Meredith Brooks’ appearance on the music scene began as a whirlwind, propelling her—and her signature sound--as one of the icons for angst-ridden, angry-chick music of the ‘90s. The success of her breakout single, “Bitch,” put her solidly into the footsteps of alternative rock counterparts and predecessors such as Liz Phair, PJ Harvey, and Alanis Morrisette. Make no mistake: Meredith Brooks is no “ Bitch,” but rather an empowered female who knows what she wants and who has worked hard to get it.

And as Meredith’s life changed, so did her career. Now, with a little help from the new man in her life, a new album If I Could Be and praise from Dr. Phil himself, Brooks could be anything she wants—but finds she’s happiest just being herself.

STARPOLISH: I read that you were discovered by Billy Joel at one of his concert. Is that how your career in music began?

BROOKS: Well, that’s really interesting. No, I wasn’t really discovered by him; you know what--I was, but I never heard it put that way, so that’s interesting. A friend of a friend of a friend was using one of my songs to test the PA in the coliseum--it was a big piano ballad--and Billy Joel walked out and said, “Who’s that, where did you get that?” Usually when you’re doing sound check, you use the same kind of music over and over and to check the sound. He walked over and basically said, “Hey kid, nice voice, nice song, keep it up.” It was like, “Whoa!”

So, did he discover me and try to do something with that talent? No, but it was just those words, that little tiny “hello” and acknowledgement .The next year I was at the same coliseum and I was actually backstage and it was his birthday, and there were a lot of people backstage. And he recognized me and came up and said, “Hey, Meredith, right?” And I couldn’t believe he remembered. And it set such a tone for me, such an imprint in that moment, like that’s the kind of person I want to be. I want to be the one, as I go through my career, who remembers people who are starting out, people who have great songs, and giving words of encouragement.

And what’s interesting is that I found that sometimes--like in my mentoring program, or [when] I do coaching now with different artists, or [when I’m] producing--it doesn’t take a lot to give somebody something they can really hang onto, and maybe push them through to the next level with just a simple word of encouragement. I think more artists should do that for other artists.

STARPOLISH: You’re best known for the song “Bitch.” And at the time of its release it was on the heels of Alanis Morissette’s “You Oughta Know.” How did you feel about the song then, and how do you feel about it now?

BROOKS: Oh my god, I think it’s an amazing song. I’m incredibly proud to have written that song. That may be one of the things I’m most well known for, and [it was] great thing to [help develop] my persona, because it is me, completely; it was then and it is now. I believe in the philosophy behind it—that we all have very complex personalities, and different parts are very conflicted at times, but they still all support each part of us to make us whole. I mean, how boring would it be if we were just one thing?

And I think at the time that I wrote them song I was really, really in a lot of self-discovery, and I think I was so done with feeling ashamed of what I deemed to be negative [about myself]. I was also done with presenting only the safer, positive side of myself; it completely freed me. In a weird way, it actually made me more positive because I felt so much freer. And the evidence [of that] was the fact that I was able to write a song like that, and the song is still strong 10 years later.

STARPOLISH: What were men’s reactions to the song?

BROOKS: They loved it. You know, it’s funny--I never remember a negative reaction, never ever. Men loved the fact that I said what they could not say. They couldn’t get away with it, but we could say it. It’s like you may hate your brother or your boyfriend or your girlfriend or whoever at times and it’s OK for you to say things, but it’s not OK for other people to say it. Well, that’s what it was like with “Bitch.” It was OK for me to say it, but it wasn’t OK for a guy to say it. But we were definitely voicing what they were witnessing in their own relationships, that they had these creatures that were completely multi-personalitied as we all are. We have all the beautiful hormones that take us through many seasons in a day, more than men get to go through, sometimes.

STARPOLISH: How do you feel women’s roles have changed in the music industry?

BROOKS: You mean since I [started]?

STARPOLISH: Yes, basically then versus now.

BROOKS: Well, I kind of remember three different moments: Before “Bitch,” then “Bitch,” and Now. It was very difficult. I was never a guy so I really don’t know the comparison, but as a girl there weren’t many models for me. I only knew of a couple of female guitar players, so right there I was kind of breaking new ground being a rock-and-roll guitar player who also played lead, and who played everything on the record. That right there was something different and difficult. Sometimes I wasn’t faithful and I would go into the studio and than that would work against my self-confidence. But for any up-and-coming artists who are reading this, if there is one thing I’ve learned it’s that you don’t have to have confidence or great self-esteem to be a great artist. You just have to know how to work past it when you feel bad about yourself.

So I would feel bad about myself. And I think my greatest achievement during that time would be [that I’d say] “fuck it, I’m doing it anyway,’ and that’s what helped me keep going in this business. Before there were Melissa and Sheryl Crow and Garbage and Alanis, there were just a few girls getting signed. And I can remember going to the labels in that time before Lilith Fair and having them say, “Oh, we already have a so-and-so,” as if their label could only pick one girl. And then, about the time of Alanis and a few others, I was finally able to be seen and be heard, and I’m really glad I got to be a part of that change in the business for women, and Lilith Fair busted out right after that. It was timing, it was critical mass, it was like a big, huge ship. Now, I don’t think it’s as big of a deal being a woman in the business.

STARPOLISH: Do you feel that Lilith Fair solidified women’s role in the industry and gave them recognition?

BROOKS: Let me put it this way: I think because it was so hugely successful, if you’re looking at success in the business and you’re looking at the business part of it, absolutely, because business equals success and money. As far as music goes: no. I think that we have always had great, great music from women--we just didn’t always know about it in the mainstream. Maybe if somebody were willing to dig enough we would have known about a lot of these artists a long time ago. There wasn’t an artist [there] that I didn’t already have records or CDs or other stuff from, so I think that Lilith was the tool, it was a way for the masses [to get exposed to those artists and their music]. Again, it was timing, and it was critical mass--the world was ready, and Lilith busted the doors open, I think forever. It solidified women in music in a lot of ways.

STARPOLISH: While on tour with Lilith Fair you created Anybody’s Mentoring Program (AMP). Can you tell me a little bit more about the mission and the message you’re trying to convey?

BROOKS: I was just trying to think if I created it during Lilith… I think [it happened during] the first Lilith. Yeah, you’re right it was Lilith--thanks, I didn’t even know! You wanted to know what the message is behind it?

STARPOLISH: The message and what you’re trying to accomplish.

BROOKS: Well, it was kind of the Billy Joel syndrome. I was trying to accomplish a couple of things. One, it’s important to give back. If you get successful, I believe it’s important to give back. I was not around a lot of people who gave back. When I was coming up in music, I would just get lucky once in a while and find a few of the Billy Joel-types, and that always stuck with me. I would rather be a coach, a producer and a writer to up-and-coming artists than to try to keep capturing something on stage. I love to play on stage, of course-- I continue to play on stage--but I also like transforming and I like morphing, growing and changing creatively. I don’t want to be the same person I was 10, 15, or 20 years ago. I have no interest in that.

But because of all that experience, I find it’s like some people who want to have babies and pass the genes along-- I find very much that I want to pass the experience along. I want people to [learn from] what it took for me to make it: how to get past thresholds, how to network, how to continue, whether it’s music or not. And so AMP is Anybody’s Mentoring Program, because anybody can do it. People say their schedules are too busy [to do something like this]. I went out to prove that even as insane as my schedule was--sometimes it was three cities in several countries in one day-- I could still make time to meet with the high schools or have the high schools come to me, and be at the show and kind of job-shadow. And people would see how it really was a bust-up the glamour myth.

So [it became] Anybody’s Mentoring Program, because anybody can do it. Of course you have time. Anybody who says they don’t is not looking hard enough, and the point of the program was not to do massive amounts of follow-up, because you can’t. There was no way I was going to be able to go back to every school and go, “Hey, how are you doing?” But I gave them the tools to be able to follow through on their own, and help them become more autonomous. If the government isn’t going to do it, your parents aren’t going to do it for you, and nobody’s going to do it for you, you have to do it for yourself. You have to know how to network, you have to know how to push yourself forward, you have to know how to go to the next level, and that’s what I would try to help people learn to do. And I still do it when I coach artists.

STARPOLISH: In addition to your role as an artist, you also have become a producer for artists like Jennifer Love Hewitt and Hillary Duff. How does your role as a producer change the way you view music?

BROOKS: Well, it’s funny, because it actually has, quite a bit. First off, I have a lot more appreciation for my producers, and secondly, it helped me be a little bit more objective. When I was going into record my songs, and with my children’s record, things that I remember saying to them, passing on my message to them, would all of a sudden come back to me. When I was making my record, If I Could Be --it’s a pop-rock record for kids--I would be doing a vocal and I would remember things. It was an interesting kind of cyclical experiment.

STARPOLISH: As a producer, you also formed your own production company, Kissing Booth Music. How did that come about, and what are you working on now?

BROOKS : Kissing Booth has been around a long time, because first it was my publishing name, and then after that I worked with many artists, not only Jennifer and Hillary—after that, the phone started ringing and I was constantly working with other artists. I thought, this crazy: I’m doing the label’s job. I’m developing them, I’m coaching them, I’m telling them how to work on their image, how to keep moving forward all the time and not to get stuck, finding their center and their core and never losing it or leaving it. That’s a really hard thing to achieve, and there are barely words that can describe how to do that, so I decided to start signing my own artists. If I was going to put that much energy helping people, I wanted it to be on my own label, and on my own terms.

So I put my label together, and had my lawyer draw up some contracts. I had a lot of people sending me packages... You know, I’m in a little bit of a different position because people try to contact my management or my team all the time and send packages. And I went through them until I found a few people that I thought were really great. But it didn’t matter if I thought they were great—I [also] met with them and tried to work with everybody for about 30 days to see where their heads were really at, and make sure that they could handle the kind of schedule and the kind of discipline I felt was needed if I were going to help develop somebody’s talent. You have to have your own self-discipline; it’s not my job to do it all for you, and the label isn’t going to do it. This is where most artists get crazy, because they’re like. “Oh, my label, or oh, my manager...” I say get off of the idea right now that anybody is going to care about your career more than you.

STARPOLISH: Recently, Dr. Phil chose to have the title song from your album, Shine, as the theme song to his show. How did you feel about that, and did you get any response from the fans of the show?

BROOKS: Oh yeah, it opened up the door quite a bit for me, because again, I love doing personal coaching. I speak a lot, I go to a lot of schools, and I have different colleges ask me to come speak. I’ve even just done a TV show about coaching and producing an artist. The thing is, it helps when somebody outside of the music community respects you, because what he loved about my song were the lyrics. And the lyrics had a little bit of a psychological influence about how to turn things around to your advantage, and a lot of my songs have that principle because I love psychology--I studied to be a psychologist, that’s what I thought I was going to be when I grew up. That’s only partially true; I wanted to be either a rock star or psychologist, whichever one came first.

STARPOLISH: Now you’re a little bit of both.

BROOKS: Well, having a child, I’m definitely more in the psychologist role than I am a rock-star mommy. I think we all have a deep desire to understand the basic questions, like why are we here, and what do we do next, and how do we get through a roller-coaster day. So it was really cool that he picked the song, and that he personally picked it. There were a lot of fans, a lot of moms, and I was very inspired at the time. I don’t think I’d done my children’s record yet—no, my son was born shortly after and I wrote the record.

STARPOLISH: Was that children’s album, If I Could Be, inspired by the birth of your son?

BROOKS : Well, yeah! It’s so funny--I had a friend over today and she was playing with my son. And I’m looking at her and I was like, “God, when I didn’t have a child you would never find me over someone’s house playing with their kid.” I didn’t know how much it was going to affect me. It was the greatest thing for my art. Let me preface this by saying for me, and for my art--which at some point starts to suffer when you are constantly doing it as a job, and really when you start getting hired out as a producer and a writer--I had to be very careful not to get into it as a business. From an artistic perspective, I still had to have fun and love it. Work isn’t always supposed to be fun, but I think art has to feel--you have to feel passion for it, or it shows in your music.

What happened with the children’s record is [me] being so in love with my son; I felt a reconnection to my music, and not only was I inspired by him but I felt like I was taken, and transformed back into a time when music was innocent and fun for me, when it was new. And I worked the whole thing kind of from the point of view of what he must be seeing the world like. That was the long version of yes.

STARPOLISH: Do you have any tips or tricks for surviving the music industry for up and coming artists?

BROOKS: Oh god! I have tons-- how many do you want? There’s not just one thing, and I think that’s it. Don’t get stuck; don’t keep thinking it’s got to be one way or another. It’s a really basic, simple book, but that book, “Who Moved My Cheese,” was one of the most helpful books I’ve ever read. Have you read it by the way?

STARPOLISH: Yeah, I have.

BROOKS : So you know what I mean. It’s like the cheese is kind of running down, and am I going to sit in this room that’s going to be empty soon and have no cheese, or am I going to get my butt up and start shifting? And I think the reason why I survived in the business so long is that when one wave was done I was willing and ready to catch the next wave and ride it; ride that wave until it was done, and not get too attached to it because my goal is not to be a celebrity, my goal is to be self-sufficient in music for my entire life. That was my goal.

We used to sit around in a women’s group and have make people little affirmations, and my affirmation was to be self-sufficient from my music for the rest of my life--and it’s still my goal today: To keep moving, to keep trying the next thing. I always said I don’t know if I was that much more talented than my other musician friends; the difference between them and me is that I didn’t quit. That was it. There’s the big magic. When you've got the roulette wheel spinning around, the ball is eventually going to land on black. So you’ve just got to keep doing it until it lands on your number.

And it’s a combination of things that create that perfect moment, that tipping point, that critical mass point where all of a sudden, bam! You’ve got your deal, whatever it is you want to be or whatever your goal is. That would be another thing: to set goals, to really set clearly detailed goals, and write them out specifically. Then, take no less than three actions everyday toward that goal, because it’s great to affirm and visualize and wish, but if you’re not taking an action toward it, it’s never going to happen. So if you want to be the greatest writer ever, you better be writing every single day, no matter what.