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Melissa Etheridge
Melissa Etheridge Gets Lucky
Finding Herself In Love and In Life by Lydia Carole DeFretos
"The reason I put 'Lucky' as the first track," Etheridge says of the title cut to her eighth disc, "is also the reason I called the album Lucky: I don't want anybody to have any false ideas that this is not an up album." She also could have called it "When You Find The One," after its closing track, a lullaby-like paean to a new love. Of the album's 13 new songs, nine of them bask in the glory of being madly, deeply and hopelessly in love, injecting the CD with a lightheartedness not found on Etheridge's last outing, 2001's Skin, which narrated the dissolution of a very public 12-year relationship. The difference between Lucky and Skin is pretty startling because the new disc represents the first time that Etheridge has written so many happy songs. Where once there were runaway rockers belted out by a jilted lover, she has filled the album with anthems, ballads and some of the most badass rock she's ever recorded. Songs like "Mercy" and "Will You Still Love Me" reveal the vulnerability attendant in any new relationship, while "Come Out Tonight" and "If You Want To" toy with that same newness in a more playful way. "This Moment," like "When You Find The One," celebrates the emotional whirlwind that accompanies the onset of love. In "Secret Agent," Etheridge taunts the boys who have the wrong idea about her new lover, and "Kiss Me" is hot, steamy and sexy. The first single, a classic Etheridge arena rocker called "Breathe," marks the first time she has included a song on an album that she didn't write, but its lyric deals with longing for loved ones while on the road, so she had no trouble making it her own. I caught up with the musician/activist during a break in her current "Get Lucky Tonight" super club tour, which comes to Roseland in New York on April 16, 17, 18 and 20. Friends since her debut was released, the conversation flowed freely, from the tour to the new album, her wedding last September to actress Tammy Lynn Michaels and, of course, the gay marriage controversy. While checking out her website, the Melissa Etheridge Information Network (M.E.I.N.), I noticed that a pair of shows had been canceled during this, the early leg of the tour. When asked if everything was all right, Etheridge responds with candor, "I'm fine but my ticket sales weren't. So we had to cancel Detroit and Denver. We really didn't know how many tickets we could sell in this situation. And we learned that my fans like to have a reserved seat. So we're like, 'OK, now we know.' They don't want to stand outside for five hours just to be up front." Etheridge encountered some problems while trying to make the new disc. Initially, back in 2002, she had planned to release a live album. That never came to fruition. As she explains, "I actually recorded a performance I did at the Roxy of some new songs. But I listened to it and went, ŒI'm not ready for this.¹ I was so in the mood to rock and I thought, I rock the best live. Then I was like, ŒThis is going to really limit me. There's not a whole lot of live stuff anybody's hearing anywhere.¹ So I decided, ŒI'll do this someday, but now is not the right time.¹ I didn't think the quality of the material was strong enough." At that point, Etheridge and her band hit the road. After returning from touring she reunited with engineer David Cole, who had co-produced Skin, to work on the new album. According to the story, the pair got too bogged down in technology in the studio. As the singer tells it, "That's what I say, but I ended up using a lot of the stuff. There's about four songs from that session. But, man, Pro Tools is a lot of fun. Having wanted to do something so live, I really went to the complete opposite place and put a lot of bells and whistles in it. I think people were like, 'We want to hear your voice.' That was the reaction I got when I played it for friends." Etheridge has gone on record as saying that she found much of the essence of the songs obscured by computer wizardry. She laughs about that quote, "Well, it's very tempting to sound kind of like Moby." When she submitted the tracks to Island, her label since her debut, they said, "No, come back with something else." Etheridge admits she was somewhat upset. "It was the first time I really came face to face with the changing music business and radio," she says. "With the last two albums it really didn't matter because they were so personal. Take Skin. There really wasn't much on there that could be played on the radio. It was a personal journey. But with this one I was like, 'I'm ready to reach the masses.' I had so much fun rocking. And to have my record company go, 'Well, there's really nothing on here that we feel strongly about taking to radio,' I was like, 'What?' "So it sent me on a journey of thinking about who I am as an artist, the kind of music I make, what is commercial, what choices I wanted to make, where I wanted to go, what is compromise and what is just smart. There's this whole road to go down." Still, she felt a little lost. What did the label want from her? Did they want a Britney Spears type of disc? Etheridge answers, "It came to the point after I presented them with two more different things, more songs, more stuff, that they said, 'We want you to listen to this song.' That's when I was like, 'Oh, my God, what's this song going to sound like?' Although she is known for covering songs live onstage and there are numerous bootlegs that contain her versions of tunes by everyone from Janis Joplin to her pal Bruce Springsteen, Etheridge has always prided herself on being a singer/songwriter. There had been some discussion during this period about the possibility of having her write with other people. She reflects, "I went on this journey of just horrible stuff. I was screaming, 'I just want to take my musical ball and go home!'" When they sent her the Greenwheel composition "Breathe," she was "totally prepared to not like it and go, 'No, then don't take my album to radio. That's it.'" Instead, Etheridge listened to the song and really liked it. "It was rock," she says, "it was intense, it was a vocal performance that I could sink my teeth into. Then I had a new problem. I was all set to go 'No' and walk away with my dignity intact. Instead I was like, 'OK, how am I going to approach this?' I decided to approach this the way I've always approached everything and be completely, 100 percent truthful about it to everyone and tell them why I did it." With this experience behind her, Etheridge is now more aware of the business aspect of the music industry. As she explains, "I try not to let it influence me and my core nature of the art that I make. But it's also art as commerce. This is the music business, and my lifestyle, to which I have grown accustomed, requires that I be a certain amount of successful. That success is measured in album sales and ticket sales. And the best way to get out there is on radio, and radio is extremely limited. So yes, I do follow it. We have learned, my management and I, that sometimes the best thing that we can do is to go to other outlets to get the word out that I have an album out. We've got to constantly be thinking." Lucky has undeniably surprised a lot of folks because it is such an upbeat album. People weren't sure if Etheridge could write when she was happy. The Kansas City native herself wasn't even sure. As she puts it, "I didn't know what it would be like because I didn't know what it would be like to be actually happy. I realized, once I was, that the inspiration was completely there. Inspiration comes in the same way. This inspiration is just more passionate, more of a celebration. I still question, I still think. It's still the same craft." Potential follow-up singles to "Breathe" include both the title track and "This Moment." Etheridge is enjoying playing the new material live. "I was just dying to get the album out so I could get on the road," she admits. "When I start 'Lucky,' everyone's just dancing around. It's really been a lot of fun to play." The problem with wanting to perform as much new material as possible is that she has to eliminate some of the older songs. But, as it is, the show is about three hours long without taking a break. When asked about this the rocker replies, "No breaks. Breaks are for sissies. It's rock and roll." One of the highlights of both the album and the current show is the song "Tuesday Morning," which is based on a true story about Mark Bingham, one of the heroes of Flight 93. Although Etheridge did not know him, she felt compelled to write about him. She elaborates, "I was reading People magazine about Flight 93 and these four heroes. They did little bios on each of them. I came to this guy, Mark Bingham, a rugby player and a gay man. And I went, 'What?' A gay man and he was one of these heroes. And while I was sorry that he lost his life, I was glad that he had been recognized. "Then I watched how that part of the story kind of got left out after a while in the movie and in the book. I was like, 'OK, is he just going into history's closet or something?' Seeing how our country's been going, I felt inspired to tell this guy's story. I want people to see this when they make their choices [in this coming election]." In the January issue of The Advocate the pair talked freely about the gay marriage controversy. Etheridge said she had a belief in her heart that "very soon the walls and the gates that have been held closed by people with narrow minds and fear and hate in their hearts will burst open." There was a rumor going around a while back that Etheridge and Michaels were going to officially get married in San Francisco. "We thought about it," she answers. "We saw everything that was happening. We had talked to Rosie [O'Donnell] about it. We talked to our legal people and felt that we had a choice. We could go to San Francisco and become part of the whole civil lawsuit that will go through or we could wait until Massachusetts came through. They just felt that Massachusetts had more of a legal ground because it's already been through the court system there that it would stick more so than in San Francisco. So we decided to wait." Since the two were married Etheridge has noticed a change in the relationship. The fear that Michaels will leave is no longer there. Plus, she adds, "It's that commitment is such a solid ground to work the relationship and to maneuver through life. It's very important. There's no out door anymore; it's not there. You've got to make this work." |
"The main thing I want people to know is that my music is honest, and that’s the way I try to be. [Having hit records] takes all your time away. A lot of things have changed. I’m not begging for gigs or worrying about the electricity being cut off when I’m home. I have more freedom with what I do; my main concern is making the show better, and this allows a lot of opportunities to do that."