Bryan Adams: why the famous Canadian rocker has ‘done a Taylor Swift’

Bryan Adams calls himself ‘a numpty’ for not having done a Taylor Swift until now, amid the fallout of a bitter split with his biggest backers.

Bryan Adams jokingly calls himself “a numpty” for not having done a Taylor Swift years ago.

The Canadian rocker will complete the release of a trilogy of new albums next month with Classic, a collection of rerecordings of his biggest hits.

That record will drop after the two new works already issued in March.

The first album was Pretty Woman – The Musical, featuring the music he and songwriting partner Jim Vallance wrote for the theatrical adaptation of the 1990 film starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere.

Bryan Adams has just released new record So Happy It Hurts. Picture: Supplied / BMG.

That was followed by So Happy It Hurts, his 16th studio album mostly comprised of rock songs written during the past two years when the musician was forced off the road by the pandemic.

Classics was hatched after he couldn’t come to terms with Universal Music to buy back 40 years worth of his master recordings and secure the rights to his own hits like Summer of 69, Run To You and one of the biggest selling singles of the pre-digital era (Everything I Do) I Do It For You.

“Basically, I’ve done a Taylor Swift,” he says.

“I was just looking for a better deal than the deal I had at the time. And it was non-negotiable. So I was, ‘OK I’m going to re-record them then.

“I feel like a complete numpty for taking so long, I wish I’d done it 10 years ago. But it doesn’t matter. It’s all right. It’s basically something for my kids.”

Adams at the opening of his latest exhibition Exposed in Germany this month. Picture: Joshua Sammer/Getty Images.

When Adams was forced off the road by the pandemic, he bunkered down in his home with his partner Alicia Grimaldi and their daughters Mirabella, 11 and Lula, 9 and wrote and recorded music almost every day.

Some songs were already works in progress – I’ve Been Looking For You emerged during the Pretty Woman writing sessions but never made the production.

The song On The Road was partly an attempt by the gig-starved musician to manifest the global comeback of live music.

But it would also be the theme for the launch of the 2022 Pirelli Calendar which Adams shot and is the first in the history of the famous almanac to exclusively feature musicians, including Cher and Iggy Pop, Rita Ora and Jennifer Hudson.

The 62-year-old rocker has been a world-renowned photographer for more than two decades; he was commissioned to capture Queen Elizabeth II for her Golden Jubilee and regularly worked with his friend Amy Winehouse, with one of his portraits serving as the cover art for her posthumous album Lioness: Hidden Treasures.

He has recently shot British singer songwriter James Bay and the cover for the upcoming album Zeit from German metal rockers Rammstein.

“The idea of just sitting around (during lockdown) was making me ready to explode so I wrote a ‘let’s get back on the road’ song,” he says.

“But it was, let’s say, commissioned by Pirelli, who I had done the calendar for, and because the (concept) for that was ‘On The Road’ I suggested I write a song with the same title.”

Family was front and centre when it came to launching the title track for So Happy It Hurts. Adams wanted a very special co-star for the song’s video, the woman who backed his desire to quit school as a teenager and join a band to help out the family pay the rent and put food on the table, his 94-year-old mother Elizabeth Watson.

His mum needed no coaxing to get involved.

“Zero. All she wanted was a taxi to get her there and back,” he says. “She came match-ready, ‘Where’s my spotlight, Mr DeMille!’”

Even with sales of more than 75 million albums across his career – and now billions of streams – Adams agrees making a rock record, let alone three of them, may be the most rock’n’roll thing you can do in 2022.

With hip hop and r&b dominating the charts and airwaves, rockers seem to be defiantly revelling in their underdog status.

“Well, that’s a good point. I don’t actually know how to make anything else. Any time I’ve ever tried mucking around with other sorts of sounds, I always go back to what I know and I slap a guitar on it, and that’s seems to work for me.”

Guitar will be loud and proud on the rerecordings of his hits for the Classic album out in April which will remain mostly faithful to the originals.

A new version of (Everything I Do) I Do It For You may not send it back up the charts for the history-making months it spent at No. 1 when it was originally released but its continued success is sweet revenge for Adams.

Adams is on the road again an plans to head back to Australia next year. Picture: Supplied / BMG.

It featured on his 1991 record Waking Up The Neighbours, the second biggest seller of his career, but was written for Kevin Costner’s Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.

But the producers hated it and buried it at the end of the credits.

The song reached No. 1 before the film was released, made history with the longest run on top of the UK charts with 16 consecutive weeks and sold more than 15 million copies.

“Oh, I knew they didn’t like it,” Adams says of the film’s producers.

“They wanted to change the song title, they weren’t happy that I’d changed the original score to suit a song, so they stuffed the song right at the end of the credits as far down as you could possibly go, the Dolby sign and The End have gone by before the song starts.

“But in the end, it was fine, the song did great.”

Adams plans to return to Australia next year to tour but admits it will be tinged with sadness because he won’t have his longtime promoter and mate Michael Gudinski hanging out backstage every night.

“I’m just going to miss my mate Michael Gudinski when I get back there, his gob coming into my dressing room every night shouting ‘Bryan, Bryan! Gidday Bryan!’ I’m going to miss that.”

So Happy It Hurts is out now.