k.d. lang - Advocate

k.d. lang is back, and she�s ready to roll. Preparing for a major tour, she�s embracing her new image and turning her happiness with partner Leisha Hailey into a powerful and romantic pop album, Invincible Summer
by Michele Kort
From The Advocate, June 20, 2000
�I�m proud that I was one of the first ones out, singing loud and proud,� says k.d. lang. Indeed, when the inordinately gifted Canadian chanteuse acknowledged her preference for gals in a 1992 issue of this magazine, she became a pride pioneer. She took the initial media heat as the only out lesbian in American popular culture, but her courage burned a path for others to follow (Melissa, Ellen, Anne, Me�Shell, etc.). When she performed at the Equality Rocks concert in Washington, D.C., she was no longer alone on that public stage.
So now can she get you to just listen to her music again?
Lang, now 38, is just about to release her first collection of original material in five years, Invincible Summer, and in August she�ll be heading out on a world tour. The new CD finds lang in her usual lush voice, which she�s melded with modern British pop stylings (producer Damian Le Gassick has worked with William Orbit and Madonna).
In a big way, she celebrates love on this album, which reflects that she�s still in love after four years with Leisha Hailey of the band the Murmurs and that she�s experiencing a sort of happy wonderment about humankind.

What does the phrase Invincible Summer mean?
The title is drawn from the Albert Camus quote, �In the depth of winter I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.�

And did you learn that?
Over the last three years I really slowed down. It�s been more than rejuvenating-it�s almost as if I�m born again. I took time off to recharge my batteries: buy a house, cook, get a dog, drive home and see my mom in Canada. Do things I never had a chance to do in the last 15 years, when I was always on a plane, backstage, onstage, on a bus to the hotel, recording.

It feels like a spiritual album.
It is spiritual: It�s all about love. I always try to write from a broader place than just �relationship� love, but hopefully it encompasses all of that. I really feel like it�s the yang of [1992�s] Ingenue. As Ingenue was green and longing and young, this is mature and happy and warm.

Did you worry that happiness would leave you with nothing to write about?
It�s much, much easier to be on the dark side. There seems to be more of a wealth of metaphors and styles you can use when you�re writing from a longing place. I�ve always found writing happy songs extremely difficult, because you�re bordering on corny. But I ventured into writing this record very confident that I could do it because it was coming from a legitimate place in my soul. I think it�s extremely positive, but I don�t think it�s corny.

Before Leisha, didn�t you have a girl in every port? Is it hard to be committed to one person?
Yeah, I definitely had a girl in every port. Yeah, it�s very hard-it�s still hard. It�s a part of my nature. It takes a lot of self-confidence and ego to get up on that stage and believe that you�re sexy and believe that you�re good. Unfortunately, sometimes we have to draw from that sexual feeding, from the attention we get physically.

Looking back on when you came out, you probably had to answer questions about your sexuality longer than you expected you would.
A lot longer-I�m still answering them. You immediately become a politician.

And you also became a politician about vegetarianism.
I think what happened was, I sort of unwillingly became a politically correct poster child. But really, I�ve been a vegetarian for 20 years, and I�ve been gay for 38. I mean, I was born gay!