CASHING IN ON ADAM LAMBERT

A record company is planning to cash in on recordings made by American Idol runner up Adam Lambert before he became famous.

Before his Idol-fame, Adam Lambert was a struggling singer who earned some cash by recording material for an indie label, Hi-Fi Recordings. Now, John Hecker, CEO of Hi Fi Recordings, has claimed that Lambert not only provided the vocals for some of the songs, but also helped co-write many of them.

“The music’s amazing,” Hecker told Billboard. “There are some uptempo [songs], there’s some that rock a little more, and there are some songs on the same tip as Want. It’s a real album that’s coming out, not just a conglomerate of a bunch of songs. This is all original material — as a matter of fact, Adam wrote a lot of it.”

Lambert, however, has denied this: “The work I did back then in no way reflects the music I am currently in the studio working on. Back in 2005 when I was a struggling artist, I was hired as a studio singer to lend my vocals to tracks written by someone else.

“I was broke at the time and this was my chance to make a few bucks, so I jumped at the opportunity to record for my first time in a professional studio,” Lambert said.

Hecker now plans to release the album before Lambert’s debut post-Idol offering, in a blatant attempt, some say, to cash in on the star’s new-found fame.

Said Hecker: “We would never put anything out that wasn’t fully owned by the parties involved with all the rights secured. We were really careful.”

He added, “I’m working [Adam’s] brand with as much care as anybody could. I do not want to hurt this guy, I want this guy to be as huge as he should be, and I think this music is only going to help.”