Adam Lambert Outtakes

YT: What do you think about the reviews so far of For Your Entertainment?
AL: I think they were pretty accurate. I mean, I didn't read all of them because I think they're all pretty subjective. Everyone has a different opinion. I've read reviews of music and films before which made me go, “Uh, I totally disagree,” (does the “uh no you didn't” finger waving) so that doesn't really take much precedence in my life.

But there were a couple of them that were on the line of saying, “Well, it just feels like the album is wearing him and he's not wearing the album. There are so many styles on here that it's kind of hard to wrap your head around.” I think that was valid, but in a way, I think that was also intentional. I wanted people to be like, “Wait, is that Adam?” I like that. I like albums that show different colours and sides and genres. I didn't want to do something that was in one box. I mean, I would get bored…

YT: How would you describe your live show?
AL: I just give it my all. I give it a ton of energy and I try to sing the… heck out of everything. There are fans that have expressed, “Oh you know, we like it when you do a little more rock.” The live shows have a little more weight to them. The live instrumentation kind of gives the show a more rock feel, but all the songs on the album are kind of in the middle anyway. They're all kind of stuck between the electro-land and the rock-land.

YT: Which mentor gave you the most influential or helpful feedback while you were on Idol?
AL: Smokey Robinson was pretty amazing. Slash was pretty amazing. I don't know; it's hard to say. One of the two of them probably; those were the two I remember distinctly.

YT: Was there a sort of moment or epiphany you remember when you decided that you wanted to make music for a living?
AL: Well, I've been doing musical theatre all throughout my childhood, and it had always been a hobby and a social group kind of thing. I was still involved in it into high school and I realized that that was what I wanted to do with my life. I'm an entertainer, that's what I do. It just comes naturally to me.

I thought that I was going to go to college, get a musical theatre degree, go to New York and be on Broadway. That's what I thought was going to happen for me. And then I got bored of college, dropped out after five weeks and I realized that I'm not a classroom person. I'm a working-on-the-job learner. So, I started auditioning and doing plays.

Slowly but surely, I built up my level of professionalism, got better jobs and got hired for Wicked, the national tour. That was the highest level of profession that I had gotten into at that point. It was a Broadway production. I was like, “Finally!” This has been my goal and now I'm pretty much where I had always wanted to be. I was around 24 or 25 at the time.

After about three months, I realized that it was a great job but I wasn't fulfilled artistically. It just wasn't for me, so I started making music and exploring other options. I was really infatuated with the idea of being a rock star. (laughs) I had a band and I started writing some music. I started listening to a lot more pop music; I loved both rock and pop. Right around there, around the time I was 25, I decided to try to make it as a recording artist. I didn't want to do theatre; I just wanted to be an artist. I wanted to be me, not somebody else.

YT: Who did you consider as your musical influences when you were growing up?
AL: I listened to a lot of Broadway soundtracks, like show tunes. I was obviously a huge fan of Michael Jackson and Madonna. When I got into high school, I started listening to more and more pop music. There was Christina Aguilera, Destiny's Child, Timbaland, Missy Elliot and No Doubt. There was even some rock music that I was listening to. I liked Soundgarden and Pearl Jam. I had a Pearl Jam CD. (guffaws) There was so much stuff from that era. When I got older, I discovered the music of the late '60s, '70s. I really got into music from the past like Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Queen, The Beatles, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix. That's when I started making music.

YT: If you could model your career after anyone's in the music industry, whose would it be?
AL: I don't know. I mean, Michael [Jackson] was definitely amazing, the way that he would make amazing music and accompany it with epic visuals. Madonna was great because of her reinvention. These are artists that have long reigns. But I don't think there's anybody I can compare myself to, because I'm kind of my own thing.

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