Rock & Roll Hall of Fame<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\tHaving Shooter Jennings produce your new album was inspired \u2014 it sounds just like classic Melissa Etheridge. How did you link up?<\/strong>
I was looking for a producer who could walk the line between rock and country. I looked at his work and thought, \u201cOh, yeah.\u201d [I\u2019m a] big fan of [his father] Waylon Jennings. I like that he\u2019s an L.A. guy who\u2019s got this heavy-metal rock background, but is also very rooted in that country-rock sound. We met, talked, and, boy, did we get on. I knew \u2014 this is the guy. He gets out of the way, [and] is solid and steady the whole time. When I\u2019d go, \u201cOK, what do you think?\u201d He\u2019d definitely let me know. He just shepherds it in such an amazing way \u2026 because it\u2019s so hard [when] you finish a song. You give it everything, and so often, producers are like, \u201cRight, that\u2019s perfect, let\u2019s do it again.\u201d And he\u2019s just excited. He loves music, and that\u2019s such a pleasure to be around.<\/p>\n\n\tYou duet with Chris Stapleton on the soberly hopeful \u201cThe Other Side of Blue.\u201d Is there a backstory?<\/strong>
Sometimes you just\u00a0have to\u00a0work up the nerve and ask somebody. I called my manager\u00a0[and] said,\u00a0\u201cI\u2019m only interested in writing with one person, and that would be Chris Stapleton.\u201d\u00a0She goes,\u00a0\u201cWell, we\u2019ll ask.\u201d\u00a0And she asked, and the answer came back\u00a0yes, which is just thrilling. I\u2019d never met him, but I was a massive fan. I went to Nashville, where he records in Dave Cobb\u2019s studio. It\u2019s a huge, historic soundstage. It was just me and him, talking about our families. I spoke about my three surviving kids and mentioned Beckett, who I lost [to addiction issues in 2020, when he was 21]. Chris said, \u201cOh, you talk in song.\u201d Within 15 minutes of sitting down, we were deep into writing. It was pretty magical; just a really special moment.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n
\n\tHas country music helped bring rock back?<\/strong>
Yes, I think country is the place. I find myself turning on SiriusXM in the car, [stations like] Outlaw Country or the Highway.\u00a0I always felt like I made music for people that drive cars and listen to music.\u00a0Then you listen to these artists, and they sound like Nineties rock & roll artists. I did grow up on Tammy Wynette and Johnny Cash, but I always stood more in the rock & roll world. But I don\u2019t know anymore.<\/p>\n\n\tSpoken like someone who made the short list for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame \u2026<\/strong>
The Rock Hall is part of that. There was that classic rock & roll we know, and then there\u2019s everything that has been influenced [by it] and has that rock & roll spirit. That\u2019s your R&B, rap, and country.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\tThat runs counter to what Gene Simmons said in February, specifically: \u201cIt\u2019s not my music. I don\u2019t come from the ghetto. Hip-hop does not belong in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.\u201d<\/strong>
That says more about him than anything. Rock & roll is a feeling. You can\u2019t bottle it up and say, \u201cThis is mine, not yours.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\tYou\u2019ve written through a lot: illness, grief. Has there been an evolution to the vulnerability you present in your songs?<\/strong>
The writing was always the healing. Early on, it was love, heartache \u2014 that awful stuff that happens to you in your twenties. When I came out, there were no parts of me that were like, \u201cI can\u2019t talk about that.\u201d After cancer, it was \u201cI\u2019m going to write songs for me, so that when I perform them 20 years from now, I\u2019m going to feel my strength.\u201d The writing\u00a0was always\u00a0the\u00a0good medicine that made me feel better. And then, losing my son \u2026 The first song that I wrote for this album was \u201cCall You.\u201d It had been four years since Beckett passed, and I still missed being able to call him \u2014 just picking up the phone. And that little emotion is enough to put into the song and say,\u00a0\u201cOK, but\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0not going to stop\u00a0living.\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0not going to curl up into a ball of guilt and\u00a0shame,\u00a0and\u00a0roll\u00a0over.\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0going to keep on living, even if I\u00a0can\u2019t\u00a0call you anymore.\u201d I wrote that, and then I was able to dig deep into the rest of the album.<\/p>\n\n\n
\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n
\n\tAs a breast-cancer survivor, you\u2019ve advocated for cannabis use. What happened to your line of botanicals?<\/strong>
I\u2019ve given up on the cannabis business. When I jumped in 10 years ago, I thought [it was] going to be legalized in the next couple of years. But it\u2019s still not federally legalized, and you really can\u2019t run a business without federal banking support. I sunk a whole lot of money into it. Now, I focus my energy on my foundation, which funds research into plant medicine for trauma and addiction. That includes cannabis, psilocybin, and psychedelics.<\/p>\n\n\tHave your views on addiction changed since Beckett\u2019s passing?<\/strong>
I\u2019ve always thought of addiction as deeply psychological and neurological. The more I experienced plant medicine, the more I felt confident that this is a good thing. When Beckett needed help, I wished there was a place I could take him to experience plant medicine. But he was underage, and there was no such thing. So when he passed, I said, \u201cI want to find a way to change the laws, so we can have this as an option for addiction.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n
\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n
\n\tIs \u201cMelissa Etheridge\u201d still you, or a persona?<\/strong>
[Laughs.<\/em>] <\/em>Melissa Etheridge is me. I\u2019ve never put anything out there that wasn\u2019t me. My music may seem intense \u2014 heartbroken, angry \u2014 but if you know me, then you know it\u2019s all authentically me.<\/p>\n\n\tIf your 23-year-old self were heading into the studio for the first time, what would you tell her?<\/strong>
Whatever I\u2019d tell myself, I wouldn\u2019t listen to it \u2014 I was a stubborn 23-year-old! But I\u2019d say, \u201cIt\u2019s about the long run. You\u2019re going to have hits, and you\u2019re going to have albums no one hears of. Just keep making music you love, and keep performing live. Keep on the path of making music and performing music, and you will have a lovely, long, delicious career.\u201d Also, I\u2019d tell myself to do more situps.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.rollingstone.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"M elissa Etheridge likes to change lanes \u2014 in her car, where country music is on repeat, with her Americana-tinged guitar, and certainly as a songwriter with pop hits to her name. But rock & roll will always be at the heart of her music, going back to Etheridge\u2019s self-titled debut in 1988, when the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2339475,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[393512,339645,348901],"class_list":["post-2339474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-melissa-etheridge","tag-shooter-jennings","tag-the-last-word"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Melissa-Etheridge-Talks-New-Music-Addiction-Grief-Hall-of-Fame.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2339474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2339474"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2339474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2339476,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2339474\/revisions\/2339476"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2339475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2339474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2339474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2339474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}