Eli "Paperboy" Reed
The Glam Man
Adam Lambert makes no excuses for his flamboyant approach

By Andy Argyrakis

To introduce Adam Lambert as a previous American Idol contestant at this point is largely unnecessary considering all he’s accomplished. Yet without that televised stepping stone, the world at large wouldn’t have met the energetic entertainer so soon. After coming in second place last year (though he could’ve easily swept the competition given those soaring pipes), the singer-songwriter inked a record deal and released For Your Entertainment, which debuted at number three on the Billboard charts. Aside from some controversy after a steamy American Music Awards performance, the 28-year-old newcomer has been embraced by fans of all ages and walks of life, earning comparisons to Queen’s Freddie Mercury, plus a slew of other punk, glam and classic rock giants, which, as he admitted during a recent teleconference chat, is the ideal measuring stick.

What previous tours did you see that inspired you for your first headlining tour?
I definitely have always loved like the big pop tours, people like Michael Jackson and Madonna, and even my first tour that I ever saw was Paula Abdul. People that put on a show, you know what I mean? They take their music and they create a visual and a story and a theme and they kind of reinterpret maybe a song both musically and visually to kind of give it a context and that is something that is really important to me. And also I think that my background in musical theater really came into play a lot with this production. I definitely wanted it to be first and foremost about the music but a close second is giving the audience something to look at and giving them a reason why okay, this is the next song in the set, this is the next song. There is definitely like a thematic through line throughout the show.

What else are we going to hear besides the songs from the album?
There is a surprise cover in there, one or two. But I’m kind of leaving them as wonderful surprises as a way to pace the show. And then the show itself was actually - it’s being visually inspired by kind of like a blend of turn of the century New Orleans meets psychedelic classic rock. I had a lot of fun with the projectionist and my costume designer and we’re working with a fashion line called Skin Graft Designs, which I have worn a lot of their pieces in the past on Idol and since then. And yeah, it kind of has its own little world.

Are people who were up in arms about your AMA performance going to be comfortable at this show? Or should they stay home?
I definitely think they will be comfortable. That was kind of an artistic experiment, the AMAs, and I learned a lot from it. I learned kind of what my limitations are; I learned what my audience wants to see. The concert definitely is sexy, but I feel like if anybody felt that that was not tasteful, this is tasteful.

Did you see coming out as sort of a necessary step to sort of make the transition from being the Idol contestant to sort of launching the rest of your career?
Definitely because for me and my career, I wanted it to be an open book. I have always as an audience member, as somebody who has lived in Los Angeles for the last eight years and has watched celebrity culture, I always rolled my eyes at people that were keeping a lot of secrets and kind of trying to put forth an image that was manufactured. And for me I was like you know what, I’m just going to be who I’m going to be because it’ll be a hell of a lot easier and I knew that people would know about my sexual preference and my history being in Los Angeles as a performance artist and somebody that had been out and about. So I figured there was no point in keeping a secret. I might as well own it. I’m proud of it and if the audience doesn’t like my sexuality then they can find some other artist to look at. It’s not a big deal.

Did you feel pressure to conform to any commercial formula or direction when you were making the album because the show has been on for so long?
I mean clearly conformity really isn’t my thing…I think that as an artist and a business person both I think that I look at this opportunity and like okay, this is a mainstream major thing. So I want to make a thing that has like mass appeal quality to it and then I want some music on the album to be a little more specific. And it’s going to be me so I didn’t really feel- I felt pressure of expectation. I thought that people were expecting something, and one of the things that was a choice that I made was that even though I performed a lot of classic rock on Idol and it’s music that I’m really fond of, I felt like in the challenge of making new music and coming up with my own music, to do a bunch of derivative sounding rock music would have been kind of too much of an expected choice. So for me I wanted to do my brand of pop music and do something a little bit different.

Following the 2009 American Idol finale, Queen’s Brian May in Queen said that he would have to sit down with you some day and have a conversation with you about possibly fronting his band. Has that conversation happened and is that something you would consider making room for in your career in the future?
Well, I’ve got to correct you. I think he wanted to have a conversation about more of a vague future collaboration. It was never an offer and it never came from his mouth that it was to front his band. But I would love to sing with them again at some point. I think that as much of an honor as it would be, I think that filling Freddie Mercury’s shoes is something that I dare not try. I don’t think I could hold a candle to him even though he is a huge inspiration. And yeah, I think that I’m going to focus right now on my own career and my own original music.

With the success of American Idiot and shows like Rock of Ages, do you see yourself writing and starring on Broadway in a show?
That’s definitely something that would be really exciting in the future. I don’t have any immediate plans, but I definitely see the trend on Broadway and things are becoming more and more contemporary, which I love. Who knows what the future holds?