After overcoming cancer, Melissa Etheridge found a new lease on life on last year’s The Awakening, a passionate and political album. Having just launched her summer tour, Rolling Stone’s Jenny Eliscu caught up with Etheridge for a chat about motherhood, spirituality and Barack Obama. “I got into music for the reason I think that most people do, even though they won’t admit it — for the fame and the fortune,” she says. “But then I got there, and I thought, ‘Is this all there is?’ I feel like there are greater things I’m supposed to do, but I don’t know what they are.” Click below for more on Etheridge.

• The Tao of Etheridge