00:00 I think I was in an indoor soccer league at one point
00:02 and I made one goal and I was very proud of myself.
00:06 We were leaving the game that day and I said,
00:08 "Okay, I'm done."
00:09 And my dad was like, "But you made a goal."
00:11 I'm like, "That's all I needed to do."
00:12 I joined this for the shin guards, you know?
00:14 I don't really, it was for the costume, you know?
00:16 Hi everyone, I'm Adam Lambert and today we're gonna be
00:19 looking back on some key moments that have shaped
00:21 my identity and my career.
00:23 This is Becoming Adam Lambert.
00:28 So I grew up in San Diego, California.
00:30 It was sort of a ball of hyperactivity.
00:33 I started pretty early kind of understanding
00:36 that I was probably different than the other boys in school.
00:39 I don't think it really clicked for me
00:41 until I was in about sixth grade.
00:42 And I started going, "Oh, okay, got it.
00:45 "This is how I'm wired."
00:46 But I'm very lucky, my parents were super liberal
00:49 and super cool.
00:51 I came out at the end of high school.
00:54 So I was 18, I graduated, I came out to my three
00:57 best friends and then my mom kind of outed me.
01:01 She was like, "So what's the deal?"
01:03 And finally I was like, "Yeah, I am, yes, I'm gay."
01:07 And she was like, "Yeah, I knew that."
01:08 And I was like, "Why didn't you ask me sooner?"
01:10 And she said, "Well, I went to the gay and lesbian center
01:13 "in San Diego when you were like 14 and I asked them
01:15 "what to do and they said just let him come out to you."
01:18 So she, the whole time they were like, just waiting,
01:21 like just patiently, like he's gonna come out.
01:24 I went for the, one of the few schools that had a BFA
01:28 available in musical theater.
01:30 So Cal State Fullerton in Orange County is where
01:33 I got accepted and right around the same time
01:36 that classes started, I had been cast in a production
01:40 of Grease, the musical.
01:42 And by like week five of school, as I finished
01:45 the production that I was in down at San Diego,
01:47 I was like, "I don't wanna do this.
01:49 "I wanna do theater, I don't wanna sit in a classroom."
01:52 And I kept auditioning around LA, got a couple auditions
01:56 even for things in New York, got flown to New York
01:58 a couple times but never landed the part.
02:00 And there was an audition for Hair, the musical.
02:02 It was a German production.
02:03 I wanted it so bad, I got it.
02:05 It was an amazing experience.
02:07 I grew so much as a person doing that show
02:10 because I felt more comfortable in my skin.
02:13 And I was in Germany where it's like queerness
02:16 was so like, cool.
02:19 People looked individual and they were unashamed
02:24 of their queerness and just being around that,
02:26 I fell in love with Europe.
02:28 And then I got cast in Wicked.
02:29 But after about six months of it, I'm like,
02:31 "I don't like it."
02:32 I went home going, "I wanna be a rock star."
02:35 I ran out of money in five minutes.
02:38 And so I begged to get back in the company
02:41 and they put me in it.
02:42 And I did that for two years in LA
02:44 while I was working on music on the side.
02:46 And that brings us to American Idol.
02:49 And a lot of flat ironing.
02:51 ♪ Mama just killed a man ♪
02:57 ♪ Put a gun against his head ♪
03:00 ♪ Pulled my trigger now he's dead ♪
03:01 I never thought that it was a show
03:03 that I would be able to do.
03:05 A, I'm a theater kid.
03:06 Also, I'm gay, which never seemed to really land
03:09 very well on that show.
03:09 I mean, there definitely were a few,
03:10 but they all kind of got like not taken seriously, you know?
03:14 And I was just like, "I don't know if that's gonna,
03:16 "I would never, I never even thought about it."
03:18 I was 27.
03:19 I was in the last year that you're eligible for it.
03:22 And I was like, "Why not?"
03:25 Their whole rule was we want you in amateur status.
03:27 We can't have you, an agent attached to you
03:29 or a deal with this person or that.
03:31 I had to quit Wicked and cancel any sort
03:35 of entertainment contracts that I had in play.
03:37 So basically quitting my job, which was my pay,
03:40 my insurance, all that stuff,
03:41 I had to quit to take a chance
03:43 to sing in front of the TV judges.
03:46 So walking into the room, I was like, "I'm gonna get this."
03:48 And I sang a Michael Jackson song.
03:51 And the judges behind the table were like,
03:53 and I could see by their faces,
03:55 I'm like, "This isn't clicking for them.
03:56 "I'm gonna, they're gonna be like,
03:57 "thanks a lot and I'm gonna be done."
03:58 And I looked at them and I went,
04:00 "Do you want me to sing something else?"
04:03 And they were like, "What else do you have?"
04:05 And I'm like, "What about a Queen song?"
04:07 And so that's how that went down.
04:10 It was my second song that they used on TV.
04:12 And that sort of became my lane on the show.
04:15 And I picked "Mad World" because it spoke to me.
04:17 I mean, it was a song about being an outsider
04:21 and how emotional that can make you feel.
04:23 It reminded me of how I felt in middle school.
04:26 I think it was like movie week
04:27 and my brother had always loved this song.
04:29 And I basically just lifted the version from Donnie Darko.
04:33 And I think the producers started to really trust me.
04:36 And I remember when it came time
04:38 to like figure out what the staging was.
04:40 I'm like, "I wanna do something different.
04:41 "I wanna sit in a chair and dark light."
04:43 They were like, "Go do it.
04:44 "You're doing great."
04:45 And so the staging things theatrically kind of felt
04:48 like something that was up my alley.
04:50 And the whole experience was great.
04:52 [upbeat music]
04:55 Being gay on "American Idol" was like a trip.
04:58 I had been out since I was 18.
05:00 I was not shy about who I was.
05:02 It was never a secret after I came out.
05:04 I wasn't ashamed of it at all.
05:06 And I was really settled in my gayness.
05:08 And I knew going into the show,
05:10 I'm like, "Okay, this is a whole different ballgame."
05:12 And so people started to dig, you know?
05:15 And I had had like a social media profile
05:18 on a thing called Tribe,
05:20 which was like an alternative MySpace.
05:22 I had posted on there pictures of me and an ex-boyfriend
05:26 like making out in like drag.
05:28 And these people found these pictures
05:30 and they were like, "Look, he's kissing a boy."
05:32 Then the publicist for the show had called me before
05:34 to say, "Hey, I don't know if you saw this."
05:37 And I said, "Yeah, I saw it."
05:38 And she was so great.
05:39 She was like, "Well, how do you wanna deal with it?"
05:41 She's like, "What do you wanna say?"
05:43 And so I just said to the reporter,
05:45 I'm like, "Yeah, that's me."
05:46 (laughs)
05:48 That's all I said.
05:49 I'm like, "And?"
05:50 So I did the like media trick of kind of like
05:52 acknowledging but not giving anymore.
05:54 The publicist that I got assigned
05:56 coming off of the show was really great.
05:59 He was really savvy.
06:00 He was gay.
06:01 He's like, "I think we should work it."
06:03 And so they booked me the cover of Rolling Stone,
06:05 which was like, "Well, that's a good place
06:06 "to come out of the closet.
06:07 "That seems pretty cool."
06:08 So yeah, I think I lost some fans at that point.
06:11 But I always said to myself like,
06:12 "Well, those aren't the fans I want anyway.
06:14 "If they think I'm gay and they don't like that,
06:16 "then go away.
06:19 "That's who I am."
06:19 (upbeat music)
06:22 Yeah, I look back on that experience
06:24 and it's pretty amazing.
06:26 I mean, I felt approved of.
06:28 I felt like people were really excited
06:30 about what I was about to do.
06:32 You know, Lady Gaga had a song for me
06:33 that we recorded together.
06:35 Pink gave me a song.
06:37 Matt Bellamy from Muse.
06:39 Rivers Cuomo from Weezer.
06:41 Dustin Hawkins from The Darkness.
06:43 Linda Perry I worked with.
06:44 Like all these just like luminaries
06:46 that were heroes of mine, you know.
06:48 And you know, Pink's "What Do You Want From Me"
06:50 was my big hit.
06:52 Thanks Pink for kicking it off of your album.
06:55 Thank you.
06:56 (upbeat music)
06:59 When someone told me this, I didn't believe them.
07:00 But apparently in America, that was the first time
07:02 that an out gay person had a number one debut.
07:06 And it's a milestone I'm really proud of.
07:07 One of the songs I wrote on the album
07:09 is called "Outlaws of Love."
07:11 I was just writing about the experience
07:12 of being sort of persecuted for being who you are.
07:15 I think I was starting to become more and more interested
07:18 in being a leader in that space
07:21 and sort of having a positive effect on young people
07:25 who are also queer and trying to explain things
07:28 to the masses that might not understand them.
07:30 It was a moment, I felt like I could do some good.
07:35 (upbeat music)
07:39 So I met Brian May and Roger Taylor of Queen
07:42 on the finale of "American Idol."
07:43 It felt like a click.
07:45 I remember looking at Brian as I was singing,
07:46 he was playing and he was kind of like,
07:47 "Oh."
07:48 After my first solo tour, something came up with them
07:51 and they were gonna do a medley and they needed a singer.
07:53 And of course I immediately said yes.
07:55 And as soon as I hung up the phone, I went,
07:56 "Oh my God, can I pull this off?"
07:58 I knew their fans would be really, really critical
08:02 and skeptical of this.
08:03 More or less, it was well-received,
08:04 but I definitely read some stuff online
08:06 that was not into it.
08:08 So these are all the things I think that
08:10 throughout my career, going and reading the comments
08:13 has been sort of a double-edged sword.
08:15 Sometimes it's the worst thing you can do,
08:17 but it's also kind of kept me humble
08:18 and it's kept me fighting to be better.
08:21 Well, I think after "Original High,"
08:24 I understood what anxiety and depression was
08:28 for the first time I'd been able to put a name on it.
08:29 I wanted to write something that sort of helped
08:32 pull me out of that time.
08:34 It gave me purpose again.
08:35 It gave me a feeling of hope.
08:37 It allowed me to do something different
08:39 and it became sort of the mantra of moving forward.
08:41 Like, I don't care anymore about people that don't get it.
08:45 One of the songs I created on the album
08:48 is called "Feel Something" and it's a ballad,
08:51 just an honest take on, "Hey, I've been sad."
08:53 And I had decided at that point that I was interested
08:56 in maybe starting my own foundation
08:58 and I had to come up with a name for it.
09:00 And I was like, "Feel Something."
09:02 I mean, that's what this is.
09:03 It's to connect.
09:04 It's to remind people of their heart
09:06 and what really matters.
09:08 So I named it the Feel Something Foundation.
09:09 It's LGBTQ+ focused.
09:12 We've definitely taken an interest
09:15 in a lot of specific things,
09:17 namely gender-affirming care centers.
09:20 'Cause I feel like what's missing
09:22 in so many of these fear-based attacks
09:26 on these types of programs is information.
09:29 I think people just don't understand.
09:31 I hope that in further moonlighting these organizations,
09:35 we can just educate people.
09:37 'Cause ignorance is literally the number one enemy
09:39 of change and of personal freedom and expression.
09:44 [upbeat music]
09:47 The idea of a covers album came up
09:49 and I thought, "You know what?
09:49 Now's the time to give people familiar songs,
09:53 things that they can wrap their head around right away,
09:55 almost kind of go back to sort of
09:57 why "American Idol" worked for me.
09:59 One of the key tracks that we added
10:01 sort of later to "High Drama" is
10:03 "You Make Me Feel Mighty Real" by Sylvester.
10:06 And to me, that was a super exciting thing to do,
10:09 to be able to cover a queer icon
10:11 who is sometimes a bit unsung,
10:13 but who was so ahead of his time.
10:15 I mean, he was basically fluid.
10:18 I mean, if we use the vernacular that we have today,
10:20 he was just queer as hell,
10:22 you know, in like caftans and fans and makeup,
10:25 like with a big disco hit in the '70s in America.
10:29 So he's somebody that I was excited to cover.
10:31 And it really inspired me
10:33 and it made me think,
10:34 I wanna dive into a new direction
10:37 where I get to connect more with that community
10:40 that I come from.
10:41 You know, we're at a time now in music
10:44 where it's been proven that being queer
10:47 and writing about queer topics
10:49 is not necessarily the career killer
10:52 that they used to think it was.
10:53 I mean, there's an audience for it.
10:54 And it's not just queer kids, it's everybody.
10:57 People, the young people that are listening to music
11:00 are more and more open-minded.
11:01 They understand that the emotions
11:03 in these songs are universal.
11:05 They're not stupid.
11:06 They know how to go,
11:06 "Oh, well, I've felt something like that."
11:08 So I'm really excited.
11:10 I feel like it's like a new chapter for me.
11:12 I feel clear, very clear.
11:15 I feel very sure of who I am more than I ever have,
11:20 more comfortable in my skin than I ever have.
11:21 And I wanna bring that to my music.
11:24 Well, thank you so much for letting me ramble on
11:26 about my life over the past 41 years.
11:31 And I'm thankful that you took the time
11:33 to learn more about me and what makes me tick.
11:37 This has been, what's it called again?
11:39 (laughing)
11:41 This has been Becoming Adam Lambert.
11:45 [BLANK_AUDIO]
Comments