Five minutes with … MELISSA ETHERIDGE

THE ROCKER REVEALS HOW MUSIC ‘SAVED HER LIFE’ AFTER THE DEATH OF HER SON

Her raspy voice propelled her to rock stardom in the ’80s and Melissa Etheridge has remained at the top of the charts ever since. But music has given the 60-year-old singer much more than fame.

It provided a lifeline for the star when she lost what was dearest to her. Etheridge’s 21-year-old son

Beckett died of a drug overdose in May 2020.

“Because it happened during the pandemic I put my nose to the grindstone and really had to throw myself into creating something,” she tells WHO over Zoom from her home in LA. The result was Etheridge TV, a live streaming platform where she performed daily. “It gave me purpose and working on that and the songs kept me going,” Etheridge explains. “It allowed me to heal and saved my life.” For your new album One Way Out, you’ve pulled out songs you wrote during your career but never released. What themes do you delve into? You’re going to see some of the heartbreak and frustration that

I was going through at the time. It was interesting to sink my teeth back into the old stu , which hurt back then. That is why a lot of them weren’t released as it was too painful. But now they don’t hurt, so it’s fun to have the song to see how far I’ve come. Which track on the new album shows the most growth? ‘I’m No Angel Myself' is about a ctional meeting with an old friend who slept with my girlfriend. Looking back on it, the pain was all worth it as it made me a better person. If you could go back to the start of your career, what advice would you give your younger self? I would tell her to love herself more and to not look outside of herself for con dence. And do more sit-ups cause it’s too late to start now! You’ve been married to your wife Linda (Wallem) for seven years. What is the secret to your relationship? The key to a good relationship is learning to love yourself. If you don’t, you will never feel love from others. (One Way Out is out Fri. Sep., 17)