Waiting to Derail: Ryan Adams and Whiskeytown, Alt-Country’s Brilliant Wreck

190 Pages·2018·2.79 MB·English

by  Thomas O’Keefe

Copyright © 2018 by Thomas O’Keefe with Joe Oestreich All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.
Cover design by Rain Saukas
Cover photo credit: Thomas O’Keefe Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-2493-8
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-51072494-5
Printed in the United States of America
For Stephanie and Sophie
Table of Contents
Prologue
Part 1: The Sheriff of Whiskeytown (Spring 1997–Fall 1997)
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Part 2: I Played in Whiskeytown and All I Got Was This Lousy Goddamn T-shirt! (Fall 1997–Spring
1998)
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Part 3: Yesterday’s News (Summer 1998–Spring 2000)
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Notes
Photos
P
ROLOGUE
S , W . F 1998
EATTLE ASHINGTON EBRUARY
A
gaggle of cops stood on the sidewalk in front of the hotel, blocking the door
to the bus. I flashed my laminate, told them I was the tour manager, and climbed
aboard. It was 4:00 a.m., and the front lounge was packed: the whole band, a few
EMTs, another cop or two. And there was Ryan Adams, passed out on the
couch, being attended to by one of the technicians.
The EMT bent over Ryan and slapped a blood pressure cuff on him. This
woke him up a bit, and he seemed to almost register what was happening. He
opened one eye, glanced at the tech and the pressure cuff, and said, “Get the fuck
off of my bus.”
“Ryan, don’t talk to these guys like that,” said Caitlin Cary, the fiddle
player. “They’re trying to help you.”
Ryan’s head wobbled like a newborn baby’s, as if his neck were barely
strong enough to carry the weight of everything rolling around up there. “Get the
fuck off of my bus,” he spat out a second time.
The technician spent a few minutes checking Ryan’s vitals, and Ryan
giggled and babbled and insisted that the authorities get the fuck off his bus.
Meanwhile, the rest of us told the EMTs what little we knew about the
combination of intoxicants Ryan might have taken. Tomorrow we were playing
Vancouver, and because we would soon meet the Canadian drug dogs at the
border crossing, we had already cleaned the bus of illegal substances. Tonight’s
show had ended just five hours earlier, but that seemed like a week ago.
As the technician unfastened the pressure cuff, he said to us, “He’s coming
out of it. The worst is over.” Then he turned back to Ryan and said, “Before we
go, I gotta ask you a few questions.”
“That’s cool,” Ryan said.
“Ryan, what city are you in right now?”
“Seattle,” he said, slurring the t’s right out of the word.
“And where are you from?”
“North Carolina.”
“Good. Now can you tell me what day of the week it is?”
“Whoa, whoa,” I said. “Hold on a minute. That’s not fair. None of us can
answer that. We’re on tour. Every day is Monday, every day is Friday.” I looked
at the EMT and shook my head. “Next question.”
The tech quizzed him a little longer, and although Ryan could barely get
the words out, he’d aced the test so far. “Ryan,” the tech said, “Who’s the
president of the United States?” This was the big money question. Final
jeopardy.
Ryan elbowed himself higher. “It’s Bill Clinton,” he said, “and let me tell
you something about Bill Clinton.” The Monica Lewinsky scandal had broken a
few months earlier, and back in those days Ryan’s politics leaned toward the
right. “He … he … he should be in jail.”
The technician started putting his supplies back into his gear box “Well,
Ryan,” he said, “at least we agree on one thing.”
The EMT and I walked off the bus, and we stood down on the blacktop
next to the cops, all of us lit up by the police cruisers and the ambulance. I
thanked everybody for their help.
“Goddamn, son,” one of cops said. He was an older guy who’d clearly
seen his share of criminal mischief in his years on the force. He looked at me
and then he turned back toward the bus. “I wouldn’t trade jobs with you for
anything.”
P
ART
1
T S W (S
HE HERIFF OF HISKEYTOWN PRING
1997–F 1997)
ALL