It was a huge dream, and it came true

Melissa Etheridge is having fun now

by Janet Mœcosia

Rock goddess Melissa Etheridge is about to embark on a 40-city plus tour this summer, performing at three Ohio venues. She will be at Cleveland and Akron's Blossom Music Center on June 29; Columbus' Polaris Amphitheater on July 5, and Cincinnati's Riverbend Music Center on July 7.

After a very successful "Live and Alone" tour this past winter, the summer tour will feature her full band, and also include special guests Meredith Brooks (with that song you love to hate, "Bitch") and newcomer Rosey.

Etheridge has had a career that any musician and songwriter would envy. She's sold over 25 million albums worldwide, won Grammy awards and an ASCAP Songwriter of the Year award. Millions of people around the globe adore her, and can't get enough of the raw passion and power she brings to her music, on record and in live performances.

Etheridge has also been a strong symbol of gay acceptance and pride since she came out at the presidential inauguration gala in 1993. Despite her activism, Etheridge's songwriting has mostly been of an intensely personal nature, cathartically autobiographical. Life. Love. Desire. She connects with her audience at the heart and soul. She is our modern day rock and roll troubadour.

Janet Macoska: Your last album, Skin, tells your story, beginning with the pain of your break-up, how you learned to be alone again, then picked yourself up, regaining your resolve as you go into the song "I Wanna Be In Love." I found that a very affirming statement, reminding us that we have to believe in love. Don't settle, because it's out there.

Melissa Etheridge: Yeah

Hey, I got it, right?

You got it. Yeah, okay, bye.

Wait-no, there's more. I understand that you're featuring some new material in concert on this upcoming tour. Some time has passed since you wrote the songs on Skin. You're in a different place, in a new skin. So what are you writing about and singing about these days?

Sex.

Oh...cool.

(Laughing) It's amazing. My music is just an extension of my self. Even when I try for it not to be, it has always been such. Now that I've given myself over to it, it's been so fun writing these songs recently. It's about goodness and clarity and strength. I've got a lot of fun songs right now and I haven't had fun songs in a long time.

So it has been quite a metamorphosis for you.

Oh yeah. Now it's that hope in action and it's been so much fun. I've performed a couple of these songs and they've been met with such great response, which you don't hardly get with a new song.

You've said the songs are about sex. Are they about love too?

Oh yes, oh yes. Yes, they're about sex, but that sex coming out of love, different than the sex I was having searching for that. It's coming out of a celebration. As you were saying, believing in true love. I wanna be love. I believe in that and actually getting it. Not settling.

That's really about you when you decide not to settle, to say this is what I really want in my life, and then it happens.

Yeah. It's truly amazing.

What's your girlfriend's name?

Tammy Lynn Michaels.

[The 25-year-old blonde actress is best known for her role as Nicole Julian on

the now-defunct WB series Popular.]

Is she that love you were writing about in "I Want to Be in Love"?

Well, I didn't know her then.

But she's the one who showed up?

I put that out in the universe and she showed up. Look out what you

ask for. because you might get it. (Laughs)

You share a fairly intimate connection with your

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GAY PEOPLE'S

Chronicle

•MPA

Section C▾ Pride Guide 2002

'I've got a lot of fun

songs right

now and I

haven't had fun songs in a long time.'

JANET MACOS