Adam Lambert

Coming up with something new and original is so exciting.

There are female artists I can look at that I find more in common with than the male artists, because they're blending the pop, dance and theatricality... but currently there aren't a lot of guys who go there.

Female performers have been doing this for years - pushing the envelope about sexuality - and the minute a man does it, everybody freaks out.

I've only dressed in drag three or four times.

I'm very inspired by past music.

I think the difficult thing is the transition between TV competition series and going into the actual music industry. There still seems to be a slight disconnect there.

I was really beating myself up about performances and how I looked and this and that.

You can't plan everything - if I did a performance exactly how I rehearsed it, it would be so boring.

I'm trying to convey to my audience that you really can't judge a book by its cover, and there's more to the universe than you can see with your eyes.

After my tour I had time to stay at home, be with my boyfriend and hang out with friends and that brought me down to earth and helped me write music from a more relaxed place.

I worked at Starbucks when I was 16... It was all right.

I'm trying to be a singer, not a civil rights leader.