Melissa Etheridge

Before a concert in Arizona, the outspoken singer talks about her work and her causes.

By Cait Brennan

Melissa Etheridge

A Fearless Voice

As Melissa Etheridge prepares for a show in Arizona, the singer talks about a big year that included a new album, a Broadway show and a radio program

From the Hollywood Walk of Fame to Broadway, it's been a wild year for Melissa Etheridge.

The multi-platinum rock star brings her "Fearless Love" Tour to Wild Horse Pass Hotel & Casino in Chandler on Nov. 11.

Rocking is what it's all about for Etheridge. After a few years exploring softer sounds, her 2010 CD Fearless Love found the singer returning to a harder-edged sound.

"I wanted to rock on this," Etheridge said during a telephone interview. "I got a little, not quiet, but a little timid because I think our whole music world went all pop. But I've realized I can't follow anybody anymore. I've just got to make the music I love, and I love rock and roll. I made all these songs to be played live so I could enjoy it live, each and every one of them."

The album, which debuted at No. 7 on the Billboard 200, had the 50-year old Etheridge exploring themes of love and fear.

"It all stems from my time with cancer and the whole experience of being diagnosed and treatment and really realizing what life is and what it means to me. What is this reality and what am I doing? If I'm not happy I'm no good for anybody else," she said.

"Life is the choice between love and fear," Etheridge said. "That inspired me and I had to write about it. My work for the last six years has been just due to that thought, that message."

Advocate for medical marijuana

In September, Etheridge was honored with the 2,450th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame to kick off the Hard Rock Cafe's Pinktober campaign to battle breast cancer.

"I am seven years cancer-free," Etheridge said. "I feel better than I ever have. I'm healthier than I've ever been. I have a wonderful outlook on life and love and reality and why we're here."

Etheridge credited medical marijuana with helping her make it through chemotherapy, and expressed frustration that Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has put the state's recently passed medical marijuana law on hold.

"That makes me crazy," Etheridge said. "The people understand. The people know the great things that can come out of it, the healing things.

"When I was going through chemotherapy, I had the choice of this drug, which affects the pain but gives you side effects. Well, then you have to take the other drug, and all of a sudden you're taking 10 things with all these other million side effects," Etheridge said. "Or, you can smoke a natural herb or eat a natural herb. It's not about getting high. It's about pain relief. It's time we all grow up and see we've been fed a lie about a lot of things. I'm a big advocate for it. It's compassionate relief."

Melissa Etheridge as St. Jimmy

A role on Broadway

For Etheridge, it's been a year full of firsts. In February the singer starred on Broadway as St. Jimmy in the Green Day musical American Idiot, a role often played by Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong.

"I have a deep love of Broadway," Etheridge said. "My gay gene is definitely in the Barbra Streisand and Broadway stuff. I have always loved it, and I was very interested in what Green Day was doing. So, when Billie Joe was going away, they said, ‘Let's look for someone who could fill in for him for a week,' and I jumped at the chance. Well, first I said, ‘Oh no, no,' and then I said, ‘Well, why not? Why be afraid of that?' And I had such a blast."

The Broadway experience inspired Etheridge to begin writing her own musical, with current partner Linda Wallem (creator of the Showtime series Nurse Jackie).

"I've got most of the songs written," she said. An Oscar winner for "I Need To Wake Up," from the movie An Inconvenient Truth, Etheridge is developing the musical at her own pace. "We're just putting it together for the first time. It could be a year, it could be three years. These things take time. It's all about the story and the music. It's a very old-school musical. And it's not my old songs or anything, it's all new songs."

At work on new music

The musical won't sideline her rock career. Etheridge is already at work on Fearless Love's follow-up.

"What I'm really loving is a little bit more of the soul and R&B," she said. "I think it's coming back into our music. People are embracing it. I probably won't go that far, but I'm feeling more comfortable about the music that I've always made. There will not be any sort of crazy departure for me. I'm going to make the music that I love to make. I'm going to rock, I'm going to sing, we're going to think, we're going to feel."

Etheridge, who spent some of her early years playing in classic country bands, said a potential roots music album could one day be in the cards.

"It seems that the country music now is pop music, and the way-out-there alternative bands are country, that old fashioned folk country music. You can hear it in Mumford and Sons," Etheridge said. "I probably wouldn't do the things that are country hits right now, but I would do more roots music because Tammy Wynette and George Jones and Hank Williams, that, to me, is country music. That, I love. That's some great songwriting, great singing, and it was the cousin of rock and roll. They both came from the same place, from the blues. I have so much music to make."

While her past relationships have become tabloid fodder, Etheridge and Wallem prefer to keep their life together private. Etheridge said her biggest current influence is her children.

"That's my life," she said. "You know, even on this last album, the last song, ‘Jellybean Row,' I mention my daughter ... and me being a mother and what that's like. They're my teachers. I learn so much about myself through my children."

Even her upcoming Arizona appearance is built around her children's schedule. "When my kids are in school I kind of get away once a month for a weekend and this is one of those shows," she said. "It feels really good."

A voice on the radio

Besides the Broadway experience and the forthcoming album, Etheridge launched another new venture this year. The nationally syndicated Melissa Etheridge Radio Show gives the singer a chance to express a different side of herself and connect one-on-one to listeners and fans.

"It has been a blast. People keep saying, ‘What's your show about?' It's not ‘Today in Hollywood,' because that really doesn't interest me. It's about ‘Today in carpool' and ‘This is what I'm thinking about life' and ‘What are you thinking?'

"I take a lot of calls and talk to a lot of people, which I love," she said. "I'm a cancer survivor, I'm a mom, I live an alternative lifestyle in a very normal way, and I love sharing the life. That's what I'm doing on my radio show. I love it."

Etheridge said the show, the music and her life all share her guiding philosophy: speak true.

"I've found that sometimes the biggest thing I do is just to stand there and go, ‘You know, this is what's happening and this is what I am and this is the truth about it' and people are always, ‘Oh, that's so courageous of you' and I think, what kind of society we live in then, when it's courageous to go, ‘Hey, I'm gay, you know, or ‘Yeah, I have cancer and the chemo made me bald, yeah," said Etheridge. "You know, we're so funny, I think. It's definitely encouraged me to continue being honest." -E

ME Fearless Love album

Etheridge remembers earlier show in Phoenix

Melissa Etheridge's show at Wild Horse Pass Casino isn't her first performance in the Valley. "Oh, I love Phoenix," Etheridge said. "I've had some of my most rocking gigs in Phoenix.

"Early on in my career, 1989 maybe, I did my first in-the-round show at the Celebrity Theatre. It was all these crazy fans right in front of you. That blew my mind. The stage is really close, and it goes around, and I would close my eyes and sing and open my eyes and it's a whole new audience in front of me. Wow, that was a seriously rocking show."

More about Melissa Etheridge

Born May 29, 1961, in Leavenworth, Kan.

Since she started recording in 1988, Fearless Love is her 10th studio album.

Received a GLAAD Media Award in 2006.

Came out publicly in 1993 at the Triangle Ball, a gay celebration of President Bill Clinton's inauguration.

Won Grammy Awards for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female in 1993 for "It Ain't Heavy" and 1995 for "Come To My Window."

Had long-term relationship with Julie Cypher, who gave birth to two children fathered by sperm donor David Crosby. The women separated in 2000. In 2003, Etheridge had a commitment ceremony with actress Tammy Lynn Michaels, who gave birth to twins in 2006. The women announced their separation in 2010.

VITAL STATISTICS

Melissa Etheridge
"Fearless Love" Tour
8 p.m. Nov. 11
Ovations LIVE! Showroom
Wild Horse Pass Hotel & Casino
5040 Wild Horse Pass Blvd., Chandler
Tickets: $60-$150
877-840-0457; http://wingilariver.com