Whole Lotta Lambert by Nick Arnold

Adam Lambert was the runner-up from this season of American Idol. During his time on the show, Adam performed many famous rock hits that wowed audiences and judges alike. His range and vocal quality was the likes of no rock singers before him on the show. Adam has garnered respect and praise from huge rock stars like KISS and Queen from his performances on the Idol stage, and will hopefully establish himself and remain a powerful rock icon. Our GRAMMY Camp® Music Journalism group was invited down to the Staples Center to interview some of the Idol finalists one on one. We were not designated our finalist beforehand, so when Adam walked into the room, I fell out of my chair because I was so excited and shocked.

Nick Arnold: What has American Idol taught you about the music industry?
Adam Lambert: "It's really complicated! I think it's taught me a lot about the marketing side of it, because there's so much more than just me. You would need a whole notebook to write it all down. It's nuts! But it's cool, it makes sense when you think about it from an outside perspective when they start to explain it."

NA: Yeah, they've had people from the business coming in this week and telling us how everyone plays a part, and it can't just be the artist.
AL: "It takes a HUGE team to make everything work. It's like gears in a watch: every piece has to be going for anything to happen."

NA: That's a great way to put it! How is being out on the road different from being on TV?
AL: "Well, the audiences are bigger, obviously, and it's MUCH more tiring. During the show, the day of was really the one day you had to be on, like sing full out, and the day you recorded your iTunes song was the only other work day of the week. So once those were done, you could kind of take it easy, but now we have stuff going on every night, but we get like two days off per week. I also have to sing five songs, so it's not just 90 seconds like on the show.

NA: Sounds much more difficult!
AL: "Yeah, it's hard, but it's cool when we get on stage and everybody is screaming and cheering for us. It's makes it really worth all the work, you know?"

NA: Do you like doing your own five songs in the show better than just one?
AL: "Yeah, it's a lot more rewarding, I really get to put on a show. I feel like on the show people are left wanting more a lot."

NA: Has your singing style changed since your experiences with Idol?
AL: "Well, I'm not going quite as high as I did on the show, because I've got to save my voice so it's not strained on the tour. But for the most part I'm still singing the same. I'm opening with Led Zeppelin. I'm doing "Whole Lotta Love," and I'm doing a Muse song as my second song.

NA: Which one?
AL: "Starlight."

NA: Oh, awesome!
AL: "Yeah, so it's some stuff I didn't do on the show, and I'm doing a David Bowie medley. It's really cool."

NA: Nice!
AL: "Yeah, and we did electronic production with this, so it's a lot more modern. It's really awesome sounding."

NA: Awesome! Well, I can't wait! I really liked how on the show you put your own twists on songs, like, I know you did "Ring of Fire," but you made it sound like a whole new song! If I didn't know Johnny Cash did it first, I would've thought it was an Adam Lambert original.
AL: "Thank you man, I appreciate it! Yeah, I really messed around with that one, and I wanted it to sound really psychedelic and mysterious."

NA: What do you guys do for fun on the road?
AL: "We're just really silly, we're just a bunch of goofballs. I mean it's funny, like there was a Twitter picture that Matt or Danny posted the other day that was hilarious! We're just being big goofs backstage playing around."

NA: Yeah, some of the other Idols were saying you guys like to poke fun at each other.
AL: "Yeah! We're like a big family!"