Melissa Etheridge Has Big Plans
For 2025

Our favorite lesbian rocker is passionate about causes, and she's carrying them into 2025. Dave Steinfeld talks to Melissa Etheridge about getting behind incarcerated women, handling trauma, finding true love, her upcoming tour with the Indigo Girls, and much more.

Few people have experienced the highs and lows of the music business to the degree that Melissa Etheridge has. Since releasing her self-titled debut in 1988, she has won two Grammys (and been nominated for many others); been hailed as the second coming of Janis Joplin; become a lesbian icon; won the Gibson Award for Best Female Rock Guitarist; become a mom four times; been a social activist not only for the LGBTQ community but also for terminally ill adults and people with opioid addiction; performed in Times Square on New Year’s Eve; and on Broadway; and written two books. Not bad for a queer kid from Leavenworth, Kansas!

That said, Etheridge has also suffered more than her share of setbacks. She has weathered a couple of high-profile divorces, braved a battle with breast cancer (who can forget her duet with Joss Stone at the 2005 Grammys, in which she took the stage bald after undergoing chemotherapy), and lost her son Beckett to opioid addiction.

The one constant throughout all these ups and downs has been her music—a brand of heartland rock that manages to be personal and universal at the same time. At her core, Etheridge is a uniter. She is nearly as popular with blue-collar males as she is with lesbians owing to her raspy vocals, formidable guitar chops, and unpretentious persona. And she’s racked up an impressive list of hits over the years, including “Bring Me Some Water,” “Ain’t It Heavy,” “I’m The Only One,” “Come To My Window,” and “I Want To Come Over.”

I recently had the pleasure of catching up with this down-to-earth icon for Curve. We discussed everything from her current live album, I’m Not Broken, to her memories of growing up gay in the Midwest.

Let’s start with the latest album-I’m Not Broken: Live From the Topeka Correctional Facility. What did playing there mean to you, being that you grew up in Kansas?

MELISSA ETHERIDGE: Well, it had been a longtime dream. It’s funny. Growing up in Leavenworth, we’re known for prisons there. We’re known for the big federal penitentiary. When I was seven or eight years old, Johnny Cash actually came to the penitentiary and did a show for the prisoners. No one in the town got to see him, no one in Kansas City (laughs). Nobody did except the prisoners! And at that point, I thought, “Prisons must be a place to find entertainment!”

Certainly, after I got a little older, I realized that was a very unique situation, and not many people did that. In my teenage years, I actually was involved in some variety shows that did go into those prisons and perform. So I’ve been inside. I know how much they appreciate live entertainment.

After many years of wanting to do that, in the ’90s I got together with Tammy Wynette. We became friends and were making plans on how to do a concert in a women’s penitentiary-in Virginia, I think. But Tammy died, and so that went away.

When everybody asks why I wanna do it, I always say [I want] to highlight what is going on in our punishment system, how we think of it as punishment and not as rehabilitation. You know the documentary’s live and the concert was about lifting people up and giving hope.

The song “The Shadow of a Black Crow.” My understanding is that it’s a tribute to your son.

MELISSA: It was [originally] on the 4th Street Feeling album. Might have been 2013 [or] 14-right around there. He was kind of in his adolescence. I was aware of his restlessness and his inability to fit in to regular social situations. So I wrote it back then. And the more I sang it, the more it became [about] the situation my son was in. So, I wanted to include it on this album.

The songs that I picked—a handful of ’em are hits. [But] some of them I chose for the content and what I wanted to say to them. “Shadow of a Black Crow” was [one of those].

You do a cover of “Born Under A Bad Sign.” I knew that tune from listening to Cream. But wasn’t it originally done by Albert King?

MELISSA: King, yes. I had originally done it on my Stax tribute album, Memphis Rock and Soul. It was a song I was familiar with. So I thought, “Oh yeah, I wanna bring in the blues.” You know, that song is perfect. I wanted to introduce myself to them. That’s why I did it like the second song. Here we go!

PHOTOS: FACEBOOK

The companion docuseries, also called I’m Not Broken, is streaming. Can you give me a little info about that?

MELISSA: The concert album was filmed. It was also about a year of them—the documentary crew—following me around and also going into the prison. There were five inmates, or residents, that were communicating with me. They would write me letters. And so I kind of got to know their stories and really get them into my mind and into my heart. [That] enabled me to write a song, “Burning Woman,” about them and perform it for them.

So the docuseries really shows myself creating it; telling the story about my son; going into the concert; meeting the women; doing the [show]. The [whole] process, how I was affected by it, and how the inmates were.

You get to this point [and] it’s the end of the road, you know? And I do believe that taking people out of the situation they’re in—taking them away from other influences, family, whatever trauma it is—and arresting them is a good thing. Now, it’s what happens after—what we make available to them to help them overcome trauma. Understand the choices they’re making and why. That sort of work works! Because these people are at the end of their ropes.

I hope this [series] will inspire communities to rethink how they’re dealing with drug abuse in general.

I recently saw a production of The Laramie Project, and I thought of your song “Scarecrow.” I wanted to hear your thoughts about Matthew Shepard.

MELISSA: Well… It really hit me because [that] was when my partner was pregnant with Beckett, actually. I knew I was having a son. And to lose a son like that was very powerful to me. [I wanted] to create something to remember him [and] to remember the story. To not let it fade

It seemed like that was the start of the second wave of the LGBTQ movement, you know? When the sadness and the horror was just too much for us to bear. And I think we also were able to reach our allies because they realized what was being done to us. It was a very pivotal time in our LGBTQ history.

What was it like growing up in the ’70s, knowing that you were queer in a place like Leavenworth, Kansas as opposed to, say, here in New York City?

MELISSA: Oh gosh! Very, very different. Yes, Kansas is very conservative. Yet, where I grew up in Kansas is very unique. Leavenworth had a fort that was a part of the city—Ft. Leavenworth. So we had this one high school [where] every year we’d get a whole new crop of kids-officers’ kids, who had been all around the world. So you got this feeling of it [being] more than just this small town. And we were just 45 minutes from Kansas City.

Still, it was the ’70s. There was not a single mention of gay, homosexual, lesbian-nothing! It was sort of how everything was in the ’70s. You know, you didn’t talk about it yet I remember seeing in magazines-like TIME magazine, on the cover, was talking about the gay liberation [that] was happening in New York City. It was exciting to see that and go, “Wait a minute, I think that’s what I am.” But goodness! New York was ahead of us.

You recently celebrated your 10-year wedding anniversary.

MELISSA: Yes, I did! Just a couple of days ago.

Congratulations. Can you tell me some wonderful things about your wife, Linda Wallem?

MELISSA: (Laughs) Yes, I can! That’s easy. For 10 years, we’ve been married. We were together four years before that. And before that, we were best friends for 10 years! I married my best friend.

She is… Everything I needed or wanted or dreamt about. The only way you really get someone like that in your life is to understand your needs and wants. And to have the love for yourself that you are looking for [in] other people. The minute I really got in contact with myself and sort of put myself first and understood what I wanted and loved; then I was able to see the best kind of love for me. And she was it.

There’s no worry; there’s just a constant partnership that is astounding. A love and desire that never goes away. And it’s because I’m not looking [for] her to fix me or make everything great. I’m looking for her to be by my side as we both make our choices and walk through this world together.

You toured last summer with the Indigo Girls, and you’re reuniting again for a tour this summer.  

MELISSA: The Indigo Girls [have] been around forever. I can remember them back at the end of the ’80s. Someone said, “Have you heard of the Indigo Girls!?” They played me their very first album and I was like, “This is cool!” Then their second album came out [with] “Closer to Fine.” And I saw them breaking into the industry. We were good friends. We did a lot of stuff together. [But] life takes you apart, and I didn’t see them for years and years. We all had our different paths.

When I saw them in the Barbie movie, I said, “That is genius.” I noticed a re-celebration of their work. I’m so excited to go on tour with them. We’ve all been through it together.

I can’t let you go without asking you about my favorite song of yours, which is “Ain’t It Heavy.”

MELISSA: Oh, “Ain’t It Heavy?” That’s cool! Actually, that’s not one that people ask very often. So I appreciate you [asking].

On the third album, Never Enough, I got quote-unquote experimental. You know, it was my third studio album. So I did stuff like “2001” and “Must Be Crazy” and those kinda songs. But “Ain’t It Heavy” was a straightforward rocker. On that third album, I was walking the line between [thinking] “Oh God, people are gonna know that I’m gay. I’m just kinda singing, ‘Spread these wings, and I’m on for the ride, and all that stuff. I’m like, ‘They’re gonna know!’ (laughs). But I was alright with people knowing.

MORE MELISSA
Stream Melissa Etheridge: I’m Not Broken on Paramount+

Watch the music video for the song “A Burning Woman (Live),” taken from the documentary

Get merch and signed LPs at the Melissa Etheridge store

Support scientific research into opioid addiction at Etheridge Foundation

Follow Melissa on Instagram and Facebook

Melissa Etheridge and folk-rock duo Indigo Girls will be reuniting for their 2025 Yes We Are Tour with over 30 stops across the country this summer, kicking off on July 25. Tickets are on sale at melissaetheridge.com.

X
X