(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "FANTASIZE")
ADELA: (Singing) Lately, I'm lacking...
ELISSA NADWORNY, HOST:
If you were to look at the success the pop star Adela is having right now, you might think that everything has gone perfectly for her. The pink-haired Slovakia-born-and-raised pop star is just 22, and she's already cracked the Top 5 on Billboard charts with her debut album, "Prima."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "FANTASIZE")
ADELA: (Singing) This is the part where human nature fills me with need and sways my mind.
NADWORNY: And she's currently in the midst of her first national headlining tour. But as Adela knows well, things do not always happen perfectly, including my interview with her.
Oh, it sounds like there's some music going on where you are.
ADELA: Yeah, I think for some reason they started blasting music. Do you want me to tell them to stop?
NADWORNY: Yeah, do you mind if they just...
ADELA: Yeah.
NADWORNY: ...Turn it down for a minute?
ADELA: Let me go out there.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
ADELA: Can you wait a second? I'm on the phone doing an interview? Sorry.
(Laughter) They're trying to sound check.
NADWORNY: So yeah, things don't always go perfectly. In fact, before her hit singles, before her tour, Adela's first run-in with fame is a story of public rejection when she was eliminated from a competition series which would ultimately go on to produce the girl group KATSEYE. We spoke the other day, and I asked how that moment affected her.
ADELA: It affected me. I would be lying if I said that deep down I thought I was right for the project. I definitely knew that I wasn't, and so when that decision was made for me, of course it was heartbreaking. But I think my success is a little bit more gradual than KATSEYE's. I love the girls, and they had such a meteoric rise, but I think everything happens for a reason.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "NICOLE KIDMAN")
ADELA: (Singing) Don't interrupt me When I talk my - don't interrupt me. 'Cause everything you say, it dictates your destiny. That's why I put pop princess on my license plate. I pull up...
Honestly, it was a great experience. Obviously, you know, it taught me a lot about trolls online very early on.
NADWORNY: Yeah.
ADELA: So that was definitely something to handle, but I have my therapist for that so shoutout to him.
NADWORNY: (Laughter) Well, there is a song on this new album about therapy.
ADELA: Oh, yeah.
NADWORNY: It made me laugh out loud.
ADELA: That's amusing (ph).
NADWORNY: Can we listen to some of the lyrics together?
ADELA: Yeah, let's do it.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THERAPY")
ADELA: (Singing) I can't really sing. And I can't really do anything right now that I want to do. My voice doesn't really work, and I'm kind of pissed off. I'm pissed off at my dad.
NADWORNY: You know, you dig into so much personal stuff in that song, but it's also funny.
ADELA: Yeah. For me, I'm, like, a very dry, sarcastic person. I think it makes it easier to, like, deal with things that are not necessarily funny. I think that's, like, where a lot of people come from is, like, sometimes they have really dark pasts. But that song is honestly not really even a song. I was just kind of talking in the studio 'cause I really couldn't sing. I mean, that's why there's so much autotune on that 'cause my voice was completely gone, and I had to be, like, talking to all these executives. It was, like, around Grammy week. They are old way, man.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THERAPY")
ADELA: (Singing) They are old white men, and they're so annoying. But they hold the keys to my future, so I have to do it anyway 'cause that is how life works.
And then, like, in the second verse, I talk about missing my little sister and having to not see her grow up and - because I had to move away to chase my dreams, and I mean, what you hear is exactly what it is. It's like a therapy session. It was - I think the original was, like, 15 minutes long.
NADWORNY: Stop.
ADELA: And then we had to cut it down 'cause that was just rambling.
NADWORNY: Yeah.
ADELA: That was just rambling on the beat.
(LAUGHTER)
NADWORNY: Adela, that's some deep stuff right there.
ADELA: Yeah, we're getting deep. Let's laugh.
(LAUGHTER)
ADELA: Let's laugh.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "KGB")
ADELA: (Singing) Staring at a TV screen till I got bloody eyes. Just a little European girl, was plotting on my rise. Eighteen, immigrated, yeah. A star in the making, yeah. No, I'm not being cocky, I just worked my whole life.
NADWORNY: Hollywood is a long way from your hometown of Bratislava.
ADELA: Oh, yeah.
NADWORNY: How does your Slovak background come through in who you are or even the art you make?
ADELA: I think I'm a very blunt person. So my music is pretty cheeky, and sometimes it's, like, uncomfortably honest. And I guess I would say that that may be a little bit of a trait that I might have as an Eastern European woman. I think we're a little feisty.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "KGB")
ADELA: (Singing) I'm forward, I'm foreign. Forgive the way I say this. I'm pretty important, na-na-na-na-na-na (ph). I'm forward, I'm foreign. Forgive the way I say this. I'm pretty important, na-na-na-na-na-na.
And also just a thing my family - I think my mom is the most blunt person that I know. And as a kid, I would, like, flinch. I would be like, oh, God. But the older I get, the more I am her. And so I think it's just what happens with your parents. You just become them.
NADWORNY: Yeah. You know, one of the singles on the album, the song "Ain't In LA" - it was inspired by your mother.
ADELA: That's right.
NADWORNY: Can you tell me about her?
ADELA: Well, my mom is from a very small city in Slovakia. And I went home, and I was looking at this picture of younger her in front of her childhood bedroom wall covered in pop culture posters - Marilyn Monroe and Madonna, and Keanu Reeves, she thought was really cute back then.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "AIN'T IN LA")
ADELA: (Singing) Maybe tonight, we don't got to run away. It's all a lie. The baddest ladies ain't in LA.
And she was telling me how she was going to move to LA and that all her dreams would come true there, but then she got pregnant with my older brother. And I was just like, wow. There's so many people out there that just weren't born in the right place, at the right time. Something happened. They couldn't make their dreams come true, but I think that doesn't take away from how amazing they are.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "AIN'T IN LA")
ADELA: (Singing) Maybe tonight, we don't got to run away. No, it's all a lie. The baddest ladies ain't in LA.
(SOUNDBITE OF ADELA SONG, "I'M THE MAN")
NADWORNY: You trained as a ballerina?
ADELA: Yes, correct.
NADWORNY: Perfectionism is very closely tied with that artistry.
ADELA: Yeah.
NADWORNY: I wonder if you could describe how that translates to performance. I mean, how do you deal with that?
ADELA: Absolutely. It's kind of hard, to be honest. Very rarely am I ever satisfied with how I do.
NADWORNY: You don't feel that now?
ADELA: I definitely don't feel that now. Even with ballet, I don't think I've ever felt that. I think you need to put in a lot of hours and a lot of effort to be able to call yourself great.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I'M THE MAN")
ADELA: (Singing) I'm the man. In my itty-bitty dress, yeah, I'm the man. It's true, I like my boys a little feminine where we both understand I'm the man, I'm the man, I'm the man.
I can't wait to get there one day in my career, but I think right now is - I think I'm in the beginning baby stages of putting shows together and learning. And hopefully, five years when I talk to you, I'm going to be like, yeah, I feel great after a show.
NADWORNY: Amazing.
ADELA: Yeah.
NADWORNY: So in a short answer, it would be no.
ADELA: Yeah, it would be no.
NADWORNY: (Laughter).
ADELA: Short answer, no.
NADWORNY: Well, Adela, I loved the album.
ADELA: Thank you so much.
NADWORNY: That's Adela. Her new album "Prima" is out now. Thank you so much for talking with us.
ADELA: Thank you for having me.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I'M THE MAN")
ADELA: (Singing) And you do, and you do. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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