Queen and Adam Lambert perform onstage during the North American Tour kickoff at Gila River Arena on June 23, 2017 in Glendale, Arizona. (Photo by Christopher Polk/Getty Images for Miracle Productions LLP)
Hold onto your sequined hats, Glamberts.
Your one and only Season 8 American Idol runner-up Adam Lambert, currently touring North America with British rockers Queen, is returning to a glam rock sound on the follow up to his darker, colder-sounding third solo album, 2015’s The Original High.
In fact, the vocally-blessed singer has already whetted our appetites with his cheeky Pride-celebrating new single, Two Fux – as in “I really don’t give ...,” – which he’s performing on stage every night with Queen.
“It’s funny ‘cause someone said, ‘So, you don’t care?’", said Lambert, 35, in an exclusive Canadian print interview with Postmedia Network.
“And I’m like, ‘No, no, no. If YOU have a problem with ME, I don’t care about what you think.’ I care about a lot of things. That’s what I like about it. It’s sort of owning being different, being weird, being left of centre and kind of celebrating it.”
We caught up with the San Diego native down the line from a Queen tour stop in Montreal before they played Toronto’s Air Canada Centre on Tuesday night.
Why did Queen guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor agree to play Two Fux on this current tour? (Note Queen fans: it’s Two Fux producer Big Taste playing the guitar solo on the recorded version and not May.)
I played some of [my new] stuff for the guys and Brian was like, ‘I can’t get Two Fux out of my head. It’s like I heard it once and it’s stuck in there.’ And I said, ‘Well, that’s a good thing.’ And he said, ‘Exactly.’ And the rest of the music isn’t coming out for a bit, so I kind of jumped ahead and said, ‘Well, if you like it, let’s put it in the show. And I’ll put it out because it’ll be really fun to have something new in there.’ And they were into it.
When do we get to hear your new album, which you’ve been working on for six months already?
New music is coming this year. That’s all I can say.
How would you describe the sound?
It’s kind of a full circle thing for me sonically. I’m sort of leaning back towards the glam rock sensibilities that I kind of started off with. I think in many ways it’s coming back to my strengths so I’m excited for people to hear it. And that doesn’t necessarily mean it sounds exactly like 1974, but I think just the spirit of it. I love that.
Do you see yourself making a new album ever with Queen or is it just a touring live relationship?
So far it’s just a touring live relationship. I don’t think anybody has ever said like, ‘No. I don’t want to do that.’ We’re all sort of open to it. It has to be the right thing at the right time and for the right reason. I think to me doing a whole new album with Brian and Roger, I don’t even know if I would call that Queen. Is that Queen? Or is that some other incarnation?
What do you think about the casting of Mr. Robot’s Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury in the long-awaited Queen biopic?
I think he’s going to be great. I have not met him, but I know of him. I think he’s a great actor, and I can imagine him in the role.
You just came off being a judge on Australia’s X-Factor. Any chance you’ve been approached to do that on the rebooted American Idol on ABC in 2018?
No I have not. I have a feeling they’re not going to go with past Idols. I think that’s the media rumour that loves to perpetuate itself. Every time the Idol judging is about to be announced, I’m always in the mix.
What do you think about it being brought back?
I think it should be exciting to see what they end up doing with it. It’s not been very long since they took it off the air [on Fox in 2016].
And what do you think of Katy Perry as a new Idol judge?
I think she’ll be great. She’s honest. She has a lot of history with the show. She’s kind of been a guest on it about a dozen times. She was actually a guest on it my season as a matter of fact. So, yeah, I think she’ll fit in nicely. And, yeah, this shows some new blood.
Any more acting gigs since you played Eddie on the TV reboot of The Rocky Horror picture show?
That was so fun. We’ll see if something comes up in the future. Yeah, it was funny actually Meat Loaf [who played Eddie in the 1978 screen version] came to the Queen show two weeks ago in Vancouver, he was there shooting a TV show, and it was so fun to see him backstage. He was like, ‘Ah, I really liked what you did. But I’m still number one.’ And I was like, ‘Yes, you are sir.’ (Laughs).
