Speaker 1: Welcome to Inside the Studio presented by I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: I'm your host Joe Levy okay so. On the home
Speaker 1: edition of the show, Our Quarantine correspondent Jordan run Tug
Speaker 1: has talked with musicians who found new ways to make
Speaker 1: music and play shows during these pandemic times. I mean,
Speaker 1: my living room has a pretty broad booking policy. Since
Speaker 1: Lockdown started from the comfort of my couch, I've watched
Speaker 1: a lot of shows, indie rock, folk rock, DJ battles,
Speaker 1: punk rock country. If you stream it, me and the
Speaker 1: cats will watch it, or or at least I'll watch it.
Speaker 1: The cats are a little more finicky than I am.
Speaker 1: But this week's guest, Melissa Etheridge, has taken things up
Speaker 1: a notch. After she broadcast more than fifty show was
Speaker 1: on Facebook, she basically launched her own network out of
Speaker 1: her garage. Some people make their garage into a home
Speaker 1: recording studio. She turned it into a home TV studio
Speaker 1: and on Etheridge TV, which is subscription driven, she does
Speaker 1: cover songs one night, a talk show the next. She
Speaker 1: throws in a mix of home videos and classic old clips.
Speaker 1: Sometimes there are live concerts. Jordan talked with her about
Speaker 1: how she built all of this like build it literally
Speaker 1: by hand, no road crew, and also how she's been
Speaker 1: coping with things personally and professionally during these really challenging times.
Speaker 1: And that's why we started the home edition of Inside
Speaker 1: the Studio to let you know how artists were coping
Speaker 1: with things right now, how it's impacting their lives and
Speaker 1: the way they make music. And and there really hasn't
Speaker 1: been a more personally moving episode than this one so far.
Speaker 1: So if you enjoy it, be her to listen to
Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio podcast that Jordan's hosts, which is
Speaker 1: called Rivals Music's Greatest Feuds, and which is available wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. Hello everyone, my name is Jordan
Speaker 1: runt Out, But enough about me. My guest today is
Speaker 1: a bona fide music Icon's gone to the top of
Speaker 1: the charts with hits like come to My Window and
Speaker 1: I Want to Come Over. The grit and power of
Speaker 1: her vocals and the raw passion of her live performances
Speaker 1: saw her mentioned in the same breath as Janice Joplin,
Speaker 1: but rock stardom is just part of her story. In
Speaker 1: proudly answered questions about her sexuality with the title of
Speaker 1: her breakthrough album, yes, I am. Since coming out, she's
Speaker 1: been a trailblazer for the LGBTQ community and a tireless
Speaker 1: social activist. She's also one of Rock's greatest survivors, overcoming cancer, divorce,
Speaker 1: and most recently, in the Lossopher Son Beckett to opioid addiction.
Speaker 1: Now she's using the personal tragedy to help others and
Speaker 1: make a difference. I'm so thrilled to welcome Melissa Ethridge.
Speaker 1: That's my pleasure. Thank you so much. It means the
Speaker 1: world to me. So many things I want to talk
Speaker 1: to about me a huge fan. But the purpose of
Speaker 1: the show is the check in with artists and see
Speaker 1: how they've been coping with lockdown, which is obviously something
Speaker 1: that's impacted all of us, but you've been coping with
Speaker 1: so much more. If you're comfortable sharing, have you been doing?
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Um, I'm I'm doing okay. I
Speaker 1: gotta tell you. You know, when you know the pandemic
Speaker 1: and everything hit and realizing that there was going to
Speaker 1: be no you know, personal performance appearances, there's no audiences
Speaker 1: this year. You know that that was you know, that
Speaker 1: was a certain low and a certain depression, and then
Speaker 1: to lose the family members like, oh my god, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm even deeper in this hole. And and it, um,
Speaker 1: it does challenge ones, uh you know, ones own you know,
Speaker 1: personal belie in in life and in getting through things
Speaker 1: and all the things I've ever been talking about in
Speaker 1: my life. So I am doing well. We have, We've
Speaker 1: been healing. Uh. You know this, um, this epidemic of
Speaker 1: opioid addiction. You know, I'm not the only I'm by
Speaker 1: far not the only one, unfortunately. So uh, it's it's
Speaker 1: something I of course now I'm very passionate about. And
Speaker 1: and uh, but thank you. I'm We're doing We're doing fine.
Speaker 1: We're healing every day. So glad to hear that. I
Speaker 1: last year I had the honor of speaking to David
Speaker 1: Crosby and he said something that I'll never forget. He said,
Speaker 1: music is a healing force. It makes us better. What
Speaker 1: is it about music for you that that is such
Speaker 1: a healing force? What does it give to you? I
Speaker 1: realized a long time ago the healing that I get
Speaker 1: from from singing and performing music is this in tense um,
Speaker 1: you know, taking the energy of music, this this creation
Speaker 1: of vibration that that then affects us emotionally and as
Speaker 1: much as it affects somebody else, oh boy, ten times
Speaker 1: it affects me when I'm singing, when I'm performing, when
Speaker 1: I'm Uh, it's a way of release, it's a it's
Speaker 1: a cleaning out of blowing out of of any you know,
Speaker 1: stagnant emotions that that could you grow into, you know,
Speaker 1: something physical. So it's it's uh, it's absolutely saved me
Speaker 1: more than once. I've read that. You've read a lot
Speaker 1: about quantum physics, and it's such a great logical explanation
Speaker 1: of putting good vibrations out there, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's so funny. Yeah, we've heard the term good vibrations,
Speaker 1: but if you really dig down into the science, there
Speaker 1: are indeed good vibrations. You know, there's we are a
Speaker 1: vibrational universe. That that's how we're made. Strings, vibrant things
Speaker 1: vibrate into matter. You know, we're all vibrating. When you
Speaker 1: really start thinking about that, then you understand the importance
Speaker 1: of a good feeling, which is a good vibration. You
Speaker 1: you feel different when you think a good thought to
Speaker 1: to you know, music and the vibrations that music, uh cause,
Speaker 1: and and you know there's study after study of of
Speaker 1: how these vibrations affect us physically. I watched your heal
Speaker 1: Me concert, a beautiful performance. How did you know it
Speaker 1: was time to get back out there and keep making
Speaker 1: music because I had a desire. I always feel better
Speaker 1: after a performance period, no matter what, I always feel better.
Speaker 1: So it's that release. And UM, my wife and I
Speaker 1: when uh, you know, when we lost our son, we
Speaker 1: stopped and we were doing uh these free concerts every
Speaker 1: day here in this office right here, and and we were,
Speaker 1: you know, enjoying that. And then when that tragedy happened,
Speaker 1: we stopped and we just sort of said, okay, we
Speaker 1: let the wave go over us and go, okay, now
Speaker 1: now what does this mean? Where are we what are
Speaker 1: we doing? And we put together, uh we changed our
Speaker 1: garage into a into a real like because we we'd
Speaker 1: sit here in the office and go, I wish I
Speaker 1: had more cameras. Oh, I wish I had because we're
Speaker 1: both in I mean, she's in television and I'm in music.
Speaker 1: We're both in entertainment, and we we just kept dreaming up,
Speaker 1: oh what if we could do this, what if we
Speaker 1: could do that? And then all of a sudden, we
Speaker 1: had time in front of us, and we said, let's
Speaker 1: do it. And every day we went out there, every
Speaker 1: single day, and it just healed us because we were
Speaker 1: building something, we were growing, we were moving forward and
Speaker 1: and that really, really, really really helped us. And so
Speaker 1: there came a time when it was everything was up,
Speaker 1: we were, you know, ready to take on air and
Speaker 1: I and I told my people, I said, Okay, this
Speaker 1: is the time I want to I want to bring
Speaker 1: this back into my life. I miss performing it. It's
Speaker 1: just healing. I mean, it's just the studio looks incredible.
Speaker 1: It looks like you created like the filmore in your
Speaker 1: garage or something. It looks gorgeous. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: some people make banana bread during the pandemic, some people
Speaker 1: and playing puzzles. You made your TV station. How did
Speaker 1: this idea come about? Like what was the genesis of that? Oh? Well, wow,
Speaker 1: you got to go back about twenty years. Actually, my
Speaker 1: wife and I met because we wanted to do it.
Speaker 1: She I was auditioning for a she was doing a
Speaker 1: she had done the seventies show and she was going
Speaker 1: to do the eight show. And we met the auditioned
Speaker 1: for that. But it didn't happen. But for twenty years
Speaker 1: we've been pitching the idea of a television show, and
Speaker 1: it was it was back when um reality shows were
Speaker 1: brand new and the idea of following a celebrity around
Speaker 1: was brand new, and we were sort of pitching it
Speaker 1: and everyone's like, I don't know, and then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, the Osbournes were on, and then that took.
Speaker 1: So then we started pitching an idea of a scripted
Speaker 1: reality sort of this, uh, you know our life, but
Speaker 1: you know, but scripted, And then of course then all
Speaker 1: the the Office and all those came out. We're okay,
Speaker 1: at least we're at the cutting edge here, and we
Speaker 1: know what we're thinking is not crazy, and so we
Speaker 1: the last few years we started thinking, there's a way
Speaker 1: of taking everything that we have. There's a way of
Speaker 1: of taking our music and the experiences and the people
Speaker 1: and and all the things we want to say and
Speaker 1: reach and all the things we're passionate about and making
Speaker 1: entertainment out of it and making television and so uh,
Speaker 1: we we said, look, I really I want I want
Speaker 1: to I don't want to be beholden to someone else's platform,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't want to because we were doing
Speaker 1: it on Facebook, but that there's a there's a limitation
Speaker 1: to that. And I said, there's gonna be a way
Speaker 1: that we can be in control of everything and just
Speaker 1: have a platform that can then reach people. And we
Speaker 1: found Maestro, which it's perfect. They're like, whatever you want
Speaker 1: to do, this is a platform. Here's what you can do,
Speaker 1: and and we just ran with it. And it's so
Speaker 1: funny because what we're doing out there, uh, we keep
Speaker 1: running into difficulties because no one's doing what we're doing.
Speaker 1: We're we're doing a multi camera live multi camera shoot
Speaker 1: streaming and so we've got this we've plastered together uh
Speaker 1: at this point six different cameras that are all different
Speaker 1: of all different um varieties. Because you know, our budget,
Speaker 1: we don't we have no budget, so you know, so
Speaker 1: we we got a few here. Logitech was uh they
Speaker 1: sent us some of theirs. But but there's go straight
Speaker 1: into the camera and we're using a straight into the computer.
Speaker 1: We're using a switcher, so we have two separate platforms
Speaker 1: that were filming from going into one platform going into
Speaker 1: the Maestro. So so every now and then we have
Speaker 1: like problems, We're like, what's this, and every's like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, we've never done this before, maybe you should
Speaker 1: do this. And and so it's fun because I get
Speaker 1: to do what I love. I've got my audio and
Speaker 1: set up. I've got a Yamahawk quee uh one thousand
Speaker 1: or whatever the numbers are after that, and you know,
Speaker 1: which is like a live mixing recording board, and I've
Speaker 1: got that set up, and my sound man um over
Speaker 1: the phone was helping me learn exactly how to run that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so I've got and I had in my warehouse,
Speaker 1: I had a bunch of audio equipment just over the
Speaker 1: years that I've collected. So I went in and I
Speaker 1: got all that out and I, you know, so I've
Speaker 1: got all the old microphones and chords and XLR cables
Speaker 1: and so I wired up the thing myself. My wife,
Speaker 1: you know, setting up the cameras, and we're just we're
Speaker 1: just like, well, what if we could do this, Well,
Speaker 1: let's find out how to do it, and we just
Speaker 1: we just keep going down this road and it's it's
Speaker 1: actually it can be very frustrating, but it's also very
Speaker 1: satisfying when we when we figure it out. Very satisfying
Speaker 1: was the expression. Chef, cook and bottle wash or something
Speaker 1: like that. That that is you You were doing everything sound, lights,
Speaker 1: building the set physically. That's incredible. I mean we learned
Speaker 1: things about lights. When it got to the lighting point,
Speaker 1: we just looked at each other and went, wow, I
Speaker 1: really appreciate the crews that we have had, you know,
Speaker 1: the my lighting director her her whole you know, camera
Speaker 1: crew that she used to have. And we were like,
Speaker 1: we have a real appreciation for these artisans and and
Speaker 1: we started going, oh, we had no idea. It's like,
Speaker 1: do we use five wats or two underdwats? You know,
Speaker 1: I have no idea, and we had to We just
Speaker 1: kept We went to the home deep o and just
Speaker 1: just got every kind of lightbulb there was, just to
Speaker 1: see what looks good on camera. We really studied how
Speaker 1: to light it. That that was probably the most intense.
Speaker 1: I mean, the camera parts pretty intense, but the you know,
Speaker 1: the lighting is a big deal. That is amazing. And
Speaker 1: there's so much to the programs you do. I mean
Speaker 1: there's there's the chat shows, there's obviously the concerts. There's
Speaker 1: watching some of the throwback videos that you have, which
Speaker 1: are so cooled. They've been in any treasures that you
Speaker 1: found in those videos. I tell you, I could stay
Speaker 1: up all night watching those old videos, just because you know,
Speaker 1: you you live your life and you do things, and
Speaker 1: you're moving on, and year by year goes by. Pretty
Speaker 1: soon you look back and go, oh, my god, it
Speaker 1: was thirty years ago I did this, and I look,
Speaker 1: I can look back now and think, oh, I used
Speaker 1: to think, you know anything from you know, I'm too
Speaker 1: fat too, you know, which is just a just a
Speaker 1: devastating thought that so many of us have to you know,
Speaker 1: Oh that song wasn't very good to you know. I
Speaker 1: just really want to get out of this. I want to,
Speaker 1: you know, achieve my goals and and being on the
Speaker 1: other side of it now and and going back and
Speaker 1: we're we're this week, last week, and this week we're
Speaker 1: playing a video from uh, the last club date, the
Speaker 1: last bar. You know, I played in this women's bar
Speaker 1: in Pasadena and also went on Long Beach, but I
Speaker 1: played there for over four years every week and it
Speaker 1: was the last big and this guy came in and
Speaker 1: filmed it. It's a you know, really poor lighting vhs,
Speaker 1: but you know, you get it and the sound and
Speaker 1: sometimes it goes off, but it's it's I just watch
Speaker 1: it and go, oh my god, if I had no
Speaker 1: idea what I was back then, and and it's it's
Speaker 1: it really gets to my heart. And it's fun sharing
Speaker 1: that with the fans. It's like, you know, it's really
Speaker 1: really cool. They seem to enjoy it. Well, would you
Speaker 1: tell that person in that video now, I'd say, stop worrying,
Speaker 1: chill It's about the journey. It is not about getting
Speaker 1: somewhere that because there's no there there, there's no place
Speaker 1: where all of a sudden everyone's gathered in a room
Speaker 1: and said, well, you made it. You know that that
Speaker 1: doesn't exist. It absolutely doesn't exist. Because even when you
Speaker 1: do reach the point of oh I got that Grammy nomination,
Speaker 1: that's not what fills you up. What fills you up
Speaker 1: is the journey to it and through it and then
Speaker 1: beyond it and and dreaming more dreams and all I
Speaker 1: want this and I hope I can do this, and
Speaker 1: and keeping those dreams in front of you and then
Speaker 1: enjoying every step of the way. That's what I would say.
Speaker 1: I'd say, just chill out. It's it's about the journey.
Speaker 1: You're you're You're gonna be fine. Some of my my
Speaker 1: favorite parts of the show is watching you and your
Speaker 1: daughter Bailey sing together. It was like they saw a
Speaker 1: version of gently we row recently. Uh do you make
Speaker 1: a lot of music together on the house A fair amount.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say a lot. She she's actually working from
Speaker 1: home here and she she works you know, in a
Speaker 1: bank and from New York City and she she's able
Speaker 1: to go online and work here and so, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: we don't do a lot, but um. Over the years,
Speaker 1: It's funny people ask me about my kids. They're like,
Speaker 1: you know, what do they want to go into, you know,
Speaker 1: the music business? And I say, none of them have
Speaker 1: the like that burning desire dream to do. They all
Speaker 1: have their own burning desires. And I think that they've
Speaker 1: grown up on the inside of it and they've seen
Speaker 1: how much work it is, and you know, and and
Speaker 1: they don't have this sort of dream like I did
Speaker 1: of being oh famous and you know, making music and
Speaker 1: that that that's and my daughter said, people people will
Speaker 1: will tell her, oh, you you play the guitar really well,
Speaker 1: She's like, no, I don't. If you knew my family.
Speaker 1: If you knew my family, you would know that I'm
Speaker 1: the worst guitar player in my family. That's where she
Speaker 1: comes from. So to answer your question, yeah, we make
Speaker 1: some music, but it's not like all the time at all. Well,
Speaker 1: speaking of making music, your most recent album, The Medicine Show,
Speaker 1: came out a little over a year ago. What are
Speaker 1: you working now now musically that you're you're really proud of?
Speaker 1: Can you say, oh, well, yeah, I've got a project
Speaker 1: coming up that's really exciting if we um, you know,
Speaker 1: I come from Leavenworth, Kansas, which you know when I
Speaker 1: say Leavenworth, most people go, oh, prisons. And that's the
Speaker 1: that's the truth is that there within my hometown there's
Speaker 1: within twenty mile radius there's five prisons. And I have
Speaker 1: all and and I when I was in when I
Speaker 1: was twelve and thirteen, I used to go with this
Speaker 1: little variety show that we had in town and we
Speaker 1: would go perform in the prisons. So I've been in there.
Speaker 1: And I am also now very passionate about cannabis. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, justice reform around cannabis, and have a cannabis
Speaker 1: line and and um, I'm working with the Last Prisoner Project,
Speaker 1: which is working to get you know, non violent offenders.
Speaker 1: There's forty thousand prisoners locked away for cannabis while you know,
Speaker 1: people are making millions of dollars selling cannabis. So it's
Speaker 1: just it just doesn't make sense and it's just disheartening.
Speaker 1: So with all of that thrown together, UM, I'm going
Speaker 1: to do a concert in one of the prisons in Leavenworth.
Speaker 1: And Um, it's just at the beginning stages right now,
Speaker 1: but I'm starting to right because I want to write
Speaker 1: a project about about justice, about these times, and so
Speaker 1: I'm in the writing phase of it, and and it's
Speaker 1: it's hard to you know, imagine the end, but I
Speaker 1: know it's it's you know, it's going to be. I'm
Speaker 1: I'm really excited about it. I'm really excited about the project.
Speaker 1: Oh that's so cool. It almost sounds like what's the
Speaker 1: John Lennon song John Sinclair about the the many they
Speaker 1: locked up for having two joints on them or something
Speaker 1: in ninety Yeah, Johnson Claire is exactly. Yeah. Oh wow,
Speaker 1: that's incredible. I can't can't wait to hear. Oh. I
Speaker 1: mean now, I mean, do you sit down? I'm sorry
Speaker 1: it was a boring question. Do you sit down every day?
Speaker 1: Like some people approach exercise and say I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: right today or is it more why when you feel
Speaker 1: inspired and and have something in your head that you
Speaker 1: want to get down, Well, it sort of depends on
Speaker 1: where I'm at in the process. Like right now, I'm
Speaker 1: in I'm in the conceptual process. I now it's about
Speaker 1: ideas and and and grabbing inspiration as it goes along,
Speaker 1: because inspiration is the most important part, because it's about
Speaker 1: being in spirit. It's it's it's becoming in the spirit
Speaker 1: of this project I want to do. And so I'll
Speaker 1: see something or hear something, or feel something or think
Speaker 1: something that, oh, right, this this is the field that
Speaker 1: I'm looking for there, and I just start gathering these
Speaker 1: pieces together, either in my mind or my notebooks or
Speaker 1: in my you know, my iPhone or wherever I'm collecting
Speaker 1: the the information or the music of the rhythm of
Speaker 1: the thought. I collect them, and then probably in in
Speaker 1: a few weeks, I will start giving myself Okay, from
Speaker 1: this time to this time, from you know, ten to
Speaker 1: let's say, one o'clock. Uh, you know, this is time.
Speaker 1: I'm going to come in here and I'm going to
Speaker 1: you know, start forming. You know, I'm gonna pick up
Speaker 1: a guitar and start forming songs and forming li orcs
Speaker 1: and forming ideas, and then it's more like an everyday thing.
Speaker 1: But um, but I'm not one to if it's not coming.
Speaker 1: If I'm sitting in here for thirty minutes and it
Speaker 1: just feels like torture. Music should never feel like torture,
Speaker 1: So I'm I'm going to go do something else. So
Speaker 1: I it's it's providing my inspiration a time and a
Speaker 1: place to form. But if it's not happening. No, do
Speaker 1: you tend to get your inspiration from looking outward or
Speaker 1: looking inward? Oh? Both used to be looking outward, And
Speaker 1: then as I've gotten older and matured and you know,
Speaker 1: experienced life, now it's now it's about inward. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: they both sort of affect one affects the other, and
Speaker 1: you it's mostly about how how one affects the other.
Speaker 1: How you know, what I'm feeling inside can affect what's
Speaker 1: happening outside, And how you know, do I let what
Speaker 1: happens outside change me inside? You know? That's that sort
Speaker 1: of thing. I was sitting here and I was thinking
Speaker 1: of you, your music and your life and the world.
Speaker 1: That kept coming into my mind was survivor. You know,
Speaker 1: you've been through so much, and people are really hurting
Speaker 1: right now. There's the virus rampant, social injustice, political divisions,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of fear out there. What would you
Speaker 1: say to people right now who really are scared? I
Speaker 1: would say, if you could really pull back and look
Speaker 1: at where we are as a human race, if we
Speaker 1: could really take a moment to go general, go go
Speaker 1: up and look and see that we are further along
Speaker 1: than we've ever been in our in our existence. We are,
Speaker 1: we are closer, we are better than we've ever been.
Speaker 1: And it's that's one of the reasons that you see
Speaker 1: these these injustices, these things that that you know make
Speaker 1: as stop and go wait, amant, We're not that. You know,
Speaker 1: when you see a policeman's need, you know, kill someone,
Speaker 1: you're like, wait a minute, that's not That's not who
Speaker 1: I am, and that's not where what I want to be,
Speaker 1: that's not the world I want to be in. And
Speaker 1: because there's such a fierce response to that, that's what
Speaker 1: moves us forward. So just know that the way you
Speaker 1: feel right now is causing all of us to want better,
Speaker 1: and that's what moves us as a society. That's what
Speaker 1: I truly believe we're going to move because it has
Speaker 1: felt like we've been pulled back these last four years,
Speaker 1: that we are going to feel a momentum forward. And
Speaker 1: all you have to do is keep believing that we
Speaker 1: get better. We do. We recognize what we don't like,
Speaker 1: we recognize what we don't want, and we most of
Speaker 1: all recognize that we are all diverse, that we are
Speaker 1: never all going to agree. We cannot and we don't
Speaker 1: want to. That's not what this This life is about.
Speaker 1: Variety and about difference. And if we relax in the diversity,
Speaker 1: relax in the knowing that, Okay, everyone's different, we look different,
Speaker 1: we love different, we want differently, and to allow the
Speaker 1: freedom in that, that's the that's the challenge for our leaders.
Speaker 1: So so we can we are still moving forward, no
Speaker 1: matter how you feel, no matter what the news is
Speaker 1: telling you, we are moving forward through this. We are
Speaker 1: getting better. That's a beautiful way to look at it.
Speaker 1: And it makes me think of the story you told
Speaker 1: about the head of your first record label, who I
Speaker 1: won't name, who said, yeah, it's finally be gay, just
Speaker 1: don't weave a flag, which is crazy. And now you're
Speaker 1: a pride parades. Yeah, nobody, nobody had come out. They
Speaker 1: didn't know, they didn't know what happened. They before then
Speaker 1: it was people lost their jobs, you know, lost everything.
Speaker 1: So you know, so so it was that just that fear,
Speaker 1: and all you gotta do is just stand up to
Speaker 1: the fear and go you know what, I I'm not
Speaker 1: afraid of that. If people aren't gonna listen to me
Speaker 1: because I'm gay, well that's that's their loss, you know.
Speaker 1: And if you can move through it like that, then
Speaker 1: that changes. I've discovered that every time I did that,
Speaker 1: every time I you know, she said well, this is
Speaker 1: my truth and I'm gonna speak and I'm gonna just
Speaker 1: tell you where I'm at. That it unburdened me, and
Speaker 1: it put the choice on the other person. And then okay,
Speaker 1: if you if that bugs you, okay, go ahead, go away,
Speaker 1: you know, and that way other it just opens up everything.
Speaker 1: Speak truth as a hell of a mother. The year
Speaker 1: you came out publicly was the year you released Yes
Speaker 1: I Am. That must have been such a validating my
Speaker 1: to have that be the breakthrough, that title. You know,
Speaker 1: it was funny, the this was just right. It was
Speaker 1: definitely before social media. But it was just as the
Speaker 1: Internet was coming out, So everything took a whole lot
Speaker 1: longer back then. You know, this was six years ago,
Speaker 1: twenty seven years ago, and um, and so this process
Speaker 1: of coming up, whereas today it would be oh she
Speaker 1: came out, boom, everyone would know in a day, it
Speaker 1: took like over a year for it to really start
Speaker 1: to take hold. And then this album Who, which I had,
Speaker 1: I've I felt yes when I wrote Yes I Am
Speaker 1: the song and had nothing to do with being well,
Speaker 1: all my songs have to do with being gay, but
Speaker 1: but you know I wasn't speaking about it in the song,
Speaker 1: and um, you know it's a love song. It's a
Speaker 1: it's a sort of passionate, possessive love song. And um.
Speaker 1: Yet then realizing oh, that's such a positive statement. Yes
Speaker 1: I am, Yes, I am, And then and then realizing,
Speaker 1: oh I came out. Oh that's gonna mean a whole
Speaker 1: lot of things if I say yes I am, so
Speaker 1: I uh, you know, I cheekily put it out, but
Speaker 1: also you know it it served its purpose. It was
Speaker 1: when it was a fine album. I'm very happy with
Speaker 1: that album. Yes, yes it is. You know I never
Speaker 1: thought of that yes I am. It's such a positive statement.
Speaker 1: It reminds me of like a John and Yoko kind
Speaker 1: of thing, just declaration of whatever it is you are.
Speaker 1: Yet you can continue comparing me to John Lennon all then,
Speaker 1: and haven't even gotten a chance to thank you fifteen
Speaker 1: years later for your incredible Janis Joplin should be performance too,
Speaker 1: So while we're at it, thank you. What is making
Speaker 1: music taught you about yourself? Well, it's given me the
Speaker 1: opportunity to to be creative, to uh express my emotions
Speaker 1: in a way that I wouldn't allow myself to do personally.
Speaker 1: You know, I came from Kansas, a very repressed Midwestern
Speaker 1: sort of upbringing. We didn't you know, you don't cause
Speaker 1: any trouble, You don't get angry. You just you know,
Speaker 1: be good girl, and you know, do your job and
Speaker 1: work hard and go home. And being able to express
Speaker 1: my emotions, especially especially the dark, you know, passionate ones,
Speaker 1: it taught me that, you know, I'm more than what
Speaker 1: I was raised with, you know what I was, I'm
Speaker 1: more than what I was raised to be. Wow, that's
Speaker 1: a beautiful thing to learn about oneself. My my last questions,
Speaker 1: the question I always like to end on on this show.
Speaker 1: What's the first thing you want to do in this
Speaker 1: pandemic is over? You know, if you could snap your
Speaker 1: fingers and if everything to be back to normal, their trips,
Speaker 1: You want to take people, you want to hug. I
Speaker 1: just well, I want to hug everyone. I've always been
Speaker 1: a hugger. And this is I don't think it's healthy
Speaker 1: for us. We are we as human beings are made
Speaker 1: to interact with other people. The healthiest human beings are
Speaker 1: the ones that have relationships. And so this this isolation
Speaker 1: is I mean, I believe it. It was part of
Speaker 1: what contributed to my son's death. You know, this, this
Speaker 1: sort of isolation, this that you're alone, and and um
Speaker 1: also yes, I want to I want to hug everyone
Speaker 1: I love. I want to hug strangers. I want to
Speaker 1: and I cannot wait to step on stage to an audience.
Speaker 1: I just there's there's nothing like it. It's it's something
Speaker 1: that that only a few people know, and it is
Speaker 1: just that community that you know, that ritual of singing
Speaker 1: and dancing and moving all together. I just I really
Speaker 1: want to get back to that. As a fan, I
Speaker 1: want to say I can't wait to see you back
Speaker 1: there Amen, come on, let's do it. We hope you
Speaker 1: enjoyed this episode of Inside the Studio Home Edition, a
Speaker 1: production of I heart Radio. For more episodes of Inside
Speaker 1: the Studio and other shows from I heart Radio, check
Speaker 1: out the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts.