The Power of Kristine W

by Josh Aterovis

Kristine W is a true gay icon. She holds the record for the most consecutive #1 hits on the Billboard Dance Charts, beating even Janet Jackson and Madonna. Earlier this year, Kristine edged out Whitney Houston to take fifth place for the most total #1 dance hits. She's performed more live shows at the Las Vegas Hilton than anyone...even Elvis. As if that wasn't enough to secure her place in the hearts of gay men everywhere, she's also long been a vocal supporter of gay rights.

Kristine recently released her fourth full-length dance album, The Power of Music. It's already spawned four #1 dance songs, and her latest single, "Be Alright," is charting new territory. Could Kristine be conquering a new genre?

Josh Aterovis: Congratulations on another great album. I really enjoyed The Power of Music, as did our reviewer.

Kristine W: I'm glad that you like it. Right on. It was a long time coming, and a lot of work, and a lot of love in that album. I hope people enjoy it.

JA: Why did you call it The Power of Music?

KW: I called it The Power of Music because I've seen how powerful music is in people lives and how much it helps them emotionally survive situations, and how much it helped me when I was sick and on the hospital and trying to get better. A couple years of having a tough time with my health, music helped a lot. Also, the songs that I'd written in the past took on new meanings. Before, I was trying to survive in the music industry, but suddenly, "alive, alive in the land of the living" takes on a whole new meaning when you're fighting for your life. It really brought home how everybody can take something different from the same words, and everybody has their own interpretation of the music. I always knew that, but through that experience, I realized that this is powerful stuff.

JA: This is your fourth full-length dance album. How does it differ from your previous albums?

KW: I would say it's more eclectic. I've always had a really strong R&B background. My first record called No One Can Tell Me came out when I was in high school. It had a very R&B flavor to it. I came from that, and gospel, I was in the church choir growing up. I put some of that on there, and the big, dramatic ballads. I love them. Songs that are heartfelt with a message that people can take with them. It's very eclectic, very diverse.

JA: To date, you've had thirteen number one hits on the Billboard Dance Charts — nine of which were consecutive, beating Janet Jackson and Madonna, who each have seven. How does it feel to beat Madonna?

KW: [laughs] That was pretty crazy. I didn't even know I'd done that. I got a call from a club promoter telling me, and I was like, "What?" It was great, but I'm just the little worker bee. I just keep going and creating stuff and making music, and I don't even pay attention to records and stuff like that. It was a pleasant surprise. Little guys like me, we can't really compete with the big the big machine like the Madonna machine. But that's fine. She's an amazing artist and just to be mentioned in the same sentence as her is phenomenal.

JA: Now that you're an independent artist, your bio talks about breaking free of shackles of a major label. When you were with RCA, did you feel constricted? Were you told what you could and couldn't do?

KW: There's so much red tape, like with any corporation. You had to go through so much red tape and so many people with so many opinions, that by the time it took forever to make a decision, you weren't really free to create any more. You had somebody telling you, "Listen, you need to have a song like Britney Spears." Or, "Didn't I tell you to write something that sounded like blah-de-blah."

I mean it was very hard to create. You were basically an "ambiance chaser," in my opinion. Whenever you did something that was different, it was like, "Whoa! We can't market that." To a certain extent, they're right. They only know how to market what's already been sold. It was restricting and depressing, mostly depressing because you didn't feel free anymore. I fought it for a long time. I'd get in there and do stuff nobody approved of, and they wouldn't push it. Unfortunately, if you don't do what you're told, they don't push it. That's the problem.

JA: You've always embraced your gay fans, doing Pride Festivals, a video with the cast of Queer As Folk, and support many gay causes. Was your label supportive or did they ever fight you on that?

KW: RCA, they were supportive as far as they knew that's where my sales were coming from, but they would advise me not to talk about it during interviews, play it down. There was a lot of that, especially right before the Stronger album, I felt a lot of that. It was like, "Okay, now we're about to take you mainstream. You have to stop playing these gay events, and you have to tone your image down. We can't sell you if you're showing up in bubble wrap gowns and feathers coming out of your back and..."

JA: And then Lady Gaga comes along...

KW: Yeah, but you know, I kept doing my thing anyway.

JA: Do you think you were just ahead of the time or do you think you would have been fine if they'd just pushed you as you were instead of trying to force you into a closet?

KW: I think Land of the Living was way ahead of its time musically, and the whole thing was ahead of its time. Land of the Living would be fine to come out right now. People weren't listening to songs with intelligent words. They weren't seeking that. That only happens when people go through hard times. They want to think on another level when they go through difficult things. I think now they can handle "Be Alright." It's kind of a deep song. I notice in the shows, they can handle it. Or "Feel What You Want." It's really deep lyrics, and I think at that time, the reason it was so big was it was like, "feel what you want, be what you want." That chorus is just simple and it's about freedom, but nobody really listened to the verses, which speak of environmental damage and questioning religion. The verses are very dark if you listen to them. "The man in the moon has holes in the back of his head." That's talking about pollution. Now people sit and listen and they say, "Wow, that's so cool!"

JA: As you said, the verses to "Be Alright" are very deep, but I've noticed often with the remixes, you lose the verses and you're just left with the catchy, upbeat chorus. Which don't get me wrong, is great to dance to...

KW: I think Boris did a really good job of keeping the verses in there. And Offer [Nissim] did a really cool thing where instead of so many of the words being in the song, he recreated the feeling.

JA: I really liked the Offer remix.

KW: Yeah, you felt what was going on. They've really experienced a lot in Israel and Palestine. I've performed over there and I've seen it, and I've actually written with an Israeli writer. They're very emotional. They really feel, and that's what makes their production so great. I wrote "Wonder of It All" with Eran Tabib, and he's from Israel. They've lived a much harder life and their sense of survival is very high. They don't take anything for granted. They're amazing people to work with. They're all about the now and creating something that's timeless.

JA: You really are a bona fide gay icon. Why do you think the gay community has embraced you so wholeheartedly?

KW: I think it's because I was raised with an open mind, open heart philosophy. My mother was that way. She performed for years in the clubs. She'd say, "Oh my gosh, this lesbian is in love with me and keeps sending me flowers. It's cute. I feel bad. I know she's lonely." My mom would talk to us about that when we were teenagers. And she'd talk about pretending to be the sixth grade teacher's girlfriend at this party so nobody would find out he was gay and lose his job. She'd say, "Listen, kids, he's a dear friend of mine. He's my boyfriend tonight. Roll with the story." She protected people. She was that kind of person. She knew very early on that gay people could not survive comfortably being out back then. She was very sensitive to that, and it was a big lesson to me.

 And I teach it to my kids big time. Diversity. People come into our lives for a reason and we have to protect each other. You have to make sure that you stand up for people who are having a hard time or who are different. We're all God's children and that's it, and don't you allow anybody to be persecuted for who they are. Step up. You're the children of Kristine W, and I expect no less. [laughs] They're our people. I always say that to them.

JA: When did you first start to realize that you had a huge gay following?

KW: I think it was 1997, the night I came to New York and performed for Junior Vasquez. I was recording vocals for one of the songs on Land of the Living, trying to finish up that album. I remember coming over from London, and they were like, "You've got a layover on your way to Las Vegas, so why don't you jump off the plane. Junior Vasquez really needs you. He's really working your record, breaking your record, and you really need to be at this party for him." So I did. It was amazing.

I remember going into the club and nobody knew who I was. I think they were all expecting a black girl. I could tell they were all looking around for someone they thought looked like Kristine W. I just walked right past the whole crowd. I just had on this bustier and a little skirt, and I remember thinking, "It's so hot in here, I'm just going to perform in this. I can't handle the heat." There were a couple of thousand men and no AC. Everyone was just dripping wet. I loved it! I was like, "This is great! Look at all these hot guys. This is like a freaking garden, a bouquet of loveliness. It's a banquet, and where do I start?" I turned to one of the guys with me and said, "These guys are so hot it's ridiculous." And he said, "Don't get too excited. This is a gay party." So that was my first experience and I was like, "This is hot." I loved it.

I could tell they thought I was lip-synching, so I started doing some acapella stuff, and talking to them, and going, "I'm real." They didn't really react when I came out on stage. They were like, "Is this a drag queen? The MC? A joke?" They thought it was like the C&C Music Factory where Martha Wash is waiting backstage while this hot chick comes out first. It was time when people were question what was real and what wasn't because the record labels were throwing a lot of fake people out in the late 90s. There were people who couldn't really sing live. It was interesting. You really could have heard a fly fart when I walked onstage. [laughs]

JA: Did you intentionally target your career in that direction or did it just happen?

KW: It just happened. When I was playing Vegas, and it was like my last two years of my contract there, '97-'99, more and more gay people came to see my show. My show was very fun. We did a 70's medleys; it was like a live music video. It was a big party every night. I would intersperse my original music in with popular cover tunes with dance mixes. My show was really, really popular. Straight people would come out, and then more and more gay people came out when they found out Kristine W had a show in Vegas.

The weekends would just be mobbed in the nightclubs at the Las Vegas Hilton. People would be hanging over the rafters. We'd do two shows of 500 people a night. It got really, really hard on my health. We'd perform six nights a week in Vegas, then I'd jump on a flight and play the Black and Blue party on Sunday in Toronto, then fly back and be on stage by 9 o'clock on Monday.
That was really hard on my health and I didn't even realize what a toll it was taking on me, until I got diagnosed in 2001 with leukemia. I could tell I was something was going on because I was getting so tired all the time, but my doctor was just like, "Oh, you're just anemic, it's fine." Nobody thought somebody my age would get leukemia: a big, six-foot-tall blonde girl. Then we got the news and everything changed.

JA: You've been very open about your fight with leukemia. How did that experience change you and your music?

KW: It made me want to write songs that are meaningful and connect with people — whether they can handle it or not, eventually they will — and keep on the path I've been on. Try to write songs about things that matter, timeless messages about people in relationships. Songs like "Merry Go Round," I notice when people listen to it they're almost uncomfortable because it's so real, when a love burns out. You can tell they've experienced it by the first line. Sometimes, it's uncomfortable to watch people listen to these songs for the first time, because it's so raw, but it's also neat at the end when they go, "Wow. I can so relate to that." You can say in music what you can't say in words. You could never have that conversation with people, but to capture those messages in a song, it's neat that people can hear it and go, "I don't feel alone because that's my story."

JA: You've had quite an interesting life and such a diverse career, spanning from beauty queen to Vegas show girl to Dance Club Diva. You must have some crazy stories. Have you thought about writing a book?

KW: You know, I've got to. Nobody would ever believe the madness. I have to, but it's probably going to be a series because there's just too much to go into. It would be like a Desperate Housewives thing that goes on and on. There's so much. Seriously. There's a lot.

JA: Come on, LOGO! Are you reading this? The Kristine W Show. I'd watch it.

KW: [laughs] Yep! That would be fun.

JA: You're also working on an album called Straight Up With A Twist, reimaging your dance hits with a bossa nova style., right?

KW: Yeah, we wrote a couple new tunes, and did remixes for a couple of songs from The Power of Music. It's great. I cut it with the guys from Santana's rhythm section, the Latin players that he uses for a lot of his live sessions when he's touring. We did live sessions in Los Angeles a couple of years ago, all together in one room so it would have that whole live sound to it. It's a really great album.

JA: What was the inspiration behind it? It's such a departure, where did it come from?

KW: My roots are jazz. My mom sang a lot of jazz and standards. My mom had a keyboard player named Fred Quizzini. He had played with Dizzy Gillespie, and he used to teach me all the old songs. He would teach me about scatting and improvisation, and then I would go and buy records by Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, and Mel Tormé. I was a kid. I was soaking all that up like a sponge. He just kind of educated me on the older, hardcore jazz and improv people, because he used to say he could tell I had it, I had the gift. I would win all these competition and talent shows around the Northwest scatting and singing jazz. I'd always put in my mind that as soon as I get enough money saved away, I was going to do this.

JA: When can we expect it?

KW: It's mastered and sitting in my safe that I'm looking at right now. We've been sitting here trying to figure out when to release it. You kind of don't want to step on the momentum of The Power of Music. We were thinking about putting it out right before the holidays, but now we're thinking it might be smarter to put it out after the first of the year because in that fourth quarter, everybody is dropping stuff.

And people really loved the Hey, Mr. Christmas album, so we're thinking we might do another EP. It was really popular last year during the holidays. Maybe re-release it and add some new digital tracks that you can download. Something. It was the one uplifting album that came out, so it ended up being the party album for the holidays, even though it was only six songs. People would play it over and over. It made me believe that it would be neat to do a full twelve track album that could go for an hour during a Christmas party.

JA: What else do you have on your plate? Are you working on anything after that?

KW: Right now we're working on remixes for The Power of Music. That's the main thing. Trying to figure out who would be the most appropriate remixer. We do have one remix in by a really great guy that I can't mention right now, but it's a great mix. We're kind of in the middle of that, and "Be Alright" is making it's way up the AC charts at the moment.

JA: AC? As in Adult Contemporary?

KW: Yeah, Adult Contemporary. It's not on the dance chart, so we're sitting around going, "Whoa. Okay. That'll work." It's #22 this week. It jumped from 36 to 22. It's a power kick this week. We have a lot going on at the moment. We're also getting ready for Market Days in Chicago, which is a really important show for us because a lot people go to Market Days. And we're reordering The Power of Music because it's going into Borders, and Amoeba, and into FYE.

JA: Congratulations on all that! And thanks so much for talking to us.

KW: It's all good! Everything is good. We just have to stay focused in times like this, and buoy each other, be positive, and keep that collective good energy, because we need it.