2012-06 Promo Interviews and Performances

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The Guardian UK
Adam Lambert interview: 'I wasn't being controlled'
Is this man the new Freddie Mercury? Michael Hann talks to Adam Lambert – the uncompromising American Idol star who is going on the road with Queen
Michael Hann guardian.co.uk, Monday 4 June 2012 13.45 EDT
www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/jun/04/adam-lambert-american-idol-interview

Just ‘a 27-year-old white gay guy in makeup and heels’ on American Idol … Adam Lambertwww.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/jun/04/adam-lambert-american-idol-interview

It's possible Adam Lambert views his latest triumph as a double-edged sword. Last month, his second album, Trespassing, entered the US Billboard charts at No 1. The Hollywood Reporter noted a remarkable first about this: by displacing Carrie Underwood, Lambert had ensured that American Idol contestants had succeeded each other at No 1.

Adam Lambert and Queen
Hammersmith Apollo, London

11, 12 and 14 July
Box office:
0843 221 0100
meanfiddler.com

That wasn't what everyone else was talking about, though. Elsewhere, the headlines were all about Lambert being the first openly gay artist to go straight into the Billboard charts at the top. Although the coverage stopped short of suggesting this was an achievement on a par with the discovery of penicillin, there was an unmistakable sense that Lambert's name must always come with a sexuality-defining adjective. It's something he's growing tired of.

"Sexuality is a hot topic," he says on the phone from the US, "so there's a natural interest. But the interest comes predominantly from the media. I've done lots of interviews and often that is the pinnacle of the article, or the headline, or the main angle."

Actually, Lambert's sexuality is far from the most interesting thing about him. Despite his break coming via Simon Cowell's US show, he's a long way from the TV production line template. His music is much nearer the Girls Aloud end of the reality spectrum than One True Voice territory, and his voice is genuinely powerful. There are some delightful facts about him, too: in his pre-fame days, he played Joshua in The Ten Commandments musical, appearing alongside Val Kilmer as Moses.

He even has his own creation myth: that his decision to enter the 2009 American Idol came after necking lots of hallucinogens at Burning Man, the Nevada desert arts festival. "That's how a certain publication decided to tell the story," he says, meaning Rolling Stone. "I found it quite amusing. But I guarantee I was not tripping out in the desert thinking about American Idol. I was at this arts festival and came to a conclusion that, if I wanted to achieve certain dreams, I had to go for it. So when I got home, I started a lot of projects, and a couple of months later I heard there was an Idol audition. I was going along with that philosophy of, 'Don't wait for it to happen to you – you've got to go for it.' But it is a good story. And the journalist who did that story was really lovely. So I get it."

Nevertheless, he was still, as he has put it, "a 27-year-old white gay guy in makeup and heels" when he entered the show, far from the model Idol. Then, when his sexuality became public knowledge during the series, a furore erupted, including a discussion on Fox's politics chat show The O'Reilly Factor.

"I figured it wasn't an option to keep anything a secret," Lambert says. "I've lived openly and comfortably my whole life. If I were to hide something like that, it wouldn't have stayed hidden. And it's just not my style. I'm a very open book. But also, I understand the reluctance for people in the public eye to come out of the closet, because all of a sudden that's what it's all about – and it can easily overshadow whatever else you're in the public eye for."

Lambert's first album, For Your Entertainment, reached No 3 in the US charts in 2009, and was a happy experience. One of the things about the reality show system, he says, is that "people perceive it to be about a svengali taking someone and plugging them into all this stuff and here's an album. Don't get me wrong. There was a lot of help involved, and there were a lot of songwriters involved, but I was making decisions: I like that song or I don't like that song. I wasn't being told what to do every step. I wasn't being controlled in that manner on the show, either."

Then came Queen. Lambert had attracted the attention of Brian May and Roger Taylor during American Idol. He'd auditioned with Bohemian Rhapsody, and May and Taylor joined him to perform We Are the Champions in the final. Earlier this year, it was announced that Queen and Lambert would headline the Sonisphere heavy metal festival at Knebworth. Although the festival was cancelled (possibly to Lambert's good fortune, for a field of drunk metal fans may well have offered a robust critical assessment of a reality show singer fronting one of rock's most revered bands), the pairing will still appear at five European shows this summer.

Lambert's not overawed by the challenge. "I've sung other people's music all my life," he says. "It's what I did on American Idol, and I think one of the things I was known for was making them my own. I am incredibly inspired by Freddie Mercury, and there are things you can't not do when you're singing one of his songs because they are part of the song, and he wrote those songs with the boys. I find my own moments though."

He is eager to praise the loyalty of his fans, the Glamberts, appreciating that the time for a pop star to worry is when no one's camped outside their house at four in the morning; but he has seen things that disturb him, like fan fiction, the interpolation of your heroes into pornographic stories for the internet. "It was not an arousing experience," he says of reading about himself having it off. "The one I read was a little creepy. They always show me having relations with someone I have never – and would never – have relations with. I find it funny the fans get so wrapped up in those myths, but if they want to, they can go on fantasising about it."

If Lambert's reaching No 1 is being held as a landmark event in attitudes to sexuality, then his final remark suggests he has no fear about middle America's opinion of him. Asked which mantra he would be more likely to repeat in times of stress – What Would Jesus Do? or What Would Freddie Mercury Do? – he doesn't hesitate: "Freddie Mercury, definitely. He'd put on a really great costume and just laugh it off."

• Trespassing is out on RCA on 2 July.