Cyndi Lauper on "True Colors"

She's a diva in her own right, but pop icon Cyndi Lauper knows that girls have more fun with friends. That's the idea behind her new album, Bring Ya to the Brink, a pulsing collection of dance tunes she created in collaboration with artists and producers like Basement Jaxx, The Scumfrog and Richard Morel. The party continues on The True Colors Tour, which teams Lauper with a rotating roster of the biggest gay and gay-friendly artists around, including The B-52's, The Indigo Girls, Rosie O'Donnell, The Cliks, and Tegan and Sara - just to name a few. The tour is also a fundraiser for the Human Rights Campaign.

Q: Bring Ya to the Brink is such a change from your last albums. Other people are slowing down, and you put out a dance record.
A: I'm always going on a journey. I wanted to get away from the last two things I did. Those were sort of side projects. I wanted to get back to making modern music, get back to myself. And I had gone out a lot with my friend, Alan Cumming. Cause I did that play with him, Threepenny Opera, and we would always go dancing. That's the great thing about a play: you all get to go out after the show instead of getting back on the bus! And we had such a good time, and I felt a little pang because I knew that I wasn't going to be there with them for long. So I thought it would be nice to write dance music. So that when I'm gone, we can still dance together in a way. I know that's sentimental, but I do love them and I miss them.

Q: I'm going to geek out and say that I love the new song, "Rocking Chair."
A: Isn't that fun? Those Basement Jaxx guys are cuckoo, but so brilliant. I was so lucky with this CD. I traveled to all these people, I just showed up with my gear, and I became part of their worlds. Like all of a sudden we were a little band. And those Basement Jaxx guys were totally great and totally out of their minds. So who else would I write the story of Faye Delroy with, but them?

Q: But who is Faye Delroy?
A: Nobody! It was from a paperback novel I was looking at. I just wrote down all this stuff from some paperback novels that I thought was silly and funny and put them in a song. And mixed it with other things. You know me, I embellish.

Q: There's an interesting contrast on Bring Ya to the Brink between the upbeat music and some of the lyrics. Some of them are intense.
A: I wrote in beat poetry. I love beat poets like Lawrence Ferlinghetti. And "Into the Nightlife," that title was taken from that Henry Milller play. I love the way he writes, with humor and rhythm. I feel songwriters are beat poets, because it falls into a rhythm. So I try to write economically like poetry. And some of it is jump rope rhyme! I think our responsibility as artists is to capture the moment of time that we live in now, and describe it. So years from now, when people listen to it, they say: "Yes, people said that, that's what was going on then!" That's what we do. The songs are like snapshots. So with "Into the Nightlife" I wanted to capture that feeling of little images of a club. Or after the club, when you might be sitting in a diner or some all night Chinatown restaurant. And you're having a discussion with your friends and you open your fortune cookie and say, "Look, the fortune cookie agrees with me!" I wanted to get those kind of moments. So the music and lyrics are style are like little snapshots of the places I was at.

Q: That sounds like it could be fragmentary, but I think the album is very smooth and cohesive. Was that hard to achieve?
A: Jeremy Wheatley mixed it. I was very impressed with him when I heard his remix of Goldfrapp's "Ride a White Horse." I was impressed with the modernism of it. While I was listening I was really engaged by the singer, I understood the whole lifestyle of the story she was telling. So I knew this little jukebox thing I had going with all these different artist would be hard to put together but if I got someone like Jeremy we could...not iron it out too much, because we wanted to keep the flavor and integrity of each group that I worked with, but make it all fit together right. And we would have all kinds of dance music and it would be uplifting.

Q: Sound exactly like the True Colors tour!
A: The tour this year is really interesting, because for the most part we have the same acts all the way through. Carson Kressley is going to host the whole thing, and the B-52's are doing the whole tour.

Q: Are you going to jam with The B-52's? You have to warn me, because I will die.
A: If they'll have me. I love them! They are so much fun. I'm friends with them, so it's really nice going out with your friends. I would be going out on tour anyway, but this is more fun. I might have told you this last year, but when I was planning for my 2007 tour someone suggested I call it the True Colors Tour. And I felt like, that song means so much to the community, how could I do that without including the community? They mean a lot to me. And actually, in 2003 I was at the HRC Dinner, and the B-52's were playing. And I was watching them and thinking, imagine if we could go on tour together! And heck, let's bring the HRC with us! And I kind of forgot it for a while, but then the opportunity came. It didn't work out last year with the B-52s, but this year it did. So I feel really blessed that you can have an inspiration and it can actually happen. That's just how life is some time.

Q: One of the cool things about the True Colors tour is the mix of big names and up and comers. Is it hard putting the roster together?
A: I just ask, and hope the schedules match up! The scheduling is hard. I was always saying, oh please, please please, can we get Joan Armatrading, and now she's on some of the tour. I'm just gonna die if she starts singing my favorite songs. She's so good.

Q: What a voice.
A: And she's so soulful. She's an amazing artist, very underrated. I just love having Ro, she makes me laugh so hard. Regina Spektor is great. The Cliks rock! Lucas is in the video I just shot. You know me, I like to have friends and family in my videos. And we have Nona Hendryx, and Joan Jett is going to be there on my birthday, and Wanda Sykes. I love her. So it's going to be a great time and a wonderful summer!

The True Colors Tour hits Radio City Music Hall on June 3rd, Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut on Friday June 6, and Chicago on June 10th. For tickets and more info visit www.truecolors.com