Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, it's Sophia. Welcome to work in progress. Friends.
Speaker 1: I am always excited to be here with you. Every
Speaker 1: week we have guests that I adore, admire, and am
Speaker 1: fascinated by. But when I tell you that today, I
Speaker 1: am almost vibrating out of my own chair because I
Speaker 1: am so excited about the woman who is here with me.
Speaker 1: She is an icon, an idol of mine. Her music
Speaker 1: raised me, her stories have inspired me. She is one
Speaker 1: of those people who reminds me that courage is contagious.
Speaker 1: Our guest today is none other than the iconic Melissa Asridge.
Speaker 1: Melissa is one of rock music's great female icons who
Speaker 1: happens to have become an icon in rock and roll
Speaker 1: when there were almost no women playing the guitar. Her
Speaker 1: popularity was built around incredible songs like bring Me Some Water,
Speaker 1: No Souvenirs Come to My Window, which is personally one
Speaker 1: of my favorites in the world. Her fourth album, Yes
Speaker 1: I Am, earned her a second Grammy, and in the
Speaker 1: midst of this incredible career, she battled breast cancer publicly
Speaker 1: and shared her journey with fans, even taking the stage
Speaker 1: in front of massive audiences completely bald, inspiring people to
Speaker 1: never give Up. She made her Broadway debut in Green
Speaker 1: Day's rock opera American Idiot in twenty eleven, the same
Speaker 1: year she happened to receive her star on the Hollywood
Speaker 1: Walk of Fame, and this year she has launched the
Speaker 1: incredible show My Window on Broadway. I was lucky enough
Speaker 1: to go and see it opening night in New York
Speaker 1: and I was positively shaking out of my chair that
Speaker 1: night as well. The play is such a beautiful retrospective
Speaker 1: of her career. It'll make you cry, it'll make you laugh,
Speaker 1: it'll make you sing along. And I think the coolest
Speaker 1: thing I've ever heard anyone do when launching a Broadway
Speaker 1: show about their life is that she also happened to
Speaker 1: write this show with her wife and her best friend
Speaker 1: and co producer while writing a memoir of her life.
Speaker 1: Talking to My Angels is her beautifully engrossing and harrowing
Speaker 1: story about her life. It's really a testament to the
Speaker 1: power of art. It's a touchstone for anyone seeking a
Speaker 1: path out of darkness, and it is a powerful love
Speaker 1: letter from Melissa to her family and her fans who
Speaker 1: have been integral to her journey. I cannot wait to
Speaker 1: ask her one ba Jillian questions about all of these things.
Speaker 1: Let's get to it. I'm going to go ahead and
Speaker 1: tell everybody at home listening a couple of things that
Speaker 1: some of them I know, have read. There were some
Speaker 1: folks after your beautiful show on Broadway my window opened
Speaker 1: who saw some of the things that I said on
Speaker 1: the carpet that night and were.
Speaker 2: Like, oh my god, save I grew up. I'm so
Speaker 2: obsessed with her. I can't believe you got to go.
Speaker 2: I wish I was in New York. People are so
Speaker 2: excited about this retrospective of your career. But for all
Speaker 2: our friends at home, I have to sort of throw
Speaker 2: myself under the bus a little bit. The first night
Speaker 2: that I met Melissa was last year at Elton John's
Speaker 2: Big Beautiful fundraiser around the Oscars. He raises money for
Speaker 2: the Elton John Aids Foundation.
Speaker 1: And I was walking in and I turned around and
Speaker 1: I saw you on the carpet, and they all at home.
Speaker 1: I just never had this happen to me before. I
Speaker 1: got so excited. I started crying and I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry, this is really awkward. I love you,
Speaker 1: and I grew up listening to your music on repeat,
Speaker 1: like to the point that my parents were like, the
Speaker 1: album is so good, but maybe listen to something else
Speaker 1: in the house. And you know that was yes, I
Speaker 1: am you know, as an eighties baby, the early nineties
Speaker 1: was my moment to discover my own musical taste. And Melissa,
Speaker 1: you were so gracious and sweet. You gave me a hug,
Speaker 1: you told me everything was fine house, Like, I don't
Speaker 1: know what's happening to me and here we are. So
Speaker 1: thank you for humoring me for a real long conversation today.
Speaker 3: Very sweet. Those things can be so strange, and that
Speaker 3: was very very sweet.
Speaker 1: Wow, you were just so lovely and it was such
Speaker 1: a special night. And yeah, I always love when I
Speaker 1: get to meet people I really admire who are likewise
Speaker 1: passionate about using their big, beautiful platforms for good causes
Speaker 1: and you know, doing good in the world.
Speaker 4: And that's really.
Speaker 1: Been something that I think you've done for so long.
Speaker 3: Well, it's it's the more you are in this endie,
Speaker 3: the more you have what others might you know, think
Speaker 3: of as success or something, the more you realize that
Speaker 3: the real joy is not in Oh I got this,
Speaker 3: I got that. The real joy is all I was
Speaker 3: able to experience this, and this feels good, and you
Speaker 3: just go to what feels good. So you'll you're you're
Speaker 3: on that path and you'll you'll just be keeping you know,
Speaker 3: keep doing that.
Speaker 1: Oh that's so kind. I love to ask folks who
Speaker 1: joined me on the show because we get to talk
Speaker 1: to so many people who have these illustrious careers and
Speaker 1: who are doing such cool things in the world. I
Speaker 1: always like to take someone who we can all look
Speaker 1: at and go, wow, they're you know, a musician, an activist,
Speaker 1: a leader, so outspoken, all these things, and ask how
Speaker 1: similar you were as a kid? Like do you? And
Speaker 1: I feel like I have a little inside scoop because
Speaker 1: I got to watch the show and it's such a
Speaker 1: beautiful retrospective. But for the folks who haven't been lucky
Speaker 1: enough to see.
Speaker 4: It, were you or can you?
Speaker 1: I guess from this vantage point, look back at who
Speaker 1: Melissa was at you know, eight or nine years old,
Speaker 1: and see traces of this same woman.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I mean, you're always the same you, even
Speaker 3: though it constantly evolves and changes, you always have that
Speaker 3: same inner being, that same inner child, young woman, whatever
Speaker 3: it is, it's still the same heart and you know,
Speaker 3: I had a dream I back in the sixties. I
Speaker 3: grew up in the sixties and just the the music,
Speaker 3: the idea entertainment was becoming. The big thing back then
Speaker 3: was you know, music and then rock and roll and
Speaker 3: and it was so powerful that I dared to dream,
Speaker 3: Oh I want to I want some of that. And
Speaker 3: that still is inside me. It definitely. You know, the
Speaker 3: world changes, everything changes, and what it looks like now,
Speaker 3: you know, fifty years later there's a lot is a
Speaker 3: lot different, but it's still that same dream. It's still
Speaker 3: that same reaching for something. And that's a beautiful thing
Speaker 3: to have, is to really look and go, oh, I
Speaker 3: want to be there. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And when you hear something new, I mean the budding
Speaker 1: sounds of that era that can move you, you know,
Speaker 1: move your spirit and you go, oh a human made that,
Speaker 1: like a person made all those sounds.
Speaker 4: And now I'm.
Speaker 1: Feeling feelings through a radio. Yeah. Will you tell people
Speaker 1: what the first song was that really shook you up?
Speaker 3: Well? In the show, I talk about how I was
Speaker 3: about three years old and I was in my neighbor's driveway.
Speaker 3: All the kids were you know, it's the sixties and
Speaker 3: they just let children run wild. We were all over
Speaker 3: the neighborhood and I was just standing there and some
Speaker 3: kid handed me a transistor radio and I heard, you know,
Speaker 3: the Beatles. I want to hold your hand, it was,
Speaker 3: And I remember I had a very distinct memory of
Speaker 3: hearing that, thinking the sound of those harmonies in that
Speaker 3: you know that that whole thing just was like nothing
Speaker 3: I'd ever heard it. And it it's hard to explain
Speaker 3: how the Beatles sounded back to how nothing had sounded
Speaker 3: like that before and causing that Beatlemania, causing the sound
Speaker 3: and the look was was just you know, transformative to
Speaker 3: everybody back then. And and that got me totally interested
Speaker 3: in My sister had their albums. My parents had other
Speaker 3: great album his Moms and the Papa's Simon Garfunkel, you
Speaker 3: know a great soul singers, Aretha Franklin, and they just
Speaker 3: had a great album collection. My sister, who was older,
Speaker 3: had had kind of a rock and roll collection. So
Speaker 3: I grew up with all that and and it just
Speaker 3: it was it was thrilling, just through.
Speaker 1: That's so cool. And so as you grow up in
Speaker 1: this amazing era and you know, rock and rolls hitting
Speaker 1: the scene and music is changing, how how does the
Speaker 1: story move through you realizing this was such a passion
Speaker 1: in your life, and and then breaking into the music industry.
Speaker 1: I mean, were was your family supportive of the dream?
Speaker 1: Did people think it was a pipe dream? Were there
Speaker 1: pitfalls along the way because it's it's such a good story.
Speaker 3: Well, the I I beg my parents for a guitar.
Speaker 3: I was crazy about the Archies. Actually, the the there's
Speaker 3: a well everyone knows the Archies now because there's like
Speaker 3: Riverdale and all those things. Yeah, and the Archies when
Speaker 3: I was a kid was just so cool. It was
Speaker 3: all the high school kids, you know, playing and I
Speaker 3: was like, wow, I want to do that. And so
Speaker 3: I started playing at the age of eight, and of
Speaker 3: course they said I couldn't They They got the guitar
Speaker 3: actually for my sister, which really broke my heart. When
Speaker 3: I bagged and bagged, they finally said, well, all right,
Speaker 3: put your fingers are bleak, And yeah, my fingers bled
Speaker 3: But I started playing, and and it was My teacher
Speaker 3: was very, very stern, but he was serious and good.
Speaker 3: And I practiced my lessons and came in every day
Speaker 3: and learned and learned. And when I learned chords, this
Speaker 3: is now, this is the end of the sixties. This
Speaker 3: is early seventies, and I'm I'm playing chords, and I realized, wow,
Speaker 3: that's a song. And now we're in the We're in
Speaker 3: the kind of the folk music of the sixties early seventies,
Speaker 3: and it's all you know, even girls, you know, playing
Speaker 3: guitars and singing. That's happening. So I'm feeling, wow, I
Speaker 3: can do this, and I start making up songs. You know,
Speaker 3: I was twelve years old. I didn't know anything, you know,
Speaker 3: but I was copying, you know, what I'd heard and
Speaker 3: trying to put my own spin on it. And a
Speaker 3: lot in the show, I say, you know, I used
Speaker 3: to write these really dramatic, sad songs, you know, about
Speaker 3: their story songs, and my friends would all cry, and
Speaker 3: how much I loved that I was getting an emotional
Speaker 3: response from something I created. So that was the beginning
Speaker 3: of that. And then actually having the opportunity to play
Speaker 3: in bands when I was younger, through the talent show
Speaker 3: that I entered, and he made a variety show and
Speaker 3: then there's a band there and I it just it's
Speaker 3: just one step at a time. It just happens one
Speaker 3: thing after another, very small steps, but they all, you know,
Speaker 3: end up with me as a teenager on the weekend
Speaker 3: singing in professional cover bands all all over the Midwest.
Speaker 3: And that was a great opportunity because I got to
Speaker 3: be comfortable in front of people. I learned other instruments,
Speaker 3: I learned how to perform on stage. Frankly, I don't
Speaker 3: I feel sorry for a lot of artists today that
Speaker 3: sort of are in their late teens or early twenties
Speaker 3: and all they've ever done is make music in their
Speaker 3: bedroom on their computer, you know, and then all of
Speaker 3: a sudden, okay, go perform to twenty thousand people, and
Speaker 3: they know they're scared to death. They'd never done it.
Speaker 3: I was able to, you know, perform to ten people,
Speaker 3: to twenty to you know, fifty in a room, to
Speaker 3: drunk people to I've had all kinds of things happen.
Speaker 3: So I feel very safe on stage, and it leads
Speaker 3: to being able to be a good performer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, gosh, that's so interesting that that you do have
Speaker 1: to find your confidence to make your art in front
Speaker 1: of other humans, regardless of what those other humans are doing.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you have to not take it personally. That's the man.
Speaker 3: You There's a story my wife as a whole other
Speaker 3: very interesting life and she used to actually in the
Speaker 3: eighties she was a chauffeur driver. She was a limo
Speaker 3: driver and she drove Liza Minelli Wow and yeah, and
Speaker 3: which she has incredible stories about that. But she has
Speaker 3: this one story about when Liza played Carnegie Hall. How
Speaker 3: and this is about taking it personally. How the whole
Speaker 3: place stood on their feet to give her a standing
Speaker 3: ovation because there was that one guy in the back
Speaker 3: that didn't and she obsessed about that guy and how
Speaker 3: he didn't stand up. And later after the show she
Speaker 3: sees that guy in his wheelchair leaving and she's like,
Speaker 3: oh my god, I was I was suffering and taking
Speaker 3: personally that for some reason, you didn't like me, So
Speaker 3: you never know. So you can't be on stage looking
Speaker 3: at an audience and then taking personally what they're giving you.
Speaker 3: You have to say, I'm doing this. It's going one
Speaker 3: way and I don't need anything from you. I hope
Speaker 3: you appreciate this, but this is my art. It takes
Speaker 3: a night after it takes a year after year after
Speaker 3: year of doing it to really not take it personally.
Speaker 1: Wow, you had to bolster that confidence. I just saw
Speaker 1: this cool video of Brene Brown talking about how if
Speaker 1: you walk around in the world looking for proof that
Speaker 1: you're not enough, you'll find it. You get to prove
Speaker 1: whatever story you tell yourself.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but to.
Speaker 1: Learn to stand in your confidence and in your your light,
Speaker 1: I think is hard. It's much harder, you know, done
Speaker 1: than said.
Speaker 3: That's just week after week, month after month is doing it.
Speaker 3: You can't get it wrong there. You'll have upset downs.
Speaker 3: You can't get wrong because it you will always have
Speaker 3: another chance. You go, Okay, maybe I took it off
Speaker 3: the rails this time, but I can really try next
Speaker 3: time and learn from it. And that's all. We're just learning.
Speaker 3: We're not here to get it perfect. Nobody's getting it perfect.
Speaker 3: We're just learning. It's fun in the learning.
Speaker 1: Did it feel a little bit like that, you know,
Speaker 1: when you left Kansas and you moved to Boston for
Speaker 1: college and then quickly realized you just wanted to be
Speaker 1: playing music and not really doing the school part? Was
Speaker 1: that part of finding your footing and your confidence too,
Speaker 1: to say, oh, I really want to commit to what
Speaker 1: it is I know I want to do and maybe
Speaker 1: I don't have to do this more traditional path. Was
Speaker 1: it scary or did it just sort of happen and
Speaker 1: did you not have to think about it?
Speaker 3: Well? I didn't. I didn't like letting my parents down.
Speaker 3: I remember my mother showing me. She goes come up
Speaker 3: and into her room where she had her desk, and
Speaker 3: she was actually the moneymaker in the family, and so
Speaker 3: she actually controlled the checkbook and the balances and stuff.
Speaker 3: My father was great, he was a teacher. Teachers make
Speaker 3: no money. Unfortunately, my mother she called me into her
Speaker 3: room and showed me the check she was writing to
Speaker 3: the school, which at the time was only like three
Speaker 3: thousand dollars. So this, you know, I college tuitions are
Speaker 3: crazy nowadays, but back then it was tight thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: And she said, now this is what I'm paying. This
Speaker 3: is how much I'm paying. So when you want to
Speaker 3: skip class, you remember this. And so when I was there,
Speaker 3: and I was really not liking it because one I
Speaker 3: was the whole school had maybe ten women in it,
Speaker 3: and there was two of us in the guitar. You know,
Speaker 3: there's not women. This is nineteen seventy nine. Women weren't,
Speaker 3: you know, playing guitar. It just wasn't happening, and it
Speaker 3: was very difficult to get noticed in the school. And
Speaker 3: I remember one of I had started playing in this
Speaker 3: restaurant and one of my teachers, one of my professors,
Speaker 3: came just you know, just happened to be there in
Speaker 3: the in the lounge, sitting and talking. I was like,
Speaker 3: oh my gosh, she's going to see me here doing
Speaker 3: my thing. And he didn't even recognize it. He didn't
Speaker 3: even notice me, didn't didn't notice me from his class.
Speaker 3: And I thought, man, I'm just I'm I'm blank there
Speaker 3: and I'm getting nothing. And I did quit. I didn't
Speaker 3: tell my mom for a while. I just kind of
Speaker 3: went until they, you know, until they let her know
Speaker 3: that I wasn't showing up and well and and as
Speaker 3: my mom eventually said when she was much older, she said,
Speaker 3: well everything turned out. Okay.
Speaker 1: I love when you hit that point with your parents
Speaker 1: where you can really be adults together in the room.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: I've really experienced a shift in my relationship with my parents,
Speaker 1: and probably the last five years that's just been super cool.
Speaker 1: We'll be back in just a minute, but here's a
Speaker 1: word from our sponsors. I also remember from the show
Speaker 1: you you know you sharing with all of us that
Speaker 1: after this wonderful stint in Boston, you went home for
Speaker 1: a time and that when you well, this is going
Speaker 1: to be a little out of order. Now let me
Speaker 1: let me, let me re ask this question now that
Speaker 1: I can feel my heart rate sewing. So surrounding your
Speaker 1: journey in Boston and figuring out what parts of school
Speaker 1: were for you and what weren't, and and what a
Speaker 1: wild thing to think about how the dynamic of you
Speaker 1: being a woman really affected your position in music even
Speaker 1: as a student. You know that there was really this
Speaker 1: sort of intense withholding over gender of opportunity. You talk
Speaker 1: about being one of two women even studying guitar. Was
Speaker 1: was the other woman in that class with you your
Speaker 1: roommate or was that a different well that was a
Speaker 1: different gall at school.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, no, my roommate was studying voice. This was
Speaker 3: just just as far as guitar. They just and I
Speaker 3: would venture to say, they still don't take women guitar
Speaker 3: players seriously. It's just it is like the last stranglehold
Speaker 3: of the patriarchy is that women. You know, they don't
Speaker 3: trust a woman is in rock and roll, you know,
Speaker 3: is playing the guitar. So it's that that's but you know,
Speaker 3: it'll change, and as everything does, it's just that's, you know,
Speaker 3: all the advances. I mean, I don't know if you
Speaker 3: know who Yon Winner is and what he just went through.
Speaker 3: Yon Winner, look up Yon Winter his last interview in
Speaker 3: New Yorker in the New York Times. He was the
Speaker 3: founder of Rolling Stone magazine, which was like the taste
Speaker 3: maker of rock and roll through the sixties, seventies, you know,
Speaker 3: all through the whole rock and roll era. And he
Speaker 3: just released a book called The Masters where he took
Speaker 3: all his great interviews that he'd ever done, and he
Speaker 3: put him in a book and they were all white men.
Speaker 3: And the interviewer asked him, well, don't you think you're
Speaker 3: missing out on maybe some people of color and some women,
Speaker 3: And he was like, no, they didn't know. And he
Speaker 3: had the opportunity to actually go, oh yeah, well and
Speaker 3: say something, but he was like, no, they were not
Speaker 3: as intelligent or and you know, we're talking Joni Mitchell
Speaker 3: and and you know, Jimmy Hendrix and Prince and you're saying,
Speaker 3: you know so, And he just got in a lot
Speaker 3: of trouble for that. But what I'm saying is that
Speaker 3: just happened this year where you know, all the other
Speaker 3: sort of equalizing has been happening in the last ten years.
Speaker 3: The music industry is probably the last. You know, it's
Speaker 3: been a very male dominated space for a long time.
Speaker 1: Well, I think that's a really interesting thing that we're
Speaker 1: seeing everywhere in this time, right is there's been these
Speaker 1: ideas of progress, but you see that sort of pendulum swing,
Speaker 1: and it feels like we've been rolling it back so intensely.
Speaker 1: Whether it's in your industry, in my industry, you see
Speaker 1: it in politics and you go, oh boy, we really
Speaker 1: they really want to cling to power, don't they.
Speaker 3: Exactly? I wouldn't want. I wouldn't call it rolling back
Speaker 3: to me. I think it's pulling the curtain off of
Speaker 3: it and finally and.
Speaker 4: Going how deep it goes?
Speaker 3: WHOA, that's really like it? Like I didn't I knew.
Speaker 3: I always knew, yeah, well there's not many women rock
Speaker 3: and roll and whatever, but I didn't know there was
Speaker 3: an active I didn't know just how deeply entrenched it
Speaker 3: was the belief of, oh no, these these women are serious.
Speaker 3: There's nothing serious here. They're not intelligent, they're not articulate,
Speaker 3: and you know, and and that that's what's mind blowing.
Speaker 3: And then you see these politicians and they can't get away.
Speaker 3: You know, we've got there's cameras everywhere. They're going to
Speaker 3: catch everything, and they can't get away with it, and
Speaker 3: we see it more. It's not that we're going back.
Speaker 3: I think it's a sign of we're going forward because
Speaker 3: the what used to kind of be silently in power
Speaker 3: is not anymore. It's it's revealed and we can all
Speaker 3: go wow, and then we're moving on from that. So
Speaker 3: I think it's a good thing. It's a kind of
Speaker 3: an ugly, painful thing, but it's good in the end.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's really that's really a cool way to
Speaker 1: look at it. And I think about, you know, when
Speaker 1: you talk about the people left out of that book,
Speaker 1: or the people who've historically been you know, left out
Speaker 1: of the rooms where it happens. As they say, you know,
Speaker 1: it's been hard for women. It's also been incredibly hard
Speaker 1: for folks from the LGBTQ community, and they yet here
Speaker 1: you are in a time where it was hard for women,
Speaker 1: where it was extra hard for gay women, and you
Speaker 1: managed to break through into the you know, top tier
Speaker 1: of rock and roll, and it's so inspiring it was
Speaker 1: inspiring to me as a young artist. It's inspiring to
Speaker 1: me and so many people around the world still, you
Speaker 1: know now and I think about some things that really
Speaker 1: stuck out to me in your show, you know, seeing
Speaker 1: it on Broadway. Even you talking about the way you're
Speaker 1: roommate was like I see you, Yeah, like she knew
Speaker 1: who you were and you were finding your identity as
Speaker 1: a as a queer woman. You know, in this time,
Speaker 1: what was that like? Because we see now again to
Speaker 1: your point, all this progress has been made, and we
Speaker 1: see as we peel back the next layer, how many
Speaker 1: people want to attack you know, people's freedom and autonomy.
Speaker 1: And we're thinking about, you know, decades ago. Was it
Speaker 1: Was it a scary time? Was it a time where
Speaker 1: you could feel that progress happening? Was it all of
Speaker 1: it at once?
Speaker 3: I think I've had a really great time to be
Speaker 3: alive and to to go through this and see it firsthand.
Speaker 3: Because I can tell folks like yourself this that growing
Speaker 3: up with sixties and seventies. In the sixties and early seventies,
Speaker 3: being a homosexual was considered a mental illness, and they
Speaker 3: were in a lot of states they were throwing us
Speaker 3: in jail for this. They were arresting us and throwing
Speaker 3: us in jail, so you didn't want it was dangerous.
Speaker 3: And the seventies were when we first started pushing back
Speaker 3: and going no, we're not and getting a little bit
Speaker 3: of traction. But you still, if you came out to
Speaker 3: your parents or anybody, you would destroy the family because
Speaker 3: it was they would think, you know, depending on their beliefs,
Speaker 3: you know, one you're going to hell or whatever, but
Speaker 3: that your life was going to be miserable, that you
Speaker 3: were picking a lonely, dark life if you were homosexual,
Speaker 3: because that's all anybody knew. And it wasn't until let's see,
Speaker 3: I graduated high school in seventy nine and became a
Speaker 3: young adult in the eighties, and that was when it
Speaker 3: started getting a little like you'd see a little bit more.
Speaker 3: They were the weirdos, you know. The women were there,
Speaker 3: you know, and the kind of you know, really strong
Speaker 3: kind of thing, and the men were the most effeminate.
Speaker 3: You know. It was it was the outer you know,
Speaker 3: the places of the personality of the LGBT community that
Speaker 3: was making all the change, because they're the ones that
Speaker 3: can't hide it, you know. There, you know, all of
Speaker 3: us in the middle were like, well, what I mean,
Speaker 3: I can pass a straight you know, And so so
Speaker 3: the work was being done by that the fringes, and
Speaker 3: the more it happened in the eighties, and the more
Speaker 3: comfortable I got in my in the women's community I
Speaker 3: was in in Long Beach in Los Angeles, the stronger
Speaker 3: it got. There was a there was a in young
Speaker 3: Hollywood in the late eighties early nineties, there was a
Speaker 3: community of gays and lesbians that, you know, professionals that
Speaker 3: were making a lot of business in One by one
Speaker 3: we'd all kind of step forward. And the more people
Speaker 3: came out, you know, myself, Martinez and Avertilova, Billy Jean King.
Speaker 3: The more these successful people came out, you had to
Speaker 3: change the conversation about well, if you're gay, you're going
Speaker 3: to have a dark, horrible life. It's like, people go, no,
Speaker 3: I'm not having a horrible life. It'd saved my life
Speaker 3: to be who I was. So you start having the
Speaker 3: conversation and it starts changing hearts and minds. And through
Speaker 3: the nineties and two thousands and twenty tens, those thirty years,
Speaker 3: we have grown a lot to where today, I mean,
Speaker 3: you might think that you know, we're struggling and everything,
Speaker 3: but man, we are way far from where we were
Speaker 3: in Our struggles are no longer okay, you're going to
Speaker 3: throw me in jail or you're going to kill me.
Speaker 3: You know, it's now, Oh I might you're going to
Speaker 3: take this book out of school because you think, you know,
Speaker 3: that's it's a different struggle, but it's still the it's
Speaker 3: because of the expansion of the LGBTQ community that that
Speaker 3: there is such pushback. But the pushback is now on
Speaker 3: the fringes and not you know, in the middle, because
Speaker 3: the Oh god, I can go on and on about this,
Speaker 3: but it's just a change that I have seen, and
Speaker 3: it's always getting better. So in thirty years you're going
Speaker 3: to be talking about how it was strange thirty years
Speaker 3: ago but now it's not right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think one of the things that's been interesting
Speaker 1: for me to watch as a kid, you know, growing
Speaker 1: up through the eighties and nineties and being part of
Speaker 1: this community my whole life. You know, my dad's an artist,
Speaker 1: Like I grew up in the queerest, most diverse, like
Speaker 1: amazing culture, and so many people, especially folks who look
Speaker 1: like us, have had to have this reckoning about privilege,
Speaker 1: and you know, what white privilege looks like and how
Speaker 1: our society was designed and who it was designed for.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that you know, when we're
Speaker 1: doing hard work, digging into hard subject matter, I also
Speaker 1: like to try to look at what the positives are
Speaker 1: that we can learn from. And one of the things
Speaker 1: I feel the most grateful for about the way I
Speaker 1: grew up is that I had the privilege of exposure.
Speaker 1: You know, like my uncle Jeff and his husband Winston
Speaker 1: were just like the most fabulous couple who raised me.
Speaker 1: And Winston did drag is Diana Ross every Saturday night
Speaker 1: here in LA and like, you know, I grew up
Speaker 1: with this like fabulous black drag queen and I was like,
Speaker 1: you're the coolest person I know.
Speaker 4: And I think now about.
Speaker 1: How blessed I was, because so many people who grow
Speaker 1: up in more homogeneous communities don't grow up around people
Speaker 1: of color or queer people, or you know, folks who
Speaker 1: make art or do anything different than like what maybe
Speaker 1: the town industry is. And I feel so lucky to
Speaker 1: have been reared in this community because you know, in
Speaker 1: my life, at all the stages of figuring out who
Speaker 1: I am, my community, My parents' community are just like cool, yeah,
Speaker 1: like we love you being more and more yourself, you know, right,
Speaker 1: And and I think about how, to your point, the
Speaker 1: more of us there are out in the world living
Speaker 1: whatever our individual truths are, the more we can example
Speaker 1: set for other people that they get to do the same.
Speaker 3: That's how it works, and it's just so cool.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you had that footage from the inauguration.
Speaker 4: When you did your big announcement on the mic. Will
Speaker 4: you tell people about that moment.
Speaker 1: It's one of my favorite moments in your show.
Speaker 3: I had done some fundraising work for the Bill Clinton,
Speaker 3: the Clinton Gore campaign of ninety two, and this was
Speaker 3: a big time. We had just had Republican we just
Speaker 3: had Reagan into Bush. We'd had twelve years of Republican
Speaker 3: suppression of AIDS, you know, and the gay community for
Speaker 3: those twelve years were really pushing against that. And when
Speaker 3: we finally had a candidate who would even say gay
Speaker 3: and lesbian, it was groundbreaking to hear that on television
Speaker 3: and he would talk about it. So the gay community
Speaker 3: really got behind him, and you know, we changed, We
Speaker 3: got out and did a lot of work, as we
Speaker 3: still do to this day, we're a big force in
Speaker 3: the voting block. Yeah, And so when I had done
Speaker 3: some work for them, they invited me to the inauguration.
Speaker 3: It was I got to, you know, sit and watch
Speaker 3: him say, Jefferson, you know Clinton, William Jefferson, Clinton, that's it.
Speaker 3: And so he does that. And that night there's all
Speaker 3: the inaugural balls, and for the first time there were
Speaker 3: three gay lesbian packs that really helped. And now they're
Speaker 3: all kind of anyway, but back then there was three
Speaker 3: of them. And so we had what was called the
Speaker 3: Triangle Ball, and it was the Gay and Lesbian Ball,
Speaker 3: and it was it was really fabulous. It was at
Speaker 3: the Washington Press Club. So when I was up in
Speaker 3: the balcony with Katie Lang and all the all the leaders,
Speaker 3: Elizabeth Birch, all the you know, these past great LGBTQ
Speaker 3: leaders up there in the balcony, someone had me a
Speaker 3: microphone and I said, I hadn't planned on coming out,
Speaker 3: or I have said something much more eloquent, but I said,
Speaker 3: I I'm proud to I'm proud to say that I'm
Speaker 3: proud to been a lesbian all my life. And it
Speaker 3: was just a really weird way to say it. But
Speaker 3: I came out and then it was at the press club.
Speaker 3: So the next day it was in the newspapers. And
Speaker 3: didn't have social media back then, so it didn't go boom.
Speaker 3: It's slowly. Every tour I would do slowly. Reporters from
Speaker 3: every town would put it in there paper, and it
Speaker 3: just slowly. I talked about being That's all I talked
Speaker 3: about for about five years. Was being gay?
Speaker 4: Was it? Yeah?
Speaker 3: But it was a great time and it did helped,
Speaker 3: and it was I don't remember anything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll be back in just a minute after a
Speaker 1: few words from our favorite sponsors. I think about the
Speaker 1: impact of your voice there. I think about what it
Speaker 1: was like to see your family. It was the Rolling
Speaker 1: Stone cover that you guys all did together, right with
Speaker 1: the kids. Yeah, I remember it as a kid being.
Speaker 4: Like, whoa, this is so cool.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting that you say that it was like
Speaker 1: a slow moving growth of awareness, because you're right now.
Speaker 1: With social media, it's like somebody can get a tidbit
Speaker 1: run with it. You know, we know that false information
Speaker 1: spreads fifteen hundred times faster on the Internet than the truth.
Speaker 1: I've certainly experienced my fair share of that.
Speaker 3: That's never happened to you, has it?
Speaker 1: Oh gee, it's not happening to me now or anything.
Speaker 4: Oh what a wild time.
Speaker 1: But it's such an interesting thing to watch the way
Speaker 1: that it sort of bursts like a wildfire now, and
Speaker 1: what a gorgeous thing that you got to have a
Speaker 1: slower move. But I didn't think about the fact that
Speaker 1: you feel like your life centered on your identity for
Speaker 1: five years.
Speaker 4: You were probably like, are.
Speaker 3: We still talking about this exactly? But it actually gave
Speaker 3: me an opportunity to kind of get used to and
Speaker 3: perfect talking about being gay, because nobody had sat down
Speaker 3: with newspapers and magazines and television showers and actually talked
Speaker 3: about it. And if I was going to be this representative,
Speaker 3: I wanted to feel comfortable with what I was saying
Speaker 3: and be clear. And it gave me an opportunity, little
Speaker 3: by little to grow and feel more confident in that.
Speaker 1: Oh that's really cool. So I'm really curious about that,
Speaker 1: because songwriting is storytelling. Your Broadway play is storytelling. It's
Speaker 1: like a living photo album, retrospective, greatest hits, tour, Vaudeville's
Speaker 1: show all rolled into one. I'm absolutely obsessed with that.
Speaker 1: I've told everyone I know to go see it and
Speaker 1: on top of my window being on Broadway right now,
Speaker 1: you've penned this beautiful book talking to Angels. You tell
Speaker 1: the story of your life, of this era we're currently
Speaker 1: you know, twirling through of your journey, you know, with
Speaker 1: your ex wife Julie and having kids and moving into
Speaker 1: this wonderful you know, finding your right relationship now experiences
Speaker 1: with you know, mental health and psychedelics and all the
Speaker 1: things loss love.
Speaker 4: It's this big How how do you.
Speaker 1: Decide as this public figure? And do you think this
Speaker 1: period of five years you're talking about influenced your ability
Speaker 1: to really dig into your story? Because I wonder how
Speaker 1: you decide how much to share?
Speaker 4: And do you view the.
Speaker 1: Sharing as a as a gathering of this community you
Speaker 1: get to talk to. Does it feel like a responsibility?
Speaker 1: Does it feel like.
Speaker 4: A torch to pass?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 4: How do you think about this stuff?
Speaker 3: Well, all of this is is my own choice. I
Speaker 3: have a choice of how to how I'm going to
Speaker 3: hold it myself. You know, I can't control what other
Speaker 3: people think about it. I can control about how I
Speaker 3: feel about it. So the h the actual you know,
Speaker 3: uh talking about it is is a chance for me
Speaker 3: to learn and I once I came out, it's kind
Speaker 3: of like once you open up and say this is
Speaker 3: the real me, you can't really close it back and go,
Speaker 3: oh no, you can't see any more of that you.
Speaker 3: And what it's what it has led me to be
Speaker 3: is more comfortable with my life and my choices, where
Speaker 3: I don't feel like I have to look like someone else,
Speaker 3: act like someone else, make make music like someone else
Speaker 3: because they're more popular or whatever, those things that we
Speaker 3: compare ourselves to. You just realized, wow, I've got to
Speaker 3: be just me right now, and I've got to be
Speaker 3: okay with the choices I'm making first, so that when
Speaker 3: I talk about them, I'm confident about it and what
Speaker 3: other people think about it is none of my business.
Speaker 3: So I just so I was able to then, when
Speaker 3: I went through cancer, to speak truthfully about that and say, look,
Speaker 3: and when I started smoking cannabis, people weren't talking about
Speaker 3: that in the early two thousands, it was still that
Speaker 3: was you know, again, we're getting thrown in ja over
Speaker 3: that sort of thing. And to say, look, this is medicine.
Speaker 3: This is medicine, and become an advocate for cannabis and
Speaker 3: psychedelics and things and we still are you. But to
Speaker 3: do that and feel it's all about how I feel.
Speaker 3: If I'm waiting for other people to tell me if
Speaker 3: it's okay or not, then I'm sunk. So and I'm grateful.
Speaker 3: I'm grateful for those five years of talking about it,
Speaker 3: getting the confidence and then moving through my life just
Speaker 3: slowly and loving every choice that I've made and feeling
Speaker 3: like I've done the best I can.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's beautiful.
Speaker 4: What a cool.
Speaker 1: Place to reach again. Like the sort of stage I
Speaker 1: find myself in is being in a space where I go, oh,
Speaker 1: I've done a lot of work. I've learned a lot
Speaker 1: of lessons. I have found the greatest therapist, and I
Speaker 1: am in the most integrity I have ever been in
Speaker 1: And for the first time, other people's opinions don't really
Speaker 1: bother me anymore, and I didn't know.
Speaker 4: I'd ever get here.
Speaker 3: If you can keep if you can keep that up,
Speaker 3: that you'll be happier. Yeah, and you will start realizing
Speaker 3: in the end, not in the end, I'm not at
Speaker 3: the end, but as you get older, that being happy
Speaker 3: is actually the most important thing. It is not what
Speaker 3: you can't If you think you can suffer and strife
Speaker 3: and suffer and suffer to where you'll have a happy
Speaker 3: ending somehow it's you're just going to suffer. But if
Speaker 3: you can go no, I'm making a choice to be
Speaker 3: happy right now, and this feels good. If you can
Speaker 3: keep doing that, Believe me, when you're sixty two and
Speaker 3: talking to someone younger, you'll go, yeah, I made my
Speaker 3: choices and I've had a very happy life and I'm
Speaker 3: very happy about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's beautiful. So this way that you tell stories
Speaker 1: when you think about it, you know, kind of looking back,
Speaker 1: We've talked about this era of coming out that actually
Speaker 1: was five years and it makes me laugh because you know,
Speaker 1: they always say like it takes a decade to be
Speaker 1: an overnight success, and I'm like, oh, it took you
Speaker 1: five years for everybody to have heard the thing you
Speaker 1: said five years before. And when you're when you're in
Speaker 1: that stage where to your point, you're touring the country
Speaker 1: and the world and you're you know, nominated for awards
Speaker 1: and winning them and selling crazy amounts of albums and
Speaker 1: you've you are like the rock and roller of our time.
Speaker 1: How how were you able to figure out your life
Speaker 1: in the midst of that? Because I know how hard
Speaker 1: it can be to pick up and move for a show.
Speaker 1: But usually I pick up and move somewhere and I
Speaker 1: stay there for six months. I'm not like living in
Speaker 1: a tour bus or on an airplane every night. And
Speaker 1: and and you during this whole stage, you know, you
Speaker 1: become a wife, you become a parent, as you said,
Speaker 1: you battle breast cancer. I mean, there's so much happening.
Speaker 4: How did you make sense of it all?
Speaker 3: Well, life happens slowly, it really does. And in the
Speaker 3: in the show and in the book, I talk about
Speaker 3: uh having a heroic dose of cannabis where I overdosed
Speaker 3: on edimals, you know, and it really basically blew my mind,
Speaker 3: but it opened a thought. It opened more thought of Wow,
Speaker 3: that took me out of the torture of what other
Speaker 3: people think about me. See I in the nineties, in
Speaker 3: the eighties and nineties, it was all I needed. I
Speaker 3: needed to be on the cover Rolling Stone, I needed
Speaker 3: to have a number one hit. I needed other people
Speaker 3: to validate what I was doing. And then when I
Speaker 3: you know, struggled and struggled and struggling, and it finally
Speaker 3: got there and realized, wow, this is not making me happy.
Speaker 3: This is just something I did. What makes me happy
Speaker 3: is when I'm on stage loving what I'm doing, or
Speaker 3: when I'm home with my kids and my family. Okay,
Speaker 3: well now my year now when I'm working, my year
Speaker 3: is broken up into and my whole family knows is summertime.
Speaker 3: Mom is going on Tour's that's what we do. And
Speaker 3: I love love playing the music that makes everything go away.
Speaker 3: When I am on stage and there's an audience of
Speaker 3: two thousand or two hundred thousand, you know, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: It's always different. And those people are there to hear
Speaker 3: the songs that they love and to have an experience
Speaker 3: with me. That's golden. That's all I ever wanted. So
Speaker 3: the traveling and the stuff, that's what we go through.
Speaker 3: And when you talk about you know, you go somewhere
Speaker 3: for six months, well you know you know how crews are,
Speaker 3: you know how you know the driver is. You make friends,
Speaker 3: You make your own family at that time. You know,
Speaker 3: the person who works at the bar in the hotel
Speaker 3: you're staying at, you know, becomes That's what life is
Speaker 3: is those relations ships and you get put in that situation.
Speaker 3: I have. My tour manager has been my tour manager
Speaker 3: for thirty five years. He's just he's like a brother
Speaker 3: to me. You know, my bandmates are our brothers to me.
Speaker 3: I've got I've got beautiful sisters that work for me
Speaker 3: in you know, in production and go on the road
Speaker 3: with me and and my lighting you know, designers, a
Speaker 3: woman and we just you surround yourself with these people
Speaker 3: and and you have life with them. Also my family,
Speaker 3: you know, my you know, well not blood family, but
Speaker 3: my family family, and you just you just realize that
Speaker 3: that's what it is. It's not there's not something else
Speaker 3: that I'd rather be doing, you know, and if there is,
Speaker 3: then I will do it. But you know, so you
Speaker 3: make your life in what you're doing, and you know that,
Speaker 3: you know you'll have friends that forever from the first
Speaker 3: production you ever did you.
Speaker 1: Know, Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I Mean I was just with
Speaker 1: one of my best girlfriends from my first job last
Speaker 1: weekend and we were like, oh my god, our friendship's
Speaker 1: old enough to vote, Like what's crazy? What a crazy
Speaker 1: reality that is? You know, next year it'll be old
Speaker 1: enough to order a beer at the bar. And it's
Speaker 1: so cool. It's so so cool. So when you talk
Speaker 1: about if there's something else you want to do You'll
Speaker 1: do it? Was that did you have this feeling about
Speaker 1: wanting to go and do Broadway? Because in a way,
Speaker 1: your show is like a concert, and my god, I
Speaker 1: mean you touched on it a minute ago. You know.
Speaker 1: You have this bit in the show, the scene about
Speaker 1: when you did this hero's dose, and I'm telling you,
Speaker 1: we were laughing, we hit my girlfriends and I had
Speaker 1: tears streaming down our face. Like you made it so
Speaker 1: funny and also so educational and spiritual and illuminating and
Speaker 1: all the things. There is so much packed into the retrospective.
Speaker 1: How did you decide to go do Broadway? And was
Speaker 1: it scary at all because you've been on the biggest
Speaker 1: stages in the world or were you like, nah, I
Speaker 1: got it.
Speaker 3: Well, the because it's so different because when I go
Speaker 3: on stage with my band, I'm in one hundred percent
Speaker 3: control no matter what happens, I'm in charge, and I
Speaker 3: can I can tell my band to do anything. I
Speaker 3: can do anything, and if an audience is sleepy, I
Speaker 3: can say, Okay, let's we're going to play ballads and
Speaker 3: stay you know, or we can you know, I can
Speaker 3: change things on the fly, and that's what I do
Speaker 3: and I love it. Broadway. You have to do it
Speaker 3: exactly the same way every single time, and it's got that.
Speaker 3: I have a certain amount of freedom because the show
Speaker 3: is very conversational, and I chose not to like memorize
Speaker 3: a whole thing. You know, I memorize the shape of
Speaker 3: the show and what story I'm telling, but how I
Speaker 3: tell it might be a little different with every audience.
Speaker 3: I had to give myself that freedom, right cot Nuts.
Speaker 3: But the Broadway dream I've I have loved and appreciated
Speaker 3: and admired Broadway since I was a child watching you know,
Speaker 3: Barbar Streis, and I was a huge fan of that
Speaker 3: and and Godspell and these great musicals and Broadway. You
Speaker 3: realize when you're in the music industry that, especially now,
Speaker 3: you can have a small amount of talent with a
Speaker 3: lot of energy, and technically we can make you sound good. Well,
Speaker 3: you can't do that on Broadway. It's live, it's live
Speaker 3: every night. You have to bring it every night. You
Speaker 3: have to be able to rise to this certain live
Speaker 3: audience every single night. And so it's it is for
Speaker 3: only the ridiculously talented, you know, Broadway is, and it
Speaker 3: is it's very revered. The the talent, the just the
Speaker 3: work that people do on Broadway is out of this world.
Speaker 3: So I wanted to be part of that. I wanted
Speaker 3: to create something I still do. I want to create
Speaker 3: something that that I won't be in. I want. I
Speaker 3: want to write something that I don't have to give
Speaker 3: up every day, you know. And so my wife, who's
Speaker 3: also a producer and writer and you know, amazing artist herself,
Speaker 3: also loves Broadway. Her one of her best friends of
Speaker 3: Joe Mantello, who directed Wicked, you know, so he's we're
Speaker 3: we are aware of the Broadway community very deeply, and
Speaker 3: we when when we have thought about bringing something to
Speaker 3: Broadway for a long time. So a few years ago,
Speaker 3: during the pandemic, when this all started to really come together,
Speaker 3: it was clear. When I was writing the book, I said, Okay,
Speaker 3: I believe my life can be the art in this one.
Speaker 3: You know this this I've done that with my songs before.
Speaker 3: I really I want to tell the story and I'm
Speaker 3: hopefully it is helpful and healing and inspiring. And that's
Speaker 3: really my intention is to show people, you know, or
Speaker 3: to just inspire people in that.
Speaker 1: So you were fake hearing out the show while you
Speaker 1: were writing the book. Oh yeah, Wow, what a cool
Speaker 1: parallel path.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and both of them came from conversations with my wife.
Speaker 3: I would we would have these conversation. We just started
Speaker 3: putting the voice memo on and saying, Okay, we're just
Speaker 3: gonna record this, and I would just I would sit.
Speaker 3: I mean, it was the pandemic. We didn't have anything
Speaker 3: to do. I would just sit and and just tell
Speaker 3: stories about my past. And we just recorded it all
Speaker 3: and then just started to you know, chisel it down,
Speaker 3: and we had to leave a lot out. There's a
Speaker 3: lot that happened in my life that we had to
Speaker 3: just you know, condense it. Even the opening show you
Speaker 3: saw was still a little large. We've we've sort of
Speaker 3: condensed it down, but really yeah, you know, we're always
Speaker 3: working on making it better.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and now for our sponsors. And one of the
Speaker 1: things you touch on, you know obviously, such as size
Speaker 1: event in the show, and you are so open in
Speaker 1: the book. And while I'm always very hesitant to just
Speaker 1: sort of make people repeat their hardest things, one of
Speaker 1: the things that I found the most inspiring watching the
Speaker 1: show and subsequently reading about it is the purpose that
Speaker 1: you've delivered for so many people out of personal pain.
Speaker 1: You talk about your son passing at twenty one. He
Speaker 1: likes so many people you know, sadly in our country,
Speaker 1: was affected by opioid addiction, and you share his story
Speaker 1: so honestly, you know, it's brave, I believe to talk
Speaker 1: about the pain and the awful things that came out
Speaker 1: of that that were said. You know, between you and
Speaker 1: your ex, the suffering obviously of losing a child, and
Speaker 1: you manage to transmute that into this incredible organization and
Speaker 1: activism for families who are suffering. Is it hard to
Speaker 1: talk about? Does talking about him allow him to stay
Speaker 1: with you?
Speaker 4: Is it both?
Speaker 3: I having had the experience of coming out as a
Speaker 3: as a lesbian and having the experience of having breast
Speaker 3: cancer and being open and honest about it, and being
Speaker 3: open and honest about psychedelic use and stuff. When my
Speaker 3: son died, I realized if I if I don't put
Speaker 3: it out and speak about how I'm walking through it,
Speaker 3: I do a disservice to myself and what it has
Speaker 3: helped me. It helped me organize it in my head
Speaker 3: and in my heart so that it doesn't weigh heavy
Speaker 3: every night. Every night at that show, I say my
Speaker 3: son would want me to be every single and that
Speaker 3: heals me. Now, do I want to do this show
Speaker 3: forever and ever? No, I'm only going to do it.
Speaker 3: I've got five more shows, you know, and I'll probably
Speaker 3: lay it down for a while and let it sit
Speaker 3: because it has done the job of healing that I
Speaker 3: was looking for. To be open and honest, to do
Speaker 3: this in front of people, to it was the same
Speaker 3: as getting on stage when I was bald. You just
Speaker 3: the thing that scares you the most. If you can
Speaker 3: with love in your heart, if you can walk toward
Speaker 3: it and then slowly go through it, it can be
Speaker 3: very very healing, and hopefully it can help others, you know.
Speaker 3: But it's only for me every single night saying my
Speaker 3: son would want me to be happy, he would want
Speaker 3: me to know my happiness cannot cause anyone else pain.
Speaker 3: Saying that every single night, it's gotten easier for me
Speaker 3: to say it. It's easier for me to talk about
Speaker 3: it now with you. And so that's because I believe it,
Speaker 3: Because I truly believe it, that I can really line
Speaker 3: up with that and show people that no, no, no,
Speaker 3: I'm not going to my life's not going to end
Speaker 3: because my son's choices. You know, I loved him, and
Speaker 3: yes it was devastating and I grieved, and I'm moving
Speaker 3: through it, and my life is still a beautiful life.
Speaker 3: I have three incredible children that bring me so much joy.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm not going to let this we we
Speaker 3: speak of him lovingly constantly, and I'm hopefully showing them
Speaker 3: how to hold it also and not let it be
Speaker 3: something that brings you down.
Speaker 1: Right. Well, I think to set that example is so
Speaker 1: powerful that yes, suffering or loss can and will change you,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't have to take over every part of you.
Speaker 1: You deserve joy, your children deserve joy, any of us,
Speaker 1: I think, especially post pandemic. You know, the people have
Speaker 1: been talking about I listened to this psychologist talk about
Speaker 1: how this has been the summer. They're calling it the
Speaker 1: summer of the Great Divorce, like akin to the Great
Speaker 1: Depression when the whole economy collapsed. There is now a
Speaker 1: sort of psychological collapse of these systems or structures or
Speaker 1: relationships that aren't serving people. And I think part of
Speaker 1: that has to be because we lived through this pandemic
Speaker 1: and millions of people around the world died, and we
Speaker 1: have seen this unprecedented loss for folks suffering from opioid addiction.
Speaker 1: We are seeing unprecedented loss and conflict zones around the world,
Speaker 1: And I think, how dare we if we're lucky enough
Speaker 1: to still be here, not pursue our joy and not
Speaker 1: make art and not gather people for song? How dare we?
Speaker 1: Because that's why we're alive. In a way, I think
Speaker 1: it has to make you more committed to really honoring
Speaker 1: the potential for your own delight. If you got to
Speaker 1: stay yeah.
Speaker 3: And you just do it every single day, walk out
Speaker 3: every day, don't ever get caught up in past or future.
Speaker 3: That's all that's that'll come, but it will always feel
Speaker 3: like now now where we're at. And so if you
Speaker 3: walk that every day, if you just every moment make
Speaker 3: it just a little more of that, you will see
Speaker 3: that momentum grow and it's you will be able to
Speaker 3: look at the world around us and understand that everyone's
Speaker 3: going through something and that death is a for sure
Speaker 3: thing for each and every one of us and it
Speaker 3: comes differently, and to hold it and go yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: that's coming. But right now I'm not dying. Right now,
Speaker 3: I'm right now, I'm alive and if I'm happy, I
Speaker 3: will be healthy and living longer.
Speaker 1: On to take your liveness and an offer, as you said,
Speaker 1: as you always have your story as it evolves to
Speaker 1: people you know through your show through the book. You
Speaker 1: mentioned that the show did what it needed to do
Speaker 1: for you, because I was going to ask if you
Speaker 1: were going to extend, because so many people who knew
Speaker 1: I was interviewing with you today asked me to ask you.
Speaker 1: But I get that when you feel ready to be
Speaker 1: done with something, when it served its purpose. So the
Speaker 1: show is going to close and the book is out
Speaker 1: in the world. What feels like it's next for you?
Speaker 1: How are you feeling sort of opening your arms to
Speaker 1: all of this.
Speaker 3: I can't wait to get back on stage and just
Speaker 3: start doing the thing that I love. We just yesterday
Speaker 3: to day our our spring tour went on sale. I've
Speaker 3: got planned. Yeah, it'll be California, and I think I'm
Speaker 3: doing a little down in Florida, kind of west coast,
Speaker 3: all the way up into Oregon and uh Washington and
Speaker 3: and and I love that so much. I love my band,
Speaker 3: I love my music. I love the people that love
Speaker 3: my music. I'm going to tour all summer, probably a
Speaker 3: little bit into the fall, and it's just that is
Speaker 3: my happy place. My family knows it. Every it's just hm,
Speaker 3: it's so healing it. And then what will happen is
Speaker 3: towards the end of next year, I'll get all antsy,
Speaker 3: like what's gonna what am I gonna do now? And
Speaker 3: and and that's the joy of it is just you
Speaker 3: just keep putting that in front of you. I should
Speaker 3: mention I did something also last year. I did a
Speaker 3: concert at a women's penitentiary in Kansas, where I'm from,
Speaker 3: and we have filmed that and it's a beautiful, moving,
Speaker 3: touching documentary that will be out in April on Paramount Plus.
Speaker 3: It's called I'm Not Broken. So that's going to be
Speaker 3: out and that's going to hopefully kind of lift the
Speaker 3: tour up a little bit because people because it's a
Speaker 3: live concert video in a prison, it's really really moving
Speaker 3: and we talked to a few women there and it's
Speaker 3: really enlightening on what women are going through and what
Speaker 3: people are doing now to think about crime and punishment differently,
Speaker 3: in coarsration differently, and how we can actually help just
Speaker 3: lock people up.
Speaker 1: That's beautiful. Yeah, I've been lucky enough to do some
Speaker 1: prison visits with the Anti Recidivism Coalition. There you go,
Speaker 1: and yeah, man, you just realize like to sit and
Speaker 1: listen to people's stories and to bring them art can
Speaker 1: it's always the thing that heals. Yeah, I can't wait
Speaker 1: to see it. That's really exciting.
Speaker 3: That too.
Speaker 1: Yes, please, Oh my gosh, I'm coming. And I was
Speaker 1: going to say I'm coming to the concert.
Speaker 4: Get ready. I'll just I'll be screaming my head off.
Speaker 1: I can't for you.
Speaker 3: West coast or East coast.
Speaker 1: I'm back and forth, but I'm primarily West coast.
Speaker 3: Okay, good, me too.
Speaker 1: So I'm between LA and New York a lot, but
Speaker 1: LA is technically home.
Speaker 3: Good.
Speaker 4: Have you liked living in New York all all through
Speaker 4: the fall? Has been great?
Speaker 3: That's an interesting question. I'm here with my two daughters
Speaker 3: and my wife, and so that's great. I'm a Midwestern,
Speaker 3: a California girl, and I like my space and there's
Speaker 3: just one space in New York City. I'm up on
Speaker 3: the Upper east Side, which is nice and you know,
Speaker 3: comparatively more space than most. But man, there's just a
Speaker 3: lot of people here and it is constantly moving. And
Speaker 3: I missed the sun even when it's out. I don't
Speaker 3: always get to see it. Yeah, yeah, and I'm really
Speaker 3: looking forward to just I have a huge yard and
Speaker 3: my home California is just sent in. Yeah. But New
Speaker 3: Yorkers have been wonderful and I've enjoyed the experience very much.
Speaker 3: I do not regret it at all. I'm really looking
Speaker 3: forward to it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh well, we can't wait to get you back here.
Speaker 1: I feel the same anytime I go on location. I
Speaker 1: come home. I have this tree in my backyard that
Speaker 1: you know, you're you're a fellow journey woman. Is like
Speaker 1: it's such a sacred thing to lay under and have
Speaker 1: an experience. And every time I get home, I walk
Speaker 1: in my backyard and literally hug my tree.
Speaker 3: Yes we are, Yes, Yeah, I know, I know I
Speaker 3: missed that nature. I missed that, Kimmy. I'm ready for
Speaker 3: some of that, yes yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well I love it. Thank you so much. I
Speaker 1: know that for everybody who's at home listening, they're they're
Speaker 1: going to go and you know, turn on one of
Speaker 1: their favorite records of yours and enjoy themselves while they
Speaker 1: order this book that is so profoundly beautiful. And I
Speaker 1: just really want to thank you for the way you've
Speaker 1: chosen to share with us because I think courage is
Speaker 1: contagious and when people tell the truth, it inspires other
Speaker 1: people to do the same. Thank you.
Speaker 3: I appreciate the best on your journey, my friend. Okay,
Speaker 3: thank you. What other people say about you is none
Speaker 3: of your business.
Speaker 1: You be indeed, I appreciate it. And yeah, please let
Speaker 1: me know if we can hang when you get home.
Speaker 1: I'd love to get to do that.
Speaker 3: Plan on Okay, people definitely do that. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Have a great rest of your day, honey.
Speaker 4: Oye bye bye.