EXCLUSIVE What happened to 90s star Maria McKee? Singer, 60, who topped the charts with Show Me Heaven and was pals with U2 and Johnny Depp admits she found touring 'horrible'

Daily Mail​

24-05-2025

Thirty-five years ago, the American singer-songwriter Maria McKee spent four weeks on top of the UK singles chart with the power ballad Show Me Heaven.
Forty years ago, A Good Heart, which Maria wrote when only a teenager, was a No.1 for the Northern Irish singer Feargal Sharkey.
Maria also inspired Real Gone Kid, the 1988 hit for Scottish band Deacon Blue, when their lead singer Ricky Ross was mesmerised by her wild live performances as lead singer of Lone Justice, the country group she made her name in.
Now aged 60, after a career spanning five decades, Maria has revealed that she hasn't just slowed down, she's stopped altogether.
'I am very much retired and enjoying it. It's possible I might start writing again, but the last album [La Vita Nuova in 2020] took a lot out of me. I don't want to tour, that's horrible,' she said.
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'Knowing I had a show at the end of a night felt like I was facing the guillotine. Nothing was better than getting off the stage and going home. I don't know if I could do it now. Even the thought of doing a one-off… oh God!'
The daughter of a builder named Jack and dancer called Elizabeth, Maria described her childhood as 'traumatic, crazy, and at times violent.'
Her half-brother was Bryan MacLean, guitarist with the rock band Love, who died in 1998 aged 52.
'I grew up with him, and even as a kid I was looking after him cos he had mental illness and drug addiction. We started playing in bands together when I was a teen,' she explained.
Maria attended theatre school with future film stars Nicolas Cage and Crispin Glover, and initially aimed to be an actress but admitted: 'I quit school because I wanted to play in rock n roll bands.'
A founding member of Lone Justice in 1982, Maria was described by Dolly Parton as 'the greatest girl singer any band could ever have', and fellow superstar Linda Ronstadt helped get them signed to prestigious Geffen Records.
Bob Dylan wrote the song Go Away Little Boy for their debut album, and Maria shared: 'I think he thought he'd make some money cos everyone was talking about the band becoming huge.
'He came to the studio while we were recording it. I was a little brat and he was giving me the runaround cos Bob likes to play around and see what he can get away with.
'He kept making me sing it over and over again and I started getting really p***ed off. We fought. Because I didn't cave, Bob always liked me. Everybody kisses his ass and I wasn't going to.'
Asked if, in her early career, she had any MeToo-type moments, Maria replies: 'Did I have any Harvey Weinstein experiences? No, thank God. I think I was a little too tough, I gave off an air of 'F*** off!'
'But things happened to me that I didn't appreciate, like the way I was treated by some of the older men around me.
'For instance, my first single in Lone Justice was the Tom Petty song Ways To Be Wicked.
'Sung from a male point of view it's bullet-proof, but when you have a young cute girl singing ''You know how to let me have it, you know how to stick it in''…. I asked for it to be rewritten but all the men around me said ''Absolutely not, just sing it, it's not gonna be a problem.''
'The minute I landed in the UK for my first European tour, all the journalists asked what I meant by it. I got on stage at The Marquee and there were young boys chanting ''Stick it in, stick it in!''
Lone Justice opened for acts including Tom Petty, and U2 for whom Maria did backing vocals years later.
'U2 and I used to be quite close - I lived in Ireland from 1989 till 1992 and was considered family back then,' she explained.
'For one Sunday lunch at Bono and Ali's house by the sea, I took my pet rabbit who I used to bring everywhere with me. I let the rabbit loose in the house while we were in the kitchen.
'They were waiting to hear from their manager Paul McGuinness whether or not their latest release had gone to No.1, and they waited and waited and waited but the phone didn't ring.
'Eventually Bono picked up the phone and he click, click, clicked it then goes ''the phone is dead!'' So he followed its wire along the floor and discovered… my rabbit had chewed through the wire!'
After attaining reasonable success, including a Top 50 album and single here, Lone Justice broke up in 1987 and Maria went solo.
Having penned A Good Heart - which Dave Stewart of The Eurythmics gave to Feargal Sharkey knowing it was a chart-topper - she rewrote other writers' lyrics for Show Me Heaven which she performed brilliantly.
'It was a corny love song, a big Tom Cruise power ballad' she said, because it featured on the soundtrack to his movie Days Of Thunder.
'Tom Cruise is one of the few famous people I haven't met. He probably liked the song, but I don't know.
'I was living in Ireland when Show Me Heaven hit, so it was really exciting for me. It was a hit pretty much around the World but not here in the States for some reason.'
Quentin Tarantino used Maria's sultry number If Love Is A Red Dress in his 1994 classic Pulp Fiction, a film she'd like to have appeared in.
But she confided: 'People tried to make me into an actress and I had big agents and meetings, including for the role Lisa Bonet got in High Fidelity which I didn't even show up for. I usually found ways to sabotage because I was terrified of being famous, seeing my big head up there.'
However, Maria did act opposite Robbie Robertson in the Martin Scorsese-directed steamy video for his hit song Somewhere Down The Crazy River.
'At first Martin panicked thinking I couldn't do it. Robbie said ''Give her time, she can do it.''
'By the end of it they were like ''Oh my God, you're gonna be the next Jessica Lange!'' The production team were like ''You have to continue acting', but I never did.''
Yet she revealed: 'Johnny Depp always had a little crush on me when we were kids because he was Nicolas Cage's friend.
'So when I'd run into Nicolas, often times Johnny would be hanging around. He wasn't famous yet, and he used to come see my band and he was a bit starstruck by me. So he always had a deep respect for me.
'Then I used to be part of Johnny Depp's entourage in the early 90s, and I was quite close to him. We were platonic but sweet on each other with a romantic connection. I wasn't one of his fiancées obviously!
'When he was filming Gilbert Grape in Texas, he had a chimpanzee holding a bouquet of carnations delivered to my door! I played with the chimp for an hour. Johnny's funny that way. He does things like that.'
Despite releasing seven solo studio albums, three live albums and 17 singles since 1989, Maria didn't match the level of Show Me Heaven's success again.
'I was a little phobic about the spotlight. At every turn, I fought all the suits who wanted to make me the next Stevie Nicks or Madonna. I sabotaged everything cos I was terrified of it.'
Touring extensively and performing energetically also took their toll. 'As my brother was such a bad drug addict, I was very scared of drugs and never took them except for smoking a little Pot now and then.
'But it did not prevent me from becoming an alcoholic. My weakness was Vodka which was my brother's drink.
'At times I'd have to drink to get on stage. I haven't had a drink since '96. But I'm in therapy and treating my issues, and maybe that's why I don't want to perform as much.'
Maria got together with musician Jim Akin in 1996 and married him in 1999. Since being based in London between 2018 and 2023, they've lived in separate flats in the same building in Los Angeles and have an open relationship.
'I feel very safe having Jim downstairs. Ours is a platonic, non-physical but very loving and deep connection.
'I probably realised I was gay when I was four watching King Kong and seeing a half-naked Faye Wray rolling around in his nest. But I still liked boys and back in the day it was harder to 'come out'.
'Even Joan Jett never really fully came out and she and I used to flirt up a storm! I'm not really dating now. I fell in love with two women in the last couple of years, but it was not a picnic. It's very possible I've retired from that as well! I'm basically an old celibate lesbian now.'
Although she's not become a mother, Maria has 'a lot of young friends' many of whom are transgender, and she's an advocate for trans rights.
Following the recent Supreme Court ruling that declared that trans females are not women, she said: 'My heart is breaking. Most of my friends in the UK are young trans kids who call me Mom, including my own goddaughter. We are dealing with our own trans apartheid here in the US.
'I always thought the UK was pretty together, cos I was at the first Trans Pride event ever - I sang Show Me Heaven.
'I was like ''What a great legacy to have in London'', and now it's like it's all been burned up. I can't believe it. People don't know where to go to the loo!'
Unsurprisingly, Maria is not a fan of JK Rowling. 'Here's what I feel about her…. Something happened to her. Something deep in her spirit has caused this psychic wound. Her obsession with this feels spiritual to me.
'I feel like she could have spiritual awakening where she realises that she was operating under dark forces, and the scales can fall from her eyes.
'She's been such an influence for the dark side that, if she were to go the light side, imagine what an influence she would have as someone who says 'I've seen the light. I was wrong.
'I was afraid. I was working something out personally, I did so much damage and I want to undo it.' That's what I pray for her.'
Asked whether she'd like to meet her and share her thoughts in person, Maria said: 'Listen, she's a villain. She's attacking my most beloved people. She has been the face, voice and money behind this ruling.
'But as a light worker and someone who has a spiritual path, we don't wish ill on anyone - we pray for those who are in the dark to come to the light.
'That is what wish for her. But as the me who's in the world, I'd probably butt her! if I saw her in the street I don't think I'd go ''Hey, can we have a minute, can I try to influence you spiritually?''
'I think I'd probably knock her to the floor. I hate to say that but she's harming my most beloved.'
Maria is also a 'devoted Dogmother,' adding: 'At the moment I've just got the one, a retired racing greyhound I named Lizzy (after my mother) and she's extraordinary. She ran 55 races but I don't know if she won.
'My previous retired racing greyhound lived in London with me. I was always a pug person and I had pugs, and my husband had a miniature greyhound in the 90s, then he got a whippet, so I shifted to liking long dogs.
'If often say that when I'm too old for a greyhound, I will consider little wieners' she said, meaning Miniature Dachshunds. 'I think they're darling.'
Asked if there's anything that might lure her out of retirement, Maria replied: 'If Robbie Williams wanted to do a duet!
'I've not met him but I love him. He's classic working-class England old-school cabaret.
'They broke the mould with that guy. We're not gonna see many more like him.'
Summing up her own remarkable life and career, Maria went onto say: 'For someone who hasn't had a hugely prolific output and doesn't really have a great work ethic, who's a bit of a dilettante, I think I have a pretty good body of work to show for itself.
'I feel like my life has worked out the way it was supposed to. I'm not one for regrets.
'But I often say that my tombstone will read UNDERRATED SINGER-SONGWRITER, because it feels like anytime anybody ever talks about me, that's the lead: ''She's so underrated''.'