In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Ryan Adams detailed the recording process behind his surprise cover album of Taylor Swift’s 1989. In the interview, Adams reveals that Swift actually paid a visit to his own PAX-AM Studio in Los Angeles to work on some material.

“She had a verse and the first part of a chorus, and she wasn’t sure where to go with it,” he said. “She had this really cool riff and verse, and we dug in and worked all day.” The result is an as-of-now unreleased track that Adams describes as “groovy.” 

Adams also had some praise for the pop star, saying, “”You sit next to her, and she plays a verse of a song with some lyrics and a chorus, and it’s clear right in that moment: ‘Of course, this is someone who’s playing to 50,000 people in a stadium,'” he says. “It’s not shocking. You hear the tone of her voice or the clean line of a song and it’s just clear. You think, ‘Well, of course, this person is who they are in music.’ The undeniable force of her personality comes through in her music. There are certain people, like Keith Richards, who have that thing.”

As for his cover of the album, which is available now, Adams said, “You just have to mean it. Even if I do something funny, I’m going to fucking mean it. As I was singing those songs, they mattered to me as much as any of my own songs ever did. Or I wouldn’t have sung them.”

He added, “In a lot of ways, it’s exactly what music is about for me. It’s about doing something that means something, whether or not it will be understood.”