Adam Lambert Discusses The Art Of Learning

In a weirdly wonderful shoot for Schon, Adam introduces Mitsy – his co-star – and discusses his new album ‘The Original High’, Hollywood life, working with Queen and being misconstrued.

On working with Max Martin and Shellback… Before it all started and I had a demo called ‘The Original High’ that I actually played for them. They said ‘this is cool, this is not the direction we would expect you to go in but thats why we want to do it. We want to do something unexpected, we want to shift the idea of who you are as an artist a little bit and surprise people.’

His musical approach. As I’ve gotten older and more experience, you know I’m learning all the time, I’m still learning like everybody and I am more than ever learning that less can be more and that sometimes you need to pull the audience in rather than blasting them out.

I didn’t want to do bubblegum, I didn’t want to do campy and theatrical I’ve done it. I felt like I had done crazy and I was ready to get real on the album.

On living in Hollywood… I lived in Hollywood for 15 years and it’s an interesting city because on one hand it can be very glamorous and full of fantasy and possibility and your always meeting beautiful people but the flipside of that is that it can be very false and very hollow.

How ‘The Original High’ comperes to his previous albums. I think this one is more focused and it feels more grounded. I feel like as a performer, I feel more confident than I ever have in what I’m able to do and in creating these songs I didn’t feel like “Oh I have to prove something.” It didn’t feel like that this time. It felt like “I want to feel something’.

On working with Queen. It gave me renewed confidence the Queen project. It made me feel validated and like I accomplished something because the Queen thing was a big challenge and kind of intimidating. So coming off of that and feeling like it was a victory was really good.

On being misconstrued. I think when you wear eccentric clothing and you perform confidently on stage it’s easy to assume someone is an asshole or a diva or whatever and I don’t think I am. I’m sure I’ve had my moments but I think I’m pretty friendly.

I think one of the other misconceptions is that a lot of the ideas and creativity doesn’t come from me. Maybe because of where I came from with American Idol or whatever. I think sometimes people go “Why is the label making you do this”. No one’s making me do anything. OK, I’m doing it. It is a team effort.