Arts :: Music
Breaking the silence by Scott Kearnan
Arts EditorThursday Nov 15, 2007 After battling a health crisis, one 80s pop star has regained her voice
When I first meet Gioia Bruno, it’s right where she belongs: In the midst of dazzling lights, loud music and a room full of wide-eyed excitement. Bruno, singer in the chart-topping and recently reunited dance-pop trio Expose, has just wrapped up a performance on the gaming floor of Mohegan Sun Resort & Casino. Sharing the stage after 16 years apart, Bruno, Jeanette Jurado and Ann Curless sounded better than they did when 80s hits like "Point of No Return," "Come Go With Me" and "Seasons Change" first made them a household name and a perennial gay favorite.
Still dressed in her stage outfit, a slinky, black leather corset that shows off every inch of a fit and toned body Gioia wraps her arms around me and plants a familiar kiss. Though we’ve already spoken by phone, her natural, vivacious energy - the kind that most of us require Red Bull and a cattle prod to attain - is just as infectious the second time around. A self-described "big mouthed, crazy nut freak," Gioia helped define the music of the 80s with her girl group’s Top 10 hits. But Bruno is anything but freakish; she’s warm and spirited. Since we’re in a casino, I ask her to choose a random number; one that I should play on my next game of Roulette. She responds firmly and without a moment’s hesitation.
"Thirteen!" she exclaims, looking up from an autograph as she signs for a fan. "That’s the first number that comes to mind."
Few people would instinctively play the unluckiest number in a high stakes game of chance, but Gioia Bruno has a long history of placing her bets in the face of misfortune. Though she’s currently riding high on the success of Expose’s reunion tour, enjoying a solo career that has earned her a legion of club fans (her latest single, "Your Love is Taking Me Higher," arrived this month), and entertaining conversations about a possible judgeship on the American Idol bench, Bruno has also bounced back from major heartache. In 1990, in the midst of a world tour with Expose, Gioia was diagnosed with a tumor on her vocal chords. A performer’s worst nightmare, the mysterious, inexplicable illness destroyed her ability to speak - much less sing - for more than three years. Like a Lifetime movie by way of Behind the Music, Gioia’s story is one of success, struggle, and ultimately, survival.
"I remember exactly where I was," Gioia recalls of receiving her doctor’s phone call. Though her management team was pressuring the starlet to continue performing, Bruno could sense that her voice - like a fading, strangled breath - was strangely slipping away. Luckily, Gioia’s physician understood the severity of the situation. "I was standing next to my bed, and my doctor called," says Bruno. "At the time, I was working with some dudes who were overworking the hell out of us [Expose]. We were making very little money at the time; we weren’t making pop star money, and they were working us to the death. So my doctor had to stand up for me. He billed me as disabled."
And for a moment, a pop star’s world came crashing down. "I hung up the phone," she remembers. "I let out a squeal. And then I cried for three days straight."
For a singer at the top of her game, the diagnosis was a devastating blow. "I try not to think about it," Gioia tells me of that dark time. For just a moment, Bruno’s effervescence dims. "I was a mess. I didn’t know what I was going to do ... I was looking at my bank account. I was looking at my daughter looking at me, saying, ’Why is my mommy crying all the time?’"
"’And why can’t she talk to me?’"
But soon, Gioia summoned the eternal optimist inside. "I said to myself, ’You’re more than your voice,’" she says. "I said, ’You’re a smart person. You’re a good person. You do the right thing, most of the time. Keep on doing that ... and you’ll be okay.’"
Despite the nearly complete loss of her voice, Gioia balked when her doctor offered surgery to remove the tumor. An operation, she knew, would permanently damage her vocal chords, forever destroy her ability to sing and take away the one thing she still had: Hope. "It was benign, so it wasn’t going to kill me," Gioia explains. "The doctors said, ’If we don’t remove it, you’ll never sing. If we do remove it, you’ll never sing.’" And while her doctor prescribed steroid treatment, Gioia had to stop: "They just made me more hyper than I already am!" So again, Gioia placed her bets on the power of persistence. "Science is never 100 percent [accurate]," she says. "Say someone has pancreatic cancer; you can tell them that they’re going to die in a few months. But someone with cancer can live four or five years with it."
Gioia stayed in the fight for the long haul, foregoing conventional medicine and taking her health into her own hands: Changing her diet, introducing vitamins, increasing her exercise and taking up yoga and meditation. "I have my little concoctions of herbs and teas," she says. "It’s not rocket science ... Your body responds to what you do to it, and to what you put into it." Most importantly, she says, your body responds to what your mind believes. "If you believe it, it will happen," she explains. "So I believed in it [her recovery]. I visualized it. I visualized myself getting better. And it happened."
Indeed, it did. As suddenly as the tumor had appeared, it miraculously disappeared. And while Gioia had kept herself active in the music world, writing songs and co-founding a performing arts school near her Florida home, by the late 90s she had finally regained full control of her own voice. As a result, she regained control of her career.
"I put out a lot of songs in the dance market, because that’s a market I was comfortable in," says Gioia of her return to singing. And the dance market, led by a gay fanbase that had followed Expose throughout the 80s club scene, welcomed Gioia back with open arms. In 2001, her comeback single "Free to Be" became an underground gay anthem. In 2003, "From the Inside," landed on Queer as Folk and the Showtime hit’s accompanying soundtrack. In 2004, "Wreckin’ My Nerves" showed up on the annual White Party album, and her first full-length solo album (cleverly titled Expose This) tracked on the Billboard Club charts.
But in 2006, Gioia did something that endeared her to gay fans in a whole new way. During an interview on Q Television Network, Bruno discussed her own relationships with women. The conversation was anything but a "coming out" as it was conducted casually and with little fanfare. "What’s the big frickin’ deal?" laughs Gioia of the reaction. Though she has previously been married to a man and is currently dating a male personal trainer, Bruno had no hesitancy discussing her past dalliances of the girl variety. "Some people who were involved with me, romantically and emotionally, would prefer I not mention their names. So I don’t, out of respect to them. But other than that, there’s nothing to hide!"
And right now, Gioia couldn’t hide if she wanted to. Following her recovery, the diva is back in high demand. In addition to current single "Your Love is Taking Me Higher," Bruno is working on her sophomore solo album, meeting with Hollywood execs about a film based on her admittedly dramatic life, and establishing herself as a serious contender for a spot on a little show called American Idol. Whether she’s the heir apparent to Paula Abdul’s shaky and over-prescribed throne remains to be seen.
"I can’t talk a lot about it," is Bruno’s response to the Idol issue. "But there’s positive movement. What my involvement will be is yet to be seen. There are a lot of options: A, B, C, D, or All of the Above." Naturally, Bruno’s ambition and optimism are her greatest asset. "I’m shooting for All of the Above."
Besides her chart-topping success, Bruno’s founding of a performing arts school certainly gives her resume added heft for a position on Idol. "I had 450 students at one time, kids and adults that were just driven [to succeed]. I mean, I got lucky. I was singing in a club and had a fairy tale opportunity handed to me: ’Hey, you want a record deal?’ So I respect those kids that are out there busting their ass just to get to an audition. Whether they fly to Kalamazoo or wherever to get there, I respect that. So I think they deserve respect back."
While they’re waiting for her Idol making moment, Bruno’s fans can enjoy the reunited Expose trio on a future tour stop. Indeed, despite some self-deprecating humor (during their Mohegan performance, Jurado laughs off being labeled a "vintage group" at a recent gig), Expose’s audience is still filled with the same rabid fans that clamored in the clubs 20 years ago.
Bruno, for one, isn’t surprised that her fans’ interest has never waned.
"Everyone has an Expose story," says Gioia of the group’s lasting impact. "A high school story, a college story, or an ’Oh my God, I came out to that one!’ story" she laughs. "I should write a coffee table book."
But with her voice back in rare form, it seems Gioia already has plenty to say, all on her own.
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