Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, brolcome back to Bob Left Podcast. My guest today,
Speaker 1: You've but one and only Melissa Et Melissa, you have
Speaker 1: Ethridge Island coming up on Labor Day. What's that all about? Uh?
Speaker 1: This is sort of a little dream come true, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, as as I have gone through this music business,
Speaker 1: I have seen, uh it changed how you connect with
Speaker 1: your fans. Used to be through radio and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: record companies, and now I have a direct connection with
Speaker 1: my fan base. And for the last about five years,
Speaker 1: I've done about four cruises, at which I said I'd
Speaker 1: never do. But when I can be so connected with
Speaker 1: my fans, I can let them know, hey, going on
Speaker 1: a cruise to my super duper fans will join me
Speaker 1: on that. And I used to joke with them someday
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get an island and we're all gonna go away,
Speaker 1: leave this crazy world and we're just gonna, you know,
Speaker 1: play music. And so the people that the production company
Speaker 1: sixth Man that I did my uh cruises with, said,
Speaker 1: you know what, we can actually get an island that
Speaker 1: has a resort on it. It's off it's off of Cancun,
Speaker 1: and it's a dreams and secrets. Uh, resort there. And
Speaker 1: so now I have Ethridge Island and it's a festival
Speaker 1: and it's uh, it's music. It's myself and Annie DiFranco
Speaker 1: and l King and Larkin Poe and some great great artists.
Speaker 1: Everyone's welcome. Uh. You can go to Ethridge Island dot com.
Speaker 1: Check it out right now, get a room, go here. Music.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of wellness, you know, yoga, food and
Speaker 1: all kinds of stuff going on too. But it's just
Speaker 1: super serving my fans and people that really love music. Okay,
Speaker 1: what's the capacity for the event? Well, there's eight hundred rooms,
Speaker 1: so that's uh. I'd say it's about two thousand people
Speaker 1: are so two thousand give or take. So how many
Speaker 1: hardcore Melissa Ethridge fans are there? Ah, there's thousands of
Speaker 1: hardcore and they're all over the world. You know, we've
Speaker 1: done I've done things with about four thousand people or so,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, I'd say, let's say right about
Speaker 1: that those that there's some that I've known for years,
Speaker 1: you know, the really hardcore ones that come to see
Speaker 1: hundreds and hundreds of shows. You get to know them,
Speaker 1: you get to know their children and you know, so
Speaker 1: I have some really really big fans. So talking about
Speaker 1: the change in the business and the technological changes, you
Speaker 1: can literally have access to your fans. How do you
Speaker 1: do this? Do you have an email list? Is it
Speaker 1: more on social media? How do you get the message
Speaker 1: out different ways? I? UM, I was fortunate enough back
Speaker 1: in I had one of the first artist websites that
Speaker 1: that was made. I was approached by a company at
Speaker 1: the time, fan fan Asylum was the name, and and
Speaker 1: and this is you know, the internet wasn't he was
Speaker 1: just barely getting started and they said, we'd love to
Speaker 1: make a fan club. And I was like, fan club,
Speaker 1: you know, this is rock and roll. What are you
Speaker 1: talking about? But I said, okay, fine it it. What's
Speaker 1: it gonna hurt? And they built and and a mask,
Speaker 1: you know, email, email addresses and and a way to
Speaker 1: connect with people. And it became one of the number
Speaker 1: one fan sites on the Internet for a long time.
Speaker 1: And you know, since then, we have kept that email list.
Speaker 1: And I myself, UM, I have lots of social media outlets.
Speaker 1: I have people that run that, but I myself run
Speaker 1: my Twitter. I like to know that there's one place
Speaker 1: that they know it's actually me responding, reading and and
Speaker 1: right there with him. I I don't I don't do Facebook, Instagram,
Speaker 1: but I'm on those through my management. They run that
Speaker 1: and keep that going and inform people. But if you
Speaker 1: want to really hear what I have to say about something,
Speaker 1: it's on Twitter. So you're one of the early technological
Speaker 1: adopters from an out facing way, like having a website.
Speaker 1: Are you personally very into technology or you someone who
Speaker 1: served the web and it's infancy, well, because I, um,
Speaker 1: actually I did. Yeah, in the nineties. I was very
Speaker 1: interested because I could for the first time, I could
Speaker 1: actually get instant feedback from real people, you know, before
Speaker 1: the Internet. I would go do a show and the
Speaker 1: only review I saw was the guy that was, you
Speaker 1: know as signed to cover my show that night, and
Speaker 1: who knows if he even stayed for the whole concert,
Speaker 1: you know, And I do this great show, and sometimes
Speaker 1: I'd get these really weird reviews from you know, one person,
Speaker 1: or or reviews on an album. You get one person
Speaker 1: listening to the album. That's the only feedback I used
Speaker 1: to get, except for when I'd be in concert and
Speaker 1: see the people and then I have this other reaction,
Speaker 1: you know, live and then I'd leave in four days
Speaker 1: later I could read a review and I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, what was the guy at the same
Speaker 1: show as I was? So it was so refreshing too
Speaker 1: in the nineties to go on a O L to
Speaker 1: go on the fan the Melissa Ethridge, you know board,
Speaker 1: and actually see what people were saying. It was the
Speaker 1: first time I got to see kind of instantly how
Speaker 1: people felt about my music as someone with a profile,
Speaker 1: pretty high profile and experience, you know, a couple of things.
Speaker 1: One for nine positives, there's always somebody negative and then
Speaker 1: negative person is twisting the knife. So how do you
Speaker 1: cope with the negative? And to what degree do you
Speaker 1: change your behave You're based on this feedback not only
Speaker 1: the negative, positive too. Oh I, um, well, I went
Speaker 1: through my own personal kind of transformation. I had cancer
Speaker 1: eighteen years ago, cancer free for eighteen years now, and
Speaker 1: um having gone through that, I realized I had to
Speaker 1: let go of really what other people thought about me,
Speaker 1: because that would make me crazy. And the more that
Speaker 1: I have seen social media come up and again this
Speaker 1: instant response to something, and when I went on social
Speaker 1: when I went on Twitter, you know, ten years ago
Speaker 1: or whatever, I realized right away, oh, you're gonna get unfiltered.
Speaker 1: You know, response is positive and negative. And whereas before
Speaker 1: cancer I would let the negative get to me, I
Speaker 1: would uh, I would, you know, really just think I
Speaker 1: would let all the positive go by, but boy, that
Speaker 1: one negative person I would focus on that and it
Speaker 1: would make me crazy. And it's just a really sad
Speaker 1: way to kind of do your work when one negative
Speaker 1: thing can mess you up. And I realized I needed
Speaker 1: to focus on on what I love. I needed to
Speaker 1: make sure that the music I was making, the performing
Speaker 1: I was doing made me happy. And as long as
Speaker 1: I had that, as long as I could get out
Speaker 1: there do my best. I knew that whatever anyone else
Speaker 1: was experiencing was their experience going through their filter. Maybe
Speaker 1: they had a bad day, maybe they're having a bad
Speaker 1: year or life, you know, and that's their filter. And
Speaker 1: if they if they don't, you know, feel the love
Speaker 1: and the you know, the creativity and what I put
Speaker 1: into it. If if it's not for them, then so
Speaker 1: be it. And what other people think about me is
Speaker 1: really none of my business. I really need to make
Speaker 1: the music, make the the creativity that I love. It's
Speaker 1: very difficult as an artist in the commercial space to
Speaker 1: totally divorce oneself from the audience. So it's just like
Speaker 1: playing live, you know what works. But let's say there's
Speaker 1: a direction you want to go in or a song
Speaker 1: you want to play and it's either not resonating or
Speaker 1: you're getting negative feedback online. Would that inhibit you from
Speaker 1: playing it? Would you stop playing? Or would you say
Speaker 1: this is what I want to do? Oh? I would
Speaker 1: if I if I had a lot of feedback, if
Speaker 1: if maybe if I saw people that were normally uh,
Speaker 1: you know, flowing with the work that I was doing
Speaker 1: having a very negative response to it, then I would
Speaker 1: I would think, Wow, what what did I overlook on this?
Speaker 1: What what am I not seeing? That is is you know,
Speaker 1: people are misinterpreting And I would go back and check
Speaker 1: and see and and really kind of, uh, look at that.
Speaker 1: I what if it was more. But if it's just
Speaker 1: a handful of people that I can tell are are
Speaker 1: just kind of miserable in nature and they're there are
Speaker 1: people that kind of just want to go around stomping things.
Speaker 1: If it's if it's that, I really let that be.
Speaker 1: I don't mess with that energy. I believe that you know,
Speaker 1: whatever you pay attention to you get. So I I
Speaker 1: really try to try to look at you know, keep
Speaker 1: my my gaze and my attention going towards you know, positive,
Speaker 1: good feeling things. But if I were to see a
Speaker 1: massive amount of not feeling things, I would have to
Speaker 1: I would have to look at myself and go, Wow,
Speaker 1: what am I putting out that I that I don't
Speaker 1: see here? Let's go back to Twitter. How often do
Speaker 1: you post on Twitter? And what kind of stuff? Oh? Wow? Um,
Speaker 1: I it can be up to one or two times
Speaker 1: a day. And then lately, I, you know, I kinda
Speaker 1: I kind of had to take a break off of
Speaker 1: Twitter because you know, my own Twitter is fine. I can,
Speaker 1: you know, post something and then read what people say.
Speaker 1: But boy, once I go into my feed and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden I start reading the news and everything,
Speaker 1: I just go down into a doom scroll hole, and uh,
Speaker 1: I need to give myself a break on that every
Speaker 1: now and then. So, um, I would say I at
Speaker 1: least post once a week. Um, during football NFL football season,
Speaker 1: I'll post a lot because I'm a big Kansas City
Speaker 1: Chiefs fan and my uh my, my fans know that,
Speaker 1: and so I have a whole section of of Kansas
Speaker 1: City chi fans that follow me that that might not
Speaker 1: be as familiar with my music, but they know that
Speaker 1: we are, you know, in in the in the fandom
Speaker 1: together in the arrowhead, you know. So I'm a big
Speaker 1: fan of that. So I'll post about that. I'll post
Speaker 1: about shows I'm doing. Every night, after a show, I'll
Speaker 1: take what we call a melfie and it's just a
Speaker 1: little like twenty video of me and the audience, so
Speaker 1: that if you were at the show, you could have
Speaker 1: a little thing. It's like a selfie with me and
Speaker 1: the audience at every show. So I'll do that every
Speaker 1: after every show. But you know, on the road, I'll
Speaker 1: tweet once a day. I guess, how about a filter?
Speaker 1: You know, they're different philosophies about how much to reveal
Speaker 1: about your personal life. Do you feel everything's up for
Speaker 1: grabs or do you have a wall? Well, I have
Speaker 1: lived my life in such a way since the nineties
Speaker 1: that I was very open about my personal life. I
Speaker 1: felt that there's power in that that if I had
Speaker 1: if I had kept uh, you know, silent and hidden
Speaker 1: about my sexuality or or anything, and you know, they
Speaker 1: come and find you. They they that sort of thing
Speaker 1: you start worrying about it. So I said, look, I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna be honest about myself about everything, so the
Speaker 1: good and the bad. You know, every time I had
Speaker 1: a breakup, it was public, and you know those aren't
Speaker 1: very much fun. And and then when my son died
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, that was no fun when
Speaker 1: that went public because it was you know, it was
Speaker 1: opioid addiction. And you know, there's so much judgment or not.
Speaker 1: But again, it is my job as as my own
Speaker 1: human as a human being, I need to take care
Speaker 1: of my inner self. I need to know that people.
Speaker 1: I will never be able to get people to you know,
Speaker 1: see my way or or you know that they're always
Speaker 1: going to have their own opinions and they are welcome
Speaker 1: to them. I just don't have to give my attention
Speaker 1: or my gaze to that. I can keep it on
Speaker 1: what I know and my loved ones, who are you know,
Speaker 1: connected to me. So going back to the chiefs, was
Speaker 1: Shottenheimer just a loser? Or or as Mahomes just that good? Oh,
Speaker 1: you know, we've had coaches, We've I've see I was
Speaker 1: born and raised in Leavenworth, Kansas. So my father was
Speaker 1: a huge Kansas City Chiefs fan. I remember the first time, well,
Speaker 1: no that the first time we won the Super Bowl.
Speaker 1: The second time we were in the super Bowl. But um,
Speaker 1: you know, nine seventy I remember that game, Lenny Dawson
Speaker 1: and everybody, and then um, then fifty years went by,
Speaker 1: fifty and I know them. They were my years when
Speaker 1: you know, you every year would see we we will
Speaker 1: get close. And for the last you know, decade, we
Speaker 1: we would get close. We would have some bad season,
Speaker 1: but we would get really close. And then, man, once
Speaker 1: Andy Reid came, he made a big difference in coaching,
Speaker 1: absolutely makes a difference. And and the the the you know,
Speaker 1: the culture in that locker room. And you could just
Speaker 1: see the team changing when Andy came and put his
Speaker 1: coaches together and it was a you could feel, you know.
Speaker 1: And we went through Andy, we went through uh Alex Smith,
Speaker 1: and boy, once we got Patrick Mahomes, things just quickly
Speaker 1: changed and you realized what what one player can do
Speaker 1: with it in that position to reach the other talent
Speaker 1: that we You've got me talking football, man, I can
Speaker 1: talk this all all day. Okay. Do you know the
Speaker 1: Chiefs personally? I do not. I I have hugged Andy
Speaker 1: Reid numerous times because every time I sing the national anthem,
Speaker 1: which I love to do, which has been about three
Speaker 1: times now. Um, he's always right in front of me
Speaker 1: when I sing. They've got me up on a pedalt
Speaker 1: you know this, uh Riser. I'm singing to the crowd
Speaker 1: of sixty people, but the team and Andy Reid is
Speaker 1: right in front of me. Now, I don't dare look
Speaker 1: any team member in the eye because you know they're
Speaker 1: concentrating on the game. But Andy Reid always came over
Speaker 1: and gave me a big hug. And I know his wife,
Speaker 1: So that's that's as close as I've gotten. Do you
Speaker 1: have season tickets or you just know when you want
Speaker 1: to go you can get a ticket. Yeah, well I
Speaker 1: live in Los Angeles, so I don't have season tickets
Speaker 1: to Arrowhead. I Um, whenever I am playing or in
Speaker 1: the area and there's a game, I know who to
Speaker 1: call it ask for tickets. But there they also play
Speaker 1: the Chargers, you know, twice a year and once here
Speaker 1: in l A. So now I can go to Sophie.
Speaker 1: I haven't been there yet because of COVID. We didn't
Speaker 1: we couldn't go. But this year I'm going I'm going
Speaker 1: to be there. Okay, are you basically a fan? Now?
Speaker 1: Of course we're all older at this point, you and myself,
Speaker 1: um or you were? You? Were you very athletic as
Speaker 1: a child. Oh? Uh, My father was very athletic. He
Speaker 1: he loved uh. He was a basketball coach actually for
Speaker 1: the high school, for the high school team, and he
Speaker 1: took him to state in the sixties and early seventies.
Speaker 1: He was beloved coach Ethridge. He he taught the swimming.
Speaker 1: He he played softball. He taught me how to play softball.
Speaker 1: I learned. I'm a good lesbian. I learned how to
Speaker 1: play softball. I loved it. It was fantastic. Um basketball,
Speaker 1: I could, I could do a jump shot really great.
Speaker 1: But I wasn't big at running, so I wasn't I
Speaker 1: wasn't terribly athletic. And I certainly enjoyed music more than
Speaker 1: I did the the sports. And so when it came
Speaker 1: to high school, I had to choose. We couldn't do
Speaker 1: both because you couldn't do all those electives, and I
Speaker 1: definitely chose music. So the sports kind of went, you know, away,
Speaker 1: and so I became an observer of sports instead of
Speaker 1: a participant. Unfortunately, you know your son passed, but he
Speaker 1: was trying to be a professional snowboarder. Was that a
Speaker 1: family activity or that was just something he did by himself. Well,
Speaker 1: when he was younger, I I was. I used to
Speaker 1: ski a lot, and UM I would take him up
Speaker 1: and he loved snowboarding so much when he was very young,
Speaker 1: ten eleven years old, and I would take him up
Speaker 1: as much as I could. And then UM, as a
Speaker 1: young teenager, he started going on his own. And then
Speaker 1: when he was about seventeen, he uh, well, before then,
Speaker 1: he would go to like camps where he met these
Speaker 1: professional people and they invited him to come to Aspen
Speaker 1: and train, and he did for one season and then
Speaker 1: they invited to come back and maybe UM sort of
Speaker 1: start to be with the team when he was about seventeen,
Speaker 1: and that's when he heard his ankle really bad. How
Speaker 1: does one cope with the passing of a child. I
Speaker 1: don't know the best that one can just it. There
Speaker 1: is not even a word for it. You know, you
Speaker 1: have the word for losing your your partner, your your
Speaker 1: widow or or you know a widow or you know
Speaker 1: or or or when you lose your parents you're an orphan.
Speaker 1: But when you're a parent that loses a child, there's
Speaker 1: not even a word for it in in the language.
Speaker 1: So um, it is so not supposed to be your
Speaker 1: your You're not supposed to outlive your children. And um,
Speaker 1: you know the the when when you weigh up and
Speaker 1: you know that someone who you've seen come into the
Speaker 1: world and live for a couple of decades, when they're
Speaker 1: not you know, when they're not around anymore, it's not right.
Speaker 1: It doesn't feel right, and so every day you just well.
Speaker 1: The way that I coped with it, I don't you know,
Speaker 1: everyone has their own way. But the way I coped
Speaker 1: with it was to understand that he he is not
Speaker 1: gone forever and ever his that that spirit which he was,
Speaker 1: that that light that he was beyond all his addictions
Speaker 1: and troubles. Um, that light is is still alive and
Speaker 1: it has always been in existence that spirit and I
Speaker 1: and my deep my own spiritual beliefs are one of
Speaker 1: you know, we are here in the physical, and then
Speaker 1: there is a a place that is the non physical,
Speaker 1: where all that spirit lives. So I I do, I
Speaker 1: believe that I will and still am in some way
Speaker 1: spiritually connected and that helps me. That is a that's
Speaker 1: a comfort to me. Your sister, uh, if you go online,
Speaker 1: went to Columbia, what is she up to? I know
Speaker 1: a story of my own life identical to this. There
Speaker 1: were twins though, and one o deed and one is
Speaker 1: a very successful medical doctor of the same vintage as
Speaker 1: your children. So what is your daughter up to? And
Speaker 1: how does she cope? If you know? With the passing,
Speaker 1: it was very very hard on my daughter. They were close.
Speaker 1: They they used to be considered twins because they look
Speaker 1: so much alike, and they're they're only about a year
Speaker 1: and a half apart, and so they were very close.
Speaker 1: And it's very very hard. And I can't speak for her,
Speaker 1: but I do know that, you know, there's a there's
Speaker 1: a painful part in her heart and and she she
Speaker 1: you know, deals with that on her own and and
Speaker 1: and and with us together, we as a family have
Speaker 1: agreed that that we're not going when we talk about him,
Speaker 1: we're not going to be sad. We're going to remember,
Speaker 1: you know, lovingly the fun things. You know, and I
Speaker 1: have whether children their fame now they'll be sixteen soon,
Speaker 1: they are twins, and um, you know they we we
Speaker 1: talked about him, and oh, well, Beckett, we would have
Speaker 1: done this or oh Beckett used to do this, and
Speaker 1: we tell stories and and it's very loving. And when
Speaker 1: we do that, we feel he's close to us. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, my daughter, I just I just love her
Speaker 1: as much as I can. And yet you I certainly
Speaker 1: have learned that when when you hear someone in a
Speaker 1: family as has addiction issues, uh, or you know, forbid
Speaker 1: they they have lost someone to an opioid addiction, you know,
Speaker 1: I no longer look to blame anyone it is. It
Speaker 1: is a personal issue. Families deal with us all the time.
Speaker 1: You know, Bailey grew up under the same roof, and
Speaker 1: she is highly successful. Uh not only did she graduate Columbia,
Speaker 1: but she got her masters at the London School of Economics.
Speaker 1: And and she's just you know, she's just my delight.
Speaker 1: And and you know, people make different choices. Beckett made
Speaker 1: a different choice and and um, you know, he left
Speaker 1: us way too early. So we as a family, we
Speaker 1: hold him, We love him, we remembered, we cherish our
Speaker 1: memories with him, and uh, you know, we keep him close.
Speaker 1: So you had two children with one partner and two
Speaker 1: children with another a partner and ultimately broke up with
Speaker 1: both partners. How did you manage the children and being
Speaker 1: closed and who had custody and all kinds of things. Ah, well,
Speaker 1: the uh, the first one, the first two that was
Speaker 1: a little more well, okay, I don't really want to
Speaker 1: go into details on it because it's so it's so
Speaker 1: cretty kind of and um the what I always had
Speaker 1: fifty custody that it was always I definitely wanted to say, look,
Speaker 1: these are these are my kids also, and you know,
Speaker 1: even though I'm not blood related to them, I am
Speaker 1: their mother, And every single one of them would would
Speaker 1: look at you funny if if if somehow you said
Speaker 1: I wasn't there, like, oh no, she is. And know
Speaker 1: I I shared custody. The too older I actually ended
Speaker 1: up having more custody for many different reasons. They actually
Speaker 1: ended up staying at my house more. The two younger ones,
Speaker 1: I get along with their mother a little better. And
Speaker 1: I kind of learned from the first one that that
Speaker 1: any conflict you have, any sort of pulling and tugging
Speaker 1: and and trying to prove something, only hurts the children.
Speaker 1: I really saw that, I really saw how hard it
Speaker 1: was on the children. So the second time and I
Speaker 1: didn't expect to go through it, but I did. The
Speaker 1: second time. I was like, Okay, now I'm gonna this
Speaker 1: is gonna be a lot easier. I'm going to be
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna push against things. I know that children
Speaker 1: they go where it's warm, you know, I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: love them. I'm gonna do the best I can. And um,
Speaker 1: I really believe that the less conflict they have in
Speaker 1: their life, the better it is for them. And it
Speaker 1: has it has proven out there two delightful children and
Speaker 1: they're almost sixteen, and you know, they're they're becoming young adults,
Speaker 1: and I'm just very pleased. Now, did you ever consider
Speaker 1: or why did you not have biological children yourself? Oh? Um,
Speaker 1: First of all, I uh, I when I was hunger,
Speaker 1: you know, in the seventies, late seventies, early eighties, when
Speaker 1: you decided, not decided, when you realized you were gay,
Speaker 1: it meant you weren't going to have kids. That was
Speaker 1: part of the deal of being gay, and that was
Speaker 1: part of the things that mothers would cry and go,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to have grandchildren, you know, stuff like that.
Speaker 1: And so as the eighties went on, we realized that
Speaker 1: well as women, we could still have children, you know,
Speaker 1: we can make this work and and and a lot
Speaker 1: of people started doing that, and so um when my
Speaker 1: partner at the time then I discussed children she wanted
Speaker 1: to carry, and I was fine with that because I
Speaker 1: never really had that urge. And then later when I
Speaker 1: was thirty five six, I started having um uh uter
Speaker 1: insists and things like that. So I actually ended up
Speaker 1: having a hysterectomy at my late thirties, so I couldn't
Speaker 1: have to I wouldn't have been able to have children anyway.
Speaker 1: But you know, and it didn't bother me at all.
Speaker 1: Believe me. I was there when they came into this
Speaker 1: world and I saw it, and I've never felt not connected,
Speaker 1: you know, biologically to my children at all. Okay, so
Speaker 1: how did you cope with COVID? I know you did
Speaker 1: a lot of live shows on the internet. You know,
Speaker 1: what was it like for you? Ah? I remember when
Speaker 1: everyone started talking about it, and my first couple of
Speaker 1: gigs started to get canceled because we were going out
Speaker 1: at the end of March of twenty and we were
Speaker 1: gonna tour all summer and we were gonna go to Europe,
Speaker 1: and it was everything was planned and and the first
Speaker 1: few dates started being canceled and I said, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: well this is only gonna be a couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: You know, I had no idea of what it would be.
Speaker 1: And when I realized after well actually after a few
Speaker 1: days when they started canceling them, I I went on
Speaker 1: my Facebook because everyone seemed to be kind of it
Speaker 1: was really scary what was happening, like real things shutting
Speaker 1: down and people not being able to meet and and
Speaker 1: so I said, you know what, I'm gonna go on Facebook,
Speaker 1: on my little Facebook page, and you know, for I'm
Speaker 1: gonna sing a song or two. I'm just going to
Speaker 1: connect with my fans every day until this is over,
Speaker 1: you know. And so I started doing it, and you know,
Speaker 1: after a couple of weeks, I started realizing, wow, we're
Speaker 1: in this, and so I I actually went every single
Speaker 1: day at three o'clock on Pacific time. I went online
Speaker 1: for fifty eight days in a row. And then that's
Speaker 1: when my son died, and so I I stopped and
Speaker 1: for about four weeks, we mourned, We we UH got
Speaker 1: that together. But I came out here. Actually I'm in
Speaker 1: my UH garage studio, which then I took my my sadness,
Speaker 1: my grief and my oh my gosh, what am I
Speaker 1: gonna do now? My son's died and I can't go anywhere,
Speaker 1: I can't go perform, you know, and make myself feel better. UM.
Speaker 1: So I cleaned out this part of my garage and
Speaker 1: made a studio and sound proofd it, and um, I
Speaker 1: learned everything about streaming, about cameras, about sound I started
Speaker 1: doing my own guitar teching and I built this studio,
Speaker 1: which as I was doing and I was realizing I
Speaker 1: was kind of doing what nobody else had done before
Speaker 1: because we didn't Streaming was kind of a not a
Speaker 1: thing that many people did. They would do it every
Speaker 1: now and then, but it wasn't a real thing. And
Speaker 1: now with COVID it was becoming huge. So I ended
Speaker 1: up having steven cameras and uh, you know professional soundboard
Speaker 1: that I hooked up that my sound man in Florida.
Speaker 1: We we figured a way to have him run the
Speaker 1: sound connect through the internet, him run the sound in Florida,
Speaker 1: and we presented a thing we called Ethridge TV and
Speaker 1: we did it five five days a week. It kept
Speaker 1: me and my wife saying I would do Tuesday's were
Speaker 1: cover days, and so I would learn like four or
Speaker 1: five cover songs that that I hadn't been singing other
Speaker 1: people's material for decades, and it was really enjoyable and
Speaker 1: I connected with the fans. I now have this, you know,
Speaker 1: two years of content now of me singing all kinds
Speaker 1: of stuff and and doing stuff with my wife, and
Speaker 1: it just it kept our creativity going, It kept me saying,
Speaker 1: it kept me connected, it got me through grief. It
Speaker 1: was just it was actually a really great experience. And
Speaker 1: what about monetization, Well, yeah, then there was that because
Speaker 1: because I did realize that after those fifty eight days,
Speaker 1: I went, oh my god, I'm not working this year,
Speaker 1: and touring is my bread and butter. Touring pays the bills,
Speaker 1: and I thought, oh my, how am I going to
Speaker 1: pay the bills? And so we Ethirds TV. We ended
Speaker 1: up charging a subscription and for fifty dollars a month,
Speaker 1: you've got five shows a week, and people were willing
Speaker 1: to do that, and so we actually were able to
Speaker 1: pay the bills for a year and a half off
Speaker 1: of that. How many people subscribe over a thousand, you know,
Speaker 1: So yeah, let's go back to the beginning. How did
Speaker 1: your family end up in Leavenworth. My father was born
Speaker 1: in St. Louis, Missouri too, you know, migrant farmers, very
Speaker 1: very poor. He was just you know, poverty. He came
Speaker 1: from there. Uh. My mother came from Arkansas, where she
Speaker 1: grew up, you know, not as poor. Her father was
Speaker 1: an insurance salesman, so she kind of was. And she
Speaker 1: ended up going to college at Henderson University in Arkansas.
Speaker 1: And my father got a scholarship because he was athletic,
Speaker 1: and someone in his high school helped him to understand
Speaker 1: that he could go to college on an athletic scholarship.
Speaker 1: So he goes there, they meet, he gets a job
Speaker 1: coaching in Leavenworth, Kansas, And so I have no other
Speaker 1: family in Leavenworth, but they ended up, you know, settling
Speaker 1: down in leveryone because he could get a job there.
Speaker 1: I've been to Ksey many times, and I've certainly been
Speaker 1: to Lawrence. I've never been to Leavenworth. But all anybody
Speaker 1: knows about Leavenworth is the prison. Yeah, that's something. Is
Speaker 1: that something if you live there that you don't even
Speaker 1: think about or is that you know, impact the whole town?
Speaker 1: You don't think about it because that prison. The Federal
Speaker 1: Penitentiary is huge, and it was about two blocks from
Speaker 1: my house and I used to ride my bike by
Speaker 1: it all the time, and I just that's just the prison,
Speaker 1: and everybody has a prison in their town. I thought,
Speaker 1: you know, it was just it was totally normal. But
Speaker 1: as i um, as I grew, I actually was a
Speaker 1: part of a little talent show that became a variety
Speaker 1: show and we would go and perform at the prisons.
Speaker 1: So I realized that not only do we have the
Speaker 1: Federal penitentiary there, we have the Army penitentiary, the Fort
Speaker 1: Leavenworth has an Army penitentiary there. We have the U
Speaker 1: in the little town right next to us Lansing. We
Speaker 1: have the Kansas State Men's Prison, and then the women's
Speaker 1: penitentiary used to be there. It's in Topeka now, but
Speaker 1: it used to be there. So I would go around
Speaker 1: and I would perform in all of these prisons. And
Speaker 1: we're actually looking to um to create a little documentary
Speaker 1: and having me go back and performing in the women's
Speaker 1: penitentiary there. But yeah, it's everybody's family, you know. They
Speaker 1: had their fathers were guards or something at the penitentiary.
Speaker 1: Every now and then you'd hear about a break out.
Speaker 1: You know, one of my friends actually was picked up
Speaker 1: a hitchhiker, which you're not supposed to do around my town,
Speaker 1: and and he had escaped and he kind of kidnapped
Speaker 1: and forced him to drive him to Nebraska. But he
Speaker 1: was fine, you know. So so when you went to
Speaker 1: the prisons, what age were you and were you anxious scared?
Speaker 1: I was not at all. I was I was about
Speaker 1: I'd say. And I gotta tell you, the audience was amazing.
Speaker 1: I mean, talk about a captive audience, right, But they
Speaker 1: were so thrilled to just be entertained that they were
Speaker 1: hooting and hollering. Of course, I was thirteen and a
Speaker 1: young girl or whatever. I didn't I didn't take it
Speaker 1: as that. I just took it as this was a
Speaker 1: whole lot of energy that was really loved, that was
Speaker 1: loving being entertained. So how far is Leavenworth from Kansas City.
Speaker 1: It's about well, I just knew it's about a forty
Speaker 1: five minute drive, maybe an hour. It's it's right up
Speaker 1: there on the bight of Kansas and Missouri. The Missouri
Speaker 1: River is part of Leavenworth, and and you crossed the
Speaker 1: Missouri River and you're in Missouri, and how often growing
Speaker 1: up there as a teenager would you go to Kansas City? Um?
Speaker 1: I I played in bands as a teenager, and I
Speaker 1: would work in Kansas City a lot. I would work
Speaker 1: in the Ramada in or the you know, I would
Speaker 1: play the ski club dances, and so I would go
Speaker 1: there once a week, I guess. Okay, So how many
Speaker 1: kids in the family. I have one sister, one older sister.
Speaker 1: And how many years between the two of you? We
Speaker 1: were exactly four years apart. We were born on the
Speaker 1: same day, but four years apart, okay, and so four
Speaker 1: years is a lot when you were a kid. So
Speaker 1: what was your relationship with your sister growing up? Well,
Speaker 1: it was not a good relationship. She was troubled also,
Speaker 1: Um and uh, we were not close at all. But
Speaker 1: she used to listen to the coolest music. She had
Speaker 1: Led Zeppelin, she had Humble Pie, she had Rolling Stones,
Speaker 1: Exile on Main Street. You know, she had all these
Speaker 1: great records that me, as a eleven year old, didn't
Speaker 1: quite you know, I wouldn't not to find it, but
Speaker 1: I would listen to them, go whoa, this is amazing,
Speaker 1: and so hearing those and then my parents music was
Speaker 1: you know Mom's and the Papas and Neil Diamond and
Speaker 1: Aretha Franklin. So I got this really great mix of
Speaker 1: music in the house and then the radio. So even
Speaker 1: though I wasn't close to my sister, her music really
Speaker 1: influenced me, the music that she listened to. You reference
Speaker 1: her as troubled and refer to yourself as trouble. What
Speaker 1: does that mean troubled? Troubled? Well, she um, I was.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say I was troubled. I was actually was
Speaker 1: a very good child. I didn't mean to say that
Speaker 1: I was troubled. Um, I was only troubled in that. Uh.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to get away from that small town.
Speaker 1: I had a big dream of you know, fame and
Speaker 1: fortune and I could be a rock star. Somehow. She
Speaker 1: was troubled in that, Um. You know there it was drugs,
Speaker 1: it was I think she had an abortion when she
Speaker 1: was sixteen. It was you know, she constantly fought with
Speaker 1: my parents, she dropped out of high school. You know,
Speaker 1: she's still having a hard time. So it's just it's
Speaker 1: just just that kind of you know, choices that were made,
Speaker 1: and what's your relationship with her now? Not much? I
Speaker 1: um uh, I know her daughter more. I her she
Speaker 1: had two children, her her oldest son also died of
Speaker 1: a overdose. I know, it's it's everywhere and um and
Speaker 1: but her youngest was really amazing and it helps a lot.
Speaker 1: And so I I connected with her and through her,
Speaker 1: I'm still connected with my older sister. But I realized
Speaker 1: a long time ago, I I, you know, you don't
Speaker 1: choose your family, and you know, so sometimes they're they're
Speaker 1: just not the ones that you are are really connected with.
Speaker 1: You know, I really sort of built my own family.
Speaker 1: So you grew up in a middle class family, certainly
Speaker 1: in the sixties, and then you had great financial success.
Speaker 1: Did you give your sister money? Did you buy things
Speaker 1: for your parents? Well? Yes, I was a good rock star,
Speaker 1: you know, of course. Yeah, that's that's where coming from
Speaker 1: a place where we we didn't have that much money.
Speaker 1: We were lower middle class and my father was a teacher,
Speaker 1: and it was it was but we we we were
Speaker 1: never went hungry, so that that was fine and and
Speaker 1: it was great. So the minute I got some money,
Speaker 1: I'm like, WHOA, you know, this is amazing. I can
Speaker 1: I I bought my sister a car. I ended up
Speaker 1: buying my parents house when they wanted to retire, and
Speaker 1: I kind of did that for a while, and then
Speaker 1: I realized, I'm not really well with my parents. It
Speaker 1: was fine because they had worked hard all their life
Speaker 1: and and and I felt, you know, that that was
Speaker 1: not a problem, you know. And I ended up supporting
Speaker 1: my mother until she passed away a few years ago.
Speaker 1: But my sister, I realized, wait, but I'm not helping
Speaker 1: my sister because she's not doing anything, you know, and
Speaker 1: she's unhappy and and she's still you know, she was
Speaker 1: having her own drug issues and her kids. And I
Speaker 1: ended up taking her daughter out of her home for
Speaker 1: a while and and putting her in her boarding school
Speaker 1: and helping her. So when I realized that my this
Speaker 1: sort of enabling my sister financially was not helping her,
Speaker 1: and I, like I said, when I went through cancer,
Speaker 1: I had a real kind of spiritual um m hmm
Speaker 1: enlightenment about, Oh, it's not my job to save anybody
Speaker 1: else or fix anybody else. They have to, you know,
Speaker 1: go through what they need to go through. I finally
Speaker 1: called her and said, Okay, you've got a roof over
Speaker 1: your head. That's it. I'm not there's not another dime,
Speaker 1: and I don't want to hear from you. And I didn't,
Speaker 1: you know, and she's you know, like I said, I
Speaker 1: go through her daughter. Her daughter now takes care of
Speaker 1: her more. And UM, you know you just sort of
Speaker 1: you just let that be. So what kind of kid
Speaker 1: were you going up? Were you like running around the
Speaker 1: neighborhood with good student, bad student, loaner, life of the party. Um.
Speaker 1: I was a friendly child. I was a happy child. Uh.
Speaker 1: I love music from early on earlier, from my first
Speaker 1: memories were the Beatles singing I want to hold your hand,
Speaker 1: you know. That's that's so. I was just obsessed with music.
Speaker 1: I was a good child because I saw my sister
Speaker 1: causing so much havoc and the family. I sort of
Speaker 1: just stayed quiet and did my own thing. And I
Speaker 1: got along with my father really well. Uh I you know,
Speaker 1: I I didn't cause any trouble. Um in high school,
Speaker 1: I was friends with everyone. I was known. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you ask anyone, nobody is surprised that I became
Speaker 1: successful because I was the girl that would walk around
Speaker 1: the halls with my guitar case all the time, you know,
Speaker 1: and I was missy that you know, made music and
Speaker 1: everybody knew that. And I knew the sporty kids. I
Speaker 1: knew the the pot smoking kids outside, I knew the
Speaker 1: brainy kids. I knew the music and drama geeks, and
Speaker 1: and we all hung out. It was, you know, even racially.
Speaker 1: I had black friends. I had all all kinds of friends.
Speaker 1: Yet I was kind of a loner when it really
Speaker 1: came down to it, because I would go off on
Speaker 1: the weekends and and play in my bands, and I'd
Speaker 1: make money, so I didn't socialize as much as most
Speaker 1: kids do. And um, but you know, I look back
Speaker 1: and I didn't cause any trouble. I wasn't a straight
Speaker 1: a student by any means, but I did fine. You know,
Speaker 1: So when did you start playing an instrument? Ah? The
Speaker 1: first instrument I played was a guitar. I took guitar
Speaker 1: lessons at age eight. The guy didn't want to teach me.
Speaker 1: He said my fingers would bleed and i'd quit. I said, no,
Speaker 1: I won't, No, I won't, he said, I was too young,
Speaker 1: and my fingers bled. But I didn't quit, and I
Speaker 1: just kept going and now I have huge calyss. But um,
Speaker 1: but then I learned clarinet in school and uh, then
Speaker 1: that became I also learned saxophone. I learned all kinds
Speaker 1: of stuff, and in like junior high, I was very
Speaker 1: interested in all kinds of music. I taught myself how
Speaker 1: to play the piano. I made the drummers in my
Speaker 1: bands teach me how to play the drums. I just
Speaker 1: wanted to learn everything. So I you know, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: very good at a couple of instruments, and I'm okay
Speaker 1: to a few, and I could make sound out of others.
Speaker 1: You know. Okay, so you're playing the guitar. At what
Speaker 1: point do you form a band? Ah? Well, I tried
Speaker 1: to form form a band when I was in in
Speaker 1: like early school, like when I was twelve or thirteen,
Speaker 1: but I just couldn't get any of my other friends,
Speaker 1: you know interested. I did say, come on, you know here,
Speaker 1: play the play this, and I ended up teaching my
Speaker 1: best friend how to play bass because I wanted him
Speaker 1: to play with me. And then when I finally met
Speaker 1: professional musicians through this variety show and and met professionals
Speaker 1: that I mean professionals as in guys that had other jobs,
Speaker 1: but on the weekends they would go out and and working.
Speaker 1: These were grown ups with families, but they would play
Speaker 1: on the weekends at dances and would make extra money.
Speaker 1: And my mother wasn't supportive of it, but my father was,
Speaker 1: and so we won that argument, and uh, I ended
Speaker 1: up playing with professional musicians. And so the first band
Speaker 1: I played in I was I was about thirteen, and
Speaker 1: it was a country band, you know as Chuck Hamersmith
Speaker 1: and the Wranglers, and but these cats could play. They
Speaker 1: were good and they're still they're old guys now playing
Speaker 1: you know in Leavenworth, but they were great. And then
Speaker 1: I went on from there and played in a couple
Speaker 1: of other bands until I had like my own band
Speaker 1: of these grown ups, UH that I played until my
Speaker 1: senior year. Then when I was a senior in high school,
Speaker 1: I said I want to be a normal kid, and
Speaker 1: I stopped playing in bands. Well, when you would play
Speaker 1: in bands, since he was, were all professionals. How much
Speaker 1: rehearsal would you do during the week? We rehearsed once
Speaker 1: a week. We rehearse on Wednesdays, so my father would
Speaker 1: drive me there and then on weekends my father would
Speaker 1: go to every single show. I never played any anywhere
Speaker 1: that my father didn't go. That's a pretty dedicated father. Wow, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I owe the performer you see today is because my
Speaker 1: father was willing to do that and he loved it too,
Speaker 1: and we were very close. It was wonderful. And uh,
Speaker 1: what role did you play in these bands? Well? First
Speaker 1: I was just the singer, the girls singer, and I
Speaker 1: would get up and sing Tammy Wynett, you know, stand
Speaker 1: by your man and um. Then as the band's pur gressed,
Speaker 1: it got a little bit more pop music and I
Speaker 1: we would play guitar. I would play rhythm guitar. Then
Speaker 1: in one of my bands, the organ player taught me
Speaker 1: how to play bass. And he taught me, uh organ
Speaker 1: and you know, synthesizers stuff, and so I would I
Speaker 1: would also double He would play bass and I would
Speaker 1: double on the keyboards and um. So eventually I was
Speaker 1: a keyboard player, organ player. I didn't play much bass
Speaker 1: because I was a little but guitar player and singer,
Speaker 1: you know, lead singer. And at what point did you
Speaker 1: start writing songs? Well, let's started writing when I was
Speaker 1: about ten or eleven. Of course they were very simple
Speaker 1: songs and and the the beauty of playing in cover
Speaker 1: bands is you learn about songs. You play other people's
Speaker 1: songs that are popular, and you learn it just becomes
Speaker 1: obvious to you what makes them good. You you learned
Speaker 1: the form of a song, long you learn the power
Speaker 1: behind the song. You know. You keep being playing other
Speaker 1: people's material until you start writing and going okay, this
Speaker 1: is this is how it is. And it wasn't until
Speaker 1: I started playing solo in my twenties that I actually
Speaker 1: played my original music for people. Okay, so you're in
Speaker 1: high school. Both your parents graduated from college. What were
Speaker 1: the expectations and how did you deal with that? Oh,
Speaker 1: I was supposed to go to college because my sister
Speaker 1: was disappointing, and she was she didn't even graduate high school,
Speaker 1: so you know, I was supposed to go to college. Well.
Speaker 1: As as my high school years went on, my mother
Speaker 1: saw that I was not interested in anything but music.
Speaker 1: She insisted I go take like music theory courses at
Speaker 1: the University of Missouri, you know, Kansas City, the Conservatory
Speaker 1: and stuff, and so I took some and then she said,
Speaker 1: you know, then when they said you're going to go
Speaker 1: to college, I looked at it as well, that'll get
Speaker 1: me out of this little town. And so we went
Speaker 1: and looked at colleges but in nine you couldn't. You
Speaker 1: couldn't major. You couldn't. I would have had two major
Speaker 1: in singing. They only had voice and it was all
Speaker 1: operarettic and I was not an opera singer at all.
Speaker 1: And so the only college was this kind of new
Speaker 1: college in Boston called Berkeley College of Music that was
Speaker 1: a jazz h college and they I could major in guitar.
Speaker 1: So uh, I'm like, all right, sign me up. And
Speaker 1: I didn't even go check out the school. I just
Speaker 1: you know, we paid the tuition. At the time, it
Speaker 1: was just you didn't even have to audition. They just
Speaker 1: took whoever wanted to come. And um, I got in,
Speaker 1: and you know, my life changes. I'm in Boston, I'm
Speaker 1: on my own. It's I'm eighteen, nineteen years old. And
Speaker 1: uh so I went to Brooklyn College Music for about
Speaker 1: one semester. That was about it. And then I dropped
Speaker 1: out and started working and playing in a restaurant and
Speaker 1: making a living. So my parents couldn't say anything. They said,
Speaker 1: as long as yourself sufficient, okay, but you know, there
Speaker 1: you go. Okay, needless to say, the odds of success
Speaker 1: in the music business as a performer, to say they're
Speaker 1: low is you know, gross understatement? So along the way,
Speaker 1: did people say did you tell them your dream and
Speaker 1: then they like roll their eyes and say, You're never
Speaker 1: gonna make it? Did you ever think of going straight?
Speaker 1: Did people for they say you should go straight? You know?
Speaker 1: When I was very young and I'd say, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: going to be a singer, I got a lot of
Speaker 1: eye rolling or a lot of really confused people like
Speaker 1: what you're gonna be? What you know, no girls are
Speaker 1: nurses or you know, teachers or something. But the older
Speaker 1: that I got and the more that I was actually
Speaker 1: performing in bands, people would go, well, good luck, you know,
Speaker 1: and even my parents, even my mother, who was not supportive,
Speaker 1: she would not tell me, you know, you can't make it.
Speaker 1: I remember actually asking her once I was about fourteen
Speaker 1: or fifteen, I said, do you think I have a
Speaker 1: chance of making it in the music business? And she said, well,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a one in a million, but who's
Speaker 1: to say you're not that one? And that was enough.
Speaker 1: That was enough to give me. Well, then you're saying
Speaker 1: there's a chance, you know, and and so I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: who's to say I'm not the one in the in
Speaker 1: the million, and so I just it was such a
Speaker 1: huge desire and calling that I was just I just
Speaker 1: was gonna do it wherever it took me. Did you
Speaker 1: ever have a straight job? Yeah, I had a couple,
Speaker 1: Like when I told you, I didn't play in bands
Speaker 1: when I was in my senior year in high school
Speaker 1: because I wanted to be a kid and go to
Speaker 1: the football games and stuff. I worked at the Kentucky
Speaker 1: Fried Chicken and I was a packer back, which is
Speaker 1: one of the reasons I'll never eat it a Kentucky
Speaker 1: Fried Chicken. But I worked there. And then when I
Speaker 1: moved to Boston, when I was at Berkeley, I wanted
Speaker 1: to get an apartment, and so first I got a
Speaker 1: job as a as a security guard at a at
Speaker 1: a hospital, which was really difficult work, and I was
Speaker 1: making seven dollars an hour. And that's when I I said,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm gonna take my guitar and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go down to the subway station. I'm gonna open
Speaker 1: it up and I'm gonna sing in the subway. And
Speaker 1: I made for an hour, I made seven dollars, and
Speaker 1: I went, Okay, I can make the same money that
Speaker 1: I'm making you know, doing that, and I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 1: gonna try music. And that's when I walked down to
Speaker 1: a few restaurants on Boylson Street in Boston and I
Speaker 1: found one an audition that I got a job and
Speaker 1: I was making twenty five bucks a night. So I
Speaker 1: and after that I never had a real job. Okay,
Speaker 1: anything positive about going to Berkeley other than the fact
Speaker 1: that got you to Boston, Um, well, I could have
Speaker 1: made it more positive now that I you know, look back,
Speaker 1: I think i'd be more a bit more of a
Speaker 1: uh a better, more um educated guitar player had I
Speaker 1: gotten into it. But at the time I was one
Speaker 1: of like two guitar women guitar players, So it was
Speaker 1: it really wasn't a place for me now, but I
Speaker 1: mean then, but now, man, it's it's a great, great school.
Speaker 1: I I they gave me an honorary doctorate, so you know,
Speaker 1: I'm good. Did your mother live long enough to see that,
Speaker 1: Yes she did? And it was really it was great.
Speaker 1: It was wonderful that look mom, now my kids now
Speaker 1: of course, and my daughter's like, Mom, that's not real.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I know, I know, don't worry. You have
Speaker 1: your masters it's all beautiful. It's okay. So how hard
Speaker 1: a decision was it? And what was the process deciding
Speaker 1: to drop out? Oh, it was not hard at all.
Speaker 1: It just happened, you know. I I had um, I
Speaker 1: had gotten the job at this restaurant was called Kins
Speaker 1: by George, and I was playing in the lounge and
Speaker 1: one evening one of my teachers came in and sat
Speaker 1: and had a couple of drinks with someone there, and
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, that's my you know,
Speaker 1: uh arrangement teacher or something. And I remember singing and like, oh,
Speaker 1: he's gonna recognize me. And he never recognized me. He
Speaker 1: never like realized that I was a student in his class.
Speaker 1: And I was like, I am just invisible at Berkeley.
Speaker 1: And I didn't I didn't enjoy breaking music down into
Speaker 1: theory and you know, the jazz theory of you know,
Speaker 1: one chord has to go to another, and it was
Speaker 1: all this rules on music and I really wasn't into
Speaker 1: it at all, and it was just kind of sucking
Speaker 1: my energy out and I just went, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm making a living. I'm self sufficient, and I just
Speaker 1: stopped going. I just stopped. Okay, what kind of material
Speaker 1: were you playing? Oh, I was. It was all cover material.
Speaker 1: It was you know, it was lounge music. I was
Speaker 1: playing Barry Manilow and Barbara streisand and Neil Diamond and uh.
Speaker 1: It was nineteen seventy nine eighty at this point, and
Speaker 1: so it was you know, the Doobie Brothers. It was.
Speaker 1: It was just whatever was popular at the time and
Speaker 1: a bunch of show tunes. And was it always on
Speaker 1: the guitar? Do you have a keyboard too? I had
Speaker 1: a piano. Most of it was piano. But I did
Speaker 1: set up my guitar and play that and and and
Speaker 1: the people liked me, and I started to get a following. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you've established a base. You made a tweet addition
Speaker 1: from Berkeley to being self sustaining. How long do you
Speaker 1: do that? And you're earning money? But it's not quite
Speaker 1: the path of your dream. Yeah, And I couldn't see
Speaker 1: how I could get to my dream, which was that
Speaker 1: you know California seventies, uh, folk rock sound, you know
Speaker 1: the Eagles, the the you know Fleetwood, mac Bob Seeger,
Speaker 1: Bruce Springsteen. This this that was who was calling me.
Speaker 1: And that was not the scene. This was nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: in Boston, so it was punk, it was uh you know,
Speaker 1: and I was playing pop show tunes in you know,
Speaker 1: a restaurant. So that was not what I wanted. So I, um,
Speaker 1: I went back to Kansas City, got a job at
Speaker 1: a hotel They're called the Granada Royale. I played in
Speaker 1: the Lavaranda Lounge, made some more money, bought a car,
Speaker 1: and then in too drove to l A where I
Speaker 1: was going to be discovered and you know, be somehow
Speaker 1: meet up with all these you know, uh rock you know,
Speaker 1: acoustic rock musicians. But when I got to l A two,
Speaker 1: it was all spandex and hair and heavy metal bands,
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, So I found work in
Speaker 1: women's bars, in lesbian bars around Los Angeles, like in
Speaker 1: Long Beach in Pasadena, and um I worked for five
Speaker 1: years in those uh bars, but was able to play
Speaker 1: my original music, was able to start performing. The performer
Speaker 1: you really see today really came out of the bars
Speaker 1: where I felt comfortable, where I've supported, and um I
Speaker 1: sort of created my own path like that, and over
Speaker 1: the years, many record companies came out to see me,
Speaker 1: you know, and whether they didn't sign me because I
Speaker 1: was gay, I don't know, but they didn't hear the hit.
Speaker 1: And UM, finally Chris Blackwell in six late early UM
Speaker 1: signed me. And he said, I don't know why someone
Speaker 1: hasn't signed to you yet. You're amazing and and he
Speaker 1: said to me, he goes, I think the future of
Speaker 1: rock and roll has a female face, and I want
Speaker 1: you to be on my label. Let's go back a chapter.
Speaker 1: You buy a car, you drive to l A. Do
Speaker 1: you know anybody in El? Yes, my my father's sister
Speaker 1: and brother. Uh, my aunt and uncle. They were separate.
Speaker 1: My my aunt. I slept on her couch for a
Speaker 1: few weeks until I got a job in a in
Speaker 1: a bar and then I moved down to Long Beach.
Speaker 1: But um, yeah, I knew her so but that was
Speaker 1: all I only knew her. Okay, you talk about the
Speaker 1: lesbian bars. At what age did you realize you were gay? Oh?
Speaker 1: My gosh. You know, it was hard to realize you
Speaker 1: were gay in the seventies because there was no talk
Speaker 1: of gay. You didn't hear it anywhere except the you know,
Speaker 1: derogatory comments that oh, she's a lazzie. And I remember going,
Speaker 1: what's a leazie? You know? And well that's somebody who
Speaker 1: you know, likes girl. That's a girl who likes girls.
Speaker 1: I was like, hm, you know. And it wasn't until
Speaker 1: high school when I realized all my um, all my
Speaker 1: uh m friends were getting kind of boy crazy and
Speaker 1: I wasn't. And I just sort of talked it up
Speaker 1: too well, I have this different life where I go
Speaker 1: out in the weekends and play an adult, you know bars.
Speaker 1: But I still I really wasn't boy crazy at all,
Speaker 1: but I really needed to be around some girls that
Speaker 1: I really liked, you know. And and so as I
Speaker 1: grew kind of older in high school, I started to
Speaker 1: kind of think, you know, I think I'm different. You
Speaker 1: you just you feel different. And then you know, my
Speaker 1: senior year, my when I turned seventeen, actually I I
Speaker 1: kissed a girl and it was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I'm that whatever that is. And I just knew that.
Speaker 1: I remember seeing h I think it was Time magazine
Speaker 1: had a cover. It was it is said the Gay Liberation.
Speaker 1: You know, it's ninety nine when that was starting. So
Speaker 1: it was the first time I ever saw that when wait,
Speaker 1: there's more people like me. So I knew I had
Speaker 1: to get to like a big city. And once I
Speaker 1: went to Boston. It was like, oh, yeah, you're gay.
Speaker 1: So I don't know, I could say I knew I
Speaker 1: was gay at thirteen, I could say seventeen, I'm not sure. Okay,
Speaker 1: how did you end up kissing the girl? Well, she
Speaker 1: was my best friend, you know, kind of that obsessive
Speaker 1: best friend that and um, you know, we went everywhere,
Speaker 1: I did everything together when I was like sixteen. And
Speaker 1: then on my seventeenth birthday, Um, you know, we're girls,
Speaker 1: are are lucky. We can you know, hey, we're having
Speaker 1: a sleepover, you know. And well that sleepover on my
Speaker 1: seventeenth birthday involved a kiss. So okay, but you know,
Speaker 1: literature and movies are riddled with people who kiss somebody
Speaker 1: and then that person that they kiss pull away and
Speaker 1: all kinds of negative things happened. So inspired no, it was.
Speaker 1: It was definitely, uh went both ways. And we were
Speaker 1: we were tortured girlfriends my whole senior year of high school.
Speaker 1: We were you know, we couldn't tell anybody we we were.
Speaker 1: We were. We went to a church, you know, we
Speaker 1: were involved in church, and and there was a lot
Speaker 1: of ice. I saw a lot of I don't know,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a lot of fear, and it was
Speaker 1: a lot of secrecy, and it's one of the reasons
Speaker 1: that I really I'm really grateful that more of the world,
Speaker 1: that the people are coming out now and helping younger
Speaker 1: gay people, because it's pretty tortuous, you know, to to
Speaker 1: be different like that, and I feel like you have
Speaker 1: no place and you have to keep something secret. So
Speaker 1: you know, it was like that for a year, and
Speaker 1: then when I left for Boston, it was it was
Speaker 1: much better. I was. I was never in the closet
Speaker 1: again after that. Once I went to Boston, I was okay.
Speaker 1: So you went to Boston, but still, I mean, I
Speaker 1: was living in Los Angeles, which was relatively free Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: New York and San Francisco at the time. What was
Speaker 1: it like being gay in Boston? Oh, fantastic. It was.
Speaker 1: It was disco. There was gay bars, you know down
Speaker 1: the street from me. You know, a couple it was.
Speaker 1: It was still you weren't public about it, you weren't
Speaker 1: out about it, but it was a strong community. Every
Speaker 1: night you could go to the bar. I'd go after
Speaker 1: I play, I'd go around the corner to the Prelude
Speaker 1: that was the women's bars. Buddies was the men's bar
Speaker 1: just up the street, and you know, it was it
Speaker 1: was community. There was more people, okay a little earlier
Speaker 1: than you. Uh. The biggest gay artists were in the
Speaker 1: folk world, like Holly Neia. So who did you did?
Speaker 1: You say? Well, you know, who did you model yourself over?
Speaker 1: And you say, well, this being gay doesn't matter? And
Speaker 1: I mean not to mention the fact that was Ian Wilson.
Speaker 1: But there weren't you know, a plethora of successful female
Speaker 1: rock artists. Yeah, yeah, it was. Um, I didn't see.
Speaker 1: I didn't even know the female artists that the lesbian
Speaker 1: music scene until I got to long Each, you know,
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles and was asked to play a women's
Speaker 1: music festival. I didn't even I hadn't even heard of
Speaker 1: Chris Williams and and you know, all these great lesbian artists,
Speaker 1: this strong sort of lesbian folks scene. Um. I was
Speaker 1: a bit of an outcast because I was rocking and
Speaker 1: playing and kind of different. But it was very exciting
Speaker 1: to the audience, I um. And then other than that,
Speaker 1: I mean, I was I became a Janis Joplin fan
Speaker 1: because I was like, that's the rock I want to do,
Speaker 1: you know. I and I would sing a lot of
Speaker 1: her songs. Um. Other than that, you know, Linda Ronstaff
Speaker 1: was one that I really, you know, enjoyed as a singer.
Speaker 1: But there was there was not a lot of women
Speaker 1: their heart um Pat Benatar, you know, but there was
Speaker 1: There really wasn't any that was doing exactly what I wanted,
Speaker 1: the songwriting and the acoustic rock and roll that I felt.
Speaker 1: I I didn't see that anywhere. Okay, you're living in
Speaker 1: Long Beach, which has certainly been a gay stronghold since
Speaker 1: I lived in southern California, and the world is different
Speaker 1: because of the Internet now, but long Beach. I've a
Speaker 1: friend who lives in Long Beach. Now I feel the
Speaker 1: same thing, you know. You know, it might as well
Speaker 1: be San Diego and the music businesses in West Hollywood,
Speaker 1: Hollywood now the West side of Los Angeles. To what
Speaker 1: degree do you feel displaced? Do you try to integrate,
Speaker 1: do you try to make it? Yeah? I still felt
Speaker 1: like I was outside of Hollywood. But I realized very
Speaker 1: quickly when I got here in the early eighties that
Speaker 1: you can't make any money unless you are a known artist.
Speaker 1: You you can go once a month, maybe you could
Speaker 1: go play the the club, you know, the cabaret somewhere
Speaker 1: or uh god, not even the troubadoor. You couldn't even
Speaker 1: get a job at the trouba door. You but you know,
Speaker 1: there was a couple of bars you can play, but
Speaker 1: it was paid to play. So there was no way
Speaker 1: I was going to be able to make a living
Speaker 1: and you know, work that sort of circuit. So I
Speaker 1: started playing in the in the in these bars I
Speaker 1: actually created that they didn't have music. I walked in
Speaker 1: and said, hey, can I set up my equipment in
Speaker 1: your corner and play and you can pay me twenty
Speaker 1: five bucks? And they were like okay. So I played
Speaker 1: it different different clubs, you know, a couple of nights here,
Speaker 1: a couple of nights there. I ended up playing five
Speaker 1: nights a week and making a living. But again I knew, okay,
Speaker 1: no record executive is gonna accidentally walk into a lesbian bar.
Speaker 1: You know, that's just not gonna happen. So but I
Speaker 1: did believe that as long as I would, you know,
Speaker 1: play my music and do a good job, then someday
Speaker 1: someone's gonna know somebody who knows somebody who's brother is
Speaker 1: in the music business. You know, it's going that's going
Speaker 1: to happen. People are gonna talk, they're gonna bring people down.
Speaker 1: And that is what happened after about a year. Um
Speaker 1: a soccer team, the women's soccer team that used to
Speaker 1: come after the games on Saturday would come in and
Speaker 1: have a few drinks and and watch me play. One
Speaker 1: of their coaches was married to a manager in the
Speaker 1: business and he used to manage bread. His name was
Speaker 1: Bill Leopold. They finally talked him into coming down to
Speaker 1: see me in a lesbian bar and he came in
Speaker 1: and he was blown away and he said, look, this
Speaker 1: is this is gonna be hard. I don't know if
Speaker 1: it's going to take a year or ten years, but
Speaker 1: I think that you can make it. And he signed
Speaker 1: me as a as as my manager. He was my
Speaker 1: manager for thirty years after that, and he he was
Speaker 1: the one who brought He would bring record companies to
Speaker 1: me in these bars. He said, look, you're making a living.
Speaker 1: I don't want to take you out of that. If
Speaker 1: they have a problem with it, well there you go.
Speaker 1: And I tell you every single record in Los Angeles
Speaker 1: over those five years came to see me and I
Speaker 1: would go all the way up and then they bring
Speaker 1: the head guy out. And then they'd all say no
Speaker 1: over and over and over. And I don't know how
Speaker 1: much was because I was gay or how much because
Speaker 1: they just couldn't see the hit. But um, it wasn't
Speaker 1: until Chris Blackwell he heard four songs. He came in
Speaker 1: and heard four songs and went, well, yeah, I want
Speaker 1: you on my label, and that was it. Boom done. Okay,
Speaker 1: So you never did the go to labels with your
Speaker 1: cassette demo, get to know the people yourself. No, No,
Speaker 1: he was he Uh Bill Leopold had enough contacts and
Speaker 1: knew enough heat, he had had enough artists that he
Speaker 1: had friends and said hey, and then word of mouth
Speaker 1: got around. No, I never did another demo. Well I
Speaker 1: did do a demo, but they was always horrible on
Speaker 1: demos because I didn't it wasn't me. I would always
Speaker 1: let somebody else may and it was the eighties and
Speaker 1: they were horrible eighties demos, and um, I just it wasn't.
Speaker 1: It was my live performance that was the best and
Speaker 1: it still is. And um that's what Chris black Well
Speaker 1: saw and you never wavered, you stayed this is the dream,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do it. Yeah, And I was Hey. It
Speaker 1: was enough of the dream to show up in a
Speaker 1: bar to know that there were people there just to
Speaker 1: hear me sing, which was huge because before, when I'd
Speaker 1: be playing in bands, I was the background music. You know,
Speaker 1: in high school, I was the I wasn't the reason
Speaker 1: you would go to the show. It was a dance,
Speaker 1: you know. We were we were our job was to
Speaker 1: keep people dancing. This was me by myself in the
Speaker 1: corner of a bar, and people would come sit and
Speaker 1: watch me. And that was amazing and I could have
Speaker 1: done that. I would still be doing that if, you know,
Speaker 1: if nothing else happened, because that was that was enough
Speaker 1: of a dream of how people come to see me. Okay,
Speaker 1: legendarily you cut the album that was scrapped, and we
Speaker 1: cut the album in a matter of days. Now that
Speaker 1: I have you here, what exactly happened? Yes, that is
Speaker 1: what happened. I Chris Blackwell comes in, and Chris Bogwell
Speaker 1: is a man of mystery and and he's a wealthy
Speaker 1: he owns Island Records and Island Pictures and he's just
Speaker 1: this guy. And so he goes, yes, I want you
Speaker 1: all my label and then he runs off to Jamaican
Speaker 1: I don't see him for months, and so I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm supposed to make a record and I don't know how.
Speaker 1: And so, um, my manager knows a producer named Jim Gaines.
Speaker 1: Fine producer. He produced uh Steve Miller band. He engineered.
Speaker 1: He's more of an engineer that then became a producer
Speaker 1: and you know, so he worked on you know Journey.
Speaker 1: He was a Northern California kind of San Francisco sound
Speaker 1: kind of guy, and at the time, again it's there's
Speaker 1: a very eight sound going on. So he brings these
Speaker 1: musicians together, and um, I I insisted on certain drummer
Speaker 1: and bass player that I had in my over my
Speaker 1: years there in l A. I had done some demos
Speaker 1: and they were they were just two of the greatest
Speaker 1: musicians I've ever worked with. It was Craig Cramp, who
Speaker 1: was this amazing studio musician, and Kevin McCormick, who's this
Speaker 1: you know, Jocko Pastorius type bass player. He was amazing.
Speaker 1: And so I said, okay, well, I want these two
Speaker 1: guys at least to you know, play, and so we
Speaker 1: bring them out and then he hires a guitar player
Speaker 1: and a keyboard player and I go into the studio,
Speaker 1: the famous record plant up in Saclito. You know, all
Speaker 1: these famous people have been in there. I'm just so
Speaker 1: delighted to being there. And he cuts the record and it's, um,
Speaker 1: it's you know, you play the track, and then the
Speaker 1: keyboard player comes in and he lays it just hours
Speaker 1: and hours of keyboard sounds. And I think there was
Speaker 1: a bit of cocaine happening too, because it kind of
Speaker 1: got kind of crazy. And then after days I would
Speaker 1: come in and sing and my voice would just kind
Speaker 1: of be all processed on the top. And so we finally,
Speaker 1: you know, got enough tracks together after a couple of weeks,
Speaker 1: and I took him to Chris Blackwell and he said, mmmmm,
Speaker 1: I hate this and I was like, oh no, I've
Speaker 1: lost my chance. He was very very so when the
Speaker 1: drummer in the Basebaer Kevin and Craig said, look, we
Speaker 1: understand because they had been to the bar to hear
Speaker 1: me sing live. They said, I think we know what
Speaker 1: Chris Blackwell wants. Tell him to give us four days
Speaker 1: in the studio. That's all we need, and we'll cut
Speaker 1: an album for him. And so I went back to Chris.
Speaker 1: I said, please just give me four days cheap studio,
Speaker 1: l A. I don't care. Just four days, he said, okay,
Speaker 1: and he sent one of his people to bring in.
Speaker 1: I had already done the photo shoot for the album
Speaker 1: cover and we had chosen that remember that red photo
Speaker 1: of course, yeah, that you know, and I've got my
Speaker 1: head up like that. He the woman actually brought it in.
Speaker 1: She put it on the the a console in the
Speaker 1: studio and she said, Chris Blackwell wants you to make
Speaker 1: this album. So it was that picture he wanted, that
Speaker 1: rock and roll picture, that woman that he saw in
Speaker 1: the bar. That's what he wanted. And so we went
Speaker 1: in and drums, bass and guitar. That was It was
Speaker 1: just me, Kevin and and Craig and we recorded all
Speaker 1: day long and we recorded those ten tracks on that
Speaker 1: first album. And we and we brought Wady walk Tell
Speaker 1: in to just play some guitar, which you know, he's
Speaker 1: legendary guitar player, so that you know, bring me some
Speaker 1: water and and like the way I do, that's him playing.
Speaker 1: And we added a little bit of keyboard later just
Speaker 1: for some pad turned it in, he loved it, and
Speaker 1: the rest is history. And how did Nicolo get involved.
Speaker 1: Craig and Kevin knew him, and they said, this is
Speaker 1: the guy we want to engineer because Ko was a
Speaker 1: madman and he would he would do Neil Young and
Speaker 1: Crazy Horse, so he knew he knew how to make
Speaker 1: a small live band sound huge, and that's exactly what
Speaker 1: he did. He was so good. He he took all
Speaker 1: the effects off my voice. If you listen, my voice
Speaker 1: is so dry. It was. It was revolutionary at the time.
Speaker 1: Nothing else was sounding like that. So I was so
Speaker 1: grateful for Nico. Okay, give Me Some Water? Was that
Speaker 1: written before the red cut? Actually, yes, it was. It
Speaker 1: was the original songs after after he didn't like that
Speaker 1: first record. I had a few weeks before we went
Speaker 1: back into the studio again, and that's when I wrote
Speaker 1: bring Me Some Water. And I'm so grateful for that
Speaker 1: because that ended up being, you know, the huge hit.
Speaker 1: And um, I just I just was sitting in my
Speaker 1: living room and it was like it was kind of
Speaker 1: like a blues riff, but it was, you know, I
Speaker 1: sped it up a little bit and dat you know,
Speaker 1: just this bluesy rock riff, simple song. My girlfriend at
Speaker 1: the time was off with somebody else. I was burning
Speaker 1: Alive really easy to write the song. And when we
Speaker 1: went back in the studio, said, hey, I've wrote this song.
Speaker 1: What do you think? And we just bamed. We just
Speaker 1: recorded it and there it was. But let's just go
Speaker 1: back to the inspiration. Your girlfriend? What was too? You know,
Speaker 1: what got you going? Uh? Well? I was, Um, how
Speaker 1: do I say? I was? I was in a non
Speaker 1: monogamous relationship. But we lived together and um for years,
Speaker 1: for four or five years we were together, and um,
Speaker 1: she was wonderful and I really liked her. But we
Speaker 1: both you know, we were young, we were in our
Speaker 1: twenties and you know, experimenting and moving, just meeting other people.
Speaker 1: And she would go off to these uh women's music
Speaker 1: festivals by herself, and you know, I just knew that
Speaker 1: she was because we had this open relationship. It's like, okay,
Speaker 1: I know exactly what you're doing. That's why bring me
Speaker 1: some water? Is you know tonight? I feels so weak,
Speaker 1: but you know, all in love is fair. You know,
Speaker 1: I turned the other cheek. But man, this sucks, you know,
Speaker 1: and and I know you're only human. I haven't got
Speaker 1: talking rome because I've had other girlfriends and all kinds
Speaker 1: of stuff so and so it's just like I don't
Speaker 1: like this. I can't. I can't say I'm totally been
Speaker 1: done wrong because you know I'm doing it too. But
Speaker 1: somebody bring me some more. I'm just I just don't
Speaker 1: like this. Okay, So that's your first hit. Subsequent to that,
Speaker 1: how do you write your songs? Do you wait for
Speaker 1: the inspiration? Do you sit down and say I need
Speaker 1: ten songs? How do you do it? Oh? Well, by
Speaker 1: that point I would write all day long. I would.
Speaker 1: I I had my job at the bar five nights
Speaker 1: a week, but I'd wake up at you know, ten
Speaker 1: eleven noon, and I'd have a couple of hours. I'd
Speaker 1: make myself some food and I would just sit down
Speaker 1: and write, and it was whatever I was going through.
Speaker 1: Sometimes like bring me some water and like the way
Speaker 1: I do and songs like that. I had specific things
Speaker 1: that I got to write about this. Other times it
Speaker 1: was just mining, you know, what was inside? What were
Speaker 1: my questions, what were my desires, what were my pains,
Speaker 1: what were my hopes? You know, and and just writing
Speaker 1: from that. But I wrote all the time. That was then.
Speaker 1: But then as time plays out, how do you write? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: much different now, mama has to make time. Okay, okay, kids, wife, family, managers, everybody.
Speaker 1: I'm working from ten to two, do not you know,
Speaker 1: and disrupt me. Yeah, I used to. I laugh about that.
Speaker 1: I said, Oh my god. I used to have my
Speaker 1: notebooks all over my bed and I just all day long,
Speaker 1: just you know, just wrote, and I had nothing but that.
Speaker 1: Now I have to make time, and you make time.
Speaker 1: It's a start from scratch. Or are you in the
Speaker 1: shower and you get an idea and then have to
Speaker 1: run to the piano, or oh my gosh, why is
Speaker 1: it that the shower is so inspirational? The shower and
Speaker 1: driving the car the two times that I can't stop
Speaker 1: and you know, write anything down is when the best
Speaker 1: inspiration comes. But thank goodness, you know the last decade.
Speaker 1: We have a voice memo now because I can just
Speaker 1: I can just turn that on and sing the idea
Speaker 1: in there and then go back and check it later.
Speaker 1: That's that helps me a lot. I have notes and
Speaker 1: voice memo that I keep all these little pieces of inspiration.
Speaker 1: Is there happening, whether I'm cooking dinner, I'm like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, that's great, I need to uh and I
Speaker 1: just catch it and then when I have the time,
Speaker 1: I'll take all those little pieces and I'll put them together. Okay,
Speaker 1: So is it more constructing the songs out of your
Speaker 1: notes or is it more sitting there with a blank
Speaker 1: piece of paper I need to write X number of
Speaker 1: songs for a new album. M Well, I try. I've
Speaker 1: always tried not to make it a job or make
Speaker 1: it something I had to do. Uh. I'm grateful when
Speaker 1: I get to have it. It's very meditative being by
Speaker 1: myself and hooking up to that creative flow that is
Speaker 1: there and then using my craft to make a song.
Speaker 1: That's that's my happy place, other than being on stage.
Speaker 1: That's that's the other place I love. And if it's
Speaker 1: isn't happening, I go okay, not today, and I walk away.
Speaker 1: I don't ever, I'll never call it I have writer's
Speaker 1: block or anything like that. It's it's it's just very
Speaker 1: you know, this is what I you know I want
Speaker 1: to do and um and so I I enjoy it
Speaker 1: now very much. So okay, so you deliver the album
Speaker 1: to Chris Blackwell, then what happens, Well, then then the
Speaker 1: whole another world starts. I the album. Let's see I
Speaker 1: my I get put on my first tour he Chris album.
Speaker 1: Chris black Will always thought that I would break huge
Speaker 1: in England first, like like Chrissie Hines or Jimmy Hendrix
Speaker 1: or there's something you know He's He thought that that's
Speaker 1: where they were really gonna get me. So he put
Speaker 1: me on as an opening act with a band called
Speaker 1: Martin Stevenson and the Dainties, which was very unknown than two.
Speaker 1: So I'm the opener for an unknown band, so you
Speaker 1: just you can't get lower on the wrong. And yet
Speaker 1: I'm playing these little clubs in you know, I'm going
Speaker 1: to Leads, you know, and and uh Birmingham and Manchester,
Speaker 1: and I'm playing all over England and in the meantime
Speaker 1: the record is just starting to be played and every
Speaker 1: English speaking country and some aren't, like you know, Holland
Speaker 1: and Germany and but Australia and Canada and even America,
Speaker 1: all of them are playing my Bring Me Some Water. England, nothing, Zeros, nothing,
Speaker 1: And it's still to this day nothing, you know. And
Speaker 1: I have like a small cult following there. I can tour,
Speaker 1: I can play London and maybe another city. But it
Speaker 1: was so funny, so they took me off of that
Speaker 1: tour when things started happening in America and I got
Speaker 1: on my own tour and I played. I started playing
Speaker 1: clubs and it was just wonderful. And then I got
Speaker 1: a I got the opening act for Bruce Hornsby when
Speaker 1: his music was just taken off. So I did some
Speaker 1: of that. I came back to Europe. I opened for
Speaker 1: Huey Lewis. That was big, and so you know, I
Speaker 1: got to play the big things, and then my own
Speaker 1: when I would play my own gigs, it went from
Speaker 1: the clubs to theaters and it was just a slow,
Speaker 1: wonderful experience. Well, the record was successful pretty early in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles. How long did you work that record and
Speaker 1: then in the back of your mind you had to
Speaker 1: cut another record? Oh well, I was. I was working
Speaker 1: the record, and I had songs. I was already playing
Speaker 1: songs live that weren't on the first record. I was
Speaker 1: already playing No Souvenirs and Brave and Crazy and skin Deep.
Speaker 1: These songs were part of my act already, and so
Speaker 1: I'm like, when do we get to go back in
Speaker 1: the studio. I'm ready, I'm ready. So we were in
Speaker 1: the studio recording the second or actually I was rehearsing
Speaker 1: to go into the studio when I got the news
Speaker 1: that I had been nominated for Grammy for Best Rock Female,
Speaker 1: and that that performance on that Grammys really sent my
Speaker 1: career into another I just it went crazy after that,
Speaker 1: not crazy, but you know, it really took a big leap,
Speaker 1: and so I went back in the studio, recorded and
Speaker 1: just kept I'm basically toured for eight years straight, just touring,
Speaker 1: going back in the studio for a couple of weeks,
Speaker 1: touring for a year, the album comes out, touring just
Speaker 1: all the way up til my like you know six.
Speaker 1: That was basically the whole thing. So what's the backstory?
Speaker 1: Do you can sleep while I drive? Oh? See? That
Speaker 1: was I wrote that when I was on tour with
Speaker 1: Martin Stevens in the Dainties. I'm in um England for weeks, right,
Speaker 1: and this is England and there is not Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know the English are are food challenged, right, they
Speaker 1: just they just I mean I can only eat so
Speaker 1: many Indian food dinners, you know. But I really was
Speaker 1: missing America. I was missing American food. I was missing America.
Speaker 1: I was missing my relationship. And I knew, oh, a
Speaker 1: non monogamous relationship where I'm gone for six weeks. I
Speaker 1: know she's with somebody doing something and it you can
Speaker 1: sleep while I drive. Was written in England and Germany
Speaker 1: when I was thinking about a trip I had taken
Speaker 1: in America with my girlfriend where we drove from California
Speaker 1: to New York City and back and I played little
Speaker 1: clubs along the way. This was right when Chris black
Speaker 1: Will found me. But I had booked this little tour
Speaker 1: for the summer because I had to get out of town.
Speaker 1: I was just crazy. So I was now in England
Speaker 1: looking back, saying let's take that trip again. Come on,
Speaker 1: let's let's go do this and you can sleep while
Speaker 1: I drive. It's like yet, I know she's she's you know,
Speaker 1: fading away. So and in the end I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: if you won't take me with you, I'll go before
Speaker 1: night is through and you can sleep while I leave
Speaker 1: and I drive. Okay, that album has some success, not
Speaker 1: as much as the debut album. Third album comes out
Speaker 1: theme Team, They're really first, how do you decide to
Speaker 1: be nude on the cover or the album? That was
Speaker 1: just that was me. It was the same photographer I
Speaker 1: had used for the second album, so I was very
Speaker 1: familiar with the wonderful guy. I don't remember his name
Speaker 1: right now, but um, it was. It was just me
Speaker 1: and him in the studio and we've been taking pictures
Speaker 1: and I'm of course an absolute Springsteen you know, fan fanatic,
Speaker 1: and one of my favorite pictures is him turning around
Speaker 1: and that guitar slinging wright that and so I said,
Speaker 1: I said, dude, I wanna I wanna like kind of
Speaker 1: give a nod to that picture, but I want to
Speaker 1: do my own way. I said, what if I take
Speaker 1: my shirt off? And he's like cool, but you know
Speaker 1: I'm not. You know, it was basically, okay, you turned
Speaker 1: around and I took I took it off, and I
Speaker 1: got I got already and he was, you know, twenty
Speaker 1: behind me taking the picture. So and there was no
Speaker 1: one else there, so there wasn't anything like that, but
Speaker 1: it was my idea. We did like, you know, ten
Speaker 1: shots of of that, and we then we did some
Speaker 1: with my shirt on. And then when he developed the pictures,
Speaker 1: I was like, that's cool, come on, let's do that.
Speaker 1: And I didn't realize that there was a tiny because
Speaker 1: it was it was for C d S, which is
Speaker 1: you know, it was a tiny picture. It wasn't until
Speaker 1: I had a huge poster of it that I realized, oh,
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of my girls showing right, you know, right,
Speaker 1: just just a tiny bit. Many women, almost all women,
Speaker 1: are anxious about being photographed without clothing. Was that's something
Speaker 1: that crossed your mind? Was there retouching the ultimate product? No? No, no,
Speaker 1: we let it. We totally let it fly. And it
Speaker 1: wasn't to me. It was just my back, you know,
Speaker 1: it wasn't. I didn't think of it as like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, naked e like you know, a playboy or something.
Speaker 1: It was there was some power in it. You know,
Speaker 1: my hair was all long, there was my guitar. I
Speaker 1: just didn't have a shirt on, and um, it seemed
Speaker 1: powerful to me. I remember at the time when it
Speaker 1: came out, there was a moment when Walmart was threatening
Speaker 1: to not put it on its on the shelves, and
Speaker 1: I was like what And I had to like call
Speaker 1: the head of the Walmart and I talked, and I
Speaker 1: think it was a woman and I'm like, no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: it's and I calmed her down and they ended up
Speaker 1: selling it. But man, if you don't have Walmart, you're
Speaker 1: you're in trouble. Absolutely. So from the outside, it looks
Speaker 1: like the third album is not as commercially successful as
Speaker 1: the two previous albums. Was that your sensation or it
Speaker 1: wasn't that way? From the inside, it was my sensation.
Speaker 1: At this point, I had UH. I had a certain
Speaker 1: amount of success, but it was still that sort of
Speaker 1: I had not broken through rock RADI I played rock radio,
Speaker 1: but I had no pop airplay. I had UH. And
Speaker 1: then there was this new you know, grunge music was
Speaker 1: coming out, and I'm like and and alternative, and I
Speaker 1: was like, hey, I'm alternative. I'm about as alternatives you
Speaker 1: can get, you know. And I hadn't come out as
Speaker 1: gay yet. But I at that point, after three albums,
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, I'm done writing genderless and and speaking
Speaker 1: in you know, riddles and things, you know. And and
Speaker 1: I told myself, I'm going to come out publicly on
Speaker 1: this next record. I'm just gonna do it. And I
Speaker 1: had a plan to do it on the Arsenio Hall
Speaker 1: Show because he would actually sit and talk to me.
Speaker 1: He was the only late night talk show hosted otherwise
Speaker 1: you know, Letterman and Leno, you just you. I would
Speaker 1: just sing and and that's it, and I Ar Senior
Speaker 1: would talk to me. So I was like, Okay, when
Speaker 1: the album comes out, I'm going to come out on
Speaker 1: their center hall. Well, in the meantime i'm making the album,
Speaker 1: I'm working with some of the great LGBT leaders, uh,
Speaker 1: you know in our community, Orbis Evade and and Alan
Speaker 1: hergot in these and they keep calling me to do oh,
Speaker 1: come do a benefit for this. And I'm really deep
Speaker 1: in the in the political because AIDS is raging, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's it's this is nineteen and I'm feeling very
Speaker 1: called by the community. And so I helped them. And
Speaker 1: in ninety two I helped uh the Clinton Gore campaign
Speaker 1: and all the the gay communities that was coming together
Speaker 1: to help them get elected. And so I do a
Speaker 1: bunch of benefits and I'm politically involved, and I get
Speaker 1: invited to the Clinton inauguration and so um, when I
Speaker 1: played the night before the inauguration, I do that. I'm
Speaker 1: one of the people in the show. It's Michael Jackson
Speaker 1: and Ray Charles and all these great singers and things,
Speaker 1: and and I'm part of it and I'm loving that.
Speaker 1: And then the next day is the inauguration. And then
Speaker 1: that night at the inaugural balls, and the gay community
Speaker 1: is having a triangle ball. It's the first gay inaugural ball.
Speaker 1: Was the first time we were invited to Washington, and
Speaker 1: so I'm there with my friends and I get handed
Speaker 1: a microphone and I say, oh, I'm just so happy
Speaker 1: to be lesbian, and bam, that was me coming out.
Speaker 1: The next day, you know, the newspapers are all, you know,
Speaker 1: Clinton inauguration, and there's a little tiny little blurb says
Speaker 1: and at the gay triangle ballm Melissa Ethridge comes out.
Speaker 1: And so that started a whole another area of my
Speaker 1: life that people wanted to talk about now. And so
Speaker 1: once my album came out a few months later, I
Speaker 1: had a whole new platform. I was out, I had recorded,
Speaker 1: I had gone to the studio without Um. Kevin wasn't
Speaker 1: going to produce anymore. Kevin had been co producer on
Speaker 1: my first three and UM. We were trying something new.
Speaker 1: Chris Blackwell said, you know, I want to bring in
Speaker 1: Hugh Pagum, who had done Sting and so many great records.
Speaker 1: He was a very successful producer, and it was a
Speaker 1: different experience. We worked at A and M and UM.
Speaker 1: You know, making these these songs, and so when Yes
Speaker 1: I Am comes out, it's kind of okay, it's a
Speaker 1: different ballpark. The record company is ready to make it,
Speaker 1: take a jump, make it, you know, be big. And
Speaker 1: it took over a year for anything to really for
Speaker 1: it all to go. And I never had a top
Speaker 1: ten hit on Yes I Am, but I had the
Speaker 1: record for a long time of the of Come to
Speaker 1: My Window was the held the record for being on
Speaker 1: the charts for the longest time because everyone never played
Speaker 1: it together. You know how you get all the radio
Speaker 1: stations and then you get your number one. I was
Speaker 1: always you know, number twenty or thirty or something, but
Speaker 1: every radio station ended up playing my music. So it's
Speaker 1: this sort of long haul, like Yes I was never
Speaker 1: nominated for a Grammy, you know, the album wasn't. The
Speaker 1: song Come to My Window was, And I did win
Speaker 1: for that, but um, you know, but that was a
Speaker 1: whole new chapter. I had a whole new band because
Speaker 1: Kevin got mad and left, so I put a whole
Speaker 1: new band together. So after that third album, making of
Speaker 1: and the release of Yes I Am, was a whole
Speaker 1: new chapter in my life. Yeah, Okay, whose decision was
Speaker 1: it to be and I used my air quotes here
Speaker 1: people can't see closeted. Prior to the fourth album, that
Speaker 1: was uh yeah, that was sort of you know, the
Speaker 1: first of the late eighties. You you didn't come Nobody
Speaker 1: came out. No one was coming out. You know. It
Speaker 1: wasn't something you did. It was either you were either
Speaker 1: found out there was either a tabloid that that found
Speaker 1: you and did a story. But I wasn't famous enough
Speaker 1: for tabloids to come chasing after me, and um. I
Speaker 1: remember having a meeting with my uh my record company,
Speaker 1: in my management. We're all sitting around to you know,
Speaker 1: a conference table, and they said, well, what are we
Speaker 1: gonna do about this gay thing? And I was like
Speaker 1: this gay. I said, well, I'm not gonna be anything
Speaker 1: but what I am. I'm certainly not going to, you know,
Speaker 1: pretend to date the boy ors thing. That's not gonna happen.
Speaker 1: They said, well, okay, is as long as you don't
Speaker 1: flag wave was what they said. And I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: you know whatever that means. And of course four years
Speaker 1: later I'm flag waving. But you know, at that point,
Speaker 1: by the time I came out, I remember calling them
Speaker 1: all and going okay, well, um, I think I came out,
Speaker 1: so I just want you all to know, and they're like, okay,
Speaker 1: we'll tell publicity, we'll just take it from there, and
Speaker 1: they made it something that worked for me and I
Speaker 1: went from selling less than a million albums to six
Speaker 1: million albums. So it was a great thing. But it's
Speaker 1: not like from you telling the story. It's not like
Speaker 1: you were hiding it. You were involved with the organizations.
Speaker 1: How did you get involved with Clinton's campaign? Right? Well, Um,
Speaker 1: that was that was definitely the gay organizations. And at
Speaker 1: the time, I swear it was sort of like, don't ask,
Speaker 1: don't tell. No one asked me, so I didn't have
Speaker 1: to lie. I didn't and I didn't tell. I didn't
Speaker 1: open up any then going hey I'm gay now and
Speaker 1: I want to talk about it. It just wasn't ever asked. So, Um,
Speaker 1: these organizations, the in g LTF and the Human Rights Campaign,
Speaker 1: all these people were so these great political leaders of
Speaker 1: the of the community, we're calling me in and that's
Speaker 1: when they said, look, you know, this is the first
Speaker 1: presidential candidate that even mentioned gay and lesbian. First time
Speaker 1: we've ever heard it come out of a politician's mouth,
Speaker 1: and he's willing, and he made of course, he made
Speaker 1: the community all these promises and ultimately broke them all.
Speaker 1: But at least he you know, acknowledged that we were
Speaker 1: a voting base that he wanted to uh have on
Speaker 1: his side. So we got out. I I played uh
Speaker 1: many benefits for him and just raised a lot of money.
Speaker 1: Well as a lay person from the outside, he was
Speaker 1: constantly mentioned name you, you know, bringing up what kind
Speaker 1: of relationship did you actually have with him? And after
Speaker 1: he got elected, what was your relationship? Like? Oh, well,
Speaker 1: I saw him. I went to visit in when I
Speaker 1: did Woodstock, so that was I went to visit him
Speaker 1: in the in the White House. And he was just
Speaker 1: such a He was such a it's hard to explain
Speaker 1: he was. And I'm sure you've always heard people talk
Speaker 1: about what a figure he was, what an imposing figure,
Speaker 1: But he was very warm and very Arkansas. So you
Speaker 1: always felt like you were his best friend. But still
Speaker 1: you were just in awe of him, and he held
Speaker 1: that power and he was very much like that. So,
Speaker 1: you know, the couple of times that I did meet him,
Speaker 1: I was still like that, you know, because he just
Speaker 1: had this thing about him, you know, subsequent to Clinton.
Speaker 1: W Actually he's thirty years ago. Now to what degree
Speaker 1: have people called you for political activity and have you
Speaker 1: participated since then? Oh my gosh, Well, I like to
Speaker 1: al Gore, and I became actually closer than I ever
Speaker 1: was with Clinton because I I tell people I helped
Speaker 1: get him elected in two thousand to be president. But
Speaker 1: of course we know what happened, and you know he
Speaker 1: Uh so I helped him with his campaign. I've helped
Speaker 1: oh you know Senators Feinstein and Boxer in California. I've
Speaker 1: I'm you know, any any any politician who who has
Speaker 1: a track record of you know, lgbt Q rights and
Speaker 1: and things like that. I will. I don't do it
Speaker 1: as much anymore because I was doing a lot and
Speaker 1: it sort of waters it down. But um, you know,
Speaker 1: I I definitely worked for Obama. I definitely helped him.
Speaker 1: That was important to me. And um I did some
Speaker 1: work for him lurry, you know, and uh you know.
Speaker 1: And so that brings us right up today. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: you know we're living in this tumultuous time. Is there
Speaker 1: any candidate that you would be aligned with for the
Speaker 1: national stage? Well, as we as we I mean, as
Speaker 1: we come into the next election. Yes, yeah, well, um,
Speaker 1: I do know Gavin Knewsom very well. I see him
Speaker 1: making moves and kind of conceee where that's going. So
Speaker 1: I would definitely support him. He not only has been
Speaker 1: LGBTQ friendly, but he's he's a cannabis friendly, which which
Speaker 1: really we need to move forward on that and um,
Speaker 1: you know, women's rights absolutely, so I would definitely help him. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, at this point, you know, as I look
Speaker 1: at the political parties, you know, I threw my weight
Speaker 1: behind you know, Joe Biden because it was important to
Speaker 1: get him elected, even though he was way behind on
Speaker 1: on cannabis reform and everything. It was just really important
Speaker 1: to get you know too, because I you know, I
Speaker 1: understand politics enough to you know that it's important to
Speaker 1: get that party in power. So and that's kind of
Speaker 1: how I'm approaching it now. A good friend of mine,
Speaker 1: had the Mazier, is running against Andy Harris for Congress
Speaker 1: in Maryland, and so I give her a lot of
Speaker 1: help because she's actually a very close friend of mine.
Speaker 1: But um, yeah, you'll see me out there. I think
Speaker 1: it's important to you so support How did you how
Speaker 1: did you meet al Gore and established such a relationship.
Speaker 1: Oh well, I met him through when he was vice
Speaker 1: president and he he was always of the two. He
Speaker 1: was so very gay friendly. He really it became close
Speaker 1: friends with friends of mine who ran the Human Rights
Speaker 1: Campaign and camp and fund and um. And so then
Speaker 1: after after I helped him, I was on the patreo
Speaker 1: with him for a while after we did that, and
Speaker 1: he lost and then he threw his work into the
Speaker 1: environment and his his climate change. Uh. He called me
Speaker 1: in like two thousand five and and said, look, they're
Speaker 1: they're making a documentary of my slide show on climate change.
Speaker 1: And I said, you know, to myself, I'm like, well
Speaker 1: that'll be shown in some high schools or something, you know,
Speaker 1: and and um. And he wanted a song for it,
Speaker 1: and I said, well, I would be honored. I would
Speaker 1: be honored to write a song for it. So, you know,
Speaker 1: so they put, you know, put it together and they
Speaker 1: sent it to me, and I was like, this is
Speaker 1: really good. And they were called it, you know, an
Speaker 1: Inconvenient Truth, and I was like, well, that's a really
Speaker 1: difficult title to work into a song, but I'll do
Speaker 1: my best. And so I wrote I need to wake
Speaker 1: Up and to my surprise. It ended up winning an Oscar.
Speaker 1: And I ended up winning an Oscar, and that was
Speaker 1: a complete surprise to me. I had no idea that
Speaker 1: that little project was going to do that. So what
Speaker 1: was it like winning an Oscar? Yeah? That was fun.
Speaker 1: That was a dream come true. It was it was
Speaker 1: after I had gone through cancer, because cancer really really
Speaker 1: changed my life and and I just stopped, you know,
Speaker 1: chasing this sort of I need to be the biggest
Speaker 1: rock star. You know. It changed that sort of dream
Speaker 1: into wait, you know, I need to do what makes
Speaker 1: me happy and what fulfills me and what makes me
Speaker 1: grow and and um. And I remember thinking, wow, okay,
Speaker 1: what what are some things that I do want to
Speaker 1: experience that I have? And I remember thinking, well, winning
Speaker 1: an Oscar, that's one that was a childhood you know.
Speaker 1: I watched I always watched the Oscars. That was the
Speaker 1: the height of the entertainment industry was the Oscars. And
Speaker 1: so man, when I got nominated blew my mind and
Speaker 1: I was just I couldn't believe it. And then when
Speaker 1: I finally went there and and and realized, okay, I
Speaker 1: am finally at this place that I always thought was
Speaker 1: like the epitome of of of the entertainment business. I
Speaker 1: realized this is just a TV show, that all this
Speaker 1: is a TV show. Most of these people really don't
Speaker 1: know each other. I knew more people than I thought.
Speaker 1: I mean, by that point, Steven Spielberg was a good
Speaker 1: friend of mine. I knew you, I knew Okay, how
Speaker 1: do you know? Okay, how do you do that? Because
Speaker 1: I knew Tom Hanks, because I knew how did I
Speaker 1: meet Tom Hanks? Uh? We shared the same lawyer, went
Speaker 1: to dinner with it just because I lived in Hollywood,
Speaker 1: and you just you Brad Pitt was a good friend
Speaker 1: of mine because I knew him before he was famous,
Speaker 1: and because I hung out there was this young Hollywood Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, a group of us that always hung out
Speaker 1: together and as our fame group, like Ellen. I knew
Speaker 1: Ellen when she was stand up Rosie when she was
Speaker 1: a stand up. You know these I just knew all
Speaker 1: these people. We've gone through the eighties and the nineties
Speaker 1: together and so um so I knew half the people
Speaker 1: at the Oscars. I knew John Travolta. You know, he's
Speaker 1: the one who announced my name when I won. And
Speaker 1: so at the end of the night, you know I'm
Speaker 1: carrying it's the only place that they'll actually give you
Speaker 1: the award that you could take it with you. And
Speaker 1: it's heavy, and so my arm was sore by the
Speaker 1: end of the night because I was carrying it all night.
Speaker 1: But you're not gonna let go because there it is
Speaker 1: as my oscar. Hey, you know. And I had a
Speaker 1: great time. It was a wonderful evening. You know, I
Speaker 1: smoked a joint with Sean Penn and Harry Dean Stanton
Speaker 1: and Bill Maher. You know, I just had this great
Speaker 1: experience and that was that was like, look I did
Speaker 1: that that, you know, let's bucket list off. That's great.
Speaker 1: But I realized it's not really a place. It's it's
Speaker 1: a TV show. Where's the oscar right now? Oh, it's
Speaker 1: an office on my on my shelf next to my
Speaker 1: two Grammys. Okay. What was Kevin McCormick angry about. Well,
Speaker 1: he was angry because, um, he didn't get to produce
Speaker 1: the fourth record. And he was angry because Chris Blackwell
Speaker 1: and Denny Cordell, who was the executive producer of the album,
Speaker 1: replaced all his parts with Pino Palladino coming in playing bass.
Speaker 1: Who's the greatest bass player in the world. And that
Speaker 1: made him mad, and so he went away. Okay, he'd
Speaker 1: already recorded the parts and then you know, re recorded them. Yes,
Speaker 1: it was it was like, that's the businessman, that's the business.
Speaker 1: And what was it like working with you, Pagum And
Speaker 1: what did he add? Oh? He was great. He was
Speaker 1: so English, he was so uh. You know, he would
Speaker 1: ask for his tuna tuna salad. He would complain because
Speaker 1: you know, they bring in hot water for tea and
Speaker 1: he's like, no, no, no, you bring in a kettle.
Speaker 1: I need it boiled. You know. It was very English
Speaker 1: and um really brilliant with sound, just really creating a
Speaker 1: live sound. And he let me. He did. He took
Speaker 1: my acoustic um Ovation guitar, which is not the best acoustic.
Speaker 1: It's great electric, it's great on stage, but acoustically, you know,
Speaker 1: there's you know, your Martins and your Gibsons sound better.
Speaker 1: But he he made that Ovation sound wonderful. He took
Speaker 1: the time. He took the time to find exactly the
Speaker 1: right microphone. He came in one day and just microphones
Speaker 1: were lined up and we just tried one at a
Speaker 1: time to see which work. He was very meticulous and
Speaker 1: he loved music. How did you end up playing an
Speaker 1: Ovation which first had a bad reputation, then the reputation evolved. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: you know it was made from helicopter parts, you know,
Speaker 1: but it fits. I was a young woman, young girl.
Speaker 1: I was fourteen when I played my first one, and
Speaker 1: I was in love with twelve string guitar. So I
Speaker 1: had bought a guild which was as big as me
Speaker 1: and I couldn't I could barely get my arms around it,
Speaker 1: and it was certainly really hard to play. And so
Speaker 1: I took it back to the guitar store and that
Speaker 1: I brought it from, and I knew the guy was
Speaker 1: a local, you know, leven Worth store, and he said, well,
Speaker 1: there's this new guitar called the Ovation guitar. And he
Speaker 1: put one in my lap, and it's rounded back and
Speaker 1: it had a smaller neck, and I went, this is
Speaker 1: a guitar I can play and I could just plug
Speaker 1: it straight in. It was electric, so I could use
Speaker 1: it in my band. So it was perfect and I
Speaker 1: have always played one since then. Okay, I was totally
Speaker 1: aware of you, but I knew the fourth album was
Speaker 1: gonna go. This is significant from my perspective. I'm interested
Speaker 1: in your perspective. You went on Letterman and you played
Speaker 1: m the only One, and you were you know, your
Speaker 1: foot was stopping in time. It was like you really
Speaker 1: meant it. It It was mind blow we I've only seen,
Speaker 1: said O'Connor did her theme song from In the Name
Speaker 1: of the Father on Letterman the Thief of My Heart
Speaker 1: or something like that. Those are the two best performances
Speaker 1: I ever saw on So was that just another night
Speaker 1: or did you feel something too? Ah? Well, Letterman had
Speaker 1: always been a supporter of mine. He was a fan
Speaker 1: of mine, and so he was the first one I
Speaker 1: ever played, Bring Me Some Water. He was the first
Speaker 1: national television show I ever had, was the old one
Speaker 1: he had before he you know, the late, Late, Late
Speaker 1: Show or whatever he did. Yeah, And so when I
Speaker 1: finally played I'm the only One, I was excited. I
Speaker 1: was excited because I loved that song. That song was,
Speaker 1: that was rock, that was me, and I just knew.
Speaker 1: I was like, that's why we thought that was to
Speaker 1: be the first single. And well it was the first single,
Speaker 1: but it didn't catch on and people started playing come
Speaker 1: to My Window, and so they switched to come to
Speaker 1: My Window. And then later released I'm the Only One again.
Speaker 1: But first I thought because I was like, that's that's
Speaker 1: got to be the song. That's the great, you know,
Speaker 1: I love that people are gonna love it. And so
Speaker 1: I went on Letterman and it was just I just
Speaker 1: wanted to grab people by the throat and go, you're
Speaker 1: gonna remember this, and and I was very excited. I
Speaker 1: knew it was a big time and I've recently actually
Speaker 1: on YouTube I saw that performance again and I was like, man,
Speaker 1: I I was serious. I really I'm meant to whatever
Speaker 1: I was doing. Okay, you work with you, then you
Speaker 1: end up working with John Shanks. How do you end
Speaker 1: up working with John Shanks? Ah, well, let's go back
Speaker 1: to the first album, and let's go back to Kevin McCormick,
Speaker 1: who I went to go see Kevin McCormick's band at
Speaker 1: the time in he's playing and his band is called
Speaker 1: the Uninvited and the band consists of him, Fritz Luik
Speaker 1: on drums, who I eventually end up playing with. Craig
Speaker 1: Cramp didn't tour with me. I Fritz played with me,
Speaker 1: and so Fritz was on my second and third and
Speaker 1: fourth album. He plays on all those albums and Scott
Speaker 1: Thurston who ends up being a Tom Petty in the
Speaker 1: in the UH you know those guys, and UM, and
Speaker 1: the guitar player is this kid from l A named
Speaker 1: John Shanks. And so for my very first tour in
Speaker 1: I I saw John and I went, I want him
Speaker 1: to be UH in my band. So I tell people
Speaker 1: I discovered John Shanks at Madam Wong's right, Madam WANs
Speaker 1: in Santa Monica. He comes, he does my first tour
Speaker 1: with me, and he had some troubles, him and Kevin
Speaker 1: and but he had some trouble so he went away.
Speaker 1: And then when Kevin left and and I needed to
Speaker 1: put a new band together for the Yes I M tour,
Speaker 1: I run into John Shanks at some little place and
Speaker 1: he's he's got his life together, he's trying to get
Speaker 1: back into the business. He's playing for UM for a
Speaker 1: singer that I don't know, but he was kind of
Speaker 1: playing with someone and I said, well, I'm about to
Speaker 1: go on tour, come be my guitar player again. So
Speaker 1: from nine three to about two thousand, it's about two
Speaker 1: thousand one, he was my guitar player. He played, he
Speaker 1: did my whole Yes I Am tour Your Little Secret,
Speaker 1: and then he then when it came time to do
Speaker 1: my Breakdown album, I tried to work with somebody and
Speaker 1: it didn't work, and John said, look, let me produce.
Speaker 1: I've been doing, you know, a couple of little projects,
Speaker 1: but let me produce your album. So I said okay,
Speaker 1: And Breakdown was his first full album. So you did
Speaker 1: discover him. I did totally. And from that he just
Speaker 1: went off. He was he's winning Grammys, he's doing stuff
Speaker 1: and and him and I have worked together on and
Speaker 1: off many many of my He did Fearless Love, He's
Speaker 1: did songs on Lucky, you know, He's done a whole
Speaker 1: lot of stuff with me, Medicine Show. Yeah. Okay. So
Speaker 1: ultimately Ellen comes out, But prior to that and for
Speaker 1: years thereafter, you are the face of gay in America.
Speaker 1: Is that a good thing or a not good thing? Personally? Well,
Speaker 1: personally it was, it was good for a while in that. Um.
Speaker 1: The part that was hard is that for a couple
Speaker 1: of years, that's all I talked about. Any interview was
Speaker 1: about being gay, and they were asking me questions that
Speaker 1: everyone wanted to know about being gay, because no one
Speaker 1: was willing to sit down and talk to anybody about
Speaker 1: being gay. And so it was like you know, Rolling Stone, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, every newspaper of every town, everything would talk
Speaker 1: to me. And then I would finally do like you know,
Speaker 1: the Advocate that out magazine, these gay publications. So I
Speaker 1: talked about being gay for years and it was like, okay,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm a musician too, we can talk about
Speaker 1: the music too, and the goodness. You know, when Ellen
Speaker 1: finally came out and it started to the other people did,
Speaker 1: it was like, okay, I'm not the only one anymore.
Speaker 1: And and then it it changed. And once I actually
Speaker 1: went through cancer in two thousand four, then I started
Speaker 1: talking about cancer. So I had cancer, gay and music.
Speaker 1: And now you know, cancer, gay music, cannabis. And now
Speaker 1: it's cancer, gay music, cannabis, opioid addiction. You know. So
Speaker 1: I have lots of things that I can talk about.
Speaker 1: But for a while there it was it was just gay.
Speaker 1: And it what got really hard is when I went
Speaker 1: through my first divorce, because I was, you know, being
Speaker 1: held up as this gay you know, this perfect relationship
Speaker 1: and we had children and then it all went away.
Speaker 1: It was bad, So I didn't that was hard. You know,
Speaker 1: the story that came out was that you were with
Speaker 1: the therapist. And Julie said, well, I'm not really feeling
Speaker 1: the gay thing? Is that? Is that true? It was
Speaker 1: part of it. She was this kind of an unhappy person. Um.
Speaker 1: She did go on to marry a man and uh,
Speaker 1: spend most of that in straight relationships. Although you know,
Speaker 1: I would say she's bisexual. She um, yeah, And I'm
Speaker 1: less concerned what was going through her head? This was
Speaker 1: going through your head to what the we were you shocked?
Speaker 1: And were you shocked in the therapist? Did you see
Speaker 1: it coming? What was your Yeah? Yeah, she yeah, I
Speaker 1: did see it coming. She Oh, you know where do
Speaker 1: you think? So songs like I'm the only One you
Speaker 1: know came from and and you know, and someone told
Speaker 1: me you lose them how you get them? And I
Speaker 1: met her when she was married. She was married to
Speaker 1: a movie star. I met her that way. I'm married
Speaker 1: to a man, you know, And so now I know, oh,
Speaker 1: you're not ever going to change these people. And so
Speaker 1: she kind of had that thing going on where she
Speaker 1: was always looking somewhere else and then some something else,
Speaker 1: and you know, it would be good for a few months,
Speaker 1: and then oh something would happen, and and you know,
Speaker 1: I was on the road a lot, and that was
Speaker 1: just gonna it's it's just And then I thought when
Speaker 1: we had kids that I was like, okay, so you're
Speaker 1: you're you're done with all that, right, We're having kids
Speaker 1: and we're gonna be together. Oh yeah. Well after we
Speaker 1: had kids, of course, now she's not happy. She's not happy.
Speaker 1: And when someone's not happy, you're just okay. There's nothing
Speaker 1: I can't make her happy, you know. So how did
Speaker 1: you discover you had cancer? Ah? Well, you know, after
Speaker 1: that breakup, that was really depressing. I got and you know,
Speaker 1: I I was it was just it was just hard.
Speaker 1: And music was changing. It's just two thousand, you know,
Speaker 1: everything's changing. Everything seems to be just falling apart. In
Speaker 1: this family that I thought I had, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: I only see them half the time. It was just horrible.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm really depressed. And I start a new relationship
Speaker 1: with a totally gay person, you know, and I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm doing the right thing now, and but I'm I'm
Speaker 1: not happy now. I've I've lost all my Mojoe and everything,
Speaker 1: and and um, I uh, I actually I um I had.
Speaker 1: I started right before I was diagnosed. I started, uh
Speaker 1: smoking cannabis, I had. I had never really done it much.
Speaker 1: I did it socially a little bit of my life,
Speaker 1: but I I started like doing it every weekend and
Speaker 1: it was really fun and I enjoyed myself on it.
Speaker 1: Just stopped for a second. Were you a drinker? No,
Speaker 1: I was not a drinker. You were. You were basically clean.
Speaker 1: So what was this transition into smoking cannabis on the weekends. Well,
Speaker 1: my my partner at the time was I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I like this as something someone had act actually given
Speaker 1: me as a gift, a whole bunch. And I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: well let's once, you know, when the kids go to
Speaker 1: the other house, let's try this. And I had so
Speaker 1: much fun and it was like this is great. And
Speaker 1: so after a few weeks um I said, have you
Speaker 1: ever done, like, uh, pot brownies or cookies or something?
Speaker 1: And she's like no, And I'm like, let's bake cookies.
Speaker 1: And she's a baker, and so she we end up, oh,
Speaker 1: well we're supposed to put this much in. Well, if
Speaker 1: that much is good, we'll let's put a bunch of
Speaker 1: So she makes these amazing cookies and I like eat
Speaker 1: three of them because they're delicious. And I have what
Speaker 1: I now call a heroic dose of cannabis. And I
Speaker 1: am one of those people. You hear them all that,
Speaker 1: you hear recordings of people who are like, I'm dying.
Speaker 1: I've taken too much, you know, I'm too high and
Speaker 1: I'm dying. Because it was this mind blowing, mind altering journeys.
Speaker 1: So I have this huge spiritual awakening, a light, you know,
Speaker 1: and and I started going, wait a minute, my life
Speaker 1: is totally not what I think it is. And a
Speaker 1: few weeks later, I'm diagnosed with cancer. So it's like
Speaker 1: I I become spiritually a where I have this new
Speaker 1: sort of outlook on life. And then oh, I've got
Speaker 1: this disease, this this thing. And so I walked through
Speaker 1: the whole process of of cancer. I stop touring, I
Speaker 1: stop everything, my whole life stops for the first time
Speaker 1: in what thirty years, you know, and I I find
Speaker 1: this all my answers sort of, all all my inspiration
Speaker 1: comes back, just roaring back after after I really I
Speaker 1: go through cancer. I I do about five chemo treatments.
Speaker 1: I'm bald. I sing on the grammys. I have this
Speaker 1: wonderful experience, and I realized that my health is absolutely
Speaker 1: the most important thing, and my health it has everything
Speaker 1: to do with my happiness. So my happiness is the
Speaker 1: most important thing. And I start walking this journey with that,
Speaker 1: and I start enjoying cannabis so much more regularly. It
Speaker 1: like gets me through chemotherapy. It helps me with pain
Speaker 1: and depression and appetite. And I through that and I
Speaker 1: become a huge plant medicine advocate and I still am.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm very and it's part of what Ethics Foundation
Speaker 1: is is um we we helped research for people to
Speaker 1: get people off of opioids, and you know your heroines
Speaker 1: and methodones and thing they by using a nature, nature
Speaker 1: based medicines and plant medicine. So that so the the
Speaker 1: cannabis and the cancer sort of hand in hand. Was
Speaker 1: this whole life changing experience for me. How did you
Speaker 1: literally find out did you find a lump? No? I
Speaker 1: had actually just had a physical a few months before
Speaker 1: and everything was fine, and I was out on tour
Speaker 1: and it was really really not happy. And I was
Speaker 1: in the shower in the morning and actually felt it
Speaker 1: on my breast and went, wow, that wasn't there yesterday.
Speaker 1: It felt like I didn't hadn't noticed it. And it
Speaker 1: was a lump. It was a big lump too. And
Speaker 1: then I just went to the doctor and I was like,
Speaker 1: what's this and they were like, I think I know
Speaker 1: what that is. And it was wonderful. The the woman
Speaker 1: who biopsy did this doctor I hadn't realized she had
Speaker 1: had a double mestecht to me and she goes, look,
Speaker 1: you're gonna be fine. This is the worst that can
Speaker 1: happen to you. And she showed me her double mistech
Speaker 1: to me and I was like, okay, great, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be fine. I'm gonna die, so let's, you know, let's
Speaker 1: move through this and see what happens. So you never Okay,
Speaker 1: I have cancer and I got it subsequent to me
Speaker 1: getting it twelve thirteen years ago. A lot of my
Speaker 1: friends have got it. I would say I got it
Speaker 1: early with the air quotes. But the first thing that
Speaker 1: happens is, and I'm good, is that you realize you're
Speaker 1: not gonna be here forever. You're gonna die. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: are mortal, Yes, we are mortal. Where we are, We're
Speaker 1: all gonna die. That's something and and for us to
Speaker 1: spend our whole lives afraid of when we're gonna die
Speaker 1: is ridiculous. That life is worth living every we're all
Speaker 1: gonna die. Okay, that's a given. So let's just let's
Speaker 1: just leave that over here and then be in the moment,
Speaker 1: be right now. And being in the moment is a
Speaker 1: huge healer for all the worries I think. I think
Speaker 1: my cancer came from worry, from sadness, from uh, my
Speaker 1: eating habits and and so much of of you know,
Speaker 1: putting myself last, putting everybody else first, and trying to
Speaker 1: fix everybody else. And finally when I just pulled that
Speaker 1: all back into myself, that's when I really found health
Speaker 1: and power. Now, you're a very outgoing, verbal person, magnetic,
Speaker 1: but you mentioned and of course anybody would be depressed
Speaker 1: with what you went through with those times. Are you
Speaker 1: generally prone to depression or you've always upbeat like this?
Speaker 1: I'm upbeat like this is my natural state. I love.
Speaker 1: I believe in the goodness of the world. I believe
Speaker 1: in in happiness. I believe that the point of living
Speaker 1: is to find happiness and joy. I believe joy is
Speaker 1: is is a human uh blessing in a state that
Speaker 1: that one is in and and is where health and
Speaker 1: longevity starts. Okay, let's go back to something you said
Speaker 1: earlier about the change in the music business really started
Speaker 1: with Napster the year two thousand. As time goes by,
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff changes. The heritage artists from the seventies,
Speaker 1: they put out new albums, crickets, the most famous people,
Speaker 1: most of them stop making records. Then as we ultimate
Speaker 1: believe all to Spotify. A lot of them are and
Speaker 1: a lot of people who made it before or anti Spotify,
Speaker 1: But all of a sudden we wake up and rock
Speaker 1: is not the dominant format it was previously. What are
Speaker 1: your thoughts about all this, Well, having been a musician
Speaker 1: through all of it, I I have seen how I
Speaker 1: reach people change, you know. I no longer there's no
Speaker 1: there's no rock radio. There's not even record companies really
Speaker 1: anymore that do that. They're all focused on fifteen year olds,
Speaker 1: you know, and where they can sell this product. And
Speaker 1: then I realized that, oh I was a product to them,
Speaker 1: and I'm I like, when we started this conversation, it's
Speaker 1: I can reach my fans directly, and I know and
Speaker 1: my whole goal has been to be an artist that
Speaker 1: when they hear I'm coming to town, they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's a good show. I want to go see that.
Speaker 1: I've either seen it before or I've heard that this
Speaker 1: is a good time. And if I have that reputation
Speaker 1: as a live artist, you can't replicate that. So I
Speaker 1: think in this business the winners are the rolling stones. No,
Speaker 1: they're not making any new records and we're not hearing
Speaker 1: them on the radio, but they are selling out you know, stadiums. Uh,
Speaker 1: these artists. Because you cannot replicate live music on a
Speaker 1: computer in your bedroom. You know you can. You can
Speaker 1: make songs that people like to hear, and you can
Speaker 1: make moods and you can do that, and that's all good.
Speaker 1: It's the longevity lives in the artists that connect with people,
Speaker 1: that treat them coming to see them as as a gift.
Speaker 1: I'm so grateful every audience that comes to see me,
Speaker 1: but every audience I play for, no matter where, no
Speaker 1: matter how small, those I want those people to want
Speaker 1: to come back and see me. So that's my career,
Speaker 1: is the live performing and and I get I still
Speaker 1: get to make albums. I still get to to make music.
Speaker 1: And release it and have new things and presented. I still,
Speaker 1: you know, I'll present that. Of course every show, I'm
Speaker 1: playing my my hits, because you know, we all want
Speaker 1: to see come to my window and wave our arms
Speaker 1: and stuff and and that's part of it. But I
Speaker 1: my job is to entertain you and for you to
Speaker 1: leave and go, oh, that was great. I can't wait
Speaker 1: to see it again. So you're still just as motivated
Speaker 1: to record music. Yeah, it's different. And I'm actually in
Speaker 1: a place right now where I'm in a in a
Speaker 1: writing cycle where I am writing. But I do have
Speaker 1: the question of wow, do I just release one song
Speaker 1: at a time? Now? Is the album actually dead? You know?
Speaker 1: And I have realized that I have a choice. I
Speaker 1: can I can do ten songs and put out an album,
Speaker 1: or I can do four and put out an EP.
Speaker 1: I can just release one. I have all these choices.
Speaker 1: So as I'm writing, I'm gonna see my preference is
Speaker 1: to do an album because I think I think my
Speaker 1: my fans love to get a collection of songs that
Speaker 1: represent what I'm going through and at the times, and
Speaker 1: something they can sit and listen to and have an
Speaker 1: hour with, you know. So Deborah Tan and this is
Speaker 1: not a pop psychologist is a degreed person. She wrote
Speaker 1: a book you just don't understand difference between men and women,
Speaker 1: and you talked about men are always needing a career
Speaker 1: arc that goes up, where women can go up and
Speaker 1: go down. So you have these huge triumphs which to
Speaker 1: a great degree are not available to anybody anymore. How
Speaker 1: does it feel do you look back and say, well,
Speaker 1: I was there and now I'm here. How do you go? Oh?
Speaker 1: Very much so, because looking back is is not I
Speaker 1: don't ever compare myself to you know what. I celebrate
Speaker 1: what I used to do. I look at I still
Speaker 1: got goals in front of me. I just got offered
Speaker 1: uh to play at stage Coach a festival here, and
Speaker 1: that's my That's the first big festival of this sort
Speaker 1: of festival era, you know, the last ten twenty years
Speaker 1: that has asked me to play. And I'm excited. I'm like, yes,
Speaker 1: I finally have reached that level. And I'm always I'm
Speaker 1: always looking to expand and and I love that I have.
Speaker 1: I have younger people coming to see me. The younger
Speaker 1: generation is finding me, and so there's still so much
Speaker 1: to do and so much I want to do? And
Speaker 1: how much long are you going to do this? Oh,
Speaker 1: I'll go until I can't. I will never say I'm
Speaker 1: to retire. You'll never hear me say that, because I
Speaker 1: think that's silly. I mean, how do you retire from music?
Speaker 1: You know? And and I see my older peers, you know,
Speaker 1: as long as Bruce goes, I'm gonna go definitely, But
Speaker 1: who knows I will go? I I you know, I
Speaker 1: did you see you know Joni Mitchell just let the
Speaker 1: Newport you know. Yeah, that was beautiful. It made me cry.
Speaker 1: It was just gorgeous. You know. I'm my job is
Speaker 1: to keep myself healthy and have joy and longevity in
Speaker 1: my in my life. Well, you talk about stage coach.
Speaker 1: You know, this term from the movie has been overused,
Speaker 1: but it represents the concept better than anything else, which
Speaker 1: is bucket list. Anything you haven't done personally as well
Speaker 1: as in your career that you would like to do
Speaker 1: in the time you have left. Not a whole lot,
Speaker 1: because really I've done, you know, I got the Grammys,
Speaker 1: I got the Oscar I uh oh, I think I'd
Speaker 1: like a tone. I'd like an egot. I would like
Speaker 1: to be one of the under twenty people who have
Speaker 1: an egot. I think that would that that's something that
Speaker 1: I'd like. Yes, well, you know a lot of acts
Speaker 1: of your vintage UH have gone to Broadways. That's something
Speaker 1: on your horizon, Yes, sir, that is, that's something we're
Speaker 1: working on right now. You might hear about that in
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks. Yeah, we're gonna we're gonna do
Speaker 1: something the end of this year off Broadway and hopefully
Speaker 1: bring it to Broadway. And you're very involved in your career.
Speaker 1: But what do you do when you're not working? I
Speaker 1: do my family. I love my family and I do
Speaker 1: a lot of that, and I do a lot of
Speaker 1: um gardening. I love my I just love my house.
Speaker 1: When i'm I love traveling with my my family. It's
Speaker 1: mostly my family and work. That's really what I am.
Speaker 1: And anywhere you haven't been you want to go. I
Speaker 1: would like to go to UH, South Africa. I know
Speaker 1: I have fans there, I have fans in Brazil, never
Speaker 1: been there, and the Asian country has never really been
Speaker 1: there either. Okay, Melsta, this has been wonderful. I want
Speaker 1: to thank you for taking the time. You know, you're
Speaker 1: very articulate, very positive, a joy to talk to. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much. What a pleasure to go through my
Speaker 1: life with you, my friend. It was great for me too,
Speaker 1: So until next time. This is Bob Left sex