Adam Lambert Opens Up — and Wants the Rest of Us to Do the Same
Adam Lambert performs. (Photo: Getty Images)
As he performs almost nightly in his current tour, Adam Lambert’s favorite song is his latest single, “Another Lonely Night.”
“[Crowd engagement is] definitely a big part of it,” the singer tells Yahoo Celebrity. “I love the act of connecting and that’s one of the things that I love about doing live shows is that you’re really connecting. It’s a shared experience. And I think that song, it really speaks to people.”
The reason, he says, is simple.
“It’s about something that we all know no matter who you are, no matter how old or what gender you are, what color you are, whatever,” he explains. “Everybody knows what loneliness feels like. I think the genius of the song is that the lyrics are talking about being in that space, but it’s not a sad feeling song. When the chorus comes in, it’s sort of uplifting. It kind of has a groove to it, so hopefully it’s telling people, ‘OK, you’re lonely, but it’s OK, and you’re going to be fine.’”
Lambert grew up with the influence of glam rockers, such as the late David Bowie and Freddie Mercury, the late lead singer of Queen. He often tours with the British group behind “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
Related: What Adam Lambert Admired Most About David Bowie
He knows what’s it like to be different and sometimes, yes, alone. Lambert also likes to bring people closer together with his music. It makes sense then that he is the voice singing the latest jingle for the classic indulgence of Oreo cookies and the brand’s new campaign “Open Up.”
“Their whole mission statement and the whole concept behind this ad is so in line with a lot of my philosophy,” he says. “I think they’re trying to encourage people to remember the time when they were kids … where you’re in a frame of mind where everything’s new, and I think children or a child-like mentality tends to be a little bit more open-minded [with] not a lot of biases or judgments or preconceived notions about things, and I love that. I love encouraging people to open up and to be open-minded and to be sort of optimistic. The whole campaign really appealed to me in that way. And it’s always been sort of a fantasy of [mine] to be able to like record a jingle for a television commercial. I think that was really exciting.”
(In case you’re curious, Lambert says he prefers Double Stuff Oreos, usually twisted apart and eaten one piece at a time, with milk.)
Lambert’s had a lot to be excited about in the seven years since he was voted the runner-up on the eighth season of American Idol. In addition to a Grammy nomination and a GLAAD Media Award, appearances on shows like Glee, and three successful albums, there’s the fact that Lambert landed at the top of the list Forbes made for the top-earning American Idol alums of 2015, having earned $10 million between June 2014 and June 2015.
Lambert competed on 'Idol’ in 2009. (Photo: Fox Broadcasting Co.)
As Idol airs its final season, Lambert has nothing but good things to say about the show that launched his career. That’s quite different than former contestant Clay Aiken, who dissed the show and blamed the judges for being boring in a series of tweets earlier this month.
While Lambert hasn’t seen the show lately — he’s been on tour in Asia since before it premiered — he hopes to continue his tradition of visiting every season since his own.
“But I got to work with those judges last year,” he notes. “The only one that I didn’t work with, unfortunately, was Keith.” Lambert filled in for Urban as a judge after the country star’s father died.
“But Harry [Connick Jr.] and Jennifer [Lopez] are lovely. I’d met Jennifer very briefly once, but didn’t really know either of them, and they were so much fun. Actually, I was really impressed with how much time and care they put into each contestant that came in and auditioned. They really care, and they had some incredible advice."
The "Whataya Want From Me” singer himself doesn’t seem to need words of wisdom from anyone else, at least not when it comes to his lucrative career. It was just announced that he’ll play the role of Eddie originated by Meat Loaf in Fox’s upcoming TV remake of the 1975 cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
