Melissa Etheridge says she approached her new album, Rise, with “all joy” — even though there were some dark matters to be dealt with this time around.
“I hadn’t gone in and made an original album since The Medicine Show [in 2019], so it was a good six, seven years and I hadn’t written about my life and the events and the motions and things that have happened,” Etheridge tells Billboard via Zoom from her home near Los Angeles. Her last album, 2021’s One Way Out, comprised unreleased songs written during her early career.
But this time Etheridge had weighty things to write about.
“I went through the pandemic,” she notes. “I lost my son [Beckett, during May 2020, to complications from opioid addiction]. So I was really analyzing and looking into my life and wanting to write and express it and get it out — to do what I’ve always done. So in 2024 I started gathering things that I was thinking about and going through, experiences.”
Etheridge adds with a laugh that, “In 2024 I told my management, ‘I’m gonna make a record. I know you guys don’t think that albums live anymore or have any place, but I’m gonna make one.’ I believe in the album as an art form. I want to write songs; I want people to put (the album) in their car and take a drive and listen. I want to be in their ears on an airplane. I want them to have 45 minutes with me and lift them up and feel better when they hear this. I want to feel better when I hear these songs.’”
Beckett’s death was, not surprisingly, the first thing Etheridge wrote about for Rise, which she co-produced with Shooter Jennings.
“I had to just write a song [‘Call You’] about losing my son, and how I lived with that,” she explains. “That’s one of the things that I miss; in any sort of loss with anyone, I think, you just go, ‘Oh, I want to call that person. I just want to talk and connect with them,’ and you can’t. But I wanted the song to have hope and really state that even though I’ve experienced this great loss, I can’t stop living and enjoying life. He wouldn’t want me to stop living.
“It’s a very simple song about, ‘Since I can’t call you anymore I’m just gonna take a drive. I’m gonna go to my hometown, I’m gonna dance, I’m gonna go to my garden and grow things — even though, Jesus, this is horrible.’ It’s something I really wanted to model for my other children, and for anyone in the world who’s gone through loss.”
“Call You,” Etheridge adds, was “the ground floor” of Rise, her 17th album overall and first for Sun Records. “I have gone through this, I’ve expressed it and I’m living and I’m loving and I’m surviving and finding a way to not be drowning in guilt and shame,” she says.
“Thriving” could be added to that list. Kicking off with the hard-rocking “Bein’ Alive,” Etheridge declares “there were times I was down on my knees saying this is gonna break me/I chose to survive” amidst a crunch of electric guitars and big beat from drummer Eric Gardner. The equally autobiographical “Matches” follows, starting a cappella and easing into a gentle, rootsy roll. The rest of the album blends upbeat tracks (the bluesy “Don’t You Want a Woman,” the country-flavored “If You Ever Leave Me,” the honky-tonkin’ “Davina”) with heartstring-tuggers such as the title track and the stripped-down, piano-led “More Love.”
“I wanted people who go to my Yes I Am album (six-times platinum from 1993) when they want to feel a certain way, I want them to feel the same way for this album,” says Etheridge, who has two Grammy Awards and an Academy Award to her credit, as well as a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. “I want it to become part of the Etheridge repertoire…so there was this constant reminding myself, ‘Melissa, stay in your lane right now. Just stay in what you love to do.’ I didn’t need to experiment. I didn’t need to do anything but write good, solid songs about myself and put it to music.”
Etheridge — who used her current touring band on Rise — adds that Jennings was the perfect partner in that process. “Shooter is a music lover,” she says. “He comes from a music family, of course. He doesn’t interfere. He provides support when it’s needed, and a little bit of guidance. He’d be really moved by it, and really excited. Sometimes you work with a guy who’s like, ‘That’s perfect — let’s do it again.’ (laughs) (Jennings) would just be like, ‘Yes!’ and we’d move on to the next thing.”
Etheridge says her management proposed the idea of a duet for the album, and Chris Stapleton was her sole choice for what became the easy-tempoed “The Other Side of Blue.” “I’d never met him, never talked to him whatsoever, so it was sending that out into the world or whatever,” she recalls. “My manager came back and said, ‘Yeah, he wants to do it.’ So one day I went to Nashville and sat down and started writing with him…off of the conversation we were starting to have. We talked about, ‘Where are you from?’ He told me about his kids, all five of them; it’s crazy how much he loves them. I told him (about Beckett) and he said, ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ and I said, ‘No, he was my greatest teacher.’ Chris goes, ‘Oh, you talk in songs,’ and that started the whole thing there. I’ll tell ya, it was one of the most uplifting, intense, creative experiences I’ve had in writing.”
Etheridge begins her tour supporting Rise on March 26 in Detroit, with dates currently into the summer, including a run of shows with Wynonna Judd. Also on Etheridge’s docket is her first-ever nomination for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, with public fan voting running through April 3. She’s hoping for the best — “It’s great to finally be in the room,” she told us when the nomination was announced in February, “and the rest is up to the voters” — and if elected she’ll certainly serve.
But her real focus now is on Rise and being on the road playing its songs. “I’m changing up my whole show,” she promises.
“I just feel so blessed, ’cause I can do a tour every year and sing songs for people and do what I love so much,” Etheridge says, “I really relate to Bruce Springsteen; he just said, ‘Look, I’m not good at everything else. I want to do this.’ That’s how I feel, so I take this on as my job. I write my life experiences as I’m living it, which helps me keep my music fresh and it gives me purpose.
“I don’t come from the, ‘Oh, I need to write a hit song.’ I can’t do that. I write like me, and I write my experience. It’s made this career really fun for me, and I could not imagine doing anything else.”
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