Is Melissa Etheridge the Doom-and-Gloom Star of Rock?

How does Melissa Etheridge feel about being the doom-and-gloom queen of pop-rock? Words couldn’t quite express her feelings. During afternoon tea in West Hollywood recently, the singer-songwriter let her nose do the talking--wrinkling it as if she’d just gotten a whiff of a foul odor.

“I don’t like the fact that people think I’m this depressed, miserable person,� lamented Etheridge, who opens a five-day engagement tonight at the Roxy. “Some people come to see me wallow in misery. Men write me letters telling me how they want to help me become a happy person.�

Blame her image on her debut album, “Melissa Etheridge,� which has sold nearly 1 million copies. The songs are intense melodramas focusing on rocky relationships, on people in emotional turmoil. She sings with great conviction, her slightly croaky voice sounding angry and emotionally wounded. These songs, fans assume, have to be autobiographical.

“I do songs about how people relate to each other, about what happens in these relationships,� she explained. “I’m sensitive to pain--to other people’s pain. That doesn’t mean I’ve experienced all the pain I write about. Let’s say I have a good imagination.�

Chuckling, she quipped, “If I was like the characters in some of my songs, I probably would have committed suicide years ago.�

Etheridge comes across as overwhelmingly sincere. Often underscoring her words with forceful gestures, she looks you intently in the eye, giving the impression she’s hanging on your every word.

“I’m a good listener,� she said. “I absorb a lot about people’s thoughts and feelings. If you don’t have a good feeling for what makes people tick you can’t be a good songwriter.�

A cheery follow-up album would have shattered her gloom-and-doom image. But her recently-released second album, “Brave and Crazy,� is essentially more of the same. Her fans are apparently pleased with it. After a few weeks out, it’s already in the Top 30 on the Billboard pop chart.

Etheridge, though, doesn’t agree that the two albums are that similar. “I did these songs differently,� she explained. “My approach to the themes is more mature this time. The challenge was how to talk about some of life’s basic complications and problems in new and interesting ways. I think I accomplished what I set out to do.�

In some ways, the albums are different.

For one thing, her phrasing is more offbeat, a little more dramatic. The songs on the new album are more pensive too. There’s less unbridled anger, more humor and more soul-searching. Her imagery is sharper this time and her lyrics have more dimension.

Musically, the new album has more of a live feel--thanks to improved production. “That live feel was missing on the first album,� she explained. “I wanted to make this album sound more like I do in person. When I went on tour with the first album, people saw I was more of a rock ‘n’ roller. That tour, showing a different side of me, really helped sell the album.�

On her albums, she’s more like a traditional folk singer, accompanied by minimalist, guitar-dominated musical tracks, her dramatic vocals mostly carrying the songs. In person, though, backed by a band, she sounds more like a rocker--the musicians fleshing out that spare instrumental accompaniment.

Etheridge, who’s from Leavenworth, Kan., figured out in high school that she wanted to be a singer, and worked for years with a country band before switching to pop. After a short, uneventful detour into scholarly training--at the Berklee School of Music--she decided her best bet was on-the-job training.

“I started playing bars, clubs, street corners--wherever people would listen and I could make some money,� she said. “I worked on my writing. After a while I thought I was good enough to get a record deal.�

Record companies, though, had other ideas. They didn’t think her music was very commercial. “I was pretty discouraged,� said Etheridge, who moved to Los Angeles five years ago. “I thought no record company would ever take a chance on me.�

But Island Records’ head man Chris Blackwell, impressed by her performance in a Long Beach club, signed her about 2 1/2 years ago.

Now she’s a budding star with two hit albums. She acknowledged, though, that something is missing--something she’ll gladly do without.

“It’s that aching about the future that was gnawing at me all the time,� she said. “I was wondering if I would ever make it or if I would be one of those people with big dreams who failed miserably. I’m still concerned about the future--this isn’t what you’d call a secure business. But at least that horrible ache is gone.�