I’d love to hear your coming out story. When did you come out in your personal life versus your industry life?
Well, I came out when I was 16, but I realized I was attracted to women before that. I knew there was something different about me when I was very young. I remember I was driving in the car with my dad and I told him that I thought I might be gay. He said, “Okay. Do you want to talk to someone about it?” And I said yes, so I went to therapy. It was a therapist who didn’t hate gay people because my parents are awesome. So that’s how I came out to my parents. What happened after was one of those things like “Melissa has something she’d like to tell the family today.”
[laughing]
My mother started crying. I told them that I was gay and she said, “I knew it was either going to be that you were gay or you were going to quit school.” My dad said he loved me, that he wanted me to be happy and it didn’t matter. Whoever I fell in love with was okay with him. He expressed that he realized that my life would be more difficult. Which, looking back on it, is a kind of amazing thing to say, you know? He gets it. It’s a hard thing to say.
And my mother, being a relatively religious woman, came to me a few days later and told me that she prayed to God about it and the answer she got was that God wouldn’t let me fall in love with anyone if it wasn’t alright with him. And ever since I’ve had an amazing experience with my family and my sister accepts me wholly for who I am and for who I choose to be with – whoever it is.
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And how was it with regard to record companies and deciding to be out publicly? How did you navigate that?
Not so well. I was on Atlantic. My first record came out in 1993 and they wanted me to come out to use it as a story. At that time I think Melissa Etheridge was already out. It was a very popular thing to be an out gay person. Out Magazine and The Advocate were really big on the scene. I think Melissa Etheridge was on that billboard with Julie Cypher in the middle of Times Square. It was a way to get publicity, they felt. They created a gay marketing division at the label that a gay guy was heading up. But I didn’t want to come out. I was afraid. I was 22-23 years old and in a relationship with a woman who worked at the record label and I just didn’t want to come out. I felt really scared. So I lied about my sexuality and it was terrible. I felt terrible.
That’s so interesting that the record label wanted you to come out, but you personally did not want to. What were you so afraid of?
I knew I didn’t feel ready to say it and I knew they were going to use it to sell records. I wanted to sell records because my record was good, not because I’m gay. This was when Ellen was saying “I’m gay” on her sitcom and Melissa Etheridge was on a billboard and k.d. Lang was coming out and being on Diane Sawyer or whatever it was, so a major record label looked at that and thought, “This is how we can get her on 20/20 or whatever. This will be our spin.” They were going to use my sexuality as a spin and I felt completely uncomfortable with that so I didn’t let them.
And then, of course — this was a very selfish time in my life — I really wanted to have my record be mainstream. Meaning what I really wanted was to be a musician who sold records, and my record wasn’t doing that. When I made another record, there was all this buzz about this girl named Jewel who had a record coming out. So I thought, “Why don’t I come out now? Use my sexuality to try to sell records.” It wasn’t coming from a bad place, you know? There was just sort of an ulterior motive. It was a very young decision, but I’m not mad at myself because that’s were I was at and that’s what I did. Ultimately, I’m really glad I’m out. I think at that time it was 1995 when I did officially “come out.” It was because of an article in The Advocate and obviously all the gay people who read The Advocate already knew I was gay, and guess what — it didn’t sell any more records. It’s kind of hysterical. Out and The Advocate came out with articles at the same time and they both titled my article “The Other Melissa.”
Oh my god.
Pretty much fucked me up for years because Melissa Etheridge is awesome. She’s one of the most famous rock and roll stars regardless of the fact that she’s gay. So all the Melissa Etheridge fans saw that and thought I was trying to be like her and revolted against me [laughing]. It was terrible.
Who did you idolize musically, growing up?
In my teen years when I started to write songs, I would put on the New Bohemians record Shooting Rubber Bands at The Stars. Edie Brickell was amazing. You probably know the song “What I Am.” I loved The Cure. I loved any sort of dark music. Sinead O’Connor – her first record was a huge record for me. I mean I shaved my head. Aimee Mann, Tracy Chapman. I loved Suzanne Vega‘s first record. I loved the second record, too, with “Luka” on it. But Suzanne Vega’s first record, that was awesome. And the Indigo Girls when I was in college was a huge record for me. I listened to that record I can’t even tell you how many times. That was when I was first starting to write songs. Those were inspirations. R.E.M. I loved Depeche Mode. That’s what I like.
Do you have a dream collaboration?
Annie Lennox. I’d love to work with Annie Lennox. I think that would be awesome.
I love how you go into such detail about the real meaning behind your songs at your shows. A lot of artists are shy about the real inspiration behind the song, because they want the audience to have their own experience with it. But I REALLY appreciate how you tell the whole story behind your songs.
Really? I try not to do it on every song because then its like freakin’ Soundstage or Storytellers.
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I absolutely loved the brand new song you played at City Winery this week. You introduced it as the result of meeting a girl during a crazy long weekend you had in New York opening for Ani DiFranco last fall. Can you tell me a little more about that experience that you had?
Sure! The song’s called “Wreck Me.” It was the last three dates of the tour and I had met another musician on the West Coast and we had a connection. She’s originally from New York and was coming home to visit family, so I’d asked if she wanted to come to one of my shows and she was like, “Yeah, that’d be awesome!” She’s much younger than me and I had recently gone through a breakup and was in one those spaces when you’re really down and and you think, “Fuck! I’m through with girls, it never works.” And so I was on the tour, having a great time on the outside, but on the inside I was kinda depressed about this volatile, back-and-forth relationship I’d been in for the past three years.
So, when this girl came and we started hanging out we just had this nice, out of the blue, wave of joy for those four days and I had such a good time. I felt in my body and I felt free and inspired. I mean, that’s kinda what happens when someone flirts with you. So when I got home I wrote that song, because I wanted to write a song about walking into a hotel. I remembered that — I remembered that she took the elevator up and it was an older hotel in New York, and the heat was clanking and it was sexy. I just remembered all those elements of it… I remember walking back from Town Hall to the hotel with her in the middle of New York City when there is hardly anyone out, and I just felt happy. That was really nice. So it’s not a sad song. I find it to be like a torch song. There is no sadness in that for me. I’m willing to let you just have me and let it wreck me, or not. I didn’t fall in love with her or anything, it was just this awesome weekend affair. When I got home I was thinking about whether or not I would see her again and what does that mean… You know all that stuff you think about. And I just came to the conclusion that I would be willing to let myself have anything I wanted to have of it. She’s a friend, she’s in my life, but we’re not together. It’s a great song, I sent it to her. It was a gift. She was a gift for that weekend.
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Do you have plans to release the song?
[laughing] It will be on the next record. This is the first song of many new songs, I’m sure, along the same lines, that I’ll be writing over the next 8 months. I feel like I’m in a really good place to write now just because I’m clear of that relationship I had been in. I’m starting to feel good about being out of it. It’s taken a long time. Losing this relationship has been a real mourning. I lost my grandmother right at the same time at the end of December so it was a very difficult January, which I think I alluded to at the show, and I’m starting to write again now. I’m feeling like I’m on the verge of having a good 2012 though.
My final question is actually from my girlfriend who is a big fan of yours… she wants to know if you are a cat or dog lesbian. This is a real question.
Cat, absolutely. I’m a cat lesbian. I have two cats — Moon, who is coming down the stairs right now. Hello Moon. She’s 16 and I’ve had her since she was born, when I lived out in LA with my girlfriend. It was a full moon that night, so I called her Moon. And I have Indie, who is 8 years old. I got her on Cape Cod, two years after I opened my record label.
