-

I have some learning to do, some forgiveness to allow myself and to ask for, and I write this in hope that everyone who has cared for and followed our band knows that I fully was in the wrong,

but that i must continue forward and hope for frogiveness as that is the essence of our work.

In times like these, we all need as much hope as possible and one thing I do know how to do, is offer that-

because if the shared Cardinal dream is anything- it has been shared hope.

With respect to all

and my sincerest apologies,

Ryan Adams.

[chrisnelson]

Love you Ryan. I'm so glad you're feeling better. Your honesty and humility are a daily lesson to me. I thank you.

[theeventhorizon]

just read it on the blog - what a guy! He so rocks. what an apology. Heartfelt and sincere. I guess we should expect that - he wears his heart so much on his sleeve. It's like his profligacy with his music and the way he shares so much via Foggy etc. Give, give, give. God bless you Mr D.R.Adams and may you continue to heal. Thanks for all. Peace. Out

[kimberleev]

Glad to hear from Ryan-
really heartfelt and sincere, hope he's feeling better.

My best to the Cards and Ryan as they continue the tour and I hope you come back thru Atlanta- we still have lots of love to show you!

Kimberlee

[harpster]

i just posted this...why the shit did they move mine?

[SzaboSeesMonsters]

That was pretty cool of him to do. I've followed many bands in my day, rarely does an artist apologize for something publicly or even let their fans know what is going on personally in their lives. So many fans of other bands will speculate on artists personal issues and spread rumors. RA just puts it out there, so honest, just like his music.

[JohnC]

Originally Posted by harpster

i just posted this...why the shit did they move mine?

i pm'd you
we already had a thread discussing it
but it seems the will of the people so....

[harpster]

Originally Posted by JohnC

i pm'd you
we already had a thread discussing it
but it seems the will of the people so....

oh...that makes sense! hahaha!

(sorry)

[MissAmandaJones]

No apology necessary, friend. We already knew. You didn't have to say a word
But thank-you anyway.
Lots of love and feel-good vibes.
I wrap you in a word hug
*squeeze*

Sounds like I do after I have tormented my loved ones with psycho pms... as I said before, I like Ryan when he shows his warts. In this plastic world it is refreshing to see someone act so damn human! He is man enough to own up to his challenges. Growth is a journey that is easy to veer off from now and then. He is so very introspective that I knew that he would find his path again... It didn't take very long. He's matured and stronger. I take this apology at face value.

[jasonf513]

Not to sound cheesy here but, Thank God, this shit is just getting better and better and I did not want it to end!

[Take me home]

Unbelievably perfect apology, really stand up

[Jimbuktu]

Sounds like we're on for Halloween!

I hope this translates into the make-up sex version of a concert!

hard, vigorous, and full of emotion!

[Take me home]

Originally Posted by Jimbuktu

Sounds like we're on for Halloween!

I hope this translates into the make-up sex version of a concert!

hard, vigorous, and full of emotion!

hahahahaha that is great

[glide]

Written apologies are ok, but a teddy-bear and flowers would have been much more meaningful.

[troutbone]

Keep on keepin' on.

[golden rosie]

We've all been there, done that, probably not in such a public way and definitely not with such a following. I doubt many of us could have offered so sincere an apology with as much humility and honesty. No worries! Just glad everyone is feeling better. I love Ryan's bit about "hope" at the end...because in the end, that's all we really have to go on.

[sinner]

glad we can close down the old rumor mill for now.
and that's a pretty classy post.

[darkhairedc]

If only we were all so brave to know/face our weaknesses, just another reason why DRA inspires me to try harder/be better in my own personal relationships.

[100pacer]

Very classy, mature and self-aware post. Ry and the Cards have come too far the past few years to let it all slip away. And Ry's letter proves it.