Adam Lambert’s latest album High Drama is composed of all cover songs, and the wide-ranging singer revealed that he actually reached out to his friend Boy George after he recorded his own take on Culture Club’s 1982 smash “Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?” in an interview on The View on Thursday, March 2. Adam, 41, revealed to the hosts that the 80s icon, 61, thoroughly enjoyed his cover.
Host Alyssa Farah-Griffin asked Adam what it was like for him to perform a cover of an iconic song when he’s actually friends with the original artist. The current Queen singer revealed that Boy George was very pleased with how it turned out. “I thought of doing this song, and I hadn’t told him yet. So I was like, ‘Well let me get the thing done, and see if it’s any good, and then, I’ll send it to him.’ So I sent it to him, and he loved it, which was a big relief,” he said.
Aside from explaining that Boy George “loved” his take on the Culture Club classic, Adam explained that he hoped that there’d be an opportunity for the two singers to duet his new take on the song. “He’s very funny, a good friend. Actually, I want to sing it with him at some point,” the American Idol alum said.
Earlier in the interview, the “Whataya Want From Me” singer explained that choosing all of the songs he decided to perform on his latest LP was very personal for him. “I’m a songwriter as well, but with this project, the creative challenge was to take these songs, completely reinvent them, and having them be authentic emotionally is part of that process. If I didn’t feel like the stories being told in the songs could come from my life, I was thinking, that wasn’t going to make a good cover,” he said. “All of these songs are things I really relate to.”
Adam dropped High Drama at the end of February. The singer’s fifth solo album is all cover songs of tons of classics by artists like Kings Of Leon, Bonnie Tyler, Duran Duran, Sia, and many more.