Adam Pascal

Adam Pascal stops to point out a picture on a bulletin board in the depths of the Palace Theatre, where he's back playing Radames for the final weeks of Aida's five-year run. "It's our wall of bad hair," he explains as I squint to make out a face underneath the 80's hair-band mane on the charming rocker-turned-matinee idol. Pascal may be back to the short blond locks he sported when he received a Tony nomination for his Broadway debut as Roger in Rent, but he's perfectly willing to change his look for his art. Remember the jet black hair in Cabaret? Pascal is busy getting set to release his second album, Civilian, on Sh-K-Boom Records this fall but still took some time to talk candidly for his Broadway fans--looking back on the over eight year career in theater that he never expected to have and looking forward to a rockin' future.

First of all--despite the fact that we've just met, how is your family doing?
My family is great. [Showing off a picture.] There they are. My wife is Cybele, my younger son is Monty and my older son is Lennon.

They're gorgeous! So I thought to get to know you a little better, we'd start with a few quick questions. Just choose one, OK? Playing guitar or singing?
Singing, because I'm better at it.

I know you're fans of both--but, John Lennon or Billy Joel?
Ooh…Billy Joel.

Tony or Grammy?
Grammy.

Bush or Kerry?
Kerry.

So then what do you think about the Republican National Convention in town during Aida's final week?
I think it's just going to cause a lot of trouble for those of us who have to come to work. We certainly got all the calls telling us to call in sick for work, but that's the dumbest fucking thing I've ever heard in my life. Should I allow the convention to cost me money by not coming into work? Also, regardless of your political beliefs, we're all Americans and these people are just coming to be entertained. If they go to a movie theater are you supposed to turn the power off? It's absurd. To me, that's not a viable way to protest.

Agreed. OK, one more. Dad or rock star?
Dad.

Thanks! So let's talk about Aida. Why did you decide to come back?
For several reasons. One, a practical reason--Cabaret closed in January and I needed a job! I had and have very fond feelings for this show and for all the people involved with it. There's something to be said for being the original and coming back and closing it. I had just closed Cabaret and that was a fantastic experience so I just wanted to be there for this one.

You were a totally different person when Aida opened. You weren't a dad yet, for one…
I am a completely changed man in any and every way. But ultimately I just came back to the show as a better actor. Doing Cabaret had a huge effect on me--for my confidence and my abilities as an actor.

Now, you had to dye your hair black for Cabaret. Are you glad to be back in a role where you get to be blonde?
You know what? I loved the look. I know I looked crazy and everyone was like, "We like you better blonde," but it was so much fun to immerse myself in my character. It was kind of a pain in the ass to get my blonde hair back. My friend had to shave it off and then dye it and shave it off again.

Did you come back to the Palace Theatre and put your dressing room back just how it was?
Nah, I just brought my essentials. And you're looking at them right there! [A TV and an acoustic guitar.]

It must be nice to be surrounded by music greats all day…singing Elton John's score, Mickey Dolenz formerly of The Monkees plays your father… Did you know Deborah Cox's music before this?
I didn't and quite frankly I still don't! People were telling me that she was great in the show and she is. I love working with her. She reminds me a lot of [original Aida] Heather [Headley], not just in her performance, but in her personality. She has a great sense of humor and is really down-to-earth.

It must be nice to get along offstage with someone you fall in love with onstage every night.
You don't always get that lucky with your co-stars. I haven't been. I've played the show with a lot of Aidas and some have been great and some haven't. But that's why it's acting. I'm thrilled that she's closing the show. She's bringing in so many African-Americans. I think it's doing great things for the community.

Rent did the same thing for young people. Is that something you look for when choosing a project or have you just been lucky?
Well at the point I'm at now in my career, I definitely look for that kind of stuff. A lot of shows are coming down the pike now that I just don't want to audition for because they don't seem right for me. And people are like, "You're not auditioning for that?!" But I'd rather just hold off and wait for the type of projects that I find interesting. I've learned a lot about the way this business works and the way audiences need to be addressed. Any show that's bringing in a young audience is doing a good thing, because that's the only way that theater will continue to grow. All the other audience members are going to be dead soon! They're all old people! Quite frankly I don't know if Jonathan [Larson] was thinking about these things with Rent, but he probably was because I think he was smart enough to understand what he needed to do.

Do you have aspirations to write a musical?
You know, sometimes I get moments of inspiration when I'm writing something and then the task seems so daunting that it just kind of scares me away. Lyrically, I don't think I could write a show. At least I don't think. I've been so passionate about writing pop and rock songs and before I give that up I'd like to go at it a little longer to see if I actually have what it takes to connect with people. Lots of people are great songwriters. It's whether you have that indistinguishable, unnamable quality to your music that's going to connect to somebody. And that's luck. Until it happens you don't know that you have it. I think I've finally come into my own on this new record, though.

So Civilian is a lot different than your last album, Model Prisoner?
In so much as it's much more realized. My first record was very unrealized and unfinished in a lot of ways. I've become a lot clearer about what creative processes work best for me. On this record I worked with some really talented musicians over a long period of time instead of trying to do it all myself.

I was a big fan of Model Prisoner, and I know a lot of other people are, too.
Well thanks. Yeah, I know a lot of people really like it and I'm thrilled that a lot of people like it, it's just that I feel it wasn't completely what I wanted to say.

Well even Billy Joel says that about Piano Man.
Of course! I just read a quote from Bono who said, "When I listen to the first ten years of our work, all I hear is unfinished lyrics and"--something really drastic--"and rubbish," or something like that. And look at the records that he's talking about!

So how would you describe your music?
The influences that have impacted the way I write music are very classic rock--from Floyd to Zeppelin to Queen to The Beatles. I like to sort of call it modern-classic rock because it has a 2005 sensibility but there's very much still a classic feel to it.

I noticed that when I was listening to it. The song "Civilian" sounds very Crosby, Stills & Nash-esque…
Absolutely. That was the intent. In the 60's, they were very much the voice of political dissent and that's what that song is about. So it's sort of like a tip of my hat. I always loved the sound of that three-part harmony.

So are there concert plans?
Yeah, the first show I'm doing is actually in Jersey at a college with Daphne Rubin-Vega. We'll both play a set and I think we may do a song together. And she's going to be about nine months pregnant at the time so that should be interesting. That's in October, and then the record's going to come out on November 2.

Now, I assume everything you write is pretty personal. Are any of the new songs about your kids?
Most of the record is about my kids. The entire record is ambiguously about what happened to me after 9/11 and then a month later having my first child. Those two events happening so close together so drastically changed my life. There's a couple of songs on the record that deal with the mental and emotional ramifications of 9/11 and watching that stuff on TV over and over again for weeks and how that damaged the whole world. Then there are some songs that are just straight up rock and roll.

You brought down the house with Meatloaf's "Bat Out of Hell" a couple years ago at a Sh-K-Boom concert and really wailed "Pity the Child" in Chess last year. You just seem so natural up there screaming at the top of your lungs. There's a bit more of that on this new album.
I grew up doing that kind of stuff. I wanted to show off a little bit more on this record. I'm blessed that I can do a lot of different things with my voice. I can do theater and I can legitimize it a little bit more and I can sing harder rock stuff and go for the screaming. And I love to do it. It's such a relief and form of expression for me.

September's Hair concert will be your second Actor's Fund Benefit. We have to talk about Chess.
I was completely unfamiliar with Chess before I did it last year and I just fell in love with the music. I would do it in a heartbeat if they brought it back. I just really think it's one of the best scores that I've heard in the longest time. The book has always been the problem. Personally I think I know the way I could make it work…

Well maybe you should produce it!
I don't know about that.

What do you think about the crop of shows coming in that are using famous musician's catalogues of songs as the basis for a musical?
Those are those shows I was mentioning before that I didn't want to audition for. I'm just not into that. I did a reading of a Bruce Springsteen thing that was the same idea--this guy took a bunch of Springsteen songs and tried to cram them together, but there was no story because that's not how the songs were written. They were individual songs telling individual stories that had nothing to do with each other. These shows aren't using the songs in the traditional way that musical theater uses music.

You mean you think they're forcing a story around the songs?
Exactly. And so you may get to the song and the audience goes, "Oh I love this song," but it's not really going to tell you anything about the story because it wasn't written that way. I think that when you take these song catalogues and then you try and force it into a traditional musical theater form…that form is hard enough on it's own. I have to just sort of stay true to who I am and what I find interesting. Going back to Cabaret lit a fire under me to want to do more traditional things.

Is there anything else on Broadway that you'd consider going in to?
Believe it or not I'd like to try Chicago. It's something that I think people would go, "Well, that's weird. Maybe I'd like to see that!" Again, if I showed up in All Shook Up, you're going to go, "Of course." And I don't want to be that guy. Right before they closed I had approached the Little Shop people to do Seymour.

Wow. Really?
Yeah, because again, that would be like, "Hmm." The Producers--Leo Bloom. Whatever impressions people have of me, I'd like to play against that. Of course I know not to go too far against it that I can't pull it off.

So I found a quote from back in your Rent days. In response to someone calling you green as an actor, you said, "I am really green…and in the process of becoming a lighter shade of green."
I am definitely less green than I was back then. What I meant by that was that I wasn't an actor and really at that point had no intention of continuing to pursue acting. What I did in Rent was just very natural. From day one I just connected to the role and the music and I think that's why I was successful in it. I said that probably seven or eight years ago and in that time I've become an actor and I understand that there is a craft to it. But that doesn't mean I like actors any more. [Laughs] Because I still don't like actors.

Would you go back and close Rent?
Well I certainly hope Rent doesn't close! But, if others from the original cast came back? Sure. I don't see why not. Would I do it on my own? No way. The show has become something other than what it was. We were all young, but a lot of us weren't as inexperienced as people tend to think we were. We had all been working our asses off in various things in entertainment. I mean I was young--25--when we started, but I think a lot of the people who are in the show now are 19 and 20 years old and have literally never done anything before. And I don't want to be in a cast with a bunch of kids! I think that I've gotten to a place in my career and in the community where I want to work with people that better me. I want to work with people that are better than me because that's how I'll keep getting better.