At age 25, Ryan Adams has already lived the rock 'n' roll dream with his alt.country band Whiskeytown, watched it fall apart, and returned with a solo album, Heartbreaker (Bloodshot), that proves the young singer/songwriter is no flash in the pan. Adams' sparse folk-rock is so good, in fact, it attracted country icon Emmylou Harris, Grammy nominee Gillian Welch, and Nashville siren Kim Richey, all of whom make guest appearances on Heartbreaker.

The album's main focus is Adams' voice, which has developed considerably since his days fronting Whiskeytown. The Raleigh, N.C., group was hailed as the band most likely to succeed from alt.country's "class of '94," a designation largely due to the singer's charisma and songwriting abilities. Whiskeytown's early recordings, Rural Free Delivery and Faithless Street, earned them kudos in a slew of mags devoted to twang-pop.

But Adams has grown since then. Maturity is a cornerstone of Heartbreaker - it's in Ryan's lyrics and in his voice. "Oh My Sweet Carolina" (watch the video) is a ballad that hearkens to alt.country's ground zero: the late 60s/early '70s canon of the style's patriarch, Gram Parsons. How so? Parsons' one-time partner Emmylou Harris harmonizes on the tune. Harris is one of Adams' Nashville neighbors, and they've performed together on several occasions. But pals or not, royalty has its aura; Adams still "geeks out" over Emmylou - click here to find out why.

When major labels were wooing Whiskeytown, A&R reps tried to ply Adams with bootleg tapes of Emmylou and Gram, both of whom he considers huge influences. But Adams' music isn't simply focused on one forebear. Click here to learn who else influenced him.

After a conspicuous lack of hit songs and numerous lineup changes, Whiskeytown went on a hiatus that Adams says is pretty much permanent.

He's philosophical when he talks about the band's travails - click here for an explanation of what happened to Whiskeytown, and why he's glad they didn't become huge stars.

If Heartbreaker is an indication of the caliber of songs Adams will be churning out in the future, however, even die-hard Whiskeytown fans will have something to cheer about. Written during a separation from the woman Adams still calls "my soul mate," Heartbreaker features lyrics that mine emotional terrain only hinted at on Whiskeytown's records.

Click here to learn why Ryan likes to make himself as uncomfortable as possible when he's writing songs.

A superb flat-picker, Adams also demonstrates a guitar prowess that he rarely utilized in his old band. "I was the rhythm guitar player; that was my job," he says. "But I don't want to be a rhythm guitar player in a rock band. I really like just playing, and I want to do stuff that's a little bit quieter now."

Heartbreaker was also shaped by the two and a half years that Ryan, a born-and-bred Southerner, spent in New York. Click here to learn how living in the Big Apple, and leaving it, changed him and influenced the songs on his new LP.

Ryan wrote many of the songs on Heartbreaker in between New York and Nashville. One of them, "My Winding Wheel", (watch the video) was written in an unusual place - click here to find out where.

Now that he resides in Nashville, Ryan misses New York, but when he was in New York, he missed the South. Click here to find out what he misses about each place, and where he really wants to end up.

Another big influence on his songwriting, according to Ryan, is his family. Click here for Ryan's explanation of how his family life shaped his ability to tell stories.