Renowned engineer and producer David Cole has been a principal player in the making of Melissa’s forthcoming album, one that represents a very private, personal journey for MLE. David shares with M.E.I.N. the experience of working one-on-one with Melissa and lets us in on what was an intense, inspiring and creative journey for the two of them making this record, which by all accounts may be Melissa’s greatest and most powerful album to date.

Can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I started out playing in bands. I was a crummy guitar player (laughs). I did a little bit of recording in a band and got hooked on the studio side of it. I figured out early on that I wasn’t John Lennon or Bob Dylan: I didn't have the message, but I loved the process and being involved creatively and technically with the making of the music. I focused my career on how to make the process more fun and productive. I started out as an engineer and gradually got into producing. As an engineer, I worked with a lot of different producers and learned from their good characteristics and their mistakes. These days, I engineer for some people and produce for others. The studio is my instrument now.

How did the collaboration with you and Melissa originate?
John Carter, who is an old friend of Melissa’s and is "A & R ing" the record for Melissa called and said that Melissa wanted to play all the instruments on the record and needed to work with someone who was hip to Pro Tools and working with loops. The call went out for an engineer that was up on Pro Tools, but also sensitive to Melissa’s musical roots. After a couple of days working together, we totally sparked and were hot on the trail, at which point she turned to me and said, ‘Okay, so you’re co-producing this record now. Your input is just so ‘right on’ to what I want to be doing, let’s go.’ We’ve had a very intense, productive couple of months making this record. When Carter initially said, ‘Hey, do you want to make a record with Melissa Etheridge?’, I said, ‘Absolutely.’ He reminded me that over a dozen years ago, he had wanted to sign her to Capitol Records when I was a staff engineer there. He dragged me out to a little club out in Pasadena to see this girl sing in the corner of a noisy bar with her twelve-string, and that was Melissa. He brought her into the studio to do a couple of demos. We came up with 3 or 4 things with Booker T playing organ and, as record company politics would have it, he was unable to sign her. That is when she went to Island. I had totally forgotten about it and when I got the call to go work with her, it was Bill Leopold, her manager, who said, ‘Well, you’re the guy who did her original demos...’ and I went, ‘Oh…yeah... right!’ (laughs)

Even back then, when you first heard her music, what struck you most about Melissa as an artist?
Her intensity, her raw emotion... that this one person with a guitar could convey so much power, yet it was tempered with taste. Here’s this young person with all of this powerful emotion and these creative juices, and to be able to modulate that artistically and not just tear your head off singing. I was blown away by her and was disappointed when she didn’t sign to Capitol.

In terms of the album that you are working on now, Melissa expressed a desire to play all the instruments and record everything herself…how physically have you been going about recording this album?
She had written a batch of tunes and had lyrics in her little book and would come in with a basic groove idea. She had a number of drum loops, which are actual drum patterns that play the same thing over and over again for 4 or 5 minutes. She had worked up her songs with those grooves in mind, and she would play her acoustic guitar with the loop and give me a sense of what that song was all about. Then we talked about the arrangement… this section should be longer or shorter, what should the drums be doing in this part, etc. We just started building it from the ground up. Melissa would then go in and add her main guitar part, usually on acoustic guitar, and maybe a couple of guitar colors or keyboards. We’d toil for hours and hours on the arrangement, on every little detail of the music as we were doing this on the computer, and then she’d say, ‘Well, okay, let me go put a vocal on this.’ That was what I would affectionately refer to as my ‘favorite part of the day’. Which is true. She would go in there and just let loose with the core of the song after we had spent all this time working on the foundation. Then would come the real soul of the song, and it would just flow out of her in just a short period of time. It was very quick. I was just so blown away with how she was able to dial into the spirit of the song and just pierce it through the microphone. I was totally spoiled by the gift that she has. So many people will take days and days working on a vocal and they will do multiple tracks and then try and piece together a performance. It is just such a pleasure to have somebody who has that gift who can go in there, go to the spot where they need to be emotionally, spiritually for the song, and deliver it.

When did you first hear all the songs, did she bring them in one by one?
Yeah, we pretty much worked on a song a day. We’d start on one song and some days we did two songs. After about 3 or 4 songs, I started to see a thread going on thematically and that was just about the time that the tabloids were going to let loose with the story of her break-up. She hadn’t really discussed it with me, but it was getting pretty evident with the lyrical content that something was going on. One day she said, ‘Okay, here’s the scoop,’ and she came out with the press release and let everyone know what was up.

Melissa had told M.E.I.N. in a previous interview that she views this album as a ‘healing piece of work.’ How do you see this as evident from your perspective?
The studio was a safe harbor for her to vent and to get her feelings out into songs. She would come in the door, and the door would close behind her, and would let out a big sigh of relief as if to say, ‘Okay, I’m back. I’ve got my music. Let me lose myself in the music.’ As you can imagine, anyone going through a traumatic relationship break-up like that has got a whole whirlwind of emotions going on. Melissa was able to channel that emotion into the music, to share her experience with other people. The album is like a journey through that period of time. I think a lot of people who have heard Melissa’s songs from early on until this point resonate to the depth of her emotion and can relate to their own relationships through her music. If you listen to this album from top to bottom, it takes you through the whole roller coaster ride of a relationship.

Is that how you would characterize the progressive flow of the album from start to finish?
Yes. It goes through the whole spectrum of someone going through an emotional break-up; the anger, the hurt, the denial, the realization, the healing …you can almost do the whole 12-step program listening to this record. (laughs)

She comes out the other side trying to re-invent herself and to find herself, pick herself up, dust herself off and stand on her own two feet and say, ‘Okay, it’s a new day.’ Musically, creatively, artistically, she is also re-inventing herself, which was totally refreshing. We were trying things that she had never done before on other records. Certainly this approach of her building the songs up herself, on her own, was new. We brought in a lot of different elements. We tried things. We experimented. When something didn’t work, or didn’t feel right, we tossed it aside. There wasn’t a lot of second-guessing. It was very much shooting from the hip.

She also said in an interview with M.E.I.N. that she wanted to stand solidly in who she is, so to speak, with this album. Did you encourage her to take her own direction production wise in this respect?
I didn’t really have to. We tried to push the envelope and make a current record that would broaden her audience while at the same time touch base with her roots. In some of these songs, you can hear earlier influences of other artists. Certainly there is a thread that runs through her entire career and this is the next progression. Several times I pushed her to delve deeper, either lyrically or musically, and reveal more. Each time she delighted me with the honesty and the richness of her musical expression. It just flows out of her. She is a person who wants to communicate and is very passionate about her music. It’s exciting to be in the same room with her. It was also exciting to be the one person who actually got to see that performance that ends up being on the record and heard on the radio.

It’s pretty much been the two of you solely collaborating one-on-one?
Yes. At the eleventh hour we had a soul searching session and said, you know, the idea of her creating this record on her own, doing all the music herself is interesting, but it is not the key of what the record is all about. It wasn’t the most important facet of the record. The ten songs that are on the record and the message that they convey are what’s important. We asked ourselves: what do we need to do to make this the best record possible? We agreed that the weak link on the musical side of it was drums and bass. If we brought in other players to supplement and play to what she had already created then we could make the best, creative, commercially successful album that we possibly could. So, we called on Kenny Aronoff, her drummer, and Mark Browne, her bass player, and added real drums and real bass to all of this. She is very thrilled with their input and I think it took the record up another couple of notches just in terms of it sounding like a finished and complete record. It was important for her to be able to explore these songs and build them up without a lot of confusion and outside input. Once we got the core of the song recorded, then we added these other musicians. I am in the midst of mixing it as we speak.

Given the emotional nature of the album it seems like it was a better thing to have this be a more private recording session?
Yes, it was. In a lot of ways it was her musical therapy, her working through the emotions. We actually recorded this at the time when she was working through all of this turmoil. At one point I turned to her and I said, ‘You know, I love this record. I am excited about everything that is on here, but it would be great if we had a song that dealt with this or that’ or I would say, ‘Where is the song that talks about this?’ Tears would kind of well up in her eyes and she would go, ‘Yeah, yeah you’re right. Let me think about that for a minute.’ Well, twenty-four hours later, she comes back with another great song, which totally nailed that facet of what we had discussed. When I pushed her to dig deeper lyrically and reveal more and share more in a particular section of a song, she’d go into the other room while I was busy doing something in the control room and she would come back with, ‘How about this?’ and it would just floor me. She was so in tune with what it was she wanted to say and was so ‘of the moment’ that she was this fountain of expression. I was delighted to be on the recording side of this project.

How do you as an engineer/producer try and facilitate this free-flow of expression? It sounded as if you had a unique understanding between each other from the start.
We found so many things in common just right off the bat from musical influences to what we believe is important in a record. During my very first meeting with her, I laid it out to her what I thought was important in terms of recording: how to capture the moment. The fact that at the end of the day the feel wins over technical perfection and my job has always been: make it go quickly and productively and make sure people are having fun, but also, as I said, create a safe harbor for an artist to expose his or her feelings. When you are sitting there in a studio it can be a sterile, intimidating environment with the glass window and people sitting on one side of a sound proof room with the performer on the other. In some ways, I liken it to a photo session where you are asking the person, ‘Okay, now bare your soul, reveal your inner child…let it go.’ (laughs) It can be intimidating, so my take has always been to keep it light and to keep it moving and fun and to let the artist know that whatever they want to do, whatever they want to try, it’s okay to play in the sandbox and it’s okay to make mistakes. If something doesn’t work out, we will set it aside and we’ll go down another path. We’ve had a great collaboration. I asked her, ‘Can we start another record in January?’ (laughs) I’m spoiled now.

How do you think her growth as an artist is represented on this new album?
I think that she is breaking some new ground. She is taking her roots and expanding on them. We tried different things stylistically and we certainly incorporated different musical elements in the production of the record. In some ways, it is just a continuation on the path of her life and her creative expression. To me, it was about how do I capture Melissa Etheridge at this point in time? I have been a fan of her hits over the years, I’ve seen her on VH1 and in various places and have always been impressed with her energy and intensity. The audience at her concerts spans several generations - people who have been there from the beginning and new fans who have seen videos or heard songs on the radio. I’m just hoping to expand that base and get her vibe out there to more people. She has such a cool message and a cool presence on this earth and I would love to share that with more people. Hopefully, through the music, we’ll do that.

Can you give Melissa’s core fan base, the people that have been with her throughout the years, a teaser about what to expect from the new album?
The first song on the record is just a take-no-prisoners rock song. It’s the raw emotion, the bare nerve. It’s a song called "Lover Please." Oh, you have to hear it! From then on out the record is an emotional roller coaster. It’s so personal and revealing.

What is your favorite aspect of working with Melissa?
She laughs at my jokes. (laughs) She’s got a great sense of humor. To me, she has the perfect combination of "been there, done that" so that she knows that there is no point in putting up with any nonsense, or dealing with a lot of indecision, or going down blind alleys. Melissa’s got the experience of knowing what’s important versus what is B.S. Combine that with the freshness of someone who is so on fire with creativity, that she wants to get it out there, and try, and test, and push. Sometimes my job was to be like an Olympic coach who says, ‘Boy that was amazing, 12 feet 6! You know, that was awesome, let’s just raise the bar another notch and see if you can do 14 feet?’ And every time I did that, she reacted and was just so forthcoming. It’s a love thing, what can I say.

Now that you have been working with her for some time and given the fact that you had worked with her early on, what are some new impressions you have of her? What more have you learned about her?
Hmm. Good question. I think we have only seen the tip of the iceberg. Her artistic depth is going to carry her for years and years. She has so much to say and so much to share. We are all growing up and growing older together. She’s got kids, which keeps you young and current. She has a wonderful circle of friends and people around her supporting her. I don’t know, I just feel better when I am in her presence. She is one of those people who, if they called you tomorrow and said, ‘Look, I need you to do this and this…’ I would drop everything and say, ‘Okay, I’m there.’ You will get that same story from her drummer, her bass player, her tour manager, everybody around her cares for her and genuinely loves her.

Do you have a special behind the scenes story that you can share with the fans?
We have this last song on the album that is kind of this rejoiceful, don’t- worry-about-me, I’m-going-to-be-fine, I’m-coming-out-the-other-side song called, ‘Heal Me.’ I thought it would be great if we had some sort of sing-along chorus at the end of the song. I know her fans will be singing it at the shows, so I suggested to Melissa that she invite a couple of her friends to come down and sing the chorus. She is friends with Meg Ryan and Laura Dern, who had come by to visit us at the studio earlier. Melissa had played some of the songs for them and they reacted to the music and were all excited about the album…So, she invites Meg and Laura to come sing backgrounds and they are just thrilled at the idea of coming to the studio and singing on somebody’s record. Before they show up, I asked Melissa, ‘Now you’ve never really had background singers on any of your records have you?’ And she says, ‘No.’ So, I told her, ‘Here’s the deal with background singers: Number one, they are going to be late. Just plan on that. Number two, as soon as they get here, within 5 minutes of stepping through the door, one of the girls is going to comment on the other girls’ shoes, or their outfit, and it is going to continue like that throughout the day. And the third thing is, while they are out on the microphone, they are just going to giggle and talk and be goony. So, I am just going to keep pushing things along to get what we need out of them.’ Melissa laughs and says, ‘Yeah, okay...whatever!’

Sure enough, they are supposed to be there at noon, they call about 12:30 and say, ‘We’re lost. We couldn’t find the studio. We weren’t sure where it was but we’re on our way...’ They show up all dressed in their rock n’ roll clothes and Meg says, ‘Look at this coat! I had to wear this coat to the session. Isn’t this the coolest? Laura gave me this coat. I love it!’ And Laura says, ‘Well, you know I had to dig out these cowboy boots to do the session...’ When they get out on the microphone, they go through their medley of favorite songs - they’re just so thrilled to hear themselves singing with reverb. So, the three of them (Melissa, Meg, & Laura) went out on the microphone and nailed this out chorus on the song, "Heal Me". It was a great way to wrap up the album.

David began his career as a staff engineer at Capitol Records in Hollywood where for nine years he worked with the likes of Tina Turner, Bob Seger, The Steve Miller Band, Richard Marx and others. David then worked as a staff producer for MCA and later worked with the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, Roger McGuinn (The Byrds) and Elton John’s lyricist, Bernie Taupin. Click here to view David’s extensive, outstanding bio.

Click here to visit David Cole's Web site!