Las Vegas Weekly

Melissa Etheridge brings her “Fearless Love” to Primm

After a battle with cancer, Melissa Etheridge decided it was time to embrace her regained strength and amp things up for her next album, Fearless Love. Etheridge is performing Saturday at Star of the Desert Arena at Buffalo Bills Casino & Resort in Primm, her first tour in six months. Expect all of your favorites and a sampling of her new, more rocking fare.

You've done so many amazing collaborations such as the ReAct Now Katrina benefit and Live Earth, who would you love to collaborate with one day?

Oh gosh. There are so many. Artists who just sing from their souls and have that truth inside them. I've never sung with Stephen Tyler. I would love to sing with him. Pink. Shoot, even Adam Lambert. I love the way he sings. My kids watch American Idol and tell me all about it. In five years when we look back at all the fuss about him, he'll seem like a genius. Right now we can't see it. We're not homophobic; we're sexaphobic. We don't want to see anything sexual right now. It freaks us out. We really just haven't come to terms with that, and I think that's why homosexuality is so hard to assimilate into society because we have such hang-ups about sex. We just have to learn some things.

Even after several Grammy wins, what was it like receiving an Academy Award for the song "I Need to Wake Up"?

That's the big enchilada. It's a crazy, crazy thing. There's only one song category. That was super cool. ... I thought I had a shot at it but I didn't really know how those things went so I was just sort of blindly believing.

Did you ever imagine yourself becoming such an inspirational musician or did that just come naturally with your personality?

I didn't sign up to be this. No, I didn't at all. That was just something that overcame me, and I find that the more truthful I am — the more I just speak my truth and say this is what I am — that it's considered so courageous. I think that's just silly in our society. What does that say about us? It's courageous just to be who you are? If it inspires and other people find strength in it, rock on.

Was there any fallout from your refusal to pay your state taxes following the gay-marriage ban?

If you go back to the original Huffington Post blog, you'll see it is a satirical piece. It was my kneejerk reaction to this election where so many said no to gay marriage. I said it made no sense for me to pay my taxes the same as others. I should get a tax break because I don't get the same rights. There I went off on a humorous tangent. Of course I paid my taxes. People took it literally. I was saying what if, what if we had a gay tax break? I don't think the IRS cares if I'm gay or not.

You've been very vocal about your political opinions in the past. What is the one thing you most want to see come out of Obama's term in office?

That's a good question. I will answer first with what I think is the best thing about us electing him and that's the hope it gave us that we can overcome the old paradigms of fear and racial inequality. We're moving ahead to focusing on what's on the inside. I don't hang my hat so much on Obama the man as I do on our American democracy and I hope people understand it is us who are making the choices.

When can fans expect a new album?

It comes out April 27th. It's all done. It's the most rocking album I've ever made, I believe. It's full-on, right-between-the-eyes rock 'n' roll. It's called Fearless Love. I will definitely be presenting a handful of new songs in Primm, but you'll get all the hits too. So far the reception to the new album has been very, very, very good, if you ask my children and my friends.