He’s been the darling of LOGO’s music lovers for the last three months. He topped the gay cable’s Click List for four weeks in August and still holds down the #6 spot in the online viewer poll even as more mainstream pop tarts like Hillary Duff and Fall Out Boy have come and gone.
  Adam Barta’s video for his long-lived (it was released in November 2006) dance favorite “I Wanna Hold You” is every metrosexual’s wettest dream: clubbing all night then leaving with the two hottest pick-ups in the room - choices that cross racial and gender boundaries. But Bronx-born Barta is not just a hunky one-hit wonder currying favor with the queer community: he’s an emerging talent on the cusp of dance music stardom.
  “I Wanna Hold You’s” indie label success story on FM and web radio has been the stuff of recent stories in music press: a July Skope feature and an August Cashbox cover piece. In mid-September, Barta was signed to Chicago-based dance and latin music giant EsNtion Records.
  Quest caught up with Barta last week, just as he was about to learn the latest results from the Click List and just a couple of weeks before his new, major label single “Standing In The Rain” will try to score a hit-making hat trick - a third club smash for the twentysomething tenor, who DJ Times called “one of the strongest male vocalists of 2007.”

Quest: So the breaking news is that you’ve gotten a major record deal.
Adam: I signed with EsNtion (Records) for an album deal. It’s been in the works for a couple of months. I (also) have a single that I recorded called “Standing In The Rain” which is coming out on DJ Russ Harris’ album on October 9.
Quest: You spent most of the month of August on the top of  the Click List on LOGO with “I Wanna Hold You.” In fact it’s still in the top 10 the last time I checked.
Adam:  Every Friday around this time my manager gets an e-mail that they’ve updated the website with the list. It’s been on there 12 weeks, hopefully 13 if we find out in the next few minutes that it’s still up there. It’s been a process: getting excited every Friday around this time - 5:30 - to check the website and see if its there. It’s been a great validation with everybody voting for it, everyone liking it - It’s a really great feeling to have had it up there for so long.
Quest: Well for the gay crowd, they really like that in the video you walk out with two dates at the end of the night.
Adam:  (laughs) Well, that’s what we were going for, you know! We kind of wanted to leave it open, so whatever your interpretation was of it, you could go with it. (It was) something for everybody. I really think it worked. If the gay crowd loves it, and the straight crowd kinda loves it, or loves the ambiguity. And it works - its been great.
Quest: And the song has been all over the radio too, like Pride Radio, XM and Sirius.
Adam: It’s been on so many different stations. I actually recorded it in March of 2006, so its over a year and a half since it was first done. But it just keeps growing and growing. They say that the life of a single - whether its a hit or not - only has so much air time on the radio. But this song is like “The Little Engine That Could,” with the amount of (continued) pick-ups its getting. With the LOGO countdown a lot more people are taking notice of it.
  Just yesterday I got an e-mail from the another dance artist, Pepper Mashay. A lot of people know her from her hit “Dive In The Pool” (from the Queer As Folk soundtrack). She wants to play it on her (radio) show. Pepper and I have been friends for a while. She’s really supporting me. Everything’s just coming together perfectly.
Quest: So when will the EsNtion album be coming out?
Adam: I have an album tentatively scheduled to come out early next year. That was the date that they gave us - early 2008. As late as March, probably more so because I haven’t recorded most of it yet. I’ll be in the studio the end of this year.
Quest:You also have a really exciting date coming up in July 2008 as well.
Adam: Its a fantastic benefit concert - Angels Unite Worldwide 2008. It’s being put together by IAD Radio (www.iadradio.com). They have some amazing performers lined up: Olivia Newton-John, Patti LaBelle. And I think Ricky Martin is on that bill. Olivia has been someone I’ve been watching since I was a little kid. It’s gonna be a trip for me to get on stage and be with her. It’s going to be July 8 in Denver.
Quest: Talking about little kids, how did a Bronx boy end up on a Chicago-based label working with a Chicago DJ (Russ Harris) as a featured artist on his upcoming album?
Adam: I started doing musical theater. From there I jumped into a boy band, actually two boy bands. It didn’t turn out that well, but it gave me the tools I guess I needed to push forward my personal career. I learned about working as part of a team. Any recording artist has to have that mentality of working as a unit, whether its with other band members, or choreographers, back-up singers, managers... They have to function together cohesively.
  From the boy band I launched a solo career. I did some pop stuff that did okay, but it wasn’t anything great. Then I had single called “Dirty Girls” (in 2005). The remix by the Armory Project did really well in the clubs and hit dance radio for a bit. That put me in the dance arena. From there came “I Want To Hold You” and then EsNtion Records noticed me.
Quest: So it was a story in Skope in July, then a cover on Cashbox in August, and now its the cover of Quest in September.
Adam:I’m honored. And I got the news essentially on my birthday, which is today (September 21). I got the news from (his manager) Stephen yesterday about the cover.
Quest: So where do you see yourself in five years, besides at the top of the charts?
Adam: I’m hoping to have at least a Grammy or some sort of an award - maybe an MTV Award. I hope to have a bunch of hits, good songs that I’ve written out there. The most important thing is to have my own stuff recorded and have done well. And just performing - I love the excitement of it, love having fans and just doing my thing. So if I can still be performing, having music that people really like five years from now, I will be very happy.
Quest: As for the immediate future, you have the new single coming out as the featured singer for DJ Russ Harris.
Adam: That will be “Standing in the Rain.” Russ’ album, which will have an exclusive mix - the Russ Harris mix - will be out October 9. The album is called Ear Therapy. The single from that - with additional mixes - will be in a month or two. There might be a “B-side” to that which may have “I Want To hold You” but I’m not positive.
Quest: Who do you see as your musical influences? Where does your inspiration come from?
Adam: Well, I grew up listening to ‘Nsync and the Backstreet Boys, Justin Timberlake and all the hip-hop male vocalists. I listen to things like Pink, R & B artists like Missy Elliott, that sort of vibe. I’ve really been digging Hilary Duff’s new sound lately. I think her new, reinvented non-Disney sound is really working well for her. Even the new Britney Spears song - I know a lot of people have been giving her a hard time for everything that’s been going on - but the song she has out now (“Gimme More”) is fantastic.
Quest: As for “I Wanna Hold You,” can people still get it anywhere besides videotaping it off of TV?
Adam: It’s available for download on iTunes and Rhapsody. It’s on the Top Dance Songs of 2006 on Rhapsody. I know AOL Music also has it. For hard copy, I think they till sell it at CDBaby (www.cdbaby.com), which is an independent CD seller. That’s if they have any copies left. There are also people selling it on eBay.
Quest: And you have a MySpace page, something that’s de riguer in 2007.
Adam: Yeah, if you like wear clothes, you have to have a MySpace page in 2007. (www.myspace.com/adambarta)
Quest: Any last thing you’d like to say to Quest’s readers? This your shot!
Adam: Well I hope everyone continues to vote for it on the Click List. It’s been an amazing validation of what I’m doing, so I like to thank the people who have been liking it and voting for it as well. It just makes me want to work harder to put out good music. If people want to write to me on the MySpace page, I get a chance to check it now and then and I always try to write back to everybody. And I look forward to hopefully performing in Wisconsin soon. I hope to get out there.
Quest: Well you know we have one of the most musical of gay pride festivals in the country with Milwaukee’s PrideFest every summer. Maybe I should whisper in the PrideFest committee’s ear, though by (next June) you may be too expensive to book in!
Adam: (laughs) No, I’ll remember! If I get an offer (to come) to Wisconsin, I’ll come out there! I’ll make sure it works out! I’d love to come, that would be great!