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Interview With Melissa Etheridge

After eight studio albums with approximately 27 million copies sold worldwide, two Grammys, one Oscar and one successful battle with breast cancer, it would be understandable if Melissa Etheridge wanted to hang up her guitar. But the 46-year-old rock star is about to release her ninth album, The Awakening, a personal and political journey that will be available on Sept. 25.

Framed by interludes that often sound like calls to spiritual enlightenment, The Awakening traces Etheridge’s experiences from growing up in the Midwest to traveling to California in search of her Hollywood dream, to finding joy in love with her wife, Tammy Lynn Etheridge. The last four songs on the album, which segue seamlessly into each other, exhort listeners to wake up and make a change in the world – political anthems that actually work because of their sincerity and their big, arena-friendly sound.

But though Etheridge has become successful enough to justify globe-trotting tours in huge venues, she remains down-to-earth and committed to the causes she believes in. When I talked with her last month, she called me herself and started off by saying that she’s a fan of AfterEllen.com and has been visiting it for some time.

“I just love how it’s grown,” she said. “Tammy turned me on to it years ago. She’s like, ‘Now, there’s someone who gets me.'”

Before we talked about her new album and her body of activist work – her Oscar-winning song for Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth; her support for Dennis Kucinich – I asked her whether Tammy was planning to get back into acting anytime soon.

“Sometimes I feel like I’m holding her hostage from the rest of the world, this incredible talent,” Etheridge began, “and every night in the bathtub I get this performance of just her talking about her day, which is one of the most entertaining things in the world, and I always feel bad because everyone … should just be seeing my incredible wife.”

Then Etheridge said: “Yes. She will return. She loves being a mother. It is her calling. She’s a mother of twins, you know, which is huge! And it’s constant, and it’s relentless, and it doesn’t let up. It’s constant love and it’s wonderful, but … it takes her everything she can just to get away for a half hour and try to write a blog.”

Tammy’s blog, Hollywood Farm Girl, caught some heat from the New York Post recently when she ranted against the Bush administration. “Her blog is keeping her sane right now,” Etheridge said. “I think that … when she feels like the kids are old enough and she can put some time into something else, she’s gonna just take off.

“And I mean, it’s not just me as her wife saying this,” Etheridge added, “but ask any of her friends and anyone who’s ever worked with her. … Someday soon she will be able to put her time into the right project, the right thing, and everyone is just going to see how incredible she is.”

AfterEllen.com: Let me ask you a bit about your new album. I thought it was really interesting because this is clearly a very, very spiritual album. How would you describe your spiritual practice these days? Melissa Etheridge: Mmm. Well that’s been my journey and my joy, is finding that spiritual practice, and what I have found is that every single moment of my life is a spiritual practice.

My spirituality is not something I go to once a week. It’s with me every moment, and once I let that in, once I got that and really understood it on a cellular level, there’s immense joy and freedom there – just, just incredible, and it took a disease. It took a face-to-face with my mortality to get me there, but wow, it’s a great place to be. AE: A lot of your earlier songs, the really big hits, “Come to My Window,” stuff like that, they’re often about frustrated desire, which is something a lot of people can relate to. [Laughs.] ME: Oh, yeah. Why do you think I sold 6 million of those records?

AE: Are worried that – because of the spiritual aspect of this album – people might not get it? ME: I know that some people might not get it. Some people might just like some of the music. Some people might get it on a very surface way: “Oh OK, I get what she’s talking about.”

You know, it will be a very different experience for everyone, and that’s OK. It’s like a book. It’s there to read, and if you want to read it and understand – you will get what you want to out of it. It’s like a painting. You look at it, if it moves you, it’s up to you how you’re going to take it in.

AE: In the press materials, it said that during your chemotherapy you went through and listened to all your previous albums. What do they tell you about yourself? ME: [Sighs.] It told me that on a subconscious level, there was a lot more going on with my feelings and emotions than I recognized. I think growing up in the Midwest, I was taught to oppress and suppress and repress [laughs] my feelings and desires and dreams, and we’re supposed to see the world as very large, but we’re supposed to think very small and stay in our little box.

It’s like the first line of “California”: “Only a few shall get, but everyone shall need.” We’ll all want it, but there’s only a few that’s going to get it. And that sort of mentality – it’s hard and it creates this desire, this constant, constant desire and this disappointment âÔé¼?ª and now I’ve forgotten, actually your question. [Laughter.]

AE: I was just asking about what your older albums taught you about yourself and your experience so far – ME: Right, right. I did a lot of searching, and I really thought that happiness would be in fame and fortune, and if I went to California and I ran after that Hollywood dream and I became rich and famous, then I would be fine. And of course, my path was very different than what I thought it would be. And I did get to the top of the mountain, and I looked around and went, “Wow, this is a really lonely place.” [Laughs.] And it’s impossible to stay there.

So now I see these young women who are climbing up that mountain going, “Whoopee! Give me the brass ring,” you know, “Here I go.” And they get up there, and then there they are, and so they start drinking and they don’t think they’re pretty enough; they don’t think they’re skinny enough. Believe me, I’ve been there. I tried to be skinnier and prettier and I did the whole thing.

AE: Really? ME: In my own way. [Laughs.] I didn’t say I succeeded, but I felt that emotion.

AE: Looking back on your career now, do you have any advice for young musicians who are seeking that same dream? ME: [Emphatically.] Oh yeah.

AE: What would you tell them? ME: I’d say do it because you love it. Do what you love. Do not do it to be rich and famous. Do not do it to achieve something to fill up some sort of hole inside of you, because it will not.

Do make your music because you love it, and make the music that comes to you and stand wherever you can and sing, and sing what you love. And if you do it because you love it and you find your happiness in it, then you will have contentment. Then if something does come along, then you will be on solid ground and you will be able to handle whatever the outside world might give you.

AE: I wanted to ask you a bit about one of the songs on the album, “An Unexpected Rain.” For me, it was the most like your earlier stuff. ME: People who have listened to me for a long time and who are longtime fans and know my first work and stuff, they all say that, and it was purposely done that way. Because the subject matter is about the ’80s and the choices I made, and that whole time period. I purposely made it sound – I approached it in the way that I did my first records and the sort of music that I was making then. I wanted to conjure up the sort of sound that I had back then.

AE: How has your songwriting, or music making methodology, I guess, changed since then? What has developed? ME: Well, I think âÔé¼?ª [laughs] I tried to chase some musical styles there for a while, trying to think that my own style wasn’t good enough and that I had to have a beat or âÔé¼?ª there was something else, I needed to be more like someone else. You see that in some of my work a little bit.

I never got carried away with it, but I always did try it, and I think whenever I did, it kind of lessened my impact because I didn’t trust my own power. I didn’t trust my own talent and that what I am is good enough, and that’s what people want to hear. So when I finally got that through my head, I approached this album totally from a place of joy and love, and I can’t wait to make this record the way that I make music and not worry about anything but just getting the song down.

AE: “Threesome” is kind of interesting because it’s very country. I mean, you have this twang. It’s kind of fun. ME: Yeah. People either love it or they hate it. [Laughs.] They’re like, “Yuck!”

AE: Because of the country? ME: Yeah, yeah. Because of the twang and stuff. Some people just don’t dig it, don’t like that at all. But that’s kind of my roots. The first bands I sang in when I was 13 were country bands. I sang Tammy Wynette. Country’s a big part of my past and my influences, so I wanted to step closer to that country side, but with a really dangerous song. You know, oh my God, a big ol’ lesbian singin’ about a threesome, honey, hide the kids!

But what I’m really singing about is monogamy and family values. I kind of wanted to wrap it âÔé¼” I just wanted to make it one big bundle of a dichotomy, just a thing to go, “Huh? What?” [Laughs.] “I’m uncomfortable. She’s talking about threesomes yet she’s talking about loving her wife. Wait a minute. What’s going on?” I wanted it to be dangerous and I wanted it to be Southern rock, sort of country rock.

AE: You also talk about surfing the channels and watching that show with all of those ladies. ME: What show am I talking about?

AE: The L Word? ME: That’s exactly what I’m talking about. ‘Cause I watch The L Word, and … I know the people that created it, and we all were hanging out in the ’80s doing the same thing. We were all in the same group, and I know all of those characters, and I see myself in a lot of that. [Laughs.]

AE: Really? ME: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

AE: Who? Which ones? ME: No, I’m not gonna say. [Laughs.] I lived it, so I’m kind of like, jeez. But I also look at it and go [sighs], they’re wearing me out. All their this one and that one and this and the affairs … but you know, that’s what makes it fun. It’s a soap opera. It’s fun to watch.

But when I watch that, I remember the energy that I spent on all that drama, and I’m so glad I’m done with that. That is what I’m talking about.

AE: Who’s your favorite character on the show? ME: Ah. [Laughs.] You gotta love Shane. You just do, you just gotta love her. I relate to her way too much.

AE: Oh, OK. Well, what do you think of her hair? ME: [Laughs.] I think it has a life of its own. Yeah, hair … it’s so funny how hair is so much a part of our … we’re so anti-beauty and stuff, yet we’re obsessed with our hair. I was obsessed with my hair all through the ’80s and ’90s and even now, [so it] was so interesting when I lost all my hair. It was like, oh, this is powerful.But her hair – I don’t understand it, but I appreciate it.

AE: [Laughs.] Well this is a really ridiculous question, but since we’re on the subject of hair, are you growing your hair out now? ME: Yeah. Yeah, I did the short hair thing and I love it, and I think that if there ever comes a time where I’m like, “OK, I’m gonna take a break from being a rock star for a few years,” I don’t know, when in my 50s or 60s or something, I’ll cut my hair again because it was just so free to just have that little short do, to just wash and go. I love it. But I am growing it out because when I do rock ‘n’ roll, I like to shake my head around. Hair is another part of me.

AE: Uh huh. So it’s like a tool. ME: Yeah, but I don’t want to ever hide behind it. I think I hid behind it a lot in the past. I see a lot of pictures and videos of myself and I’m like, “Oh look at me, I’m hiding behind my hair.” So I’m not going to do that anymore. AE: Very recently you were on the Logo presidential forum. What was that like for you? ME: That was a trip. It was a trip to be asked because the first thing I thought was, “They’re asking me because I’m a celebrity,” and I said: “OK now. If I step in to do this, I have to know that so many people are going to go, ‘She’s just a celebrity. That’s the only reason they got her to do that.'”

Which yes, it’s true, and I understand that my celebrity will bring a certain amount of attention to this. So I’m willing to go ahead and do that, because I also know how involved I’ve been in politics for the past 20 years and how important it is to me, and how I do know the issues. I’ve been very involved.

I also know that there are so many people in our community who are infinitely more qualified to be on that panel, who spend their life’s work is the political advancement of our issues and our community. I totally am aware of that and decided to go ahead and be on it to bring whatever sort of light that celebrity brings to it and to try to speak for my community, which is another impossibility because even our community is – [laughs] we don’t agree. We’re all different sorts of people, and we’re not even all Democrats.

AE: Yeah, isn’t that strange? ME: It is! I mean, when you think about it, the gay community cuts across every single group of people – every race, every age, every financial situation – everything. Men, women … and we really don’t have much in common except our sexuality, who we want to pick as our partner, and that’s it, and it’s really hard to bring that sort of community together.

AE:Right. I think that a lot of gay viewers really identified with what you said to Hillary Clinton about feeling like we were thrown under a bus after Bill Clinton was elected. ME: Yeah.

AE: I feel like she kind of responded by saying that change can’t happen as quickly as we want. ME: [Chuckles.] As me, a cancer survivor, would like to see? Yeah, and that was a political way of answering it.

I felt a responsibility, having been there, having come out at Bill Clinton’s inauguration, having been there at that time of so much hope and been there with those leaders who – oh my gosh – who worked so hard to elect a president who would even say the words gay and lesbian. And we did have so much hope, and we saw the political process really beat him down and our issues.

And I still think that the Clintons were one of the best things that’s happened to America. I’m still a huge supporter and fan and friend of them, and I think that Hillary Clinton would make an excellent president. I just felt that for our community, we needed to talk about the elephant in the room: “OK, we have some issues about some feelings we have from a few years ago.”

I just want to lay it out there and say, hey, we kind of felt this way. Please don’t do that to us again [laughs], because we probably won’t be able to take it again. And just be aware that we don’t want to be a political football; we don’t want to organize âÔé¼?ª and get together and get you guys elected and then OK, where else are you gonna go and get pushed aside? I just didn’t want that to happen again. AE: Right. Well, who do you support for the Democratic nomination right now? ME: You know what? It’s funny because people would ask me that and I’d say, “Oh my God, anybody!” Give me a Democrat dog – I don’t care. Just anything is better than this hellhole that we’re in now.

But when I really look at it, and especially after the process of that forum … I am a Democrat, and I will support whomever my party nominates for president and vice president. I will absolutely, whole-heartedly, all my heart and soul support them, whether it be Clinton, Obama, Edwards – whatever it is.

But I have to tell you that one man got up there on that forum, and he spoke of a world that I want to live in, and he spoke like a leader that wants to take our country and our world to a place that I’ve only dared dream about. And people are afraid of him; people don’t understand him. They think he’s weird because he is so far ahead of his time, and that’s Dennis Kucinich.

I fawned all over him at the forum – I know, I tried not to – but if you seriously, I mean, get past the name, get past how he looks, get past whatever. Even if you think, “Oh, he can’t get elected,” just listen to what the man has to say, and if you hear what he has to say and understand what he’s talking about, it is so exciting that that’s even in our election process today.

I am very hopeful. I am a Dennis Kucinich supporter and fan. I will support whomever my party elects, but I really think that we need to listen to what he has to say, and … if we truly believe that we are worthwhile in our thoughts and our feelings and our opinions and the way we want to see the world âÔé¼?ª then when a leader steps up and says, “I believe this too,” we have to support him.

We can’t say, “Give us gay marriage,” and then when a guy comes up and says, “It’s about equality. You need gay marriage,” we can’t then turn away. You have to say, “OK, this guy is talking the talk.” It’s a difficult thing.

AE: The last song on your album, “What About Tomorrow,” it almost seemed like it was a campaign song written for the Clinton campaign. ME: Isn’t that funny? I know. [Laughs.] Well, the one verse, the verse about “I believe a woman can work hard and succeed and be the president,” was written because months ago when people were starting to talk about the 2008 elections, I would say: “This is exciting. This guy Barack Obama, he’s an African American, and Hillary Clinton,” and all these things, and they’d say “Well, is America really ready for a woman president?”

And I would get so frickin’ upset. I’m like, are you kidding me? If after we’ve seen where religious fundamentalism and patriarchy can lead our country – to the brink of ruin and disaster – you mean to tell me that mmm, maybe we still can’t elect a woman now? And I just thought that was the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard, and that people really sell their hope out because they think that other people won’t like it.

And that’s what I’m saying, is that I believe any woman can be president. That someone can work hard and succeed. âÔé¼?ª If Hillary gets the nomination, sure, go ahead. Take it. Fine. Great. But it was written really just about the fact of [how] we really have to start believing what we want to see in the future. We have to start believing right now, today. We have to stop giving our power to other people.

AE: I wanted to ask you about Live Earth. Were you upset that NBC didn’t broadcast your set on prime time? ME: [Sighs.] How bout all that, huh?

AE: Yeah. ME: You know, that experience was an eye-opener for me. Because having been so close to An Inconvenient Truth and Al Gore and seeing his vision being put onto a film, and then I was so honored to write a song for it.

When he first called, he said, “Come see my slideshow and write a song for it.” I thought it would be shown in high schools or something. I really didn’t know what was coming, and to see it put out there on the major stage and then see the world change, it proved to me that one single person can make a change. One person. And it gave me great hope, and I was so swept away with, wow! We are learning. This guy showed it to us and we are seeing this, and the world changed. Being green is important now, and so when he said, “We’re doing a concert. Live Earth. 7/7/07,” I said, “I’m there.” I said, this is an awesome opportunity to talk about change, to stand up and change, because it’s what we need right now. We’re either going to sink or swim. [Laughs.]

And then … when I arrived at Giants Stadium, I started getting this sinking feeling because I saw there was this big Verizon tent, and there was the corporate this over here, and the corporate that, and I thought [sighs], you know what’s happening? It’s that corporations are actually going, “OK, this is the flavor of the moment. Let me, I’m going to paint myself green.”

AE: Right. ME: And the television picked it up, and all the commercials were very green. And when I looked out in the audience – I mean there were good people, but most of them were there to hear Bon Jovi, you know. I mean really, it was Giants Stadium, come on.

Then I listened to the artists, and a few of them would say, “Hey, you know, we’ve got to do this and recycle and whatever,” and I thought, what I thought I was coming to … a gathering of artists that were going to bring about some change … I realized it was just kind of a media moment.

So I knew that my intention of what I was going to do âÔé¼?ª I was going to play two songs that people had never heard of that were political in nature, and I was going to get up there and speak truthfully in the music and speak to people about what’s going on and how we need to wake up, and what’s happening in our government and how people need to rise up.

But I think we’re not [rising up] because we’re so stuck in our – we’re all in debt. We all have to work. And we all believe that we’re here to work and then buy things – produce things and then buy them – which is the whole problem behind our environment. We keep consuming and then just throwing things away. It’s the very source of the problem with our ecology, this mindset of “work, eat, sleep.”

“I’m going to work, make money; I’m going to go in debt so I can buy this thing, so in a few months when it’s not the thing anymore, I can throw it away and buy the other thing.” I’m not saying that we’re bad people because of that, but we need to change our way of thinking.

And I got up there and railed about it, and I walked off and I thought to myself, that’s never going to see the light of day. [Laughs.]

AE: I watched it live, but NBC didn’t show it on the prime-time broadcast. ME: I couldn’t even believe they didn’t show “I Need to Wake Up,” the song from the movie that won the Oscar, and my friend Randi Rhodes said: “Are you kidding? GE [General Electric] owns NBC. GE is a huge defense contractor and is going to support the Bush …

And I just went, wow. There really are people who don’t want this message out there. And one, it saddened me, but two, it strengthened my convictions of, “Then this message really needs to get out there.” This is really important.

I wasn’t surprised, and there were many other people who saw that who went, wait a minute. Her performance, none of it was on the evening broadcast. And I think … people see the truth in that.

AE: I thought that what you said was really one of the most sincere statements that whole day. Most of the other performers were just very surface level, I think. ME: Yeah, well, I think people are scared. We’re scared to death. âÔé¼?ª I think that because I’ve had cancer, I’m willing to be the crazy one, you know. It’s like, fine, if I have to lay down on the barbed wire, I will, because it’s that important to me and it’s that simple to me.

I live this every day, and I’m not under the fear. So it’s like I want to say: “Look, look, look! Come over here, come play over here! Come on, come on, you can do it!” That’s kind of where I’m at.

AE: So will you take this album out on tour? ME: Yeah. Right now I’m doing one show in New York, which is just the album, just the songs from beginning to end, but after that I’m going to do a 2008 summer tour, and it will be this album and then all the other stuff that I like to do.

AE: Cool. Well, I also wanted to ask you whatever happened to that ABC sitcom in which you were going to play a gay music teacher? ME: [Laughs.] You know what? First off, a press release like that, I didn’t put that out. All I did was to go to ABC because I was looking for – this was before I was diagnosed with cancer, and the music business was kind of bumming me out. Radio was so narrow. It was like, I’m not going to compete with the belly shirts anymore. I’m just not going to do it.

So I went to television and went, hey, is there something I can do? Is there somewhere I can just go to work five days in the week and then come home? That sort of thing. So I went and I talked to ABC and I pitched this idea, and they were like, “Yeah!” Then, even before we wrote a word down, they put this press release out that I was going to be on ABC and on a television show.

I was like whoa, what? Wait a minute. So now of course we wrote something up, I was diagnosed with cancer, it’s like, “No, no, no, I don’t want to do that.” It just fell apart. It’s Hollywood. It happens every day in Hollywood. It’s just one of those things.

AE: Well, is there anything else you want to say to your fans? ME: Aww, just – I love AfterEllen.com. I think it’s great. I love that the gay community has really set up shop on the internet. We are some of the best bloggers and best sites and most truthful – whenever I really want to know what’s going on, I’ll go to those sites, so keep up the good work.

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