No artist likes to be compared to another. Especially not Ryan Adams. He is, after all, as definite about the differences between his albums, the tones they carry, the emotions they evoke and the songs’ impact.  He rejects comparisons—especially lazy ones from fans and music critics—pretty regularly. So he’s avowed that Cold Roses isn’t jammy like the Dead. Heartbreaker isn’t Dylan-esque. And Ryan Adams’ eponymous album—his 13th, out today on Pax-Am Records—has a sound that’s distinct from Tom Petty’s 1980s style that it’s been compared to. And, like the Dead, Adams has such a prolific and varied catalog that you can cite as many influences as you like, and it still wouldn’t encompass the breadth of music Adams has released in his lifetime.

Still, Jerry Garcia’s pervasive effect on Adams—in spirit if not entirely in style—is undeniable. During the moments where Adams does wear his admiration on his sleeve, he’s unabashed about being a Garcia and the Grateful Dead fanboy. “Growing up [in North Carolina] I had a Grateful Dead Steal Your Face sticker on my skateboard next to a pentagram logo and a Danzig sticker,” Adams said in a 2008 Rolling Stone interview. 

After Adams was already famous, with five solo albums in his name and while battling drugs and his growing infamy, he would also credit Garcia with helping him recover from a debilitating fall that broke the wrist of his fretting hand. “During my recovery, Jerry Garcia [‘s playing style] was a big influence, because he wasn’t afraid to fuck up,” he said in the same Rolling Stone interview. The inspiration from Jerry’s playful guitarwork isn’t felt in all of Adams' albums, but if there’s one thing the Grateful Dead and Adams share in their songs, it’s the purity of emotion that carries through.

Here’s proof that Adams may be the biggest Deadhead you didn’t know about

1. He’s regularly covered Grateful Dead songs live

The internet is littered with Adams' versions of Dead classics such as “Friend of the Devil,” “Bird Song,” “Truckin’” and “Stella Blue.” (Click here for downloads.)  But the most recent example of the way he’s embodied the Grateful Dead’s music and turned it into his own is through this beautiful cover of “Wharf Rat,” a deep cut recently created for MyMusicRX, a site that seeks to provide therapy for sick children through music.

Adams goes straight into the essence of the Dead with his reverent, acoustic cover. He introduces it by saying, “When I feel out of place, I like to listen to Grateful Dead. What I like about [‘Wharf Rat’] is that it paints this picture, where you kind of go into this storybook world where you don’t really know who they are and what’s happening, and it kind of just takes you on a journey. I always feel better when I get to end of this long and weird story.”

The bonus? Adams' voice is better than even Garcia’s in this version..

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2. “Rosebud,” off the 2005 album Cold Roses, is a tribute to the late Jerry Garcia

Jerry Garcia had a few guitars that he used throughout his career. “Rosebud” is the name of a guitar that Garcia used from 1990 through 1995 featuring an inlaid dancing female skeleton on the cover plate. The lyrics to Adams' “Rosebud” refer to the Grateful Dead influence on Adams' music: “When I pick up my guitar/ This is the song that always comes/ Don't know what I'm singing 'bout /and Don't know what for/ I think about you /And I think about Rosebud.”

In fact, the 2005 Ryan Adams and the Cardinals album Cold Roses is considered Adams' Grateful Dead homage. In their album review, Pitchfork noted that, “Cold Roses' most palpable reference point may be American Beauty-era Grateful Dead.”

“Magnolia Mountain” has been jokingly described as the best Dead song Jerry Garcia never wrote, with its sad tiredness, a searching for home punctuated by sweet jammy licks.

“Cold Roses” struts in noodling, then busts open the folk-pop-rock pantheon like a time machine going back and forth the 1970s and the 21st century and emerging in a space that transcends all comparisons on this album to create what’s now considered a timeless masterpiece.

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3. Certain Ryan Adams songs are direct descendants of Grateful Dead songs

“Abigail,” an unreleased Adams bootleg, pops in with a plucky intro that has the same four chords and time signature as “Friend of the Devil.” They both develop into different songs, but listen to them side by side and try to imagine that Adams didn’t directly try to channel Garcia’s 1970 classic when writing “Abigail.”

"29" from his eighth album 29 is an almost-but-not-quite version of the Grateful Dead’s “Truckin.’” “Truckin’” was the Grateful Dead’s autobiography in song: “We left some smoking craters of some Holiday Inns, I'll say that, and there were a lot of places that wouldn't have us back. All of this is absolutely autobiographical, all the stuff in "Truckin,’” Bob Weir once said.

In “29,” Adams uses the Grateful Dead framework—via the rolicking percussion, strutting two-step beat and twangy guitars—to tell the story of his own life. He begins, “I was a poor little kid in the lungs of New York/Just like a motherless son of a bitch/Loaded on ephedrine looking for downers and coke.”

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4. There’s a mutual admiration between both Adams and certain members of the Grateful Dead

Adams first met Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead at the 2005 Jammys Awards in New York. Adams has since performed with Phil Lesh and Friends, even covering “Wharf Rat” and other Grateful Dead standards. During that same time period, Lesh also covered Adams’ songs, including "Cold Roses," "Let It Ride" and "Magnolia Mountain."

In 2006, Phil Lesh enumerated the reasons he loves playing with Ryan Adams:

”I love playing with Ryan because he's fearless; because he doesn't have to do anything the same way twice; because every idea he throws out in a jam is a little gem that cries out "polish me"; because he has about nine hundred voices that he can use like a Bene Gesserit; because of his huge heart and enormous talent…

“I love playing with Ryan because he takes me back to when the Grateful Dead were young, fearless, crazy and didn't give a shit about what other people thought we should do.  … I will also say with no hesitation that Jerry would have loved Ryan and his fearless interpretations of his songs. It's funny, but I feel Jerry close to me whenever I am around Ryan.”

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5. Like Jerry Garcia, Ryan Adams is prolific, with side projects up the wahoo

Ryan Adams released ORION, his first real metal album, in 2010. (He also had a death-metal, web-only band called Werewolph before that.) The hardcore, 10-song set, 1984, was released only weeks before Ryan Adams.

Garcia also founded and participated in numerous side projects, including the Saunders-Garcia Band, the Garcia/Grisman acoustic duo, Legion of Mary, the New Riders of the Purple Sage with John Dawson and David Nelson.

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6. There’s also that love for cats

Fact: Cats Under the Stars, released by the Jerry Garcia Band was the band’s only studio album, which was rumored to be Jerry’s favorite.

Fact: Ryan Adams likes to tweet pictures of his cats.

This happens pic.twitter.com/tw0zWozR

— Ryan Adams (@TheRyanAdams) August 7, 2012