If you've seen her in concert, Adele is quite the chatterbox. Despite poking fun at her own stage follies and talking about her failed relationships onstage, there was one thing that she's kept a secret for a while: postpartum depression.
In an interview with Vanity Fair for its December issue, the 28-year-old UK singer opened up about dealing with this obstacle.
"I'm too scared. I had really bad postpartum depression after I had my son, and it frightened me," she said.
She said she didn't take medication for it but was convinced by her boyfriend, Simon Konecki, to talk to other pregnant women and mothers to help her sort through it, which she admitted helped. And later on, she was able to pay it forward.
"One day I said to a friend, 'I fuckin’ hate this,' she said, "and she just burst into tears and said, 'I fuckin’ hate this, too.' And it was done. It lifted. My knowledge of postpartum — or postnatal, as we call it in England — is that you don't want to be with your child; you're worried you might hurt your child; you're worried you weren’t doing a good job. But I was obsessed with my child. I felt very inadequate; I felt like I'd made the worst decision of my life… It can come in many different forms."
Despite her extensive tour supporting her latest album, 25, Adele has mentioned on occasion that this is probably her last tour for a long time. During the interview, she further explained what she meant by that.
"I'm on tour simply to see everyone who's been so supportive," she explained. "I don’t care about money. I'm British, and we don't have that… thing of having to earn more money all the time."
However, that doesn't mean she's done writing songs. "I'd still like to make records, but I’d be fine if I never heard [the applause] again," she said.
She also revealed that her family comes before anything else.
"All of my relationships are more important to me than any tour I'll ever do," she said. "If my relationship with [partner] Simon or my relationship with [son] Angelo started to flounder a bit now, I would pull out of my tour."
She also added, "My life is more important to me than anything 'I'm doing because how the fuck am I supposed to write a record if I don’t have a life? If I don’t have a real life, then it’s game over anyway."
For comedy fans, Festival Supreme brings an entire day of the beloved art form to Los Angeles every year. This year was no exception, as everyone from hosts Tenacious D and Weird Al to Patton Oswalt and Fred Armisen got the chance to make the crowd laugh in their own way on Saturday, October 29.
When a band is comprised of only two people, things can be either really complicated or really simple. LA's KOLARS likes to do a bit of both.
The basic structure of a vocalist/guitarist and a drummer can work wonders for simplistic songwriting, but most of those duos don't contain any tap dancing. That's where KOLARS break the mold, as drummer Lauren Brown prefers to play their neo-retro tunes with her feet rather than her hand.
Myspace caught up with KOLARS before they took the stage at the Echo Park Rising festival to learn about who inspires them and the importance of originality.
Rob Kolar
Age: Mentally 15 Instrument: Guitar and vocals Song or Band That Inspired You to Become a Musician: For me, it’s a mix. I’ve been incorporating sounds from newer bands like Ratatat or Gorillaz. From a production sense, I’m into Gnarls Barkley and I like a lot of what Danger Mouse does sonically in the studio. I’m trying to find middle ground between that and older T-Rex glam rock from the ‘70s like Bo Diddley or blues musician Howlin’ Wolf. Eddie and the Hotrods, The Cars — Cyndi Lauper and Prince even — punk and post-punk new wave artists that started using synthesizers and blended sounds and genres. Favorite Song to Perform Live: Our sets are kind of like two different chapters. The first chapter is more of a stripped down guitar, vocal and drum set which we end with “Mystery Train.” For the second portion we bring in tracks that we created in the studio, like pre-recorded bass, keyboards and percussion that we play with before ending that set with “One More Thrill.” They’re also the highest energy moments of the sets, and by the end of it we’re pouring sweat. Dream Collaboration: I’ve always wanted to collaborate with Snoop Dogg. I think he’s a fucking incredible rapper and I love his sound. We’re so different, but I think if you were to put his voice rapping over a cool rock-bluesy riff and a good fucking beat — I don’t know. I think it could be great. Who knows? It might happen one day. On Maintaining Originality: It’s basically just following your instinct. You don’t want to think too much about “What’s going to make me successful?” or “What’s going to get me paid?” or “What’s going to get me on the radio?” I do believe artists who last are doing something that feels very genuine to themselves, and they’re always constantly exploring. You take risks, you take chances and just enjoy it. Instead of doing it for the wrong reasons — well, you could argue what the right reasons are — do it just because you want to express yourself and share that experience with people, because you want to create art that moves people and maybe even changes their perception. Guilty Pleasure: I captain a roller hockey team. I’m really into hockey and it keeps my beer gut that I get from touring down. I’m really into the Premier League English soccer. I play soccer, but I also play FIFA. I do a bit of cooking, too.
Lauren Brown
Age: 33 Instrument: Tap dancing drummer Song or Band That Inspired You to Become a Musician: We were just listening to one of my favorite bands, Creedence Clearwater Revival before we came out tonight. I love them. I started listening to them in middle school. It was rock ‘n roll and blues, but it’s also kind of dirty and raunchy. It’s also simple, and I can dance to it. I think that opened up my mind to music in general. I was in a dance company and dancing to things that weren’t expected or super poppy. Old Tina Turner: my favorite of all time. She was a performer, singer and dancer. Favorite Song to Perform Live: I much prefer playing live. Recording makes me so nervous because you’re almost hyper-aware of every beat and where it’s landing. But in live performances, you’re vibing off of the crowd. You’re vibing off of the energy and the air where you’re at, so it becomes sort of like a spiritual experience. You become less hyper-aware of where things are. We do some acoustic-y songs and also some songs with tracks that feel more full. Acoustic-wise, we do a cover of Elvis Presley's “Mystery Train,” and I love that song. Out of our songs, “One More Thrill” is my favorite because it feels sort of nasty. Dream Collaboration: Sheila E. and I side-by-side, drumming together. That would be kind of fun! Or maybe a tap artist, like Savion Glover or Johnnie Hobbs, who’s my tap dance teacher here in Los Angeles. Just being able to riff off each other while I’m playing my drums at the same time would be the best. On Maintaining Originality: I agree with Rob, and it’s really hard to do that. Every day we grapple with it because you think “Oh, I want this to pay my bills,” and you’re trying to not let that be the focus. There is no expectation, and there’s no outcome that I want to put on it. I feel that the more that I focus on that stuff, the more untrue I am to myself. The same goes for clothing or anything. You shouldn’t care what other people think and what the outcome is supposed to be, but just what you enjoy. Guilty Pleasure: Eating is my favorite thing to do in the whole world. We both like to travel. We just came back from Turkey and Egypt and that was an amazing journey. I love television, film, and theater. I have IMDB brain.
If the gaming calendar year is a turkey, November is the stuffing. It’s not so much that it has the most games, just some of the biggest. It’s a sequel fest, as are most Novembers, but only one of them is of the annual variety, meaning gamers have been waiting years to get their hands on a few of these. We’re getting a game that has literally been in development for 10 years, another that follows in the grand tradition of handheld RPGs, an open-world improvement, a stealth steampunk spectacular and Call of Duty. Yup, they made another one.
Find out what we’re most excited to play after the break.
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Final Fantasy XV
2006 feels like the Stone Age in terms of video games, their impact and the technology involved in making them. That’s when Final Fantasy XV was first announced as a spin-off of Final Fantasy XIII, dubbed “Versus.” Many years in development hell and a few directors later, we finally have the game many Final Fantasy fans have been waiting for. FFXV bucks the trend of past mainline single-player campaigns by offering an open world to explore, including a drivable car and a bunch of companions with which to take your road trip. The combat is fast and fluid, the graphics are stunning and early previews are praising the lack of load times and dearth of content. Hopefully all of the pieces fit when it hits modern consoles on November 29.
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Pokémon Sun and Moon
Pokemon Go kind of exploded. With over half a billion downloads across the world, little cute pocket monsters crept back into the social consciousness for the first time since the 1990s. But for diehards of the series, the only part of the franchise they truly care about are the RPGs released every few years on Nintendo’s mobile platform. The 3DS is getting a double dose of Pokemon (as is tradition) in Pokemon Sun and Moon, but the game hasn’t changed very much. Players will assume the role of a young trainer, gathering little animals and training them to fight against one another. It sounds brutal, but it’s charming in that Nintendo way. Choose your celestial body on November 18.
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Watch Dogs 2
Poor, poor Watch Dogs. After breaking Ubisoft’s record for pre-orders and looking like the best reason to join the next generation of consoles, it came out to middling reviews and general apathy as the final product missed the mark on nearly all fronts. But Ubisoft can’t not make sequels, so we have the follow-up, which at least took enough time to hopefully fix the major issues with the original. First up, San Francisco is the new host to your hacktivist activities and it looks like the developers actually took the time to replicate the Bay Area’s golden city with recognizable landmarks and distinct neighborhoods. The new protagonist looks way more complex than Aiden Pierce’s dry paint demeanor and the various missions seem way more fun. We got some hands-on time at E3 and enjoyed what we saw, so here’s hoping the whole thing comes together on November 15.
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Dishonored 2
Against a few odds, Bethesda managed to bring a new IP to the masses that actually worked. The steampunk stealth combat world of Dishonored broke into the market in 2012 and gave gamers plenty to do in its Victorian-era murder sandbox. The powers were nuts, the story was crazy and the art was striking. But the sequel seems to ramp up each of those aspects, introducing a second playable character with all new powers and abilities. Our main character, Corvo, now has voice over dialogue and the environment is completely different, giving people plenty of reason to revisit the Empire of the Isles. Arkane consistently puts out high-quality projects and the time and care taken to make this feel worthwhile shows in every trailer. Check it out on November 11.
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Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare
One day the sun will explode. Earth will be engulfed in flames and someway, somehow, a new Call of Duty game will find its way through the rubble and ash to appear as the last sign of civilization. But we’ve got a while until that happens, so we have Infinite Warfare to hold us over. The newest big budget shooter from Activision sees the whole squad going to space to fight enemies above and below, taking the franchise to even crazier sci-fi depths than Black Ops III. This is also the first Infinity Ward version of the game to have zombies, something traditionally associated with the Black Ops series. Jon Snow and Conor McGregor are also in the game, which is a weird transition from Kevin Spacey, and Seth Green and Paul Reubens show up in the zombie mode. With a ton of shooters out this holiday season, only you know for sure if this one is up your alley and you can pick it up on November 4.
