Into the heart

Adele Laurie Blue Adkins – better known to millions simply as Adele – has certainly been no stranger to the press since she shot to global fame early in 2008, but there are three redtop headlines the English superstar hopes never to see. Here they are, in reverse order…

“Number three: I would not like to read in a tabloid newspaper that I’m pregnant – whether it’s true or false,” the 23 year-old singer says, pulling a disdainful frown. “Number two: I would not want to read that I pulled Duffy’s extensions out in a toilet. I did read that once, and it was just fucking stupid. We hadn’t even met at that point! Number one: I would not like to read that my plane crashed and I died.”
She laughs, throatily. “Actually, that would probably be the main one.”
On a somewhat sun-nier note, there are some stories she would be blissfully happy to read about herself.
“Number three that I would like to read about myself is that The Cure like my cover of ‘Love Song’ on the new album,” she says. “Number two is that maybe I would win another Grammy one day. Number one that I would like to read about myself… What would it be?”
Following a thoughtful pause, she giggles and claps her hands. “Oh, that I got married!”

By her own admission, that last one is unlikely to happen anytime soon… but she’s hopeful. “I have a funny feeling I’ll be getting married in the next couple of years actually. I haven’t met anyone yet, but I’ve got a feeling.”
That Adele is currently single will come as little or no surprise to anyone who’s heard the London-born singer’s two studio albums to date, 19 and 21. Raw and obviously autobiographical, both albums are predominately about heartache, regret and relationships gone sour.
Of course, if she sorts her love life out, she might have nothing left to write about.
“Yeah, but I’m gonna call the next one 45,” she says. “I’m joking! I don’t know, I don’t know how long it will take me. I mean, if I meet someone then hopefully I’ll be happy for a while, and you won’t be hearing from me for a long time. If I’m having fun, I’m not going out to write a song. People will be like: ‘Oh, fuck off! Stop being so happy, come and give us a song to cry to again!’”
As things stand in her love life at this very moment, though, the next batch of songs probably won’t be any more cheerful. Fame hasn’t made things any easier.
“Yeah, it doesn’t change when you’re successful in your career,” she sighs. “It doesn’t change at all. If anything it gets worse!”

On the plus side, relationships are something everyone can, em, relate to. Adele has made millions singing about her romantic woes, her broken-hearted ballads pulling heartstrings and emptying tear-ducts on both sides of the Atlantic. Her fortune was recently estimated to be in the region of €6 million. Which probably won’t come as much comfort to the two jilted boyfriends who unwittingly provided the raw material for both albums.
“21 isn’t about the same person as 19,” she explains. “I don’t like recycling old loves. But yeah, it’s about pretty much the same subject. Except that, you know, it’s my first proper adult relationship that 21 is about. It was like proper commitment, you know, like money and everything, sharing absolutely everything in our lives, which was my first time doing that.”
Although that relationship didn’t work out, she maintains she’s learnt from the experience.

“I am more mature in relationships, especially more mature in my last relationship than I was in the relationship of 19. And I realised for the first time – which is something that comes with age, it’s so appropriate, that is why I called the album 21 – that I’m actually not that great a girlfriend (laughs). And I used to think I was like the best girlfriend in the world, and I’m rubbish and I’m really expecting and I’ve got so many flaws, and I’m real needy, and I was getting jealous in my last relationship. And I’m being honest: I am the least jealous person I know. Like I fully embrace everything like, you know what I mean, I’m up for… I support everything and everyone but I was getting jealous of teenage girls fancying my fella. And I’m not an adult, even at 21.”
Not that she’s taking all the blame. By her account, her last beau was a bit of a plonker.
“Yeah, he was a bit of an idiot,” she smiles. “He brought out… he was an idiot and brought the idiot out in me. But, you know, I know myself better now.
I know what you have to put into a relationship to get out of, you know. I’m young anyway, but when I was younger, relationships are quite flimsy even though they mean a lot, it’s still quite playground-y. You know what I mean? You can decide and go to sleep and then wake in the morning, and be: ‘Oh, I don’t want to be here anymore’, and it’s not a big deal. Whereas this time, I think the main thing in life, I’ve learned, is you get what you put in.”

Obviously money doesn’t buy you love…
“No, not at all. I learned that. I kept on showering my last ex with gifts, but he was totally unimpressed (laughs). That’s because I like sharing my money. I mean, I spoil all my friends as well. I bought my mum a car, and I bought a big flat for me and my mum to both live in together. And it’s big enough for us to not be at home – even though we are at home together, you know. So you can’t really tell. And I also got my nana’s garden done up for her. It hasn’t been done up since my grandfather died. And so I got the garden redesigned for her and spruced up
the rosebush.”
Every rose has its thorn… and Adele has profited handsomely from the barbs of romance’s roses. Recorded in various American and English studios with a selection of heavyweight producers – including Rick Rubin, Paul Epworth, Jim Abbiss and Fraser T Smith – 21 was released in January of this year, and immediately topped the UK and US charts, not to mention debuting at number one in Canada, Australia, Germany and many other countries.
She’s pretty popular in Ireland, too. To put it mildly. In the six months since its release, 21 has only spent five weeks off the top of the album charts (and those were at No. 2). Last week, she celebrated an appropriate 21 weeks at No. 1, taking the crown for the most weeks at No. 1 for any album in recent Irish chart history, breaking the 20 week record that has stood for 16 years for Oasis’ (What’s The Story) Morning Glory. To date, she has sold more than 150,000 albums here. That’s ten times platinum.

Fact is, she deserves the success. The girl has talent. Essentially her second break-up album, 21 blended the folk and Motown R&B inclinations of her Grammy-winning debut with American country and blues (apparently acquired during the North American leg of her 2008-2009 tour An Evening With Adele). As before, the songs explored various themes of anger and revenge, heartbreak, self-examination and forgiveness. While her themes mightn’t have changed much, musically she took a few steps forward.
“I knew from when I was still promoting my first album that I definitely still wanted to progress a bit with my second record,” she explains. “I knew that I wanted to go down a bit more of a bluesier gospel kind of route. And be a bit more kind of playful and cheeky and kind of sarcastic. But I didn’t wanna stray too far, obviously, because my fans who enjoyed ‘Chasing Pavements’ and ‘Hometown Glory’ and songs like that so much off of the first record, you know, I didn’t want to lose them, I didn’t want to alienate them or anything. So I struggled for months to work out what kind of sound I wanted to go for.”

21 still has some ‘Chasing Pavements’ moments, doesn’t it?
“Yeah, ‘Set Fire To The Rain’ is a little bit like ‘Chasing Pavements’, isn’t it? Yeah, my best friend, my gay best friend, he was like: ‘When’re you gonna write me a gay anthem?’ (laughs) And I was like: ‘Oh, whatever goes’. So then I came up with the title ‘Set Fire To The Rain’, and you can’t really get much camper than that.”
The first cut off 21 was the bluesy mega-hit ‘Rolling In The Deep’.
“I had the first verse for about two years,” she explains. “I wrote the first verse in the back of a cab on the way back from a TV show in Amsterdam, but I couldn’t finish it because I wrote it a cappella, and then I couldn’t get to a chorus because the melody and the verse is sort of more memorable than even what the chorus is now. But I didn’t know how to get there, so I just put it on hold and forgot about it.
“And then I went in the studio with Paul Epworth who I met when I did backing-vocals on my best friend Jack Penate’s second record. And he was so much fun, Paul, and he’s so exciting. He’s got so many ideas that sometimes it’s impossible to keep up with, he’s so inspiring. Usually your first session with someone’s a bit quiet and awkward because you’re both a bit embarrassed. We went straight away into ‘Rolling In The Deep’, and it was finished in one session.”
Adele says the song was mainly inspired by rockabilly star Wanda Jackson.
“I loved how dirty and spicy and raunchy and that kind of, you know, fighting talk – all of her songs were. And the themes, all of her themes are brilliant, like ‘Memory Mountain’, and ‘Funnel Of Love’. So I kind of imagined what would Wanda Jackson do to this song, you know? I think I portrayed that quite well with ‘Rolling In The Deep’. And I was angry, you know what I mean? I didn’t want another ballad. I was angry.”

Needless to say, it was her now-ex who inspired Adele’s wrath.
“It was about an argument, the last argument or even conversation that I had with my ex-. And he was telling me that my life was gonna be rubbish and boring, and I was gonna be lonely, and I was a weak person if I couldn’t stay in that relationship. But it was a relationship I already felt fucking miserable in (laughs). And really didn’t feel like myself in. And my heart was just pounding; I don’t get angry very often. Like when I do get angry, I can feel my blood… I can feel my all of my organs and all of my body. And, yeah, so I didn’t wanna kind of be like: ‘Should I give up… uhuhuh.’ I thought: ‘Get the fuck out of my house, you bastard!’” (laughs)
Did your sudden celebrity status affect things?
“I dunno,” she avers. “I don’t get hassled in England, really, unless I go out in full make-up with eyelashes and hair up and everything and dressed up, people notice me. But if I don’t have any make-up on and I wear my hair just pulled back, I don’t get hassled. In America a lot more people recognise me. I don’t know why, but they do.”
Perhaps it’s something to do with your infamous Saturday Night Live appearance in 2008?
“SNL? Yeah, that was truly, truly amazing actually. Just to be part of it, it’s kind of an American institution and Josh Brolin was on, which was amazing ‘cos I’m the biggest Goonies fan. And then I heard that Tina Fey might be on it. So when I got there… I was talking to Josh Brolin on the Friday, and we were like: ‘It’d be amazing if Tina Fey comes on’, because obviously it was so amazing, her impersonation. And then I turned up on Saturday, and I saw Sarah Palin, but I thought it was Tina Fey. So I was going: ‘Tina, Tina, Tina!’ Yeah, behind Sarah Palin, and she didn’t even notice. But the show was amazing, and I did meet her, because she wanted to come to my dressing-room. But everyone on my glamour squad are gay, and they’re like: ‘If she comes in this room, I’m not doing your face for you.’ You know, because they all hated her. But yeah, and then everyone else came on it, Alec Baldwin, Marky Mark, everyone came on it. It was truly amazing. And then I watched the album go up on iTunes and stuff. It was amazing.”
What was Sarah Palin like?

“She was sweet. I mean, she’s like (in American accent) ‘We’re all very big fans of you,’ in my dressing-room. And I had a massive Obama badge on my boob (laughs). And she – because she was the height of my sort of chest – she must have just been staring at my Obama-boob. But she was really, really sweet. But I don’t have to vote in America.”
Back to the album. Why did you decide to cover The Cure’s ‘Love Song’?
“I wanted to have a cover on the album. Initially my first choice was ‘Never Tear Us Apart’ by INXS, just because I love that song. And it was the first song I ever learned to play on piano, and I love Michael Hutchence’s voice. The reason no-one’s covered that song is because no-one can sing it as well as Michael Hutchence. There is a version by me that will probably see the light of day at some point I imagine, but probably in about 20 years.”
Sorry, there is a version?

“Yeah, there is a version, but it’s not on the record. And then I said to Rick [Rubin]: ‘I don’t want to, I don’t want to use this one. I can’t bond with it.’ Smokey Hormel, who’s a guitarist who plays for Beck and on a lot of the records that Rick produces and played on my record, played ‘Love Song’ to me, and I loved it. And The Cure was my first show I ever saw, I was about three or four, and I went to go and see them in Finsbury Park in London with my mum. And my mum is the biggest Cure fan. Anyway, it was quite down the line of the recording process. And I was getting really homesick, and quite drained from singing all these songs, you know, my new songs on my new record. And the song just made me burst into tears and rescued me a little bit. So it’s one take – and my voice had gone which I was paranoid about, but I think it really suits it and stuff like that. And yeah, I just, I really enjoy it. I really love it.”
So your mum was a goth?
“Yeah, Mum was a goth. And I used to be really scared of Robert Smith because he looked like Edward Scissorhands!”
How was Rick Rubin to work with?

“Rick was amazing. It was so overwhelming when I met him, before we even started to do a record together. I met him at SNL as well. SNL really was the most poignant moment in my musical life. And he came down there and then I saw him again at the MusiCares Dinner, which is a couple of nights before the Grammys. And I sang a Neil Diamond song and obviously he’d just done the Neil Diamond record. And it sort of went from there.”
Why didn’t you work with Mark Ronson again?
“It’s just that I didn’t want to work with anyone that I’d worked with before. I did work with Eg but only at the very, very beginning. And that was written about six months before I wrote any of the other songs, and I went with Eg, and we wrote that. And I loved the song that we wrote, Eg wrote. But it wasn’t something I wanted to pursue more for this record.”
Back to relationships – or lack thereof. If you haven’t got a boyfriend, surely you won’t be able to write more songs?

“I don’t know yet,” she laughs. “Probably. I mean, I’m not… obviously I’ve just written my second record, but I’m not that experienced. But I’ve got a funny feeling that it will probably be always about kind of loss or heartache. Just because when I’m having fun and when I’m in love, I don’t write songs because I’m out having fun and being in love. You know what I mean? And then it’s when I’m a bit miserable and on my own that I kind of like get really drunk and then write a diary and then read it in the cold light of day, and admit things to myself that I can’t do, unless I’m drunk. That’s why I write it down. I hope I don’t ever get to the point where I actually end a relationship because I have to write an album (laughs). I hope I never do that ‘cos that’s really sad. And I’ll be an old lady on my own forever, but so far I guess that is the, yeah that is the case so far.”
Have you ever tried writing while you’re in a happy relationship?
“No, not really. I mean, there’s a couple of sort of like, optimistic songs on this record. But that’s like, they’re more about another guy who’s never been my boyfriend, but I know I love him a lot. I’m just not brave enough to be with him, because I know if I am with him, that’ll be it. And I’ll be settled, do you know what I mean? The songs are kind of like saying that I know I keep messing up and leading you on. ‘I’m really, really sorry. I’m ready to be, you know, I’m ready to be…’ but then I chicken out again.”

Last time we met, you told me you had a crush on the bass-player for Arctic Monkeys…
“Oh, my God!” she shrieks. “There you are! I haven’t even thought of him. See… No, I’ve got a crush on the drummer from a band called Moaner, actually. They’re a band from Nashville and they were on Later... With Jools Holland. And their drummer is sexy. I mean, I love an American accent anyway. But I have learned that you should never go near a man in rhythm, because they’re all players, bass-players and drummers and percussion players, they’re all players. They are! They are! They know their way around, you know, because they’re a
bit rhythmic.”
Maybe so. For the moment, though, Adele is planning on steering clear of love’s rocky road.
“You know, I’ve decided to just always just be single now – even if I’m not single, I just say I’m single so that no-one bothers me,” she laughs. “Yeah, I’m fine. I have fun, it’s alright. I think, I’m better if I’m not in a serious relationship, because then I’m less serious, and I think less expectant. But then I don’t like having sort of like flings. I don’t enjoy them, you know.”
So it’s all-or-nothing?
“Yeah, it’s kind of all-or-nothing really. Maybe I need a bit more practice at being really heavily committed to someone.”