February 13, 2017
by Carla Hay
The 59th Annual Grammy Awards took place on February 12, 2017, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
ADELE
Grammy wins:
- Album of the Year (“25”)
- Record of the Year (“Hello”)
- Song of the Year (“Hello”)
- Best Pop Vocal Album (“25”)
- Best Pop Solo Performance (“Hello”)
Here is what this Grammy winner said backstage in the Grammy Awards press room.
BACKSTAGE INTERVIEW
You’ve become the first artist in history to sweep the top three Grammy awards—Record, Song and Album of the Year—in two separate years. An amazing achievement. Can you talk about what it means to you to accomplish something historic and just what it means to you to win these awards tonight from your peers?
The Grammys mean a lot to me. Obviously, it’s the award show. I’m very, very humbled by this accomplishment I feel very lucky to have achieved. And like I said in my speech, for me, my album of the year is “Lemonade,” and so a piece of me died inside as a Beyoncé stan, I’m not going to lie, because I was completely rooting for her. And I voted for her. But I’m incredibly humbled, especially being from the U.K.
It’s an amazing feat to have achieved. I am incredibly humbled by it. And America have always been very kind to me, and I don’t even know why you’re honest I don’t get it but I’m but I feel amazing about it, of course. It’s an amazing thing to show my son, I’m raising him to respect women, and he knows I’m a powerful force. He feels it at home, let alone when he comes to work with me. And he comes everywhere.
What does it means to have such large public acceptance of your song “Hello”? It’s become like a worldwide anthem.
It was hard work writing this album. You know, it was daunting following “21” up … I felt the pressure writing “25” very much. And for very long time during that process I didn’t really find my voice. And I don’t know if I did find it, even towards the end. But the reception to “Hello … “Hello” actually started when I was writing it with the lyric “hello, misery,” so I’m sure you can imagine the mood that I was in when I was writing that: fucking miserable! But Greg Kurstin, who I wrote it with, was like, “I’m not sure about that line, about ‘hello misery.’” He turned it into “hello it’s me.”
I was gone for so long. I had my baby, and I raised him through the toddler years and then I sort of slowly edged my way back into work. And I didn’t think anyone would care. I thought the commercial that we had in England, and also shortly followed after, I thought no one would know it was me. But thank God they did or that would have been a really expensive disaster. Of course, I am always, always an appreciative and of all of the love that I’m shown.
What did it mean to you pay tribute to George Michael tonight? And what were some of your early memories of him?
Well, we could be here while. First of all, I was devastated by that [George Michael’s death] and my rehearsal great. I had a bit of a shaky rehearsal today but I mean I’ve been working really hard on this tribute for months usually every day. I did it with Hans Zimmer, and I was in his studio even when he couldn’t see me just sitting there waiting for him to give me some time, which he did, very graciously.
And my earliest memory of me being a lone fan out of my family was “Fastlove.” It was when the video came out for that, and I was blown away with how fucking hot he was. It’s actually quite exceptional how good-looking he was. I was young, like I was about 10. And I heard the vulnerability in that zone and especially in the middle eight, where it goes from being about one-night stands and being a little bit sleazy to saying in the absence of security I made my way into the night, and I lost my way basically, and I recognize that. I didn’t relate to it when I was 10. That would be weird.
That song, I was very, very adamant. I was devastated on Christmas Day [2016, the day Michael died]. I had to go for a walk on my own and breathe for a while and on Boxing Day, which is [December] 26th for us. I said to Simon [Konecki], my partner, “I have to do that tribute!”
And they didn’t want a tribute at first, his family and camp and stuff like that. And they came back and were very specific that it would be me. And I was like, “Great! I’ve got something in the pipeline. If you want me to do it I’ll do it.” I found him to be one of the truest icons, because a lot of time with people that are that globally known and famous, there tends to be—not fakeness in a bad way—but they put on a massive bravado and alter ego to protect themselves—and rightly so, and I completely understand and appreciate that—but for him, it didn’t always seem to be solely based on a look or about an assumption.
And also, he was very British no matter where his career or his love life took, he always remained true to Britain and they gave him a hard fucking time a lot of the time. It can be. The British press, I love you. I don’t know if I mean that but they really gave my whole time and he still stayed loyal to the very, very end. And that no matter our how much I trying to escape Britain sometimes, my roots are there, so I relate to that. And I also took great comfort in him and the bigger my career got in trying to remain myself so. It was an honor to do it tonight.
Your songs don’t sound overproduced. They’re almost like demos that sound like you’re in someone’s living room ….
They’re all demos.
How involved do you get in the way those records sound?
Yeah, I am anal. I’m a control freak, and I get really anal about things. Actually, there’s a whole other version of “21,” which I have spoken about before. Nothing beats a demo for any artist, in my opinion. Whenever I’ve heard the originals of their songs, there’s a passion and an urgency in demos which can never seem to be reenacted, especially in my case. I sit there like a backseat driver.
I don’t know how to work a computer. I can’t even work anything you’re on. Some of them are Dells and some of them are Apples. I do have an Apple. It hasn’t been on for about year. And I sit behind and say, “What’s that bit? What’s that bit? Let’s do this bit.”
And I reference other records and sounds I’ve heard from the past or current hits. I like to think of myself as very involved. I definitely wrote a lot less in this record than I did in “21,” and that was because I had a bad drinking habit on “21,” so I couldn’t quite get inspiration this time around.
“Hello” became a standard almost immediately, which is so unusual in our culture. Can you talk more about how it all emerged? Greg said he playing moody chords. Did the words all come out at once? And can you talk about “The Other Side”?
Sure. He was playing moody chords. That’s all everyone ever plays for me whenever we get in the studio and because that’s the kind of mood I’m in. It started out, like I said, the original line, we were just fucking around, and then the line “Hello misery” came out, so he pulled me up on that immediately. He was like, “Maybe you should go meditate” or something like that. So I tried to be like zen. And then I came back. We wrote the first two verses really quickly, actually, which tends to be the case with my biggest songs.
But the chorus, we had three different courses for “Hello,” actually. And there was one that was a very country vibe. I’m hugely inspired by country music. And I was a bit concerned about the chorus that you all know because it obviously goes quite high. I didn’t know if I could replicate it. I was going on the tour as well that she booked before I got pregnant, and then I got pregnant, and I was like, “Peace out!”
So I knew I’d have to hit that note every night. Obviously, it would be an opener once the verse was written because its hello. So we changed it a few times, and we settled on that chorus. “The other side” is the other side of being a grown-up, is the other side of my relationship with my all friends and my ex-boyfriends and death.
My grandfather, he’s a huge part of my life, even though you’ve been gone for 18 years. So it’s kind of the other side of the other side of not knowing. I don’t know if I lost touch with a lot of my friends because of how famous I got all or because you grow up. A lot of my friends tell me they lost touch with other people as well, with the way that life changes whether it’s my circumstance or different one.
You praised Beyoncé a lot in your acceptance speeches. Did you get a chance to speak to her tonight?
We did speak. I spoke to her before, just to let her know how honored and privileged I feel to be nominated alongside her. And then we spoke afterward as well. She was very gracious and humble as always, as you can expect from her. And the reason I felt the need to say something was my album of the year is “Lemonade.” She is my icon of my whole life.
I was 11 years old. And I was at school … and I was with some girlfriends, and we were practicing a song for an assembly with our friends with all our family and stuff. And I think, obviously, for my recommendation, it was a Spice Girls song. And they were like, “Have you heard [the Destiny’s Child song] “No, No, No”? I was like, no, no, no, I haven’t heard ‘No, No, No.’” And they played it to me.
And I remember it so clearly how I felt hearing her voice, hearing all their voices, but hers specifically. And then I got home you know we kind of just started getting the Internet. Luckily, my mom’s boyfriend at the time built websites. He managed to find me some photographs of her. And I fell in love immediately with her. And that was when I was 11. And I’m 28 now.
And the way that I felt when I first heard “No, No, No” was exactly the same as how I felt when I heard “Lemonade” last year. The other people who make me feel like that are all dead. So I’m living off of music that they made when they were alive. Whereas for her to be making such relevant music for that long of a period and still affect all of us—it’s not just me—there are friendships I have that are completely defined by us being complete Beyoncé stans.
I don’t take any fucking shit when it comes to anyone not liking Beyoncé. You can’t be my life you know. You simply can’t. So I felt the need to do it. I also simply felt like it was her time to win. My view is kind of like, “What the fuck does she have to do to win Album of the Year?” That’s also how I feel.
And I felt this album, like I said earlier, was another side to her that we haven’t seen and I felt blessed to be brought into that situation. Obviously, the visual is very new, and the Grammys are very traditional, but I just thought this year would be the year that they would kind of go with the tides. And I am, of course, very, very grateful having won it, and but I felt the need because I love her because I felt like she was more than worthy, and that’s pretty much it, really. Hang your blessings. You’ll never hear from me again!