Bryan Adams is, one acquaintance of his tells me, “an operator — in sheep’s clothing”. He has also got a wolfish grin, which he is displaying to winning effect as he shimmies through a claque of record company executives at the Hotel Arts, Barcelona, a plate of steamed asparagus in his hand.
His plane from Lisbon, where the Canadian-born rock star played a gig the previous night, has been held on the tarmac, so he is running late, and his tour manager has had to rustle up some of the vegan food Adams, 48, has been eating for nearly 20 years.
Elfin (he is 5 feet-8 inches) and ebullient, he is all brisk charm: “Where are you staying? The Hotel Crap? Oh, Hotel Cram. You’re coming to the gig tonight? And to the exhibition (Modern Muses, a collection of 12 prominent women he has photographed that is showing at the National Portrait Gallery)? … I hope you won’t be disappointed.”
He is in blue jeans, black sweater, black T-shirt and black boots; there is a light stubble on his pockmarked face. “He’s very sexy,” says the same acquaintance, “if you like that sort of look — and I do.”
So, according to the tabloids, does Elle Macpherson, with whom he is reported to be “linked” — as he was with Princess Diana. Not that he is keen to discuss. This reticence extends even to his having Amy Winehouse spend recuperative time at his house on Mustique.
Bryan Adams is a thoroughly good egg. Primarily, he is a successful singer-songwriter — a solid-gold back catalogue of songs, including (Everything I Do) I Do It For You, which spent a still-unbroken record of 16 weeks at the top of the UK charts in 1991.
He is also a well thought-of photographer: his work has appeared in Vogue, Vanity Fair, i-D, Interview and he has published three books of portraits.
There are plenty of people to attest to his good eggishness. Geordie Greig, who edits Tatler, says “there’s a gentle curiosity to him; he’s hungry for experience and for work — and that’s attractive.”
Alexandra Shulman, who edits Vogue, echoes this: “He’s got a can-do attitude that’s very appealing.” To Virginia McKenna (one of his Modern Muses), “he’s adorable. Such a generous-hearted man; really lovely.”
Marie Colvin, the war reporter, is another of the Modern Muses. He was, she says, charming, loose and very interested in her world. I mention that she has just telephoned me from Gaza.
Adams is incredulous: “Recently? She doesn’t give up, does she? What a time to be there. Wow.” He pauses. “Brave,” he adds. I say I have tried to persuade her to be less brave. “Oh, forget it,” Adams says. “She’s got the spirit. It is in her blood.”
Just, you might say, as music is in his. He has, indeed, “had a very clear vision” that he wanted to be in music from a young age. That caused friction with his parents, Conrad and Jane. When he was 12, Adams’s parents despaired of his lack of interest in school and sent him to a psychiatrist.
“Dr Kaplan: very nice fellow. And one day he said to me, ‘You know, Bryan, you’re not the one who should be here; it’s your parents who should be here.’ … it gave me confidence that I was OK,” he says.
“My focus was music, and I was 100 per cent blinkered. And then about ten years ago, I pulled the blinkers off.” Why? “I’d been round the world a hundred times and had started to forget where I’d been … it was a massive blur …. I thought, ‘Right: this has got to stop.’”
It was from then that Adams began to take photography seriously, and from then that he began to enjoy his Chelsea home. That home is, says Vogue’s Shulman, “the ultimate bachelor pad ….”
Who does he play with? Who are his gang? He is dismissive. He moved to London, he says, because he fell in love with a girl. That is over but they are still best friends. He is not part of the social whirl.
Like any rock star, Adams has a good speed dial, and his antennae are out — it is the operator in him. Recently, he photographed Mikhail Gorbachev. “He phoned me up,” says Tatler’s Greig, with whom Gorbachev was hosting a charity event, “and asked if he could. So I fixed it up.”
He also photographed The Queen, a picture that wound up on a Canadian postage stamp; that came about through Adams’s association with Camera Press — to whom he had been sent by “Karsh, the photographer, … a friend of mine”. On his website you will see pictures of Lindsay Lohan, Helena Bonham Carter, Macpherson and more.
At the National Portrait Gallery, Adams’s nod to formality is a crisp white shirt and chic blue jacket to complement the jeans and boots. He is, he says, “super-happy” with the way the 12 Muses are displayed — though, to be honest, he would have preferred the larger-than-life-size prints. “But they are great the way they are.” He had taken the 12 pictures in three days.
From the gallery, it is on to St James’s Church, Piccadilly. The church is the night’s stop on Adams’s 11 dates in 11-city tour to promote the new album, 11. The front pews were packed with largish ladies and chubby chaps. Further back were younger, svelter figures — including Macpherson.
Adams said he was nervous; it was his hometown; he could see people he knew; he had never played in a church before. “You’ve never been in one before!” yelled a jovial fan. Adams replied abruptly, and later apologised. This brief bristliness was very interesting.
In Barcelona, the crowd had taken up one of his songs after Adams had finished and had begun to sing on its own. Adams shut them up. He likes to be in control.
There’s a husky sexiness to his singing voice. He knows his audience, and they love him.
He is not Neil Young — one of the few acts he would kill to see — and he is not Bob Dylan. But he is a craftsman. He recognises this. He is not, he tells me in Barcelona, the sort of writer to whom inspiration comes in the night: “I have literally to graft away …. It’s worth every bit of work.”
Work. The job. Adams has a businesslike attitude to life. He enjoys it.
Modern Muses is on at the National Portrait Gallery until June 15.
