Adam Lambert looks back at his early ‘Idol’ success and time on tour with Queen | ENTERTAIN THIS!

coming up a special edition of USA today's entertain this Adam Lambert burst onto the music scene in 2009 via American Idol from his voice to his luck audiences were immediately captivated and opinionated about the then 27 year old Lambert finished second on idol to Chris Allen but his career was just getting started the artist made headlines in 2009 for a performance at the American Music Awards that the parents television Council deemed indecent ABC received about 1500 complaints about the performance the next day Lambert's debut album For Your Entertainment dropped it debuted at number three on

the billboard 200 and it spawned the Platinum selling hit what do you want from me Lambert just released a new single with sagala you make me feel Mighty real for pride month he also has a nail polish line and later this year we'll hit the road again with the band Queen but when we sat down here in our New York Studio we began with Broadway and his first hit single Adam Lambert thanks for stopping by thanks for having me um great timing I recently saw on Broadway and Juliet yes the max Martin musical yes yes

uh which features what do you want from me it does just I mean it is a pivotal have you seen it or not I saw it in London and I loved it it was unbelievable it was like it it's like you know every song and the audience was on their feet and every song you don't always get that with a musical you know you almost never I mean like yes the more popular ones maybe you listen to the original cast recording so on and so forth sure but to to know every song and to know

it primarily in a much different context in the way it's being presented in that theater um I found very interesting very when you heard what do you want from me in such a I don't want to have a spoiler alert but a very pivotal scene between two of the characters what were you thinking I was really flattered you know I I was like oh my gosh this is so cool to be a part of this body of work and and I agree like that was the fun thing for me was like you know a song

would start and the whole dance audience would be kind of be like oh that's funny that they put it there and that this is the context that they're giving you for this song and very clever very very smart show um I did start to kind of to go down a rabbit hole with what do you want from me and a couple things I had forgotten I mean I remember obviously it coming out in 2009 and being a huge one for you I had forgotten that pink had recorded it and that she had released it on

her greatest hits album in 2010 yeah after mine after yeah yours came out um her version because there was some online chatter back then you know in yours there's the lyric it messed me up and hers the lyric he messed and then there was some conversational was that change was it not do you remember like which came first and if there was a deliberate change there was a deliberate change back in 2009 there there would be probably 60 to 70 percent of the radio stations in the United States that wouldn't have played it if I

had said he that's what we were dealing with you know it's it's it's it's it's interesting because when I came out onto the scene it was a much different like in you know atmosphere than it is now uh for music artists you know now you see a lot of queer representation in in music and successful artists that are queer you know it we have big hits by artists now but back then it was sort of like this like it was it was sort of unknown no one knew if it would work or not I think

I had support you know from the the various powers that be at the label and management but they didn't have full control over The Gatekeepers in the music industry which at the time were really radio and we wanted to go you know have this song really be represented on the radio because that's what made a hit back then and it was like uh you can't hit the player hate the game kind of a situation you know it was like sometimes you have to sort of um take certain hits in order to get to the next

level and for me it was more important for me as a queer artist to be able to say look I'm a viable artist and I have a hit song now and people love it and it doesn't matter what my sexuality is it's about this great song that was more important to me than making a point at the time very big picture so you definitely you have no regrets over it at all no and I made some points elsewhere and gotten big trouble for it so well yeah because I you so I have interviewed this is

my third time interviewing you but first time in like 13 years oh my gosh so good to see you again yeah likewise right June of 2010 yeah you're in Scranton Pennsylvania as am I I'm working at a top 40 station there and you're getting ready to kick off your first ever headlining tour in Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania and we chatted then and of course in addition to chatting about For Your Entertainment and the various singles we were chatting about the 2009 incident which you also recently chatted about with our David Oliver and you had said that you

know at now you're saying that it was impulsive and that it hurt had heard a few opportunities that you had come to find out absolutely you had but when we spoke about it in 2010 um obviously you were a little lighter about it and you had just said you were experimenting and that's something that you had always done as far as your performances um now obviously with all of the hindsight are you still able to experiment in the ways in which you want to as an artist for sure I mean I think things have changed

drastically in in that amount of time and that was like what 13 years ago things are really different and you know society's different culture is different um you know the music industry is very different TV's different Everything Has Changed um but at that time there was there were a lot of boundaries that still hadn't quite you know been broken through and you know that whole situation was it was on the amas and I kissed one of my musicians and you know got a little raunchy with my dance moves with some of the dancers and you

know to me at the time I was like well I've seen artists do this for years I mean you know Madonna and Prince and all these people but for a gay man who also had just come off of like America's sweetheart show it was it was like a shock for some people and I and I think I wasn't fully aware of the weight of the the repercussions of that situation now in hindsight being 2020 I can say oh now I learned in the in the Years hap after that like what that affected and how it

affected things but I'm also really proud of the fact that it created a conversation I'm proud that we can look back now and I have more support for it now than I had then because people are like wow really that happened and you got slapped on the wrist for that really because back then people were you know assumed that I would get slapped on the wrist now we're surprised by it so you know hindsight's our best teacher sometimes and it's it's something that I don't regret at all um and I think maybe my timing could

have been a little different maybe I would have you know worked out a slightly different way but what was going on on stage to me I had every right to do last part of the trip down memory lane when I think back to June 2010 at that time first of all I had a crazy hairdo so did I second of all no you were well I was flat ironed within an inch of my life thing going yes you did yes you did I have the photo too maybe I'll show you anyways um I forgot that

orianti was the opener on that tour that's right um what do you remember about that time in your life it was just a whirlwind I mean it was so exciting it was you know I had had a dream of one day maybe becoming a recording artist but until I auditioned for American Idol I thought it was a pipe dream I thought there's no way that that someone like me is gonna get that type of opportunity and I auditioned for American Idol just to say well at least I tried I didn't think I would get as

far as I did on the show and I was surprised every week I was like wow so coming off of the show there was ton of hype there was a ton of attention um there was this amazing album I got to make with a major record label and these amazing producers who I looked up to and songwriters were contributing songs like Heroes of mine it was it was like a pinch me thing I was it was so surreal but then you know there was also the flip side to it and I think celebrity when it

happens to someone that fast is overwhelming and strange no matter who you are um I think the pressures that came along with making sure I delivered and I was successful and that I didn't let anybody down including myself those pressures were really intense and I do think like I had some mental health struggles in the Years following just dealing with anxiety and stress and um you know also there was you know the whole the whole experience of social media kind of coming up Twitter had just started there was the whole element of you know being

sort of bullied online and and people saying exactly what they felt and that really affecting me and it affecting my self-worth and my self-image and confidence um these are things that we're really aware of now that we understand a lot more now but I think in 2010 it was all sort of the beginning of a lot of that conversation and I remember like 2011-12 all of a sudden there was this whole anti-bullying movement you know there were there were there was like real accountability happening and it was a short period of time that that happened

but it was really beautiful I think it did carry over I think we learned a lot from that time but the movement was so exciting right I I would like to think of someone in the media that we learned a little bit about that as well so um about how you know not everything can be covered as just something frivolous like these are real people yeah real lives yeah who are impacted [Music] you mentioned that you were dealing with some anxiety how did you work through that well I think at the time I didn't really

understand that it was anxiety like clinically speaking you know I didn't I never really understood what it was you know I would hear about people having panic attacks I wasn't necessarily at that point I wasn't having attacks but it was like low grade anxiety all the time you know being in my head overthinking things not being able to sleep worrying about things and I think in in the past maybe six or so years five or six years I've become more aware of what that is and what that looks like you know I went to therapy

I did a lot of reading um and it and it really changed um the way I approach life when I understood that that was something that I could overcome and that it was something that I wasn't alone in one of the few things I feel like that has changed and again that was something that caught me off guard when you had mentioned that was watching back to our interview in 2010 hearing you speak since then and speaking with you now you do have this confidence about you when you speak about things um where I mean

it's there what whether it's hiding something else or not it's there where does it come from I don't think it's high yeah I think maybe back in 2009 I think there was probably some guardedness going on I was probably hiding more of what was going on under the surface but I think that's the kind of the beauty of growing up a bit and you know maturing is you know I just turned 41 this year and I feel like more clear on who I am than I've ever felt the pandemic obviously really crazy time but it

was also a great time of reflection and I got down to sort of what my priorities were and and got clearer on that and and was able to like rethink some of some of my big picture of my life and make sure that I had one balance you know and I still work really hard at my career and I'm really dedicated to making art and music but I'm also like family friends you know a relationship these things are really important to happiness well yeah because I mean you're still very it would seem very busy totally

with everything that you have total on right now is there one particular thing you're doing more of now post 2020 that you weren't doing as much of pre-2020 self-care knowing when too much is too much you know knowing when to kind of take care of myself I think that's the big thing you know knowing when okay I need to take this day off and rest and relax and meditate on some level I don't meditate traditionally but you know find something meditative you know do something for you it's finding these ways of making sure that you

don't let it the the hustle and bustle of everything overwhelm you or get the better of you it's staying in the driver's seat you know and and it's it's such an interesting thing because it's this mix of being in control and also surrendering a little bit and not panicking if you're not in control that's really important too difficult that's very different it is difficult and look I don't have it all figured out at all I'm like some days I'm a mess but it's like it's a work in progress and it's and the more I admit

to myself that I'm doing my best the better I am um I have to talk about this song you make me feel that you did with sagala so um I know it's a really a new interpretation of a song that came out back in 1979. yep for you when whether it's idle or whether you're performing live with Queen whether it's high drama whatever the case may be you go into you're reinterpreting and or covering a song what does that look like for you do you have a specific process you go through or no um it's

like it's a the criteria was really interesting because it was a mix of okay maybe it's an artist that I'm really drawn to and then which song in their catalog would best suit me and there was a few of those like I knew I wanted to do a Lana Del Rey song I knew I wanted to look at something by Billy eilish by Pink by Boy George there were artists that I really wanted to highlight and then you know in choosing the songs it was all about is this a song I feel like I could

have lived or that I've experienced in my life you know because obviously with the albums that I've put out in the past those were songs that were created originally for the album many of which written by myself elf this was obviously doing other people's songs but the creativity came in in choosing the song and figuring out how to like reinvent it and find a new way of interpreting it in the studio and that was such a cool challenge if I didn't feel like I could do something interesting and different with it than it wasn't a

song that belonged on the project with Mighty real I've been a Sylvester fan for a very long time he was so ahead of his time he was queer and out and proud and exactly who he was in the 70s and had a hit with it with Mighty real you make me feel Mighty real um and you know I've watched documentaries about him I really wanted to put this out as like a love letter to him to celebrate him um I feel like he's sort of sometimes is unsung as a hero of the queer Community being

that he was so ahead and I you know I feel like it's just a feel-good dance euphoric disco song you know and we've done a new version I did this with sagala out of the UK and it's a modern sort of take on it but it's just in time for Pride you know and pride this year is charged with a lot of extra weight we are in a weird time in in our country right now where there's a big divide over different ways of thinking about certain things and unfortunately we have a big part of

our country that are being sort of misled and fed misinformation and fear and things that aren't even true um and unfortunately a lot of people in that side of the argument believe what they're told even if they haven't seen it for themselves drag queens have been around for a long time right drag race has been a hit show by RuPaul over the past 14 years in the award-winning show yeah and all of a sudden it's some sort of issue it doesn't make much sense and I think the people that are sort of driving this debate

and this whole movement are up to no good it's for other reasons it's for political gain um I I hope that people take a second to actually do their own research or go to their own drag show if they dare and realize that it's light-hearted fun and it's a good time and it's no more inappropriate than most of the movies that are in theaters and most of the things you see on TV at night it's it's really not anything beyond that children are so important the safety of children are so important we have more gay

parents and queer parents coming up nowadays we are parents too we have children too we are family members too we're also concerned with the safety of children but you know to turn around and and and and start creating these lies and these awful rumors about you know the influence that you know an art form a type of Entertainer is having on a it's just it's a reach it's a real reach and it's just it's it's Counter Culture it's gonna it's it's you know this has happened for years too this is what happened in the 60s

you know there was the the moms and dads and then the kids you know it's it it always happens this way but unfortunately this debate is really like targeting a group of people that need more support than other groups in in many ways you know the trans Community is like highly susceptible to violence and and tragedy in their lives because of the lack of support in this country we need to do the opposite we don't need to push them away we need to embrace them and tell them that they're okay and that they're safe and

if a kid is telling you that this is what they are just be there for them the more understanding and patience and empathy that we have towards people that are different than us the better off they're going to be the safer they're going to be you had told David as well um when he had interviewed you about this idea of a gay agenda no there's just an agenda of like making sure everybody's okay yeah making sure nobody kills himself the gay agenda is it's just telling people you're okay as you are it's okay to be

who you are that's the agenda there's no grooming going on no one's trying to take advantage of children's sexual these ideas are so like such a stretch from what's actually going on and you know I think the more parents educate themselves the better parents they're going to be the more supportive they're going to be and you're not going to be able to say you know why are you you know saying something to my child that I haven't been able to say to them well then it starts at home do your job as a parent and

support your kid [Music] we are already way over time but I just two more quick things because I didn't want to interrupt because those are I'm not running for office I promise I was really looking for that exclusive I guess I'm not getting it um just going back to London Pride have you been I know you're going to perform this song At London Pride have you been before I have been yes I was in town for London Pride once and I had so much fun and I'm really honored to be their headliner this year um

and mighty real is just such a it's an all-encompassing message of just saying love is great and Love Is Love is um endless it's there's no end there's no um limit to love it is it is infinity and we can all just love and it's a very you know that sounds very idealistic but truthfully when it all really boils down that's the problem is just loving Thy Neighbor you know loving each other that's all it takes um how's the Musical coming along uh the musical's amazing um I'm still kind of keeping the the story and

sort of the meaning of it under wraps um because it it's a long process takes a while to develop it you know you want to make sure that it all is really good you know and that's that's a process it's slow but I'm working with an amazing playwright here in New York uh amazing team of people that are helping me put it together uh amazing uh co-writers and I think it's gonna be something really special that reflects a lot of what gets me passionate um getting ready to go back on the road with Queen yes

was it always like meant that you would last this long with them or was this supposed to be like a one-off maybe a mini tour and now it's turned into something else yeah you know I you know I think back in back in 12 20 we first did something together it was like after my first sort of chapter with my first album my first solo tour it was performing on stage at the EMAs for MTV and it was they were going to do a medley they wanted me to sing with them we had met on

the American Idol finale and I was like of course I would love to do that I mean your queen this is such a big honor and I had a blasts with them and we just connected and it just felt good and so slowly but surely just more opportunities came up and it just kind of kept gaining momentum we did our first world tour starting in 2014. and I I gotta say it's I didn't think it would keep going but it's been the most amazing run and we're still doing it and we have so much fun

together audiences related when they leave they love the show and that's what keeps me going is the joy that it brings people you look out there and you're like we're doing something right you know people are having a great time and also being with Brian and Roger on stage these are rock Legends right they light up when the lights come up they get to perform these songs that they they embedded in pop culture that they get to bask in their the Legacy you know that they that they've created and I love being of service to

that I love being able to make that possible that's a real treat I know in 2020 you re-recorded we are the champions As You Are The Champions uh any other plans to get back into the studio with them and maybe record any whether it's original or not I don't know you know it's it's funny it's like we always get this question from you know interviews but we haven't really had anything that's really sparked that motivation yet um it's like a Never Say Never situation I mean it it really could happen uh but it also like

I feel like it has to be for like the right reason almost you know um we did put out a live album um kind of compiled from a lot of our touring over the past five or six years uh and it was amazing to put that out and it went to number one in the UK a lot of people have it now which is if it's exciting to now have something recorded out there that's sort of a you know it commemorates our our partnership which feels really really good and that's you know to me that's

kind of what it is it is it is a live collaboration it is me as their guest you know singing These incredible songs that Freddie Mercury made famous with them and allowing them to hit the stage you know giving you know I they need a singer so I'll be their singer letting them do their thing um and and yeah it's it's a big honor and that's what that's that's what it is to me and I don't know if it means that you know if we did something new I don't know if we'd call it Queen

because to me in my mind Queen is the original four do you know what I mean of course yeah all right we are officially 10 minutes over Adam Lambert thank you so much thank you and congrats on the on the new single and good luck on tour later this year and buy my nail polish oh yes and congratulations on the new nail polish it's so much fun like you know I like to you know do myself up and and you know paint my nails and do makeup and stuff and I I have so much fun

getting dressed up and I've always wanted to like put out stuff that I use as well and so hopefully this is the first step in you know hopefully uh you know a long line of products and colors and moments that people can experience well uh again congratulations thank you Queen and Adam Lambert's North American tour kicks off in Baltimore this October and runs through November wrapping up in Los Angeles and Lambert's latest album a collection of covers called high drama is out now thanks for watching this special edition of USA today's entertain this here in

New York I'm ralphia Versa hey thanks for watching if you like this video check out these other videos from USA Today entertainment to stay up to date on all of the latest celebrity news