Ryan Adams has a lot to say, a lot to reveal. He’s not the sort of artist that sits back – instead, he’s always forging forward, ready to explore new ideas. It’s part of what makes him such an engaging music-maker; he’s never been afraid to put the varying guises that he has within him – from Smiths-like darkness on the tortured Love is Hell , tortured and heartbroken on solo debut Heartbreaker, or sold and consistent songwriter on new album Easy Tiger.

The album in question, Easy Tiger, has been met with almost universal critical praise, with many scribes commenting that it sounds like Adams at his most cohesive since he began making albums under his own name, or even back to the Whiskeytown days. Everything seems to flow very naturally on it, and the album is beautifully structured.

“You state that as if it’s a fact,” he bristles, “but that’s just an opinion. Other people may have found other records to be like that and this one not to be. It’s really up to the individual listener as to how the flow changes and flow is perception – and everybody’s perception is different. I just think this is another record, with another vibe on another trip in a pretty long story that I’m not looking for the end of any time soon.”

Recorded with the version of the Cardinals – mainstay Brad Pemberton on drums, guitarist Neal Casal, bassist Christ Feinstein and Jon Graboff on pedal steel – that have been his band for the last year and a half, Adams believes that Easy Tiger is the best representation of what the group have to offer. “This actual version of the band is in everyone’s actual opinion is that this is a dedicated, functional, sonically-correct version of the band,” he says. “I almost feel like the old line-up was like a warm-up for this. Not to take anything away from it, because that was what it was, but this time for the band is feeling like prime-time.”

That’s one of the differences between Adams and many of his contemporary artists – where they’re reticent to push themselves, Adams treats the role of being a rock star as both a job and a passion, and wants to release albums and do tours at the rate of artists in the 1960s and 1970s. Adams has never shied away from the hard work associated with making music, but instead lays every bruised ballad or bruising rocker bare for all to hear.

“I just know that this is what I do and how I do it,” he shrugs. “I take control of [my music destiny] and say ‘fuck yeah’, I’m going to do mine and ‘fuck yeah’ these are good ideas and yes, they’re valid and I work really quite hard on them, and I know what they are and I know what they mean.

“Things find their way,” he says of how the music comes to be expressed as it is, “and ideas are powerful and good things and when they’re related to art they’re powerful, beautiful things and it’s one thing we do that’s very different to the animal world and probably our only redeeming fucking trait outside of burying our dead – which elephants do and it isn’t exclusive to us – and that’s art, and that’s why people are beautiful.”

He’s a serious individual, this new, cleaned-up, drug-free but still taking at a mile-a-minute, this inventive, increasingly consistent character called David Ryan Adams. He sounds like he’s now prepared to take his time to deliver the goods consistently, and perhaps that’s why several numbers from Easy Tiger date from earlier in Adams’ musical career, and have been available in bootleg format before.

“That was a decision that the guys made – they really wanted to record that tune,” he says in reference to the lovely Off Broadway, “so we tried it again and it really worked. But it’s on another album that’s going to be released at the end of the year, in a box set of all the unreleased records in one place.”

Yes, that’s right, it’s coming – the classic recordings dubbed The Suicide Handbook, The Destroyer Sessions, 48 Hours, and The Swedish Sessions – and who knows what else – are all on their way.

“It’s a boxed set of ALL the other records – it’s my last venture on Lost Highway,” he sniffs dismissively of his label home for his solo career since the release of Gold.

Where’s next?

“I don’t know, I haven’t done it yet,” he sighs. “Certainly to a less claustrophobic place.

“It just seemed like a lot of shit could’ve gone down without arguing,” he tells of his time on Lost Highway, which was sometimes a difficult one for an artist wanting to release a plethora of material – the likes of Love is Hell, which Adams wanted to release but the label baulked when they heard how dark the material was in the wake of the sun-kissed Californian breakthrough country rock of Gold.

“But whatever, the past is the past and I’ve got no grievances with those people. I think Luke [Lewis, head of the label] is very happy and proud of all the records.”

Nevertheless, he makes it sound like the impending box set – eagerly awaited by the fans – is not necessarily something he wants to do. “I’m not ‘electing’ to do anything,” he says bluntly. “The label has all those records and they’d like to make something available with artwork while there still ARE albums in the world so they can be documented correctly. It’s not a decision that I’m making – I’m aiding it in coming into the world.

“Everything on there I’m proud of,” he clarifies. “The records that people think they know already and that they share online they’ve only heard parts of, and there’s many things that they don’t know. It’s just more songs to play live, and how can that be bad?”

It will, it seem, also mark the last time that his name graces a record as well, with Ryan Adams to be dropped.

“We’re about to start making records just as the Cardinals,” he reveals, “which will basically mean that the life of my music will be dedicated around that one thing. Neil and Chris who are now in the band just wanted to take that one thing and go as far as it could, which is what I want to do. It means that you can’t do three or four different projects – you just focus on the one thing.”

Ryan Adams and the Cardinals are on tour now, with Easy Tiger out and available at good record stores.