Prolific singer-songwriter Ryan Adams is back with a revamped version of The Cardinals for his latest disc, Easy Tiger.

After releasing his 2005 double-disc effort with The Cardinals entitled Cold Roses, prolific singer-songwriter Ryan Adams has returned with a revamped version of The Cardinals for his new album, Easy Tiger.

The process of making the last album was as different as the musicians who played on it.

"Cold Roses was like a glorious, artistic manifestation," Adams said from a Toronto hotel room, with The Cardinals surrounding him. "I would just write song titles that would be cool to me that I thought were really worth investigating.

"But Easy Tiger was really, I won't say a band in its prime, because the idea was to make a solo record, but I needed help doing it because I didn't have the confidence to do it. They got behind me and turned it into a band project and learned a bunch. It was great."

Easy Tiger, which hits stores on Tuesday, has been favourably compared to Cold Roses and his breakthrough Gold album. Beginning with the country opener Goodnight Rose, there are several highlights throughout Easy Tiger, including The Sun Also Sets; the bluegrass-tinged Pearls on a String; Two (featuring Sheryl Crow); and the tender closer I Taught Myself How To Grow Old that brings to mind Bruce Springsteen circa Tunnel of Love.

Adams says he considers this record a team effort.

"That's where I put my energies. I go, 'I can't let the boys down, I can't let the guys down.' I feel like we're airborne and I have to be a real operating part of that plane or else it's going to crash or go down. Whether I like it or not I have to do my job. Sometimes it's my job to be raw and be real (but) that's cool, and I do it really well."

Perhaps the strength of the album personifies the fact Adams was clear-headed from start to finish, after getting clean and sober last year.

"I think when I want to turn it on, there's more," he says. "There are more ideas ... Before, I was always on, but maybe the power wasn't always going at the same rate as the thinking was."

Adams says he had a hard time putting some of the songs he wrote first for the new record actually on to the record, such as Off Broadway.

"I think it was good that we brought them out, and I thought it was a good idea to try to play them and finish them," he says. "In a really good mood I would go, 'Listen to this old chestnut.' The guys would go, 'Ooh, that's a good one, let's track it.' I would go, 'Oh, I don't want to.' And Neal (guitarist Neal Casal) would go, 'Would you please just finish the f---ing song! Play the song! Just try it once!'"

Adds Casal, "Sometimes the song is a week old, and it's old to Ryan."

Although Easy Tiger is the new Adams release, the singer is planning on putting out a box set later this year of previously unreleased albums and live tracks. Adams will also spend most of the year on tour and plans to eventually integrate himself into The Cardinals for future releases.

But have the members of The Cardinals discussed letting Adams into their fold?

"He's in, he's got the job," they say with a laugh.

Adams just doing what he does

The latest Ryan Adams album Easy Tiger is his ninth, a vast amount of productivity since leaving alt.country darlings Whiskeytown and issuing his solo debut Heartbreaker in 2000.

Critics often have bashed Adams for putting out so much material in a relatively short timespan. But Adams isn't paying attention to it.

"Those aren't the voices I listen to," he says. "I like what I do. I love the people that I do what I do with. It's one of the most beautiful things that I can't explain -- what that feeling is to be in a creative moment with music. It's so transcendental. I think it's a wonderful thing and I would hate to lessen the gifts of that by pursuing that thing in the world that goes against that.

"I don't know that anyone reviewed a Jackson Pollock show during his life or after he died and said, 'If only he had made less of those wonderful strange paintings.' "