Today's guest is one of the great voices of his generation — the theater kid who auditioned for American Idol with Michael Jackson, watched the judges' faces fall, and demanded a second song because he'd just quit his job and had no health insurance. But his real story isn't the voice. It's the game — the one Freddie Mercury wrote about, the one that picks your singles, writes your headlines, and decides who you are before you do.
And The Writer Is... Adam Lambert!
In this episode of And The Writer Is, we go deep on:
The AMA kiss that blew up a $500,000 single launch — \"everyone was going, oh shit\"
Quitting Wicked — and losing his health insurance — to audition, then refusing the judges' no
Why Kara DioGuardi 'busted his balls all season'
What Brian May says \"Play the Game\" was really about
Signed before the finale even aired: why losing Idol never mattered
and much more.
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A special thank you to our lead sponsor, NMPA — the National Music Publishers' Association.
0:00 Intro
1:09 The album is out — why self-titled, \"first name basis\"
2:35 Meeting Pete Nappi through a pandemic song still in the vault
3:39 \"Am I Okay\" — written one week after the breakup
6:02 Singles made him \"crazy\" — the label picks that flopped: \"I told you so\"
7:04 Leaning into what fans expect vs. challenging them
8:16 Proud of the flops, indifferent to some hits
9:34 Theater kids: every album is a character, every record a world
11:28 The dystopian cover — \"I want it blasted into the future\"
13:55 Adam Lambert or Freddie Mercury? \"I feel like it's me\"
15:35 Coffee with Freddie — what Brian says \"Play the Game\" was really about
16:56 \"The music industry is a big old game, isn't it?\"
17:43 A college-DJ dad, a Sly Stone mom, and a kid screaming through the house
19:46 The Fiddler note where everybody went \"oh, wow\"
21:03 San Diego to LA at 19 — math knocked him off the college path
23:00 Weed, poetry, and GarageBand
25:49 Wicked: six months, burnt out, and a new plan
29:20 Inside the Idol machine — two camps, two agendas
32:49 The Burning Man epiphany that vanquished the fear
34:39 No job, no insurance, and judges who didn't get Rock With You
35:11 \"I didn't really ask\" — the second song that changed everything
36:22 Why Idol can't break artists anymore
38:04 Honey water: the whiskey story behind Kara DioGuardi's grudge
41:21 Justin Timberlake tells him to remake A Night at the Opera
42:06 Losing the finale — already signed before it aired
47:20 The blog photos drop: \"Yeah, that's me. Get over it.\"
51:53 The AMA kiss and the $500,000 single
53:22 What Do You Want From Me — the P!nk demo
56:00 Singing uncredited on Avicii's \"Lay Me Down\"
59:03 \"It takes a village — bring them with you\"
60:26 Max Martin: \"When you get on stage, I don't have to worry\"
61:26 How Queen actually made the call
62:07 Trespassing hits #1 — a first he didn't know he'd made
62:48 The poster-child years: \"the headline is that I'm gay, and no one's talking about the music\"
66:11 Trespassing, the \"bipolar album\" — his half vs. the label's half
67:20 Two months with the Wolf Cousins — why his songs didn't make the cut
70:05 The Ghost Town gamble — \"you've got to do something drastic\"
72:44 Songs with no home — \"throwing my ideas into space\"
76:03 Velvet dies to Covid, two weeks in
76:52 A Telefunken, YouTube tutorials, and teaching himself Logic
77:51 The secret musical: 20 songs written over Zoom
82:45 Identity vs. brand — \"the personality precedes the skill\"
83:35 Songwriters don't get paid for their time — the union conversation
87:37 Giving his co-writers master points — \"it's just classy, man\"
88:28 Where the stage presence actually comes from
90:13 The hardest part of fame
93:06 \"I nitpick the negative\" — showing the uglier side for the first time
96:28 Is Ozempic killing LA nightlife?
Credits:
Hosted by Ross Golan
Produced by Joe London & Jad Saad
Edited by Jad Saad
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