Ryan Adams announced via blog today that at the end of his current tour, he will quit his band. I was only recently made aware that the Cardinals were anything more than the name attributed to the people that happened to play in the background behind him, but whatever. He claims that his records say “Ryan Adams and the Cardinals” only because his record label requires it, further explaining to Spinner:

“People really don’t understand I’m just in the band. I don’t do shit, I don’t run anything. They’re just using my name because somebody thinks I had some level of success, which is such fucking total bullshit. No one knows who the fuck I am. That’s why they go, ‘Bryan Adams’?”

Either way, the point is that Adams is taking a break from music. At least for a while. I think I’ll believe that when I see it. His blog goes on to lament life on the road, one of the many reasons music has grown tiresome for him:

“This is not much of a life; not glamorous like those ridiculous videos a long time ago television played. And no, it is not monetarily as rewarding as people would like you to believe. And yes, it is soul destroying. Especially when you spend your life trying to write about the really difficult stuff and you stand there losing your way and people yell at you like you were in a circus. When it was your dream to matter and you realise one day, it never mattered – I mean, I am a punchline and a footnote.”

Meanwhile, his first book, Infinity Blues, is out April 1, 2009. Adams has deemed it “the jewel of my life’s work.”