ADAM LAMBERT ON SINGING WITH QUEEN

Credit: Fuse

With a No. 1 album under his spangled belt and five upcoming concerts with the surviving members of Queen, it's a good time to be Adam Lambert. Fuse chatted with the American Idol runner-up about working with Pharrell Williams on Trespassing and taking on the task of filling Freddie Mercury's imposing shoes (or lack thereof, as the case often was).

"I'm pumped. I have some songs I don't quite know all the way, so I have some things to learn," Lambert admits to Fuse. "I don't know what I'm wearing yet, hopefully it's fabulous. I'm just looking forward to paying tribute to the great songs of Queen and legacy of Freddie Mercury. My goal for the evening is just to sing the sh*t out of the songs." Hell yeah!

The "Never Close Our Eyes" singer also talks about interpreting Queen's songs so that he can remain true to himself as an artist. "Freddie—one of the things that made him so brilliant—is you always understood what he was trying to communicate by the way his voice sounded and his phrasing and his energy," Lamberts says. "My goal is to communicate the same idea. I'm going to be myself up there, but pay respect in a tasteful way."

Glambert also tells us about the joy of Freddie Mercury performing shoeless and in short shorts. "One of my favorite Freddie performances is… I think it was Montreal, where he's barefoot in the shorts," Lambert says, (skip to 3:08 for that visual). "I'm like, he's just wearing those little shorts up there and no shoes. He doesn't give a sh*t about anything and I love that. I love how free he was on stage."