2009 Adam Lambert's AI 8 Performances

48. Pastorek, Whitney. "Exclusive Q&A with Adam Lambert on OUT Magazine scandal: 'Not every gay man is the same gay man'."
EW.com Music Mix 19 November 2009
music-mix.ew.com/2009/11/19/adam-lambert-out-magazine-exclusive-response/
Discuss OUT Magazine editor Aaron Hicklin's open letter,
upcoming AMA performance & album.



American Idol runner-up Adam Lambert has been in the news this week for more than just the upcoming release of his debut album, For Your Entertainment: After putting Lambert on the cover of OUT magazine, Aaron Hicklin, OUT’s editor, wrote the singer an open letter, complaining about certain stipulations placed on the interview and cover shoot by Lambert’s management team — allegations to which Lambert fired back via Twitter. (Read EW Idol Expert Michael Slezak’s take on the matter here.)
We caught up with Lambert at rehearsals for the American Music Awards in downtown Los Angeles today, and got his unvarnished take on the dispute. We also chatted about the new album and his AMA performance, and will bring you those answers tomorrow as part of our ongoing coverage of Sunday’s awards show.

Entertainment Weekly: Let’s talk about the OUT magazine kerfuffle.
Adam Lambert: Isn’t that fun? [laughs]

We now know the behind-the-scenes dialogue between the magazine and your management team. The thing I’m curious about is, from your perspective, how does it feel to have your image managed by someone other than you?
What people don’t realize is, I am managing my image, more than maybe the editor of OUT magazine likes to give anybody credit for. My team is a team. And I really feel fortunate that 19 Management and Simon Fuller said to me, from the get-go, “We want to do what you want to do. You need to tell us how you want to do things, what interests you have,” and they’ve been incredibly supportive of me. I really mean it. I’m not being puppeted around. I didn’t want to jump onto a gay magazine as my first thing, because I feel like that’s putting myself in a box and limiting myself. It was my desire to stay away from talking about certain political and civil rights issues because I’m not a politician. I’m an entertainer. That is not my area of expertise. I can talk about relationships and personal experiences because as an artist those things involve writing lyrics and that part of my process. But I didn’t feel comfortable talking about the March on Washington. I didn’t feel comfortable, so I asked my publicist to ask the interviewer to stay away from the political questions. I take full responsibility for that. I think that the editor has his agenda and has his opinions, which I respect, but they’re not necessarily my opinions. And I wish there was a little respect for that. Not every gay man is the same gay man.

They’re gonna take away your laminated membership card.
Apparently. It’s just sexuality. We’re all very very different, just like all straight people are different.

Who told you that?
You know? That’s the thing. But the funny thing is, in order for us to progress, we need to stop segregating ourselves. And a letter like that, that viewpoint — the letter that Aaron wrote is holding us back. Because it’s recognizing the big difference as opposed to letting us all ignore preference and just be people. So I think in attempt to champion a cause he’s actually taking a big step backwards.

With things like the phrase “gay-gay”?
That was taken out of context. It was all taken out of context. And also, the other thing that I feel about it? If there are things going on behind the scenes with my management, it has nothing to do with my interview with them. He really crossed a line.

ADAM

49. Peterson, Karla. "'Idol' sensation showed promise on local stage."
San Diego Union Tribune 3 May 2009.
www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/may/03/1n3adam01733-former-san-diegan-snags-idol-spotligh/
Interview with Kathie Urban and Lynne Broyles, who both
mentored Adam Lambert as a child actor and singer.

When “American Idol” judges Simon Cowell and Randy Jackson announced on “The Tonight Show” that former San Diegan Adam Lambert was likely to be one of this season's top two finalists, they were getting a little ahead of themselves. After all, that was in March and the “Idol” finale wouldn't air until May 20.

But for theater producer Kathie Urban, the judges' predictions of greatness were about 18 years late. Urban has known Adam Lambert would be big news since he was a little boy.

“Adam was one of those kids who just had it,” said Urban, executive producer for the Metropolitan Educational Theatre network, also known as MET2. “He had the vocal ability and the acting ability. He was the whole package.”

With his love of death-defying high notes, vampy theatrics and material that ranges from classy (“Tracks of My Tears”) to trashy (“Play That Funky Music”), Lambert, 27, is still the whole package. And he has arrived on the “Idol” stage just in time to save the most popular show on television from becoming the most predictable show on television.

“I think Adam has definitely kept this season from flat-lining,” said Entertainment Weekly senior writer Michael Slezak, who blogs about the show for EW.com. “It has been a little bit serious this season. Tons of ballads, tons of sad songs. Then Adam will come out and sort of explode onto the stage in this fireball of energy. And the fact that he does it without ever missing a note is what makes it work.”

In a season devoid of controversies – even dizzy judge Paula Abdul has been relatively coherent – and unsuitable train-wreck contestants, Lambert is the weekly wild card.

From his glitter-rock romp through the Rolling Stones' “(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction” to his mournful take on “If I Can't Have You” from the “Saturday Night Fever” soundtrack, Lambert never forgets that Fox TV's singing competition is also a show – a really big show with an influential audience that isn't likely to forget about him.

“He has a reputation for experimentation that most Idols don't have,” said Sean Ross, vice president of music and programming at Edison Research, a New Jersey-based media company that consults with radio stations. “He comes to the table with people wanting to see what he does next and wanting it to be something a little bit different.”

Now one of four remaining finalists vying for the “Idol” title and record deal, Lambert got much of his artistic education through local children's theater groups, where the skills he learned playing Peter Pan and Huck Finn helped him turn the “Idol” stage into his own playground.

“Adam was always a mover; he was someone who wanted to make people feel things,” said Lynne Broyles, Lambert's former vocal coach. “The stage is home to him. It's like he's always been there.”

At the age of 9, Lambert began performing with the Children's Theatre Network – now MET2 – the company founded by Urban's late husband, Alex. A few years later, Lambert also started taking voice lessons from Broyles, who later formed the Broadway Bound Youth Theatre Foundation.

Lambert performed with both groups until he graduated from Mt. Carmel High School in 2000 and headed to Los Angeles, where he still lives. In San Diego, he started in the ensemble of “You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown” and ended up playing lead roles in “Big River,” “The Secret Garden” and “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.”

“He was given the opportunity to play so many different parts, and it helped him learn to be a real chameleon,” Urban said of Lambert's time with MET2, where students play multiple roles throughout the run of a play.

While the Urbans were teaching Lambert to be a quick-change artist, Broyles was helping him push the boundaries of his voice, allowing him to follow in the platformed footsteps of Queen's Freddie Mercury and Michael Jackson, childhood favorites he still admires.

Vocal exercises and singing techniques helped Lambert hang on to his boyish falsetto as he got older, and acting classes taught him how to turn raw emotion into stagecraft.

“In our classes, we got into some real intense acting techniques that helped the students focus their emotional energy,” Broyles said. “You have to know enough about yourself to know what you can bring to an audience, and even as a young child, Adam was very in tune with his soul.”

Knowing how to put himself into a song has paid “Idol” dividends for Lambert, whether he was turning Johnny Cash's “Ring of Fire” into a slinky seduction number, or singing a vulnerable rendition of Smokey Robinson's “The Tracks of My Tears,” which earned the singer a standing ovation from Robinson himself.

Lambert's ability to put on a vocally dazzling show has made him a favorite with “Idol” fans, who have cast enough phone and text votes to keep him in the competition through nine elimination rounds. His crowd-pleasing talent also has helped him shrug off baggage that has weighed heavily on previous contestants.

His résumé includes a European tour of “Hair” and a stint in the Los Angeles production of “Wicked,” but he hasn't been criticized for being too theatrical, as Constantine Maroulis was in season four, or too professional, as San Diego's Carly Smithson was last year after it was discovered she had recorded an album as a teenager.

Photos of Lambert in drag and kissing other men surfaced early in the competition, leading to a rash of news stories speculating that he could be the first gay or bisexual “American Idol” winner. Fox TV keeps “Idol” contestants away from the press, so Lambert hasn't commented on the brouhaha. Racy photos have derailed past contestants, but they haven't been a problem for Lambert or his fans.

“No one really cares what pictures Adam has floating around on the Internet,” Slezak said. “If people enjoy what you're doing as an entertainer, they don't focus on the things that don't matter that much.”

Wednesday, a surprise drop in viewer votes put Lambert in danger of elimination for the first time this season. But early elimination from “American Idol” wasn't a problem for Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson or for Chris Daughtry, who went on to sell more than 4 million copies of his debut album.

“Regardless of where Adam Lambert finishes, everyone (in radio) is going to want to hear his first record,” Ross said.

Lambert will be part of the “American Idol” tour, which comes to San Diego July 18. After that, there is no telling how far he'll go. But the woman who helped Lambert find his voice is pretty sure he won't be losing himself along the way.

“Adam never thought that he had a free ride. He was always wanting to grow and always wanting to find that next great vocal,” Broyles said. “Whenever he did something new or special, he would never say, 'Wasn't I great?' He would say, 'Wasn't that fun?' ”

Family: Adam Lambert's father, Eber Lambert, is director of program management for San Diego's Novatel Wireless. He lives in South Park and hosts open-mic poetry nights at Rebecca's coffeehouse. Lambert's mother, Leila, is an interior designer who lives outside San Francisco. Younger brother Neil is a graduate of University of California Santa Cruz.

Education: Lambert grew up in Rancho Peñasquitos and attended Deer Canyon Elementary School, Mesa Verde Middle School and Mt. Carmel High School.

Theater education: Productions with the Metropolitan Educational Theatre network and Broadway Bound Youth Theatre groups; theater, choir and jazz band at Mt. Carmel High.

Professional experience: National tour of “Wicked”; Pantages Theatre production of “Wicked”; musical version of “The Ten Commandments” at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles; and “The Zodiac Show,” a cabaret review at the Avalon Hollywood.

“American Idol” performances: “(I Can't Get No”) Satisfaction”; “Black or White”; “Ring of Fire”; “Tracks of My Tears”; “Play That Funky Music”; “Mad World”; “Born to Be Wild”; “If I Can't Have You”; “Feeling Good.”

Judgment call: “(You're) confusing and shocking and sleazy and superb and way over the top. But I don't know, I like you,” judge Kara DioGuardi, after Lambert's April 28 performance of “Feeling Good.”

51. Peterson, Karla. "Riding a rocket."
San Diego Union Tribune 16 July 2009.
www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/jul/16/1w16adamm201519/
Summary of Adam Lambert's career so far and plans for the
upcoming album.




Adam Lambert performed before
thousands of students and fans
during a visit to Mt. Carmel High
School. Parents Leila and Eber
joined in the victory lap.
(Charlie Neuman / Union-Tribune)



The American Idol tour features
group numbers and individual
performances by the Top 10
finalists, including first runner-up
Adam Lambert and AmericanIdol
champ Kris Allen (top left and
second from left). Look for Lambert
to tackle Whole Lotta Love and a
David Bowie medley. (Fox)

From the moment he sang for “American Idol” voters in February, Adam Lambert became the subject of more pop-culture buzz than any contestant in the show's history. But it wasn't until “Idol” ended in May that the Entertainment Weekly and Rolling Stone cover boy got to experience the Adam Lambert Effect for himself.

And frankly, it kind of freaked him out.

“I didn't get out in the real world all that much during my stay on 'Idol,'the 27-year-old singer said from Portland, Ore., where the “American Idols Live” tour kicked off earlier this month. The tour comes to the San Diego Sports Arena on Saturday.

“After the show ended, we went to New York for this major press tour, and it was really intense. We did a ton of interviews in three days. We did all these appearances and autograph signings. It was exciting, and it was amazing to feel all the support in New York, but I wasn't really ready for it. It was overwhelming.”

For Lambert, the Fame Train jolted out of the station as soon as he stepped on the “Idol” stage.

For his first performance in the February semifinals round, the Mt. Carmel High graduate unleashed a turbocharged romp through “(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction.” With its flashy blend of stratospheric vocals, glitter-rock theatrics and playful showmanship, Lambert's confident (and cheeky) spin on the Rolling Stones' classic summed up the singer in one statement-making package.

That song helped turn a struggling musical-theater gypsy and aspiring rock singer into one of “Idol's” Top 13 finalists. The performances that followed – the alarmingly slinky “Ring of Fire,” the fiercely liberating “Black or White,” the achingly wistful “If I Can't Have You” – established Lambert as the most adventurous “Idol” ever.

And even though Lambert eventually finished second to Kris Allen, the show put him on a path to success that has been surprisingly short, relatively smooth and totally surreal.

“It can charge you up and make you feel like a million dollars, and at the same time it can make you feel like you got run over by a train,” Lambert said of the post-“Idol” crush. “There is so much energy coming at you all the time. In New York, I wanted to just give everybody as much of me as I could because everyone was so supportive and showing so much love.”

Before auditioning for “Idol,” Lambert was working as a chorus member in the Los Angeles production of “Wicked.” His pre-“Wicked” resumé included a stint on a cruise ship, a European tour of “Hair” and a riotous good time with “The Zodiac Show,” a late-night musical revue based on signs of the zodiac.

Lambert paid his dues, but sometimes his parents had to help him pay the rent. Then came “Idol,” and a flood of professional affirmation that has included cover stories in Entertainment Weekly and Rolling Stone, four songs on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, a management contract with 19 Entertainment and a recording contract with RCA records.

It is all Lambert ever wanted and more than he could have imagined. And when it threatens to become too much, Lambert takes a mental trip off the “Idol” fast track to this time last year, when he was unsatisfied and bored and afraid he wasn't going anywhere.

“Whenever I get overwhelmed or a little bit cranky, I tend to go, 'You know what? Look how lucky you are. You got what you wanted. This is amazing,' ” Lambert said, getting so fired up he almost dropped the phone. “I have to remind myself from time to time. And when I do remind myself, I'm thrilled.”

For awhile there, some of the Lambert mania had less to do with his vocal prowess and creative daring than with the question of his sexual orientation.

When photos of Lambert kissing another man surfaced on the Internet, everyone from The New York Times to Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly wondered if Lambert would be the first openly gay “Idol” front-runner. The Times seemed very excited by the prospect; O'Reilly was not.

Since all “Idol” finalists are kept in media lockdown while they are on the show, Lambert couldn't address the question or the people who were loudly wondering why he wasn't addressing the question. But when he finally did it, he did it big – in a Rolling Stone cover story with photos by celebrity photog Matthew Rolston, clothes by Versace and Dior, and dishy quotes by Lambert himself.

“I don't think it should be a surprise for anyone to hear that I'm gay,” Lambert told the magazine. And he's glad he did.

“It's a great feeling,” Lambert said with sunny enthusiasm. “I didn't want to spend the next couple years of my career looking over my shoulder and worrying.

“If it hadn't been so wildly talked about, I probably would have not addressed it. Because to me, it doesn't really matter. But when I realized that it mattered so much to so many people, I just figured, 'You know what, it's time to set the record straight so we can stop talking about it.' ”

With that out of the way, he can save his breath for singing. And in the next few months, Lambert will be doing a lot of singing.

The “American Idol” tour will find him belting out a set that includes Led Zeppelin's “Whole Lotta Love” and a David Bowie medley through September. At the same time, he will be writing and recording songs for his solo album, which will pair him with such high-profile producers as RedOne (Lady GaGa), Greg Wells (Pink, Rufus Wainwright), OneRepublic singer Ryan Tedder (Chris Cornell, Natasha Bedingfield) and Linda Perry (Gwen Stefani, Gavin Rossdale).

It's a lot for one newly minted star to handle. Which at this point in Lambert's life makes it just about right.

“It's a good and a bad thing,” Lambert said. “There is no time to really think, and I would like a little more time to think. But I'm so much in my head anyway, maybe just taking action is the best thing for me.”