Adam Lambert is reflecting on his time on “American Idol”.
The musician was runner-up on the show back in 2009 and has since gone on to have huge success, performing in Queen and selling over 3 million albums and 5 million singles worldwide.
In an interview with ET Canada’s Keshia Chanté, Lambert shares of what he remembers about his “Idol” audition: “What I remember is that I went in there singing a Michael Jackson song, and the judges kind of looked at me like they weren’t sure about it. They weren’t really feeling it.
“And so I was like, ‘I’m not leaving here without, you know, getting through.’ So I was like, ‘Well, okay, well, I can sing something else. What does you always want to hear?’ And they were like, ‘What else do you have?’ And I said, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ by Queen.
“And you know, if I hadn’t have picked that, I don’t know if the past decade would have looked like how it looked. It’s kind of one of those fate things where, you know, you have to give fate sometimes a little nudge, but something stepped in and took care of me. So, it’s been great.”
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Lambert, who says he’s kept in touch with Allison Iraheta from his time on the show, goes on to say of what he remembers most: “You know, it was an interesting time because I was 27 and I had been doing theatre in L.A.
“But it slowly started one of like fantasizing about like, ‘Oh, I want to be an artist. I want to do this like outside of theatre. I want to make my own music. I want to write my own music.’
“And so I started, you know, writing stuff. I had a band for a little while, but at that point it was such a fantasy. But I had gotten to a point right before I auditioned where I was like, ‘You know what? I got to believe in all of these dreams and I got to say yes to everything.’ And so that’s what I did. I went for it because I went for everything at that point. I had an experience out at Burning Man where it was very inspirational. And I was like, ‘Oh, you know what? I need to, like, dive into things more’ and that’s what happened.”
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Elsewhere in the interview, Lambert reveals which judge he’d duet with, telling us: “I want to hear Simon [Cowell] sing. Because I bet he can’t. I bet Randy [Jackson] would be really fun, but it’s got to be Paula [Abdul], you know, she’s like, I love Paula. She’s amazing.”
As Chanté points out that Mariah Carey was also a judge, Lambert gushes: “Oh, yeah. She was a judge after my time. But yeah, that would be good.”
“One on One with Adam Lambert” is airing Friday, Nov. 18 at 7:30 p.m. ET/7 p.m. PT on Global, and streaming live and on demand on STACKTV and the Global TV App.
