In San Francisco, we met with producer Jim Gaines, who had produced records for Huey Lewis and the News, Journey, and Eddie Money—all performers who were hugely successful at the time. I was ready to listen to Jim and take his ideas to heart. I had never made an album before, and I wasn’t going to act like I knew more than the experts did. Jim also brought in the keyboard player from Pablo Cruise. Keyboards were very big in those days; everybody had one. But with ten keyboards and the MIDI setup, it would sometimes take us all day just to lay down the keyboard track for one song. It didn’t occur to me that layer upon layer of keyboards might not be the best thing for my music. I didn’t really think about it; I was so happy to finally be in the studio. I was working hard, putting my music down on record. Kathleen would come visit. When she’d go home, Jamie would sometimes pop up to say hi.
Finally, the album was done. I was a little surprised when I first listened to it. It sounded sorta pop—not how I heard myself at all. Producers want to put their stamp on music albums; Jim’s style didn’t seem compatible with my sound. Looking back, I realize that I was disconnected from my material. It was like being an artist who gives someone else her paint to use. That person paints a picture with it but then signs the artist’s name at the bottom. The album wasn’t my picture. It was close, but not me—my vocals, my songs, but certainly not my music. It had been overproduced and had lost its intimate sound. I didn’t know there was anything I could do about it, though. I just thought, “Okay, I’m done. Here’s the record.”
I went to meet Chris Blackwell at the Bel Age Hotel in Beverly Hills to get his reaction to the album. He sat down with me and listened to a couple of tracks. Then he snapped off the tape recorder and looked at me. “I don’t like it,” he said. I was shocked. He didn’t like it? What did that mean? Is it all over? Do I just pack up and go home? I walked out of the hotel in a daze, not really sure of what to do. I called Craig and Kevin and told them. “He doesn’t like it. Oh, my god. What do we do?” They convinced me to ask Chris for another four days in the studio. “Look,” they said. “We know what you need. You just need us to be behind you. Just the three of us. Just bass, drums, and you. We’ll get this engineer we know, Niko Bolas. He’ll just record it raw. He knows what you should sound like.”
PHOTO BY NICOLE BENGIVENO / MATRIX
So I did. I called Chris and asked him for four days. Four days and we’d re-record the whole album, do it the way it should be done. I promised him it would be that solo girl that he saw and heard in the bars. “That’s what I want,” he said. “I want the girl in the T-shirt and leather jacket.”
So we went back to Cherokee Studios, in Hollywood. Chris came to visit us right at the beginning of the session. He laid down a picture on the mixing board. It was a photo of me standing with clenched fists, wearing jeans, all of my ‘80s jewelry, a white T-shirt, and a leather jacket, against a red background. That picture would eventually be recreated for the cover of the album. He tapped his finger on it and said, “Make that album.” I just looked at him, “Okay, Mr. Blackwell.” Then Kevin, Craig, Niko, and I got to work. We re-recorded the album. Four long days and four longer nights, but we made my first album. It was such a different experience this time. The four of us were just in it, all day and all night. I brought in “Bring Me Some Water,” which I had just written, and they came up with the whole thing behind it. It was exactly like it should have been. Everything just clicked.
I brought the new album to Chris, and he loved it. All except “Like the Way I Do.” He thinks I’m sorta hollering on that song. “Don’t like that one,” he says. Those four days in the studio had really enlightened me about how I wanted to sound on a record. I was much more sure of myself after that experience. “No, Chris,” I replied. “That’s my favorite song. It stays.” Chris just shook his head. “All right, if you have to.” To this day, whenever Chris gives me an opinion on what to keep and what to get rid of on an album, he inevitably brings up that he didn’t want “Like the Way I Do” on my first album. But the final cut is always up to me. One footnote to the album-cover story. When the photographer was taking the photo of me that was eventually used—a match to the one Chris had held up when he said “Make this album”—I was dancing to “Like the Way I Do.”
Recording “Never Enough”
Performing during my first American tour
© 1988 MELISSA ETHERIDGE/PHOTO BY GARY NICHAMIN
My mentor and friend, Chris Blackwell, who gave me my first recording deal, with Island Records
© 1988 MELISSA ETHERIDGE/PHOTO BY GARY NICHAMIN
The “first” first-album song list
On the train in Europe, during my first tour
So the album was done and I was on my way, right? Nope. In the music industry, nothing ever works the way you’d like it to. They put off the release date for a few months, and I just had to wait. I went back to playing the bars, back to my old life. Things were going okay with Kathleen, but I wanted to make my mark, and all I could do was wait.
Luckily, Bill got me a job on a European tour—opening for Martin Stevenson, a folk-rocker from Newcastle, England, who had a huge Jimmy Stewart obsession. It was my first time in Europe and my first real rock-and-roll tour. On the bus with ten other people; roadies; a new city every day—it was exciting and boring, terrible and wonderful, all at the same time. I’m walking on stage in front of people who have no idea who I am. They don’t know me from Adam. Sometimes I win them over. I can see people nodding their heads, smiling, giving me an “Oh, she’s good” look. And, of course, sometimes I don’t win them over, I’m just out there doing my thing and the audience is just biding its time, waiting for Martin.
The album wasn’t out yet, but the record company in England was trying to garner support for it. I was in the back of a car, being driven crazily through the streets of London to try to make a train, when “Similar Features,” the first single off the album, came on the radio. It was shocking. “Oh, my god! That’s me!” I’d never heard myself on the radio before. I broke down in tears, right in the back of the car. Just completely cried when I heard that song. My music pouring out of that tiny radio in the front of the car. And it sounded so good. It sounded great! I was just overwhelmed.
The tour sure wasn’t the rock-and-roll big time. It was dreary little hotels with the bathroom down the hall. And it wasn’t like we played London. We were in Leicester and Birmingham and Leeds and Glasgow, and all these little working-class towns. I’d work all night and then do press all day. The English tabloid press was asking me oddball questions. “What’s it like growing up in Kansas?” “Your songs are very painful. Have you had your heart broken a lot?” “Have men always treated you badly?” That was always the hard one. They assumed I had relationships with men, and, not being out of the closet at all, I just answered by talking about “relationships,” never, ever, being gender-specific.
And it was lonely—really, really lonely. When I got to the Continent, I couldn’t understand a word and didn’t have anyone to talk to. When I wasn’t working, I’d just wander around these strange, ancient cities and look around. This was in the days before AT&T phone cards. I had no idea how to call home. So I’d just sit in whatever hotel room I happened to be in, and write.
I wrote a lot of songs that have gone on to become favorites of my fans over the years—songs such as “The Angels” and “Royal Station 4/16.” All of them were written in various hotel rooms throughout Europe. The common theme was that overwhelming sense of loneliness I felt on the road. I was still in my relationship with Kathleen, and that was in trouble. She was still fighting a committed relationship, which, for me, seems to be a recurring nightmare. In songs like “The Angels,” I wrote weepy pining lines like, “All I want is for your love to be all mine but the angels won’t have it.” That’s just something I felt I’d never have. It speaks to that big, dark, deep, empty place in my heart. “Sometimes I feel like an innocent one to deserve this fate, what have I ever done?” I w
as writing specifically about this relationship but talking very generally about the emptiness that I felt. I just wanted someone to say, “Yes, I love you and only you and I’m here and we’ll walk side by side. You work on you and I’ll work on me, and I’ll catch you when you fall and you catch me when I fall.” That’s all. It seemed so simple to me, but because of the tracks that have been laid, I can’t seem to get there.
When I was in Germany, I went to Dachau, a concentration camp that had been turned into a Holocaust museum. It’s a devastating experience to see a concentration camp that is, for the most part, pretty much as it was left after the end of the war. It’s like a museum, but with the worst possible collection of memories.
There are all kinds of memorials around the camp, in honor of those who died. As we were leaving, a man was standing outside the gate and passing out flyers. I read the paper he handed me. It said that the people who run Dachau would not allow a memorial to the homosexuals who died there. I was shocked by what I read. I sat down and wept. I couldn’t believe it. I thought about the civil rights bills that have been passed over the years to protect all sorts of groups but still won’t include the word homosexual. We live in a society that’s all wrapped up in its Puritan ways.
I was standing on the site where this horrible atrocity happened, and everywhere I looked there were reminders that we must never let it happen again, but nowhere did it acknowledge that, along with the six million-plus Jews who died in the Holocaust, homosexuals were also persecuted and tortured and put to death. The uniforms with pink triangles hang right beside the ones with the yellow stars of David. But, when I was there, no memorial had been erected to honor those who wore those pink triangles. The symbol we view today as a positive image for homosexuals was actually a way to identify and exterminate gays during the war. It was the first time I had a recognition of myself as a lesbian in relation to the rest of society. As hard as parts of my life were because of being gay, I actually had a pretty easy time. I always found support; my family never rejected me. I had never lost anything because of my sexuality. And here I was, standing in front of a place that had executed people just because they were gay. It was a powerful moment. A defining realization.
The flip side of my experience at Dachau occurred a few years later, in Berlin. Days prior to my Berlin show, we were hearing news stories of people fleeing East Germany and risking their lives. At first we weren’t sure that we should even go to Berlin. We feared there might be trouble. My tour manager at the time, who was German, assured me that if there were any signs of trouble, we’d leave. We drove our tour bus overnight from Hanover, in West Germany, and I fell asleep. When I awoke the next morning, the bus was stopped. I got up and looked out. We were in a sea of cars filled with East Germans driving into West Berlin. Under political pressure during the night, East Germany had opened the gates through the Berlin Wall. There was truly an electric feeling in the air as we arrived.
I went to the Wall and stood there with thousands of people. Unarmed soldiers were standing on top of the Wall that first day. I witnessed a five-year-old girl run up to the Wall and hit it with her tiny little fist in defiance. That night, the soldiers came down, and so did the Wall … literally.
The next day, there was a free concert for the East and West Berliners, and I got up on stage to perform very unexpectedly along with Joe Cocker and some German bands. I could tell the West Berliners from the rest of the crowd because they had experienced a rock concert before and were loose and having a great time. The East Berliners just stood there with their mouths wide open. They had never seen anything like this. It was completely overwhelming. My concert later that night was very spirited. It was an amazing part of history, and I’d say that most people in attendance were high on freedom. It was very inspiring and very hopeful. I felt very honored to have witnessed this historic change firsthand.
The tour with Martin Stevenson ended and it was time to go home. Home to my friends, my life, Kathleen. Kathleen. I had missed her so much while I was away. I was really starting to feel the need for commitment. For a life together that was really together, not always focused on running away for private moments with other people. But it was hard. After all, I had an album coming out. And I was going to go on the road. I was gonna make all those Rock Star dreams come true.
Julie
• • •
WHEN I GOT HOME, THERE WAS A PACKAGE WAITING FOR me—a brown box. I opened it up and there was the record. My record. The album and a 45 of “Bring Me Some Water.” The single and the album were all red and black. Everything was red and black. And I just stared at it. Touched it. It was amazing and delicious and wonderful. I could have eaten it. There it was. My record.
You make a record and you’re supposed to go on tour to support it. And that’s exactly what I did. Kevin came with me to play bass, but Craig was afraid of flying, so we hired Fritz Lewak to sit in as the drummer. It wasn’t like the European tour, though. It was much better.
I had my own tour bus. My own roadies. People working for me, taking care of me. This was my tour. The second stop we made was in Kansas City, Missouri, at the Lone Star. All of my friends from Kansas City and Leavenworth came to see me play. It was great—all my friends dancing and partying, my mom and dad sitting at a table in the back, nodding their heads to the music. Even Jennifer came, though she spent most of the evening in back of the bar, drunk. This was my tour. It felt so … legitimate. My band. My music. I wasn’t doing covers. I wasn’t playing in the corner in a women’s bar. I was playing in a club where people had paid to see me. That night, we drove to St. Louis, where I was going to make my first music video.
I got to the club—the Mississippi Nights, where we were going to film the “Bring Me Some Water” video—first thing in the morning. I was introduced to the first assistant director, who looked at me and said, “Hello, my name is Julie Cypher.” All I could say was, “Well, hello.” She was the most beautiful, powerful, sexy woman I had ever met. She was a perfect assistant director; she kept things moving, on time and on schedule. I was instantly crazy about her. I flirted and played and sang and used all of my talent and charm to get her attention. When we were introduced, there was an instant, very real, deeply intense connection between us.
The next day, Julie came over and said to me, “You know, my husband knows someone that knows you.” All I could hear was the word husband. My heart sank. I had never thought about husbands before. They hadn’t really been a part of my world up to that point. I was crushed. Julie’s husband was the actor Lou Diamond Phillips. They had gotten married very young. I met her when she was twenty-four. I was twenty-seven at the time. As I was saying goodbye, I shook everyone’s hand to thank them for their assistance with the production. When it came time to say goodbye to Julie, I put my arms around her and gave her a hug. She whispered softly in my ear, “If I wasn’t married.…”
I was inspired and confused. I didn’t know what to think. All I knew was that I couldn’t get this girl out of my head. Two weeks later, I was in Toronto doing a sound check for my show that night, and I turned around to find Julie, with her very famous actor-husband, standing there in the auditorium. My heart was pounding. I could feel it beat against my chest so hard, and I hoped that they wouldn’t notice. We talked like old friends and decided to all go out to dinner together with my band. We were all sitting at the table together, and Julie was sitting right next to me. I couldn’t actually flirt with her; her husband was right there! But we talked and we laughed and we had a great time. But it was odd. I had such feeling for this woman and didn’t know where to put it, what to do with it. As she was leaving, Julie handed me her phone number, and I slipped it into my pocket.
Julie went back to L.A. and I went to Montreal, where I stared at her number for days. And then I called Kathleen. I asked her, for the final time, if she thought that we could ever be in a monogamous relationship. And for the final time, she said, “No.” It just wasn’t what she wanted. I hung up th
e phone and then called Julie. We talked for hours. We fell in love on the phone. We got to know each other through endless conversations while I was on the road and she was at home alone while Lou was making a movie. It was all so new for both of us. I felt like I could tell Julie anything and everything. It all felt so right and real and possible. We talked every night for hours and hours. I remember one night when Julie called me in New York City and she said, “We have to stop meeting like this.”
We’d only been talking on the phone, but it had gotten intimate. I felt so close to her, I knew that there was something more than conversation growing between us. It had gotten so personal that Julie was beginning to feel guilty. I had invited her to meet me in Dallas for a few days while I was there to do a concert, and even though I knew she had her hesitations about making that trip, she came to see me.
We danced, drank, and had the greatest time. That was all. Julie would not kiss me. I, of course, was perfectly respectful of her fidelity. But there was no doubt that there was a special feeling between us. Shortly after that trip to Dallas, I invited Julie to come up to Vancouver at the last minute for the last show of my first American tour. It was a big deal to me, and all of the band members were inviting their girlfriends, so I asked Julie if she wanted to come, too. I reassured her that it was just as friends and that I’d arrange for her to have her own room. My tour manager then informed me that there were no other hotel rooms available, so I called Julie back and promised that I would be on my best behavior and that she could stay in my room. I even offered to get her a room at another hotel, but she thought it was fine and said that she was in. She flew up to Vancouver and I did the show. There was all of the sexual energy between us, but Julie was still very much married. We got ready for bed that night, and Julie came out wearing these boxer shorts and a Young Guns T-shirt. Young Guns was a Western that her husband had starred in. And the picture on the T-shirt was of Lou staring and pointing a gun straight at me. I don’t think Julie put on the shirt consciously, but I just had to laugh inside. I was like, “Okay. I’m not going to touch you, I swear!” But it wasn’t easy …
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