Ep. 257: Adam Lambert on Idol, Fronting Queen, and Opting Out of the Industry Game

Today's guest is one of the great voices of his generation — the theater kid who auditioned for American Idol with Michael Jackson, watched the judges' faces fall, and demanded a second song because he'd just quit his job and had no health insurance. But his real story isn't the voice. It's the game — the one Freddie Mercury wrote about, the one that picks your singles, writes your headlines, and decides who you are before you do.

And The Writer Is... Adam Lambert!

In this episode of And The Writer Is, we go deep on:

The AMA kiss that blew up a $500,000 single launch — "everyone was going, oh shit"

Quitting Wicked — and losing his health insurance — to audition, then refusing the judges' no

Why Kara DioGuardi 'busted his balls all season'

What Brian May says "Play the Game" was really about

Signed before the finale even aired: why losing Idol never mattered

and much more.

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A special thank you to our lead sponsor, NMPA — the National Music Publishers' Association.

0:00 Intro

1:09 The album is out — why self-titled, "first name basis"

2:35 Meeting Pete Nappi through a pandemic song still in the vault

3:39 "Am I Okay" — written one week after the breakup

6:02 Singles made him "crazy" — the label picks that flopped: "I told you so"

7:04 Leaning into what fans expect vs. challenging them

8:16 Proud of the flops, indifferent to some hits

9:34 Theater kids: every album is a character, every record a world

11:28 The dystopian cover — "I want it blasted into the future"

13:55 Adam Lambert or Freddie Mercury? "I feel like it's me"

15:35 Coffee with Freddie — what Brian says "Play the Game" was really about

16:56 "The music industry is a big old game, isn't it?"

17:43 A college-DJ dad, a Sly Stone mom, and a kid screaming through the house

19:46 The Fiddler note where everybody went "oh, wow"

21:03 San Diego to LA at 19 — math knocked him off the college path

23:00 Weed, poetry, and GarageBand

25:49 Wicked: six months, burnt out, and a new plan

29:20 Inside the Idol machine — two camps, two agendas

32:49 The Burning Man epiphany that vanquished the fear

34:39 No job, no insurance, and judges who didn't get Rock With You

35:11 "I didn't really ask" — the second song that changed everything

36:22 Why Idol can't break artists anymore

38:04 Honey water: the whiskey story behind Kara DioGuardi's grudge

41:21 Justin Timberlake tells him to remake A Night at the Opera

42:06 Losing the finale — already signed before it aired

47:20 The blog photos drop: "Yeah, that's me. Get over it."

51:53 The AMA kiss and the $500,000 single

53:22 What Do You Want From Me — the P!nk demo

56:00 Singing uncredited on Avicii's "Lay Me Down"

59:03 "It takes a village — bring them with you"

60:26 Max Martin: "When you get on stage, I don't have to worry"

61:26 How Queen actually made the call

62:07 Trespassing hits #1 — a first he didn't know he'd made

62:48 The poster-child years: "the headline is that I'm gay, and no one's talking about the music"

66:11 Trespassing, the "bipolar album" — his half vs. the label's half

67:20 Two months with the Wolf Cousins — why his songs didn't make the cut

70:05 The Ghost Town gamble — "you've got to do something drastic"

72:44 Songs with no home — "throwing my ideas into space"

76:03 Velvet dies to Covid, two weeks in

76:52 A Telefunken, YouTube tutorials, and teaching himself Logic

77:51 The secret musical: 20 songs written over Zoom

82:45 Identity vs. brand — "the personality precedes the skill"

83:35 Songwriters don't get paid for their time — the union conversation

87:37 Giving his co-writers master points — "it's just classy, man"

88:28 Where the stage presence actually comes from

90:13 The hardest part of fame

93:06 "I nitpick the negative" — showing the uglier side for the first time

96:28 Is Ozempic killing LA nightlife?

Credits:

Hosted by Ross Golan

Produced by Joe London & Jad Saad

Edited by Jad Saad

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.