Drama Queens - Work in Progress: In Case You Missed It: Melissa Etheridge

Episode Date: May 30, 2024

For over three decades, Grammy and Oscar-winning rockstar Melissa Etheridge has dazzled audiences across the globe. Now, she is lighting up the Broadway stage with her one-woman act.  The rock icon joins Sophia to talk about her journey from a kid in the midwest with a guitar to a globe-trotting hitmaker, how her critically acclaimed stage show came about, the decision to open up about her son's passing in her memoir, and growing up in the '60s and '70s, and the consequences of coming out then versus now.  Plus, Melissa is going on tour again this spring! How she feels about hitting the road again, and details about her upcoming special coming to Paramount+ soon. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Hey, everyone, it's Sophia. Welcome to work in progress. Friends, I am always excited to be here with you. Every week we have guests that I adore, admire, and am fascinated by. But when I tell you that today, I am, almost vibrating out of my own chair because I am so excited about the woman who is here with me. She is an icon, an idol of mine. Her music raised me. Her stories have inspired me. She is one

of those people who reminds me that courage is contagious. Our guest today is none other than the iconic Melissa Ashridge. Melissa is one of rock music's great female icons who happens to have become an icon and rock and roll when there were almost no women playing the guitar. Her popularity was built around incredible songs like Bring Me Some Water, No Souvenirs, Come to My Window, which is personally one of my favorites in the world. Her fourth album, Yes I Am, earned her a second Grammy. And in the midst of this incredible career, she battled breast cancer publicly and shared her journey with fans, even taking the stage in front of massive audiences completely bald, inspiring people to never give up. She made her Broadway debut in Green Day's Rock Opera American Idiot in 2011,

the same year she happened to receive her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. And this year, she has launched the incredible show My Window on Broadway. I was lucky enough to go and see it opening night in New York, and I was positively shaking out of my chair that night as well. The play is such a beautiful retrospective of her career. It'll make you cry. It'll make you laugh. It'll make you sing along. And I think the coolest thing I've ever heard anyone do when launching a Broadway show about their life is that she also happened to write this show with her wife and her best friend and co-producer while writing a memoir of her life.

Talking to My Angels is her beautifully engrossing and harrowing story about her life. It's really a testament to the power of art. It's a touchstone for anyone seeking a path out of darkness. And it is a powerful love letter from Melissa to her family and her fans who have been integral to her journey. I cannot wait to ask her one bazillion questions about all of these things. Let's get to it. I'm going to go ahead and tell everybody at home listening a couple of things that some of them I know have read. There were some folks after your beautiful show on Broadway, my window opened, who saw some of the things that I sat on the carpet that night.

And we're like, oh, my God, same. I grew up. I'm so obsessed with her. I can't believe you got to go. I wish I was in New York. People are so excited about this retrospective of your career. But for all our friends at home, I have to sort of. throw myself under the bus a little bit.

The first night that I met Melissa was last year at Elton John's big beautiful fundraiser around the Oscars. He raises money for the Elton John AIDS Foundation. And I was walking in and I turned around and I saw you on the carpet. And y'all at home, I just never had this happen to me before. I got so excited. I started crying and I was like, I'm so sorry. This is really awkward.

I love you. And I grew up listening to your music on repeat, like to the point that my parents were like, the album is so good, but maybe listen to something else in the house. And, you know, that was, yes, I am. You know, as an 80s baby, the early 90s was my moment to discover my own musical taste. And Melissa, you were so gracious and sweet. You gave me a hug. You told me everything was fine.

I was like, I don't know what's happening to me. And here we are. So thank you for humoring me for a real long conversation today. Very sweet. Those things can be so strange, and that was very, very sweet. Wow, you were just so lovely. And it was such a special night. And, yeah, I always love when I get to meet people I really admire who are likewise passionate

about using their big, beautiful platforms for good causes and, you know, doing good in the world. And that's really been something that I think you've done for so long. Well, it's, it's the more you are in this industry, the more you have what others might, you know, think of as success or something, the more you realize that the real joy is not in, oh, I got this, I got that. The real joy is, oh, I was able to experience this. And this feels good. And you just go to what feels good. So you'll, you're, you're on that path and you'll, you'll just be keeping, you know, keep doing that. Oh, that's so kind.

I love to ask folks who join me on the show because we get to talk to so many people who have these illustrious careers and who are doing such cool things in the world. I always like to take someone who we can all look at and go, wow, they're, you know, a musician and actor. a leader, so outspoken, all these things, and ask how similar you were as a kid. Like, do you, and I feel like I have a little inside scoop because I got to watch the show and it's such a beautiful retrospective. But for the folks who haven't been lucky enough to see it, were you, or can you, I guess, from this vantage point, look back at who Melissa was at, you know, eight or nine years old and see traces of this same woman oh yeah i mean uh you're always the same you even though it constantly evolves and changes you always have that same inner being that same

inner uh child young woman whatever it is it's it's still the same heart and um you know i had a a dream i back in the 60s i grew up in the 60s and uh just the the music the idea entertainment was becoming the big thing back that was you know music and then rock and roll and and and it was so powerful that i dared to dream oh i want to i want some of that and and that's still is inside me it definitely you know the the world changes everything changes and what it looks like now you know 50 years later is a lot is a lot different but it's still that same dream it's still that same reaching for something and and that's a beautiful thing to have is to really look and and go oh i want to be there yeah and when you hear something new i mean the the budding

sounds of that era that can move you, you know, move your spirit. And you go, oh, a human made that. Like a person made all those sounds. And now I'm feeling feelings through a radio. Yeah. Will you tell people what the first song was that really shook you up? Well, in the show, I talk about how I was about three years old. And I was in my neighbor's driveway. All the kids were out, you know, it's the 60s and they just let children run wild. We were all over the neighborhood, and I was just standing there, and some kid handed me a transistor radio, and I heard, you know, the Beatles, I want to hold your hand. It was, and I remember, I had a very distinct memory of hearing that thinking the sound of those harmonies in that, hey, I want to hold you. You know, that, that whole thing just was like nothing I'd ever heard, and it, and it, it's hard to explain how the Beatles sounded back to how nothing.

nothing had sounded like that before and causing that Beatlemania, causing the sound and the look was just, you know, transformative to everybody back then. And that got me totally interested. My sister had their albums. My parents had other great albums. Mamas and the Pappas, Simon Garfunkel, you know, great soul singers, Aretha Franklin. And they just had a great album collection. and my sister who was older had kind of a rock and roll collection. So I grew up with all that. And it just, it was, it was thrilling, just thrilling. That's so cool.

And so as you grow up in this amazing era and, you know, rock and rolls hitting the scene and music is changing, how does the story move through you realizing this was such a passion in your life and then breaking into the music? music industry. I mean, were, was your family supportive of the dream? Did people think it was a pipe dream? Were there pitfalls along the way? Because it's, it's such a good story. Well, I, I begged my parents for a guitar. I was crazy about the Archies, actually. The, the, there's a, well, everyone knows the Archies now because there's like Riverdale and all those things and yeah and um and the archies when i was a kid was just so cool it was all the high school

kids you know playing and i was like wow i want to do that and and so i started playing at the age of eight and of course they said i couldn't they they they got the guitar actually for my sister which really broke my heart but i bagged and they finally said well all right put your fingers will leave and yeah my fingers bled but i started playing and and and it my teacher was very very stern, but he was serious and good. And I practiced my, you know, lessons and came in every day and learned and learned. And when I learned chords, this is now, this is the end of the 60s. This is early 70s. And I'm, I'm playing chords. And I realize, wow, that's a song. And now we're in the, we're in the kind of the folk music boom of the 60s, early 70s. And it's all, you know,

even girls, you know, playing guitars and singing. that's happening so I'm I'm feeling wow I can do this and I start making up songs you know I I was 12 years old I didn't know anything you know but I but I was copying you know what I'd heard and trying to put my own spin on it and a lot I in the in the show I say you know I used to write these really dramatic sad songs you know about their story songs and and and my friends would all cry and how much I love. that i was getting an emotional response yeah from something i created so that was the beginning of that and then uh actually having the opportunity to play in bands when i was younger through the talent show that i entered and he made a variety show and then there's a band there and i it just it's just one step at a time it just happens one thing after another very small steps but they all you know end up with me as a teenager on the weekend singing in professional cover bands all over the Midwest. And that was a great opportunity because I got to be comfortable in front of people.

I learned other instruments. I learned how to perform on stage. Frankly, I don't, I feel sorry for a lot of artists today that sort of are in their late teens or early 20s. And all they've ever done is make music in their bedroom on their computer, you know. And then all of a sudden, okay, go perform to 20,000 people. And they're scared to death. They've never done it. I was able to perform to 10 people to 20 to, you know, 50 in a room, to drunk people. I've had all kinds of things happen.

So I feel very safe on stage. And it leads to being able to be a good performer. Yeah. Gosh, that's so interesting that you do. have to find your confidence to make your art in front of other humans, regardless of what those other humans are doing. Yeah. Yeah, you have to not take it personally. That's the, man, you, there's a story. My wife has a whole other very interesting life. And she used to actually, in the 80s, she was a chauffeur driver. She was a limo driver, and she drove Liza Minnelli.

Wow. Yeah, and she has incredible stories about that. But she has this one story about when Liza played Carnegie Hall, how, and this is, this is about taking it personally, how the whole place stood on their feet to give her standing ovation, but there was that one guy in the back that didn't, and she obsessed about that guy and how he didn't stand up. And later, after the show, she sees that guy in his wheelchair leaving, and she's like, oh, my God, I was, I was suffering and taking it personally. that for somebody he didn't like me. So you never know.

So you can't be on stage looking at an audience and then taking personally what they're giving. You have to say, I'm doing this. It's going one way. And I don't need anything from you. I hope you appreciate this, but this is my art. It takes a night after it. It takes year after year after year of doing it to really not take it personally. Wow.

You had to bolster that confidence. I just saw this cool video of Brunei Brene talking about how if you walk around in the world looking for proof that you're not enough, you'll find it. You get to prove whatever story you tell yourself. Yeah. But to learn to stand in your confidence and in your light, I think it's much harder, you know, done than said.

That's just week after week, month after month is doing it. You can't get it wrong. You'll have ups and downs. you can't get it wrong because it you will always have another chance you go okay maybe i i took it off the rails this time but i can i can really try next time and and and learn from it and that's all we're just learning we're not here to get it perfect nobody's getting it perfect we're just learning it's fun in the learning did it feel a little bit like that you know when you left kansas and you moved to Boston for college

and then quickly realized you just wanted to be playing music and not really doing the school part. Was that part of finding your footing and your confidence too to say, oh, I really want to commit to what it is I know I want to do and maybe I don't have to do this more traditional path?

Was it scary or did it just sort of happen and did you not have to think about it? Well, I didn't like letting my parents down. I remember my mother showing me, she goes, come up and into her room where she had her desk. And she was actually the moneymaker in the family. And so she actually controlled the checkbook and the balances and stuff. My father was great. He was a teacher. Teachers make no money, unfortunately. My mother, she called me into her room and showed me the check she was writing to the school, which at the time was only like $3,000.

So this, you know, college tuitions are crazy nowadays, but back then it was $3,000. And she said, now, this is what I'm paying. This is how much I'm paying. So when you want to skip class, you remember this. And so when I was there and I was really not liking it because one, I was, the whole school had maybe 10 women in it. And there was two of us. in the guitar, you know, there's not women, this is 1979, women weren't, you know, playing

guitar that just wasn't happening. And it was very difficult to get noticed in the school. And I remember one of, I had started playing in, in this restaurant. And one of my teachers, one of my professors came just, you know, had to me, just happened to be there in the, in the lounge sitting and talking. I was like, oh my gosh, he's going to see me here doing my thing. And he didn't even recognize him. He didn't even notice me, didn't, didn't notice me from his class. And I thought, man, I'm just, I'm, I'm, I'm blank there. And I'm getting nothing. And I did quit. I didn't tell my mom for a while. I just kind of went, until they, you know, until they let her know that I wasn't showing up. And well, you know, and as my mom eventually said, when she was much older, she said, well, everything turned out okay. I love when you hit that point with your parents where you can really be adults together in the room. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

I've really experienced a shift in my relationship with my parents in probably the last five years that's just been super cool. We'll be back in just a minute, but here's a word from our sponsors. I also remember from the show you, you know, you sharing with all of us that after this wonderful stint in Boston, you went home for a time. And that when you, well, I mean, this is going to be a little out of order now. Let me, let me re-ask this question now that I can feel my heart rate slowing. So surrounding your, your, your. journey in Boston and figuring out what parts of school were for you and what

weren't. And what a wild thing to think about how the dynamic of you being a woman really affected your position in music, even as a student, you know, that there was really this sort of intense withholding over gender of opportunity. You talk about being one of two women, even studying guitar, was the other woman in that class with you, your roommate, or was that a different, that was a different gal at school? Yeah, yeah, no, my roommate was studying boys. Yeah, this was just, just, as far as guitar, they just, and I would venture to say they still don't take women guitar players seriously.

It's just, it is like the last stranglehold of the patriarchy is that women, you know, they don't trust a woman is in rock and roll, you know, is playing the guitar. So it's that, that's, but, you know, it'll change and as everything does. It's just that's, you know, of all the advances, I mean, we, I don't know if you know who Yon Winter is and what he just went through, Yon Winter, look up, Yon Winter, his last interview in New Yorker, in the New York Times. he was the founder of Rolling Stone Magazine, which was like the taste maker of rock and roll

all through the 60s, 70s, you know, all through the whole rock and roll era. And he just released a book called The Masters, where he took all his great interviews that he'd ever done and he put him in a book. And they were all white men. And the interviewer asked him, well, don't you think you're missing.

out on maybe some people of color and some women. And he was like, no, they, they didn't know. And he had the opportunity to actually go, oh, yeah, well, and say something. But he was like, no, they were not as intelligent. And, you know, we're talking Joni Mitchell and, and, you know, Jimmy Hendrix and Prince. And he's saying, you know, so, and he just gotten a lot of trouble for that. But what I'm saying is that just happened this year or, you know, all the other sort of equalizing has been happening in the last 10 years.

The music industry is probably the last. It's been a very male-dominated space for a long time. Well, I think that's a really interesting thing that we're seeing everywhere in this time, right? There's been these ideas of progress, but you see that sort of pendulum swing, and it feels like we've been rolling it back so intensely. Whether it's in your industry, in my industry, you see it. it in politics and you go oh boy we really they really want to cling to power don't they exactly i wouldn't want i wouldn't call it rolling back to me i think it's uh pulling the curtain

off of it and finally seeing it and going how deep it goes whoa that's really like it like i didn't i i knew i always knew yeah well there's not many women rock and roll and whatever but i didn't know there was an active, I didn't know just how deeply entrenched. It was a belief of, oh, no, these, these women aren't serious. There's nothing serious here. They're not intelligent. They're not articulate. And, you know, and that, that's what's mind-blowing. And then you see these politicians and they can't get away. You know, we've got, there's cameras everywhere. They're going to catch everything. And they can't get away with it. We see it more. It's not that we're going back. I think it's a sign of we're going forward because the what used to kind of be silently in power

is not anymore it's it's revealed and we can all go wow and then we're moving on from that so i think it's a good thing it's a kind of an ugly painful thing but it's good in the end yeah that's really that's really a cool way to look at it and i think about you know when you talk about the people left out of that book or the people who've historically been, you know, left out of the rooms where it happens, as they say, you know, it's been hard for women. It's also been incredibly hard for folks from the LGBTQ community. And yet here you are in a time where it was hard for women, where it was extra hard for gay women. And you managed to break through into the you know top tier of rock and roll and it's it's so inspiring it was inspiring to me as a young

artist it's inspiring to me and so many people around the world still you know now and i i think about some things that really stuck out to me in in your show you know seeing it on broadway even you talking about the way your roommate was like i see you yeah like she she knew who you were and you were finding your identity as a queer woman, you know, in this time, what was that like? Because we see now, again, to your point, all this progress has been made and we see as we peel back the next layer how many people want to attack, you know, people's freedom and autonomy. And we're thinking about, you know, decades ago, was it a scary time? Was it a time where you could feel that progress happening? Was it all of it at once?

I think I've had a really great time to be alive and to go through this and see it firsthand. Because I can tell folks like yourself this, that growing up with 60s and 70s, in the 60s and early 70s being a homosexual was considered a mental illness and they were in a lot of states they were throwing us in jail for this they were arresting us and throwing us in jail so you you didn't want you it was dangerous and the 70s were when we first started pushing back and going, no, we're not, and getting a little bit of traction. But you still, if you came out to your parents or anybody, you would destroy the family because it was, they would think, you know, depending on their beliefs, you know, one, you're going to hell or whatever, but that that your

life was going to be miserable, that, that you were picking a lonely, dark life if you were homosexual because that's all anybody knew and it wasn't until see i graduated high school in in 79 and it became a young adult in the 80s and that was when it started getting a little like uh you you'd see a little bit more they they were the weirdos you know the women were the oh you know the kind of you know really strong kind of thing and the men were the most effeminate you know it was it was the outer places of of the personality of the LGBT community that was making all the change because they're the ones that can't hide it you know there you know all of us in the middle were like well what me I can pass is straight you know and and so so the work was being done by that the fringes

and the more it happened in the 80s and the more comfortable I got in my in the women's community I was in in Long Beach and Los Angeles the stronger it got there was a there was a there was a in young Hollywood in the in the late 80s early 90s there was a community of gays and lesbians that you know professionals that were making a lot of business and one by one we'd all kind of step forward and and the more people came out you know myself martina in Avertilova, Billy Jean King, the more these successful people came out, you had to change the conversation about, well, if you're gay, you're going to have a dark, horrible life. It's like people go, no, I'm not having a horrible life. It saved my life to be who I was. So you start

having the conversation and it starts changing hearts and minds. And through the 90s and 2000s, those 30 years, we have grown a lot to where today, I mean, you all might think that, you know, we're struggling and everything, but man, we are way far from where we were in our struggles are no longer, okay, you're going to throw me in jail or you're going to kill me, you know, it's now, oh, I might, you're going to take this book out of school because you think, you know, that's it's a different struggle but it's still the it's because of the expansion of the LGBT community that that there is such pushback but the pushback is is is now on the fringes and not you know in the middle because the oh god I can go on and on for about this but

yeah it's just a change that I have seen and and it's always getting better so in 30 years you're going to be talking about how it was strange 30 years ago, but now it's not. Right. Yeah. I think one of the things that's been interesting for me to watch as a kid, you know, growing up through the 80s and 90s and being part of this community in my whole life. You know, my dad's an artist. Like I grew up in the queerest, most diverse, like amazing culture and so many people. especially folks who look like us, have had to have this reckoning about privilege and, you know, what white privilege looks like and how our society was designed and who it was designed for. And one of the things that, you know, when we're doing hard work, digging into hard subject matter, I also like to

try to look at what the positives are that we can learn from. And one of the things I feel the most grateful for about the way I grew up is that I had the privilege of exposure. You know, like my Uncle Jeff and his husband Winston were just like the most fabulous couple who raised me and Winston did drag as Diana Ross every Saturday night here in L.A. I'm like, you know, I grew up with this like fabulous black drag queen and I was like, you're the coolest person I know. And I think now about how blessed I was because so many people who grow up in more homogenous communities don't grow up around people of color or queer people or, you know, folks who make art or do anything different than what maybe the town industry is.

And I feel so lucky to have been reared in this community because, you know, in my life at all the stages of figuring out who I am, my community, my parents' community are just like, cool. Yeah. Like, we love you being more and more yourself, you know? Right. And I think about how, to your point, the more of us, there are out in the world, living whatever our individual truths are,

the more we can example set for other people that they get to do the same. That's how it works. And it's just so cool. I mean, you know, you had that footage from the inauguration. When you did your big announcement on the mic, will you tell people about that moment? It's one of my favorite moments in your show. I had done some fundraising work for the Bill Clinton, the Clinton Gore campaign of 92. And this was a big time.

We had just had Republican, we just had Reagan into Bush. We'd had 12 years of Republican suppression of AIDS, you know, and the gay community for those 12 years were really pushing against that. And when we finally had a candidate who would even say gay and lesbian, it was groundbreaking to hear that on television. And he would talk about it. So the gay community really got behind him. And we changed. We got out and did a lot of the work, as we still do. To this day, we're a big force in the voting block.

Yeah. And so when I had done some work for them, they invited me to the inauguration. It was I got to, you know, sit and watch him say, ah, Jefferson, you know, Clinton, William Jefferson, Clinton, that's it. And so he does that. And that night, there's all the inaugural balls. And for the first time, there were three gay, lesbian packs that really helped. And now they're all kind of, anyway, but back then there was three of them. And so we had what was called the triangle ball.

And it was the gay and lesbian ball. And it was really fabulous. It was at the Washington Press Club. So when I was up in the balcony with Katie Lang and all the leaders, Elizabeth Birch, all the, you know, these past great LGBTQ leaders up there in the balcony, someone had me a microphone and I said, I hadn't planned on coming out or I had said something much more eloquent, but I said, I, I'm proud to say that I'm proud to have been a lesbian all my life. And it was just a really weird way to say it, but I came out. And then it was at the press

clubs for the next day it was in the newspapers and didn't have social media back then so it didn't go boom it's slowly every tour i would do slowly reporters from every town would put it in their newspaper and it just slowly i talked about being that's all i talked about for about five years was being gay was it yeah but it was a great time and it it did helped and it was i i don't regret anything Yeah. We'll be back in just a minute after a few words from our favorite sponsors. I think about the impact of your voice there. I think about what it was like to see your family. It was the Rolling Stone cover that you guys all did together, right? With the kids. Yeah.

I remember it as a kid being like, whoa, this is so cool. and it's interesting that you say that it was a like a slow moving growth of awareness because you're right now with social media it's like somebody can get a tidbit run with it you know we know that false information spreads 1,500 times faster on the internet than the truth I've certainly experienced my fair share of that gee that's never happened to you has it oh gee it's not happening to me now or anything. What a wild time. But it's such an interesting thing to watch the way that it sort of bursts like a wildfire now. And what a gorgeous thing that you got to have a slower move.

But I didn't think about the fact that you feel like your life centered on your identity for five years. You were probably like, are we still talking about this? Exactly. But it actually gave me an opportunity to kind of get used to and perfect talking about being gay because nobody had sat down with newspapers and magazines and television shows and actually talked about it. And if I was going to be this representative, I wanted to feel comfortable with what I was saying and be clear. And it gave me an opportunity little by little to grow and feel more confident in that. Oh, that's really cool. So I'm really curious about that because Songwriting is storytelling.

Your Broadway play is storytelling. It's like a living photo album, retrospective, greatest hits tour, vaudeville show, all rolled into one. I'm absolutely obsessed with it. I've told everyone I know to go see it. And on top of my window, being on Broadway right now, you've penned this beautiful book talking to angels. you tell the story of your life, of this era we're currently, you know,

twirling through of your journey, you know, with your ex-wife Julie and having kids and moving into this wonderful, you know, finding your right relationship now, experiences with, you know, mental health and psychedelics and all the things, loss, love. It's big. How do you decide? as this public figure, and do you think this period of five years you're talking about, influenced your ability to really dig into your story? Because I wonder how you decide how much to share. And do you view the sharing as a gathering of this community you get to talk to? Does it feel like a responsibility?

Does it feel like a torch to pass? Like, how do you think about this stuff? Well, all of this is, is my own choice i have a choice of how to how i'm going to hold it myself you know i can't control what other people think about it i can control about how i feel about it so the uh the um actual you know uh talking about it is is a chance for me to learn and i once i came out it's kind of like Like once you open it up and say, this is the real me, you can't really close it back and go, oh, no, you can't see any more of that. And what it's what it has led me to be is more comfortable with my life and my choices, where I don't feel like I have to look like someone else, act like someone else, make music like someone else because they're more popular or whatever those things that we compare ourselves to. I you just realize wow I've got to be just me right now and I've got to be okay with the choices I'm making first so that when I talk about them I'm I'm confident about it and and what other

people think about it is none of my business so I just so I was able to then when I went through cancer to speak truthfully about that and say look and and when I started smoking cannabis people weren't talking about that in the early 2000s it was it was still that was you know again we're getting thrown in jail for that sort of thing and yeah and to be able to say look this is medicine this is medicine and become an advocate for cannabis and psychedelics and things and we still are you know but to do that and feel it's all about how I feel if I if I'm waiting for other people to tell me if it's okay or not then I'm sunk so and I'm grateful I'm grateful for those five years of talking about of getting the confidence and then moving through my life just slowly and

loving every choice that I've made and feeling like I've done the best I can. Oh, that's beautiful. What a cool place to reach. Again, like the sort of stage I find myself in is being in a space where I go, oh, I've done a lot of work. I've learned a lot of lessons. I have found the greatest therapist, and I am in the most integrity I have ever been in. And for the first time, other people's opinions don't really bother me anymore. And I didn't know I'd ever get here.

If you can keep that up, that you'll be happier. Yeah. And you will start realizing in the end, not in the end, I'm not at the end, but as you get older, that being happy is actually the most important thing. it is not what you can't if you think you can suffer and strife and and suffer and suffer to where you'll have a happy ending somehow it's not going to you're you're just going to suffer but if you can go no I'm I'm making a choice to be happy right now and this feels good if you can keep doing that believe me when you're 62 and talking to someone younger you'll go yeah I made

my choices and I've had a very happy life and I'm I'm very happy about that yeah that's beautiful so this way that you tell stories when you think about it you know kind of looking back we've we've talked about this era of coming out that actually was five years and it makes me laugh because you know they always say like it takes a decade to be an overnight success And I'm like, oh, it took you five years for everybody to have heard the thing you said five years before. When you're in that stage where to your point, you're touring the country in the world and you're nominated for awards and winning them and selling crazy amounts of albums and you are like the rock and roller of our time, how were you able to figure out your life in the midst of that? Because I know how hard it can be to pick up and move for a show, but usually I pick up and move somewhere and I stay there for six months.

I'm not like living in a tour bus or on an airplane every night. And you, during this whole stage, you know, you become a wife. You become a parent. As you said, you battle breast cancer. I mean, there's so much happening. How did you make sense of it all? Well, life happens slowly. It really does.

And in the show and in the book, I talk about having a heroic dose of cannabis where I overdosed on edibles. And it really basically blew my mind, but it opened a thought. It opened more thought of, wow, that took me out of the torture of what other people think about me. See, in the 80s and 90s, it was all I needed to be. on the cover Rolling Stone. I needed to have a number one hit. I needed other people to validate what I was doing. And then when I, you know, struggled and struggling and struggling and I finally got there and realized, wow, this is not making me happy. This is just something I did. What makes me happy is when I'm on stage, loving what I'm doing, or when I'm home with my kids and my family,

okay well now my year now when i'm working my year is broken up into and my whole family knows it's summertime mama's going on tour that's that's what we do and i love love playing the music that's that makes everything go away when i am on stage and there's an audience of 2 000 or 200 000 you know yeah it doesn't matter it's always different and those people are there to hear the songs that they love and to have an experience with me, that's golden. That's all I ever wanted. So the traveling and the stuff, that's what we go through. And when you talk about, you know, you go somewhere for six months. Well, you know, you know how crews are. You know how, you know, the driver is. You make friends. You make your own family

at that time. You know, the person who works at the bar and a hotel you're staying at, you know, that becomes, that's what life is, is those relationships. And you get put in that situation. I have, my tour manager has been my tour manager for 35 years. He's just, he's like a brother to me. You know, my bandmates are, are brothers to me. I've got, I've got beautiful sisters that work for me in, you know, in production and go on the road with me and and my lighting, you know, designer as a woman. And we just, you surround yourself with these people and, and you have life with them. Also my family, you know, my, you know, well, not blood family, but my family family. And, and you just, you just realize that that's what

it is. It's not, there's not something else that I'd rather be doing, you know, and if there is, then I will do it. But, you know, so you, you make your life in what you're doing. And you know that, you know how it is. You'll have friends that forever from the first production you ever did, you know? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I was just with one of my best girlfriends from my first job last weekend.

And we were like, oh, my God, our friendship's old enough to vote. Like, what a crazy reality that is. You know, next year it'll be old enough to order a beer at the bar. And it's so cool. Yeah, it's so, so cool. So when you talk about if there's something else you want to do, you'll do it. Was that, did you have this feeling about wanting to go and do Broadway? Because in a way, your show is like a concert.

And my God, I mean, you touched on it a minute ago, you know, you have this bit in the show, this scene about when you did this hero's dose. And I'm telling you, we were laughing. My girlfriends and I had tears streaming down our face. Like, you made it so funny and also so educational and spiritual and illuminating and all the things. There is so much packed into the retrospective. How did you decide to go do Broadway? And was it scary at all?

Because you've been on the biggest stages in the world or were you like, no, I got it. Well, because it's so different, because when I go on stage with my band, I'm in 100% control. No matter what happens, I'm in charge. and I can I can tell my band to do anything. I can do anything. And if an audience is sleepy, I can say, okay, we're going to play ballads instead. Or we can, you know, I can change things on the fly,

and that's what I do, and I love it. Broadway, you have to do it exactly the same, every single time. And it's got that I have a certain amount of freedom because the show is very conversational. And I chose not to like memorize a whole. thing. I, you know, I memorized the shape of the show and

what story I'm telling, but how I tell it might be a little different with every audience. I had to give myself that freedom where I'd go nuts. But the Broadway dream, I've loved and appreciated and admired Broadway

since I was a child watching Barbara Streisand. I was a huge fan of that. And Godspell and these great musicals in Broadway, you realize when you're in the music industry that, especially now, you can have a small amount of talent with a lot of energy and technically we can make you sound good. Well, you can't do that on Broadway. It's live.

It's live every night. You have to bring it every night. You have to be able to rise to this certain live audience every single night. And so it's it is for only the ridiculously talented, you know, Broadway is and it is it's very revered the the the talent the just the work that people do on Broadway is out of this world so I wanted to be part of that I wanted to create something I still do I want to create something that that I won't have to be in I want I want to write something that I don't have to give up every day you know and so my wife who's also a producer and writer and you know

amazing artist herself also loves Broadway her one of her best friends is joe mantello who directed wicked you know so we're we are aware of the broadway community very deeply and we when when we have thought about bringing something to Broadway for a long time so a few years ago during the pandemic when this all started to really come together it was clear when i was writing the book i said okay I believe my life can be the art in this one. You know, this, I've done that with my songs before. I really, I want to tell the story and hopefully it is helpful and healing and inspiring. And that's really my intention is to show people, you know, to just inspire people.

That's so cool. So you were figuring out the show while you were writing the book. Oh, yeah. Wow. Wow. What a cool parallel path. Yeah, and both of them came from conversations with my wife. I would, we would have these conversations. And we just started putting the voice memo on and saying, okay, we're just going to record this.

And I would just, I would sit, I mean, it was a pandemic. We didn't have anything to do. I would just sit and just tell stories about my past. And we just recorded it all and then just started to, you know, chisel it down. And we had to leave a lot out. There's a lot that happened in my life that we had to just, you know, condensed. And even the opening show you saw was still a little large. We've we've sort of condensed it down. Really? Yeah, you know, we're always working on making it better. Yeah. And now for our

sponsors. And one of the things you touch on, you know, obviously such a seismic event in the show and you are so open in the book and while I'm always very hesitant to sort of make people repeat their hardest things, one of the things that I found the most inspiring watching the show and subsequently reading about it is the purpose that you've delivered for so many people out of personal pain. You talk about your son passing at 21. He, like so many people, you know, sadly in our country was affected by opioid addiction and you share his story so honestly you know it's it's brave i believe to talk about the the pain and the awful things that came out of that that were said you know between you and your ex the the suffering obviously of losing a child

and and you manage to transmute that into this incredible organization and activism for families who are suffering is it hard to talk about does does talking about him allow him to stay with you is it is it both um i having had the experience of coming out as a as a lesbian and having the experience of having breast cancer and being open and honest about it and being open and honest about uh psychedelic use and and stuff when my son died I realized if I don't put it out and speak about how I'm walking through it, I do a disservice to myself, and what it has helped me, it helped me organize it in my head and in my heart so that it doesn't weigh heavy.

Every night, every night at that show, I say my son would want me to be happy, every single and that heals me now do i want to do this show forever and ever no i'm only going to do it i've got five more shows you know and and i'll probably lay it down for a while and let it sit because it has done the job of healing that i was looking for to be open and honest to to to do this in front of people to to it was the same as getting on stage when i was bald you just the thing that scares you the most if you can with with love in your heart if you can walk toward it and then slowly go through it it can be very very healing and i hopefully it can help others you know but it's only for me every single night saying my son would want me to be happy

he would want me to know my happiness cannot cause anyone else pain saying that every single night, it's gotten easier for me to say it. It's easier me to talk about it now with you. And so that's because I believe it, because I truly believe it, that I can really line up with that and show people that, no, no, no, I'm not going to, my life's not going to end because my son's choices, you know, I loved him. And yes, it was devastating. And I grieved and I'm moving through it. And my life is still a beautiful life. I have three incredible children that me so much joy. I'm not going to let this. We speak of him lovingly, constantly. And I'm hopefully showing them how to hold it also and not let it be something that brings you down.

Right. Well, I think to set that example is so powerful that, yes, suffering or loss can and will change you, but it doesn't have to take over every part of you. You deserve joy. Your children deserve joy. Any of us, I think, especially post-pandemic, you know, people have been talking about, I listened to the psychologist talking about how this has been the summer. They're calling it the summer of the great divorce, like akin to the Great Depression. When the whole economy collapsed, there is now a sort of psychological collapse of these systems. or structures or relationships that aren't serving people. And I think part of that has to be because we lived through this pandemic

and millions of people around the world died. And we have seen this unprecedented loss for folks suffering from opioid addiction. We are seeing unprecedented loss and conflict zones around the world. And I think, how dare we, if we're lucky enough to still be here, not pursue our joy and not make art and not gather people for song? How dare we? Because that's why we're alive. And in a way, I think it has to make you more committed to really honoring the potential for your own delight if you got to stay. Yeah.

And you just do it every single day, walk it every day. Don't ever get caught up in past or future. That's all, that'll come, but it will always feel like now. Now is where we're at. And so if you walk that every day, if you just, every moment, make it just a little more that, you will see that momentum grow. And it's, it's, you will be able to look at the world around us. us and understand that everyone's going through something and that death is a for sure thing for

each and every one of us and it comes differently and to hold it and go yeah yeah yeah that's coming but right now i'm not dying right now i'm right now i'm alive and if i'm happy i will be healthy and living longer well and to take your aliveness and and offer as you said as you always have your story as it evolves to people, you know, through your show, through the book, you mentioned that the show did what it needed to do for you. Because I was going to ask if you were going to extend, because so many people who knew I was interviewing you today asked me to ask you. But I get that when you feel ready to be done with something, when it's served its purpose.

So the show's going to close and the book is out in the world. What feels like it's next for you? How are you feeling sort of opening your arms to all of this? I can't wait to get back on stage and just start doing the thing that I love. We just yesterday our spring tour went on sale. I've got planned. It'll be California and I think I'm doing a little down in Florida, kind of west coast all the way up into Oregon and Washington.

And I love that so much. much. I love my band. I love my music. I love the people that love my music. I'm going to tour all summer, probably a little bit into the fall. And it's just, that is my happy place. My family knows it. It's just, it's so healing. And then what will happen is towards the end of next year, I'll get all antsy like, hmm, what's going to, what am I going to do now? And, and that's the joy of it is just, you just keep putting that in front of you. I should mention, I did something also last year, I did a concert at a women's penitentiary in Kansas, where I'm from. And we have filmed that, and it's a beautiful, moving, touching documentary that will be out

in April on Paramount Plus. It's called I'm Not Broken. So that's going to be out, and that's going to hopefully kind of lift the tour up a little bit because it's a live concert video in a prison. It's really, really moving. And we talked to a few women there, and it's really enlightening on what women are going through and what people are doing now to think about crime and punishment differently, incarceration differently, and how we can actually help, just lock people up. That's beautiful. Yeah, I've been lucky enough to do some prison visits with the anti-recidivism coalition.

Yeah, there you go. And yeah, man, you just realize, like, to sit and listen to people's stories and to bring them art can, it's always the thing that heals. Yeah. I can't wait to see it. That's really exciting. Well, I'll invite you to think of that, too. Yes, please.

Oh, my gosh. I'm coming. And I was going to say, I'm coming to the concert. Get ready. I'll just, I'll be screaming my head off. I can't read. Are you west coast or east coast? I'm back and forth, but I'm primarily west coast.

Okay, good. Me too. I'm between L.A. and New York a lot, but L.A. is technically home. Good. Have you liked living in New York all through the fall? Has it been great? That's an interesting question. I'm here with my two daughters and my wife, and so that's great. I'm a Midwest and a California girl, and I like my space, and there's just not my space in New York City. I'm up on the Upper East Side, which is nice, and, you know, comparatively more space than

most but man there's just a lot of people here and it is constantly moving and i i miss the sun even when it's out i don't always get to see it yeah and um yeah and i'm really looking forward to just i have a huge yard and a huge my home in california is just and yeah but new yorkers have been wonderful and i enjoyed the experience very much i do not regret it at all i'm I'm really looking forward. Yeah. Oh, well, we can't wait to get you back here. I feel the same.

Anytime I go on location, I come home, I have this tree in my backyard that, you know, you're a fellow journey woman. Like, it's such a sacred thing to lay under and have an experience. Every time I get home, I walk in my backyard and literally hug my tree. We are tree cucklers. Yes, we are. Yes. So I know. I know the feeling.

Oh, it's so great. I miss that nature. I miss that. I'm ready for some of that. Yes. Yeah. Well, I love it. Thank you so much. I know that for everybody who's at home listening, they're going to go and, you know, turn on one of their favorite records of yours and enjoy themselves while they order this book that is so profoundly beautiful. And I just really want to thank you for the way you've chosen to share with us because I think courage is contagious. And when people tell the truth, it inspires other people to do the same. Well, I hope so. Thank you. wish you the best on your journey my friend okay thank you what other people say about you is none

of your business you be indeed i appreciate it and uh and yeah please let me know if we can hang when you get home i'd love to get to do that i'm planning on okay we will definitely do that thank you so thank you so much have a great rest of your day honey all right bye bye This is an IHeart podcast.