Pop singer Sophie B. Hawkins is the subject of a new documentary film premiering at the 15th Annual Los Angeles Outfest on July 13th. Directed by first-time helmer Gigi Gaston. The Cream will Rise follows the uninhibited Hawkins through rehearsals and a 30-city U.S. tour last year, then to her childhood home, where an unexpected interview with the singer's mother leads to revelations about Hawkins' haunted childhood.

Hawkins, who’s best known for her hit songs, "Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover" and "As I Lay Me Down," says she knew in the second grade she wanted to be a singer/musician when she heard her first David Bowie album. She earnestly began her foray into music at the age of 14 when she moved out of her parents home and studied percussion with Nigerian drum artist, Babatunde Olantunji.

Anorexic through most of her adolescence, Hawkins says she lived on green grapes and practiced drumming nearly 20 hours a day. After attending Manhattan’s School of Music, she formed her own band where she played traditional African and Brazilian instruments, vibraphone, and concert marimba. For a short time she was a percussionist with Bryan Ferry, then landed a job singing an advertising jingle, which led to her self-produced 50-song demo tape containing the hit song, "Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover.

When I visited with Hawkins at her Venice studio on a recent cool summer evening, the New York native was relaxed and eager to talk about The Cream Will Rise. Though the film exposes the darkest corners of her unconventional childhood, Hawkins is determined not to be a victim of her past.

VENICE: Who knew you’d make such a great subject for a documentary.

Sophie B. Hawkins: Gigi and I want to do another movie. Actually, it’s something we’re writing together, I can’t disclose much at this time, but it’s based on a true story about a wonderful Jewish woman from the 20’s who was a radical performer and singer.

And leave your brilliant recording career?

No. Peter Asher is producing my next album. I love to write songs. After this next album, which will probably be a three-year cycle, I just want to play tennis and go to school.

Where would you go to school and what would you study?

I want to go to a liberal arts college that has the most amazing music department. I would have to find one piano teacher, a great teacher who teaches composition and all the great classics. I want to study history as well, so I’ll have to go to a school that has both. I hear the University of Virginia is fantastic.

Do you think Sophie B, Hawkins can integrate herself into college life?

It would depend on the teacher. What? Do you mean, would I miss performing?

No. I mean the other students looking and pointing at you- "Oh my God, there’s Sophie B. Hawkins, I used to go to her concerts."

No. I never thought of that. Don’t you think they’d get used to it? I think college kids---especially kids in their late teens they’re so ready for the next thing. Nowadays, I don’t think there are that many people who would be amazed by my being in their classroom. I think kids are so much more aware of the business and they’re jaded. Fans will stop me on the street and ask me how much money I made on something. I don’t even know the answer to that.

They do?

Yes. There are pure people out there, but in this country, kids have to have this arrogance. I think it must be very painful to be young right now. And they have to assume they know more. There’s this whole, ‘You’re not that great. You really suck. It’s really the producer who did it.’ And maybe I’m overly sensitive. I assume it would be that way. I’m not Alanis Morissette. I’m me.

Well, I guess if Jodie Foster went to college, then you can, too.

That’s right. She did! And if for some reason I find I can’t do it, or it’s too expensive, maybe I’ll find a tutor. There’s so many things I want to study. I’m studying the history of Sephardic Jews right now. Judaism is something I want to study, and Hebrew.

Did you grow up with religion?

No. Not at all. "Jesus Christ Superstar."

That was your religion?

That’s it. In fact, I was listening to it the other day and it was a very clear version. I got a lot from it, that’s what I had, and that’s what I used. I used it till I knew every lyric, I made my own bible in my head based on "Jesus Christ Superstar." That’s what I knew. I went to a couple of bar mitzvahs because everyone I grew up with was Jewish. And when I was in New York with all my friends who are Jewish, I find I feel very comfortable with their families, their rituals. the routines, the food. Then when came out here to L.A. and I saw myself in this movie, I could understand how people would look at me and say, "She’s such a wasp. Out here I became very aware that I wasn’t part of a family. There wasn’t that inclusion that I had in New York and because of that I started studying.

Would you consider converting to Judaism?

I don’t know. It’s like the college question. The institution might not serve me as well as finding different teachers along the way. This is a huge question you just asked. I just realized it, because I’ve never converted to anything or ever admitted I was anything, but what I said I was.

Do you resist conformity?

Yeah. Like if someone says, ‘Why don’t you just come out?" And I say, ‘Well, I’m not gay." ‘Why aren’t you gay? You’ve been with women. You’re open about being with women." And I say, "Yes, and I’m open about being with men. And I’m not heterosexual, I’m omnisexual." And I’ve invented this word I’ve got to explain the meaning of, which nobody wants to hear.

Well, now’s your chance. You first mentioned it in an interview with the New York Times several years ago, and I’m wondering if it still holds the same meaning for you?

It’s interesting. I was sitting there with John Pareles (the New York Times journalist/music critic) in this deli in New York. It was one of my first interviews ever and he asked me out of nowhere if I was gay. To me it was so shocking because I wasn’t then. Women very much frightened me at that point. But somewhere in my music he felt there was somewhat of a calling to women. So I said, "I’m omnisexual." It flew out so pure.

It wasn’t a premeditated response?

No. Nothing is premeditated. That’s the problem. I end up in some trouble because of it. I think I articulate things well, then I go home and think, what was I saying there? So, I said the omnisexual thing and then really thought about it. When I got home, I wrote a definition. So the definition is that my sexuality is not identified by anyone else’s gender or their sexuality. So in other words, if you were a transsexual, or you were a man or a woman, it doesn’t make me either straight or gay or whatever, based on you. It would be based on me and my fantasies, or me and my perception of myself. And I said to John Pareles at the time, "If I were alone on a desert island for 10 or 20 years, would I be nonsexual? No, I’d still be a vibrant, sexual person." I’m not saying something about sex here. I’m saying something about the emotional and spiritual effect of what your sexuality really is—this creative thing. I find the same thing now. My sexuality doesn’t seem to come up unless I feel a deep love for someone.

It’s never a man or a woman. It’s a complex person who really understands my mind. So I have this thing about coming out and being gay, I know there are people out there who have a definitive moment- they remember a specific memory from their childhood when they realized they were gay.

Was there a specific moment or a realization for you?

I remember the day I was laying on the beach in Sag Harbor, Long Island. I was in the 4th grade and I remember thinking I can be in love with Paul from school, who I was totally in love with and wanted to be like, or I could be in love with Paul’s mother. And in that moment, I was laying there face down thinking, this is so great. I had this really distinct feeling that I had the proclivity towards both for different emotional reasons.

You didn’t fear these feelings or think they were odd?

Not at all. I really felt this incredible happiness. I felt straight from it. And when imagined my future, I thought, I’m going to live alone on a hill and have a motorcycle and write songs. I never thought, I’m gonna have male lovers or female lovers. I thought, it’s all gonna be one thing for me. That was so distinct. And of course David Bowie became my idol, who is so everything. So in a way, when people come out and say they’re tired of hiding it and living in shame, I understand, but I never had that shame. My shame is about different things.

In the film there’s a scene where you explain that as a child you were terrified of your sexuality, that it was a monster.

Well, I started to say and Gigi had to be very dexterous with her editing because it’s such a volatile issue in any family, and with my family it’s all still unresolved, but I had dreams of a certain family member—we were lovers all the time in these dreams and it really scared me.

How old were you at the time?

I had relationships with family members, cousins and stuff, really young, so it’s hard to say it started at a certain age. There was a dark side. There was the independent me who knew she was going to move out and live alone, then there was me in the’ family, which was very scary. And it’s still very scary. I still wake up in the middle of the night screaming or crying. There’s something in the family that is like a big snake; it’s everywhere. Right when you least expect it, you’re going to find this hissing, black, I’m-gonna-get-you-snake, that’s right on top of my brain. And it was always scary. And I acted out on it. I did everything I could to work out these things—you know—affairs with teachers when I was 10, 11.

How can you have an affair with a teacher at 10 or 11?

Well, I would just go out with them, sit on their laps. I would do things with them that would somewhat alleviate the stress.

So there was this sexual component to your life as a child?

Yes! And I kept it hidden. That’s what I mean when I say I didn’t have shame about me in the world-about how I imagined my future, I had shame about my past, even when I was already 10. It’s like the teachers were a fix to me, like a drug. The teachers were other things too.

Who approached who? C’mon, you were a child.

Well, that’s a good question. At the time, I always thought I did it. But now looking back, having gone to therapy, I realize, oh, it doesn’t look like I did it. It looks like I was a child who was introverted, shy and clumsy and was grasping for someone to relate to and all I could relate to was the act of sex. That’s where I felt okay. I understood that. I felt like a human being. I guess I felt equal. Talking about it now, it all seems so strange. I can see how funny I looked then, how could have felt equal. That is so bizarre. I was so NOT equal.

So when did things change for you?

Well, that’s what was so great. When finally found drums at 14 and left the house. must have practiced 20 hours a day.

Was that your way of avoiding the family?

I think so. I wasn’t going to sink and let that snake get me. And then when I moved from New York to L.A, I thought this part of my life is behind me, but that wasn’t true.

You and your mother went into therapy together for several days during the making of the documentary. There’s this wonderful part in the movie where your mother says after one of the therapy sessions, in this mock-dramatic tone, ‘How dare you bring salvation and enlightenment into my life.’ Do you think you saved or enlightened her?

Well, Mummy got really mad when she came out here and did the five days of therapy. Mummy and the therapist so got on. They were both so literate and so funny and it just brought everything out in Mummy. And Mummy felt so safe. We’d be there in the therapist’s office and I’d be eating cookies the whole time and I’d say, mom tell her about the time when. And while Mummy was here, she was so relaxed. She said, "You know, you’re showing me all these things. I could see living here and continuing to go to therapy.

So what happened when your mother went back home to your father?

I think she must’ve walked back in the apartment and said-just like I would’ve done ten years ago—no way, this has all been fun and games and a really great vacation, but we’re not doing this. Sophie, snap out of it. Wake up. None of this mumbo-jumbo anymore. But I expected that. I kept saying to Gigi, "This is not real." This is why I didn’t let down my guard through the whole thing, too.

What do you mean you didn’t let down your guard?

Mummy was all into it. Therapy, yeah. let’s talk. Let’s heal. I was just sitting there eating my cookies thinking, she’s going to go back and nothing will come of it. Nothing happened. In fact, it’s worse. There is so little truth.

Was therapy helpful to you then?

I’m just getting more and more clear. I don’t want to live alone on a hill anymore. My whole vision of myself has altered because in order to live with the family in this structure, I’ve had to have a certain identity and my identity has really changed or it’s really fallen away. I’ve become who I am, Before the little kid who wanted to seduce all these teachers, there was a kid who didn’t. She wanted opportunities and chances.

What about your dad? Did you ask him to be in the film?

Daddy doesn’t like to be noticed. He doesn’t want to speak for himself. He just wants to be left alone. We asked him five times to be in the movie. He said, ‘Absolutely not." It was like, you disgusting people. He thinks it’s all crap.

You tell a story in the film about when you were a kid, there was a certain friend’s house you didn’t want to visit because the father acted very inappropriately toward you—making you sit on his lap when he was naked. Yet, when you begged your mother not to send you to this person’s house, she’d make you go. promising to buy you anything you wanted. Your request was kind of odd for a little girl, though your mother never made good on it. You wanted a Miami Dolphins football uniform. What was the significance of that?

There was a boy I loved named Mark. He was obsessed with the Miami Dolphins. After he was expelled from school, I think I was just carrying on the torch. in retrospect. what I wanted was the helmet and the protection. in the movie, when Gigi gives me the uniform, and I got to finally put it on, I remember feeling whole and protected. I felt like I can take on the world now, I wanted to wear it on stage, wear it to meetings. That feeling made me want to wear it all the time. And I know exactly what I was after when I was little. When you were a football player you could run through anything. It’s interesting isn’t it? It makes you untouchable and in charge. That’s what it was about.

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