Kristine W's Epic Adventure

Kristine W is certainly an artist that needs little introduction for a gay audience. Over the course of 15 years, she has recorded a near-record 14 number-one hits on the Billboard Dance charts, placing her in the company of names like Mariah Carey, Janet Jackson and Madonna - the only three other artists who have met or surpassed that marker.

With the release of her new Ultimate Music DVD collection this month, she is celebrating in big style as she headlines Epic Saturday at House of Blues Saturday, December 12. EDGE caught up with the dance hit machine as she prepared for the show, getting her opinion on the differences between performing for gay and straight audiences, whether size matters and - attention Adam Lambert - what it means to be a "gay icon."

Miami to Boston

EDGE: You just wrapped up a weekend in Florida, playing the White Party among other things. How was that?

Kristine W: It was wonderful, I had a really great time. I went to Villa Vizcaya on Saturday night and that brings back lots of memories for me. We did a show there in 2000 during the Stronger album. It's such a beautiful place with great energy. The next night, I went to the Beach Party and Chris Cox was spinning there. We're really good friends and it was a wonderful party there. It was a good weekend. And now we have the show coming up in Boston for the DVD release party.

EDGE: I was going to ask you about that. When was the last time you were in Boston?

KW: I really don't play very often in Boston. I haven't been there for a couple of years so it'll be great. The party is called Epic Saturdays, which is a great name. It seemed like a perfect fit to have a DVD release party there.

EDGE: What is enticing to you about the word "epic," as it refers to a party?

KW: Epic means bigger than life and it's wonderful. A lot of clubs and promoters are afraid to invest in parties now and I think it's ironic that Chris Harris, the promoter, instead of being afraid and making his parties smaller is going the opposite direction. It's going to be bigger than life!

Does size matter?

EDGE: In that case, would you like to go on record with saying that size matters?

KW: I don't know! As far as size in the bedroom, I don't think that's actually true. It depends more on their conviction. But in terms of parties, the more people the better!

EDGE: Tell me more about the DVD collection.

KW: It's me looking back on the last 10 years of my career, a decade of hits, with the videos we've done, and what different people have done with their own interpretations and bootleg videos all put together. It's a tribute to the fans because a lot of people who love my music have re-edited and revisited the videos and put their own slant on it and I think it's fun for people to see that. It creates an interesting history.

EDGE: I've noticed that accessibility to your fans seems to be very important to you, which is a bit unusual for top-of-the-Billboard artists, and that's evident too in how you allowed fans to vote for a holiday song to include on Hey Mr. Christmas. Why is it so important for you?

KW: Because you can't learn, grow and evolve as an artist unless you learn from your fans. If you are in the right mindset, you're creating music for the people and sharing your gift, but you have to tune in to what's important to them. You can tell the artists who just write the songs for themselves - about their lives and relationships - and it's boring, it's not universal. I feel like my my fans give me so much energy and ideas for new songs or what they would like to have - like the DVD collection for example. Sometimes they'll tell me stories after stories and I'll think - hey, that's a great line for a song. Once, one guy told me he came to a party and loves dance music but he wasn't a good dancer. He said, "I just want to stand against the wall and watch." And that's where "Groove's Inside" came from.

EDGE: That perspective feels very in tune with one of the terms people frequently use to describe you - a chameleon, adapting to its surroundings. How do you feel about that term?

KW: I guess that fits, people will call up and say they need a show with down-tempo music and I can do that. In Pittsburgh, I did a 25-minute show of my hits in jazz arrangements because we've been working on a new album - Straight Up With a Twist - with jazz versions of my hits and other songs. I can fit into anything. Playing Vegas for quite a few years, you learn you have to do a bit of everything.

EDGE: Have you ever been in an environment where you felt uncomfortable performing?

KW: I must say, the first time I was at the Black and Blue Party in Montreal and I saw all those men in leather body harnesses, I just said "Where are we and what is this?" I didn't know what the party was going to be. It's Canada and everyone's very open, but let me tell you, I was a bit speechless there for a minute and had one of those hiccup moments and couldn't remember the first word to "Feel What You Want." Shit was rising in there, let me tell you.

EDGE: What's the strangest thing that's happened to you in a live setting?

KW: We were doing this song in Vegas - a remix of "I Don't Wanna Lose Your Love" and we did this African choreography. I had this clip-on ponytail and it came unclipped at one point and flew into the audience. They were throwing it around like a dead animal and it really freaked everyone out. I laughed my butt out. A gay crowd would have kept partying - the queens would have clipped it on their heads and kept dancing- but this was straight people. They take it all too seriously.

About Adam Lambert

EDGE: Speaking of people taking things seriously... In addition to being described as a "chameleon," you're also frequently under the label of "gay icon," a label that seems to carry a certain amount of weight and responsibility. On that topic, what was your opinion on Adam Lambert's controversial American Music Awards performance?

KW: With so many gay male fans, I get their instant feedback on situations like that, and honestly, none of them were very happy about it. I'll tell you why. They feel that many of them have worked really hard to lead a professional, classy life and not face the stereotype of being a sex-driven pervert. Sure, they have their parties where they get crazy but that's their parties. They don't put those parties on national television and don't invite their parents there. Their feeling was that it wasn't appropriate. Nobody said they liked it out of my thousands of gay boyfriends.

For me, as an artist, I figure everyone is out there doing their thing so I won't put anyone down for that, whether it's right or wrong, the audience will decide it - if they buy it or not. But my gay boyfriends weren't feeling it at all.

EDGE: Tell me more about the jazz album. Has your jazz writing influenced your dance music writing?

KW: I've been doing so much jazz lately, which I kind of came out of as my foundation. My mom was kind of a jazz singer, doing Sinatra tunes and jazz standards in her shows so I'm kind of going back to my roots with this. I've been madly in love with dance music since I was a little kid, but in junior high and high school, I always did the jazz solos because I could scat and learned jazz improvisation from my mom's musicians. They taught me songs from the '30s, '40s and '50s. And it's funny, I do find it creeping back more and more because of the album.

EDGE: How has the reaction been to your jazz songs? Do you worry people will interpret your embrace of this style as a sign you're slowing down?

KW: Oh gosh, I'm just getting revved up now. They're going to love this album and it's been rewarding to play it in different places, like the jazz cafe show on the Atlantis cruise two or three years ago. The reaction was so overwhelming that I was just blown away and said we had to do this. We've done a few songs and stuck our foot in the water but now we're making the complete project out of it. It's been amazing, between that, Power of Music, the DVD collection and Hey Mr. Christmas we've been running our wheels off the last three or four years.

EDGE: It definitely seems like you're dedicated to keeping your fans satisfied with universal messages they can bust to.

KW: That's always been my goal. I didn't want to make music unless it had something to say, so people could take it with them and get inspired by it. Music is such an important and powerful medicine. As hard as it is to make it right now, writing and producing songs and getting it to people with record labels going under and the economy bad, I'm very grateful to be hanging in there. None of us are millionaires, but we're doing something I feel called to do and have to do it. I'll soldier on.