“Everyone’s going to say this is a breakup record,” says Ryan Adamsabout his latest album, Prisoner. “But I wrote Heartbreaker and Love Is Hell [years ago] about those feelings, and I wasn’t going to edit myself this time.” Since his solo debut—Heartbreaker, in 2000—Adams, 42, has released 16 albums, toured extensively, written hundreds of unreleased songs, and is considered one of roots rock’s most prolific and important singer/songwriter/producers. Here, he talks with Lisa Robinson about love, loss, and Los Angeles.

LISA ROBINSON: You were so closely associated with the music scene in New York City for about 10 years—people didn’t get it when you moved to Los Angeles.

Yeah, me neither, but I did it. I remember feeling that things were winding down for me on West 9th Street—both my apartment and the unbelievable relationship that had preceded it. I ended up alone, and it was the first time [I thought], My music is not my friend, painting is not my friend. . . . I wrote two books of poetry, but it didn’t help. I felt I needed to go.

And you married [actress] Mandy Moore, which was a surprise to those of us who knew you as a romantic, but more of a free spirit.

The weirdest thing is that I would end up in that relationship, but it was escaping the pain I felt from losing a person I had loved dearly and here was this very nice, kind person who lived on this other coast where the sun was shining and things were different. In a way, it was like an elixir. I almost felt like all that difference helped me get out of myself and shed who I thought I was, so I could get down into the depths of really knowing myself. And strangely, it turned into a place where I had a little more space. I built my own studio . . . and I’ve always loved pinball machines and arcade things, so I had the room to learn to fix those machines.

How many pinball machines do you have in your storage space?

I have 127 . . . well, 120 that are functional and set up. Then I have about another hundred in various states of repair in the shop.

And you’re still sober?

Yes. I don’t take drugs, I don’t drink. . . I haven’t smoked cigarettes in about 10 years and I smoked for 20. I mean, I smoke some weed, but that’s like salad.

Your songs always contained elements of heartbreak, but after the end of your marriage, did you go through a lot of pain writing the songs for Prisoner?

I’m hyper-focused on loss. But I know it’s just the impermanence of being here. Whenever I hear people talking about someone who passed away, and they say, ‘What a shame’ . . . to me, it’s like, You’re all talking about this as if we’re not all going to the same place. But I think Prisoner has so much more hope and sensuality in it—to me, it’s liberating. Those songs are more a celebration of becoming something as it’s broken apart.

Why did your marriage break up?

There’s nothing for me to say about anything I went through outside of my art that would be helpful in a way I would be comfortable with. For me, the best thing you can do as a man in loving someone is to do your best, go on that walk, and at the end of that walk be as much of a gentleman as you were in the beginning.

Well, divorce is a nightmare process, isn’t it?

It was for me. But I know some people who’ve had decent . . . ones that don’t take a year, where people don’t get screwed over. But everybody’s different. And I was already me.

Why did you cover Taylor Swift’s entire 1989 album?

I was in New York at Electric Lady Studios, and being back and in that zone opened me up. I wrote so many songs [for Prisoner]—there are still 22 that people don’t know yet and are much more fucked up—but I was getting tired of playing my own stuff. Taylor’s my friend---she and I had recorded a song together that no one’s ever heard—and I wanted to know how far she went from acoustic to her finished songs. I wanted to break it back down to the acoustic. It took five or six days and never stopped being fun. Plus it was kind of cathartic, because her words were actually matching shit I was going through.

So, now are you going to spend more time back in New York?

I will. The city has changed, though. I mean, there’s something about the Second Avenue Deli not being on Second Avenue. . .