Adele Discovers the Power to Makes Grown Men Cry With ‘Someone Like You’

Adele had all the makings of a star with her debut album, ’19,’ a critical and commercial success that earned the London-born singing sensation a deserved Grammy Award in 2009 for Best New Artist, among other accolades. However, as music fans we’ve all seen more than our share of flash-in-the-pan artists, acts that burn bright, get our hopes up and are never able to follow that debut success. The artists that can make a career last are truly rare. But as Adele showed recently when she visited our L.A. studios to tape a Sessions performance for her new ’21′ album, she is a rare talent indeed.

Whether it was the heart-wrenching ‘Someone Like You,’ a song that nearly moved our room to tears, or her delightful off-the-cuff version of Cee Lo Green’s ‘F— You’ in sound check, her poise and voice constantly dazzled. And as as interview, she’s just as impressive. From her passion for music and film, including why she’d love to have had a song in ‘Thelma And Louise,’ to how she can make grown men cry and why a drunk tongue is often best, she is charming, funny and wickedly candid in the best way.

As a massive fan of film, who is also a musician, what would be the dream couple of films to write music for?

Maybe a Martin Scorsese film. I don’t know if I’m trained enough to maybe be able to offer something that good for one of his movies. I really wanted to have the soundtrack for ‘Love and Other Drugs,’ that Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway film, and I was in for a good shot but I submitted the wrong song. But that’s my kind of movie, I love that kind of thing, so I would have loved that. ‘Thelma and Louise’ would have been pretty cool, but ‘Godfather II’ is my favorite film. Imagine ‘Chasing Pavements’ in ‘Godfather II’ [laughs].

What would you put in ‘Thelma and Louise?’

Probably ‘Someone Like You,’ which is the last track on the new album. Yeah.

It would be a good fit. That’s a brutal song, in a great way.

Yeah, it’s brutal, I nearly cried earlier in rehearsal and sound check.

You nearly made most of the crew cry, too. Bunch of guys, too, so that was impressive.

I can make guys cry, in song and in real life, as well. I’m good at that.

Can you give us some examples of the ways that Adele makes guys cry in song and in real life?

Well, in real life I can just switch; I’ve got split personalities. I can be pretty evil if I want to be, for good reason, not for no reason. And I tend to find a lot of my fans are females and they tend to bring their husbands or boyfriends down, and I think they get a bit emotional when their other half gets a bit emotional. They tend to cry.

You say that you almost cried during ‘Someone Like You’ in rehearsal. Obviously, performing these songs is very, very new for you — this is one of the first performances. First off, how did the performance feel to you?

Really, really great. I’ve got a couple of new people in my band and they’re brilliant, but the whole thing is fun, isn’t it? I mean, it’s always fun but it’s really exciting at the moment because we’re still kind of living with the songs and getting used to them. They’re probably going to change a lot over the next two years when we play them live, which always thrills me. But there are certain songs; I’m absolutely devastated about my past relationship, that the record’s about, that didn’t last, so it takes me back to that moment really. It just sort of punches me in the stomach and takes my breath away a bit when I sing songs like ‘Someone Like You.’ ‘Rolling in the Deep’ I really enjoy because it takes me back to when I was really angry and quite pissed off, and my first record there was nothing like that, really. Maybe a tiny little bit in ‘Cold Shoulder,’ but ‘Rolling in the Deep’ is like full-on pissed off, so [laughs] I like singing that one. It’s fun, but ‘Someone Like You’ really, really strikes my heart every time I sing it, at the moment.

I don’t think I’ll be able to sing ‘Someone Like You’ for much longer. It’s only the third time I’ve done this live since the record was done. But I don’t think that one. ‘Make You Feel My Love,’ it’s not my song, but sometimes it’s quite difficult to sing and usually I have to kind of put on an actor’s face and pretend that I’m feeling it. Just because that song kind of defines a massive changing point in my life and sometimes I sing it and I’m really happy and I think of my mum when I sing it, and stuff like that, or my godson. But sometimes I just think of all the failures that I’ve had in relationships, I mean, it’s not loathe, but you know I can quite easily step back into the bad memories. ‘Make You Feel My Love’ does that. So often when I’m singing that I’m not feeling it; I’m thinking of IKEA or something like that [laughs].

Is it fun now to just get to be a fan?

Even when I released my first record, I’m more of a fan of other music than concentrating on mine. So I don’t really think about it like that. I’m a music fan before I’m a singer or an artist. So I always feel like this about music, about other people’s music, even if I don’t like the music, I respect every single artist and band – old or new – because it is hard. I don’t know what, I mean some people obviously enjoy it, but I don’t know what possesses me to pretty much stand in Times Square absolutely naked, which is what it makes me feel like when I release a record and play. I’ve got only kudos for people who do that.

As you’re writing a record, there are moments that’ll start to surprise yourself and because this one is so personal were there things that started to emerge where you were just like, “How can I put that out there?”

Absolutely. In between the making of ’19′ and the touring of ’19,’ as well in the little bit of downtime that I had, I started realizing my own flaws and my own disappointments, and I started regretting a lot of stuff. When I was 18, 19, and doing the first record, I didn’t regret anything. I was very much a teenager and I thought I knew it all. I thought there was nothing else I could ever learn, but I think that was because of the intensity of my last relationship, that the record’s about, that made me more aware of them things. So, yeah, I used to have to lock myself in my house, get pretty drunk, write a drunk diary – because that was the only time I could ever admit things to myself. A drunk tongue is an honest one, in my opinion. And then the next morning I’d read it through with an awful hangover in the cold light of day and have to sort of absorb my own feelings about myself. I was a bit scared that I wouldn’t be able to be articulate enough with this record because of the new revelations, but I was agile when it came to realizing things about myself, I suppose. It was really quite an awakening album, self-awakening, yeah.

What were some of the songs that emerged that really surprised you the most?

‘Don’t You Remember,’ which I played for this [Sessions], actually. It was the last song I wrote that made the record, the last song in general that I wrote, sorry. I just spent so long being quite bitter in the writing of this record, and it just exhausted me and I saw a shadow of myself and I wasn’t passionate about anything, not even my writing. And I just started kind of sinking back into missing my ex and I was quite upset about the way, when something is so brilliant, but yet it gets to the point of no return and you can’t even remember why you loved each other. I started remembering what it was that I actually loved about him and at the beginning I’d f—ing have a panic attack if he didn’t text me back within 10 seconds of me texting him. And I always dwell on stuff, which that lyric “Heaviness in my head” is about. I find it really hard to move on sometimes, which is something that I’m only just realizing; it’s something I need to work on.

When you put an album out like this that does detail a relationship, is there a certain amount of letting go with the music going out there?

Yes. It’s out of my system once the record’s done. And it’s the kind of thing of sort of stepping away and taking a backseat a little bit and revisiting it live when I want to. Like I was saying, some songs will be too hard to sing. But, yeah, it’s like cheap therapy; it’s brilliant. It belongs to whoever else, hopefully, that record would help give hope to. Yeah, so it’s completely out of my system.

So as you started to explore styles on this record, are there things that have started to seem more comfortable that maybe will become more prevalent in the future?

I think definitely blues, which is something that I kind of pursued a little bit on this. Kind of a bluesy-soul. I was exposed here, because I was touring for so long, to a lot of country and rockabilly and bluegrass and stuff like that. I’m never going to make a country record because I don’t think I have the right voice for it, but the melodies and kind of fighting talk to the point that I find in a lot of American styles of music is definitely something that I’m going to be pursuing heavily from now on. I really want to go and spend some time in Nashville or Austin and learn about it. I feel like a 4-year-old in a candy shop who’s discovering sweets again; every day is pretty amazing when it comes to new artists. And that will fill my life for 20 years, just discovering new kind of country music and stuff like that. I think the blues thing, but that might change.

I just love music, so I don’t know – maybe I’ll never have a sound. But I hope that one day; it depends because they say that the music industry is looking quite bleak, clearly, isn’t it [laughs]? So I don’t know if I’ll be given the opportunity to develop and breathe and be a proper artist. I like how ‘Tapestry’ is Carole King’s record; I hope one day I have a record that people might not even know but as soon as they hear the groove of my voice they’re like, “Oh, yeah, that’s Adele,” or if someone is introducing someone to me they’ll be like, “Listen to that album; that’s her best record.” I hope that happens one day and I hope I’m given the opportunity to reach that point.