Interview: Adam Lambert on ITV documentary Adam Lambert: Out, Loud and Proud
Tonight on ITV1 and ITVX ,join multi-platinum selling American singer and Queen frontman, Adam Lambert as he sets the record straight in this eye-opening music documentary. Having faced censorship in the U.S, Lambert brings his unique perspective to explore how British LGBTQ+ artists have fought for their place in the music industry.
Through candid interviews with Queen’s Brian May and Roger Taylor, reflecting on queer icon Freddie Mercury, to intimate conversations with Andy Bell of 80’s pop duo Erasure, and Skin from 90’s band Skunk Anansie (the first Black British artist to headline Glastonbury) and British pop icon MNEK, Lambert uncovers the groundbreaking stories of these artists. Each one not only defined their decade but also battled for queer rights, pushing against a music industry that often demanded conformity for success.
In the final part, this documentary dives into the final frontier of LGBTQ+ rights in the 21st century. Featuring actress and singer Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, the first trans woman to win a Golden Globe for her role in “Pose”, the film reveals how language, tropes and negative coverage once used against cisgender gay and lesbian people in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s are still used to target the trans community today.
Adam Lambert: Out, Loud and Proud is a powerful tribute to the resilience and revolutionary spirit of LGBTQ+ artists who have transformed the music world while fighting for equality.
Tell us a bit about how this hugely important project came to fruition?
It was an idea that I wanted to explore, looking at the lives and history of queer musicians in the UK, particularly looking at our journey as a community towards equality and visibility but to do it through music and the lives of queer musicians. I’ve seen a lot of documentaries and TV specials about queer actors in the film and TV industry, because that was one of the first steps in visibility. I think now the music industry is
changing so rapidly and you’re seeing more and more musicians represent all these different identities in the umbrella rainbow that is the LGBTQ+ community. I thought to myself, ‘I haven’t seen a comprehensive look at the history of queer musicians’ and ‘I thought okay, maybe I should make one?’. I started talking with ITV and we had an amazing first meeting and it was really exciting, and that’s how it came to be.
Tell us what Adam Lambert: Out, Loud and Proud is all about?
It’s a look at the last 40 – 50 years of pop culture in the UK, particularly the musicians that have trail-blazed into our current times, in regards to queer representation. It’s still something that we’re working towards and there’s still a lot of work to be done in terms of equality. But it
is getting better and it’s really fun to look back at where it started and how things have changed.
Even in today’s world there are challenges that come up but looking back at history, putting it into a retrospective gives you hope and makes you realise that positive strides have been made. There’s a lot of challenges still and a lot of setbacks that we face as a community but if you compare where we’re at now to where we were at in the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s and 2000’s, you realise things have gotten better. That’s exciting to me, being able to bring a positive outcome in this programme is very exciting.
LGBTQ+ artists all over the world have faced huge challenges, but what was it about the UK specifically that resonated for this project?
It’s funny because I feel like the UK in many ways is almost a little ahead of the US in terms of acceptance and visibility. For me, being an artist that came from a TV competition show and then coming out, I was the first one to do it on American Idol – but the UK had Will Young
maybe 10 years prior, so we’re offset by like a decade. It’s fun for me to look at this through an UK lense, if I think about iconic queer musicians the first ones that come to mind are almost all UK artists – Elton, Freddie, Bowie, Boy George – these are queer men for example, but it all started from British artists so for me coming up and realising my dream of wanting to be an artist on stage – a singer outside of musical theatre – those were my touchstones and that felt like a really exciting place to dig into.
You have a very special relationship with the UK with Queen – tell us a bit about what that’s like and how it’s grown/evolved over the years?
I’ve spent so much time in London and working in the media, singing for Queen and getting to know the Queen family and the fans and touring the country doing interviews on TV about that and my own projects. I feel like I’m an adopted step child of the UK at this point, I love it
and have soaked up so much pop culture in the UK, so it seemed like a natural thing to want to explore, even as an outsider to look at it objectively, that felt really interesting. Queen and I have been working together for over a decade, I sang their song ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ as my audition song for American Idol so I think that’s how the dots connected. It’s been an incredible honour to carry on the legacy of Queen as an act of service to Brian May and Roger Taylor, to be able to facilitate them getting on stage and play their hits and to carry the mantle for Freddie, who was so sadly taken from all of us from the AIDS virus. If he was still alive today, I’m sure that he’d still be doing it with them so it’s bittersweet but I am grateful for the opportunity. I always try to honour Freddie, everything I do on stage is a tribute to him through my own vessel.
What’s really exciting for me with this documentary is being able to chat with Brian and Roger about Freddie. It was really nice to have that safe space and I’m really honoured they felt comfortable with me and open to talk about their experience with Freddie and his experience as a queer man in a time where it was a taboo thing to talk about publicly. I really love that they trusted me with that conversation. I’m really honoured that they wanted to chat with me about it.
Was there a day during filming or a particular moment that really stood out for you?
I think getting to sit down with Brian and Roger was really special, because we’ve had so many of these conversations in private. To be able to capture some of it for the cameras and share with the public is really cool. I’ve gotten to know Brian and Roger over the last decade, they are such lovely human beings and allies. They’ve always supported and loved Freddie, and they knew about who Freddie was from day one and they loved him unconditionally. It’s exciting to get their version of events and to hear how it affected them, how they can see how it affected Freddie. They’re one of the biggest bands in the entire world and Freddie is one of the most beloved rock stars ever and to get their take on what it was like for him and them as a group is really interesting, I think the public will find it fascinating.
Stream the programme on ITVX.
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