Tonight Exclusive with Adam Lambert

FOR YOUR ENTERTAINMENT: Adam Lambert is back with his third studio album, The Original High. Picture: David Roemer

FOR YOUR ENTERTAINMENT: Adam Lambert is back with his third studio album, The Original High. Picture: David Roemer

Published Jul 15, 2015

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PHEW, Adam Lambert has come a long way since making runner-up on American Idols season eight.

His electro-meets-dance pop sound and edgy style earned him a legion of fans – Glamberts as they’re called – across the globe.

After generating a slew of hits with his first two albums, For Your Entertainment and Trespassing, Lambert is back with a new release, The Original High. And it’s under his new music label, Warner Bros.

As the well-worn cliché goes: “The only constant in life is change.”

And, in the past three years, Lambert’s transformation – physically and creatively – has become conspicuous. He has cast off the eyeliner goth-look and is less heavy-handed with his makeup. And his sound, while not a complete departure, is deeper. And that’s certainly understandable, given that the lyrics were inspired by observing people, the culture around him and so on.

However, it remains to be seen if fans will be as appreciative of the changes.

In an EXCLUSIVE chat with Tonight, he shared: “(For this album) I wanted to do something different. You know, I’m not one to repeat myself. It’s never been my style. And, more than that, I had a lot of downtime. I was hanging out with friends, going to clubs and parties and figuring out what I was responding to; how people would dance, what people were talking about, what I saw…

“The house music revival that’s happening right now is really exciting. And I heard a good amount of it here in LA. I heard even more of it in the UK and, then, in Scandinavia where I ended up working on my album.”

A little more guarded with his responses than in 2012 when he visited our shores for his Trespassing tour, he says his life experiences also played a hand in his latest album.

Lambert offered: “Being in LA for 15 years, I have seen a lot of people go on quite a journey, myself included. We’re from this big city, we have all these big ideas of what we want to do with our lives and some people end up pursuing their dream and finding success. And some people get caught up doing other things along the way and, others are, you know, never satisfied. So it’s an album that’s really about that. It’s about this pursuit of happiness.”

While the album title could, figuratively speaking, be seen as heralding the new era in his life, Lambert rejected the intimation.

Instead, he noted: “Yeah, I guess it could be interpreted that way. But, for me, my original high is singing. In my time in Hollywood, I have gone through a lot of ups and downs. There are moments when you look back with nostalgia and go: ‘Oh, this felt good! Maybe, I should keep trying to find that over and over again’. So it’s kind of about the circles we run in… and that craving for newness.

“Right before I started it (the album), I found myself in a bit of a rut, creatively. I didn’t quite know what I wanted to do next. I was kind of looking for more depth in my personal life; kind of searching for a connection and feeling isolated. And I think all of that came out in these songs,” he continued.

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Unlike his previous release, this album, which is produced by Max Martin, only has two collaborations: one is with Tove Lo (Rumors) and the other with Brian May (Lucy).

The singer says it wasn’t orchestrated, as such, but a very organic experience.

On him coming full circle in way, as a guest judge on the final season of American Idols, he admitted: “You know, it was really exciting. I really have great memories of Idols. It’s always been a family feel for me. It was really fun, too.”

Not wanting to dwell on his new look, he shrugged off the attention and responded: “It’s funny, to you, the outsider, it’s a new look. To me, it’s just how I dress. Anyway, I think our style changes. I guess it was time to change it up.”

Hopefully, fans will feel as connected to the album as he does. After all, Ghost Town is already haunting our airwaves!

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