BRYAN ADAMS

Why strip his hits down to their bare bones? He does it for you

A few songs into Bare Bones, the live album he released late last year, Bryan Adams pauses to make sure the audience knows what it’s in for. “I don’t know if you got the memo about tonight’s show,” he says, “but this is the band.” By “the band,” the veteran Canadian rocker meant the minimalist lineup of himself and pianist Gary Breit, his lone accompanist. Judging by the applause, fans knew exactly what to expect: heartfelt, unplugged versions of “Cuts Like a Knife,” “Heaven,” “Summer of ’69” and “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You,” among other hits. We spoke with Adams during a tour stop in that most rockin’ of locales, Damascus, Syria.

Is Bare Bones from one show?

It’s from different shows. Ideally, I wanted it to all come from one show. However, the first show I recorded was in Norway, and that was more or less an experiment to see if I liked the way it sounded—and if I could tolerate listening to myself with an acoustic guitar. I thought it was OK in principle to try to record one night, and I was happy with how it sounded. But that night there was one guy in the audience who was really drunk, and he kept yelling, “I love you, man!” So in a quiet moment in a song, he would just tell me how much he loved me, and everyone would giggle, including myself. I walked offstage that night and threw my hands up and said, “I guess we’re going to have to do a couple more nights.”

How did that change your approach?

It was good, because if I didn’t like something—if I thought I could change a monologue or thought the tempo of a particular song was too fast—I was more conscious of it the next night. I was also able to experiment with lots of suggestions that came as a result of asking my Twitter community what songs they wanted.

Are you into social networking?

I don’t dislike it. In this particular case it was quite useful, even though I wasn’t able to fulfill all requests. It’s interesting, but where it goes and what happens in the future is to be determined.

Had you played acoustic much?

Working with an acoustic guitar isn’t unfamiliar to me, but it is unfamiliar to the audience. Most of the songs were written on acoustic guitar. What I’m doing is just showing everyone a different side of me. I love the songs in their simplest form, which is one reason I’ve wanted to do this for such a long time.

Have you been writing lately?

I’m constantly creating new things. The only reason I did the Bare Bones record in the first place is because people were asking about having a recording from the shows.

Your parents were English. How did you discover American music?

I discovered it through people I was listening to. For example, I was listening to Humble Pie, a British rock band that covered a Ray Charles song, “Hallelujah I Love Her So.” I looked at the credits and saw it was written by Ray Charles. I thought, “He’s not part of the band.” Then I researched Ray Charles and found out who he was. Or Led Zeppelin, who recorded Willie Dixon songs. I discovered blues and R&B through white heavy metal and rock.

–Russell Hall