Melissa Etheridge, Howard Stern discuss career struggles on Howard Stern Show

Empty Lighthouse is a reader-supported site. This article may contain affiliate links to Amazon and other sites. We earn a commission on purchases made through these links.

Melissa Etheridge is an Academy Award and Grammy Award winning singer and songwriter, but it didn't come easily. On The Howard Stern Show, Wednesday morning, Etheridge dishes on her early career struggles.

Stern and Etheridge discussed Etheridge being an underrated guitar player, and she attributes that to her own underestimation of herself. She shied away from the male-dominated role of lead guitar player.

"My journey has been one of showing up where other women haven't shown up before," she said. "Singing rock and roll, and going from there, trying to get in to the boy's club."

She began playing the guitar at 8 years old, and got her start at 11 in a variety show when "Chuck Hammersmith and the Wranglers" asked her to come sing with them.

After deciding to take a career in music seriously, she took on a brief stint at Berklee College of Music in Boston, however left to pursue more live performance.

Etheridge didn't get a record deal until she was 26. An out, lesbian performer, she was even rejected by Olivia Records, a lesbian record label.

"Maybe you should have told them you were a lesbian," Stern said.

"Well, I thought that, since I said it to the," Etheridge said.

Her new album "This is M.E." is her 15 studio album, available now. Her tour begins in November and extends through the end of December.