AN IN-DEPTH CONVERSATION WITH MELISSA ETHERIDGE...
You have talked about emotional loneliness growing up and how that pushed you into music, I’m curious about how much of that still motivates you. It seems to me that composing and writing is at its core, sort of an isolated process. You know, it usually is. Up until this album, the pro-
cess has been me alone in a room, looking up to the sky and saying “come to me, inspiration please come to me…thought, emotion, whatever it is, help me and let me make it universal.” For the first time, with this album, it was unique for so many reasons. This is my first independent release; it’s the first time I actu- ally own the record, so the whole process of making it was different. Usually a record company gives me a chunk of money and then I go into the studio, hire a producer, write the songs and boom... it’s done. You just go in and do it. These days, you don’t have the up-front money anymore. Now it’s, I am going to collaborate with you Mr. Producer... I am going to come into your studio and you’re going to give me studio time and your time. Let’s try to create something together and if it’s good, we’ll move forward with it. If it’s not good, then it’s “thank you very much” and that’s it. No money, no foul, no anything. With this album I collaborated much more. There
were some instances where I created songs right there in studio, together with other people. I had never done that before. The urban and the more R&B soul stuff that I was doing was just, “Here we go, we’re cookin,’ makin’ soup and we’re all throwing everything in.” It seems like it harkens back to the ’50 and ’60 acoustic recording sensibility, more spontaneous. Performers and bands jammed and laid tracks down without the advan- tages of mixing boards and the like. Absolutely. It was magical and gave me things like
“Monster,” “Do It Again,” and “Ain’t That Bad.” They have a culture of freestyle that is just amazing. Sort of turn the microphone on and sing whatever comes— however you are inspired—It was frightening to me (laughs). It was also exhilarating too; I really enjoyed it so much. Tell me a little about “Take My Number,” it’s a bit of a throwback to your earlier music. It was one of the reasons we wanted to put that
song out first. To reestablish a connection to people who are familiar with my music. The song is a beauti- ful little nugget that opens the door to the rest of the album that goes deep into all kinds of musical genres. It is filled with fun, strong songs—it’s still essentially me—just in different vehicles. It’s refreshing to see you experiment, I especially love “Mon-
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ster,” it has such a distinct feel. It speaks to so many serious things, homophobia and fear of any kind of differences. Yet, there is a humor to it. All I kept picturing in my mind was Godzilla (laughs). Exactly, he’s a big old monster, but he’s also really
sweet. That’s how anything that we’re afraid of is, any kind of diversity and adversity. There’s a hard first impression, but there’s really love inside of all of it. I love how different the world is now. There is still
a large lesbian following in my crowd, but there’s a good percentage of it that isn’t now. They make up about 30 percent and the rest is gay men, straight men and women, and even kids, pretty much every- thing. You collaborated with an amazing array of people for This Is M.E., Jerrod Betti, Jon Levine, Jerry Wonda and RoccStar. What was it like working with RoccStar in particular? My favorite story about RoccStar was when we first
met. He was looking at me and I was checking him out and thinking, well, I guess this could work (laughs)… We got along great and he started by playing a single beat, sort of a marching drum bass. I pulled out my electric guitar (laughs); he’d never used real guitars (laughs)… He was like what’s this? So, I’m playing and after that, I started to sing.
We laid down some vocals and he jumps on the computer in the engineer’s seat and started trying to do something. He turned to the engineer and says, “Where’s the Auto-Tune?” (Laughs) The engineer says, I would never presume to put Auto-Tune on Ms. Etheridge’s voice.” RoccStar said, “She’s been singing like that without it?” He couldn’t believe that I could actually perform without it. I laughed and said, “Long ago, there was this time before Auto-Tune, when you actually had to sing on key!” That is hysterical. It does seem like there is a shift back toward real musicianship again, you actually have to be able to carry a tune successfully. Yes. I find that true not only in music, but in every-
thing. Even with my children, they resonate and know when what they are hearing is candy. They know when it’s fake. They like the candy and it has its place, but they have such a great appreciation for someone who can actually sing. They know the difference when they hear a really great acoustic guitar. When they hear a live band, my kids call them “Civil War bands” (laughs), artists that are playing real acoustics with true strings; it makes a difference to them. I enjoy immensely that you have always managed to stay true to that ideal. I believe that it really counts for something. It’s a funny thing, because there are moments when
the public is in that space with me at the same time and that is so great. Then, there are times when they are very far away (laughs). But I know that the choices that I make are the ones that I have to because that’s what is real for me. I love to ask performers about the moment in their careers, when they realized that everything had changed. Did you have that sort of an “ah-ha” moment? You know, it was a gradual, slow kind of thing. It
was a slow climb up the ladder and really it still is. I was so grateful when I got my first job here in L.A. playing at a bar five nights a week, makin’ money and
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