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The protector
By
Joan Anderman, Globe Staff, 11/2/2003 LOS
ANGELES -- Linda Perry isn't an It Girl. Her fondness for racy
tattoos and Harley-Davidson belt buckles hardly qualifies her
as a fashion icon. She's neither Hollywood power broker nor upscale
drug dealer. So
why is Courtney Love showing up at her house in the middle of
the night? Who
is this person who bosses around Britney Spears and gets away
with it? Linda
Perry writes songs. Good songs. She produces them, too, arranging
and playing the instruments and often sending a singer home after
a night's work with a fully finished track that, statistically
speaking, will become a big fat hit. Fans of the 1993 radio anthem
"What's Up?" (" Hey -yay-yay-ay, hey -yay-yay,
I say hey , what's goin' on?") will remember Perry as the
brash, dreadlocked frontwoman of the San Francisco rock band 4
Non Blondes, which sold 6 million copies of its debut album and
then promptly vanished. Ten
years later -- a genuine "Behind the Music" decade filled
with ugly lawsuits, unheard solo projects, debilitating depression,
and enough serendipity to restore your faith in the higher power
of a pop song -- Perry has reinvented herself as the consummate
musical collaborator to the stars. Like
her red-hot contemporaries the Neptunes and the Matrix, Perry
is a multitalented musician who has carved a niche as a behind-the-scenes
composer and producer. What sets her apart is her clientele, almost
exclusively women; an approach to music that by all accounts defies
the calculation endemic to mainstream pop songwriting; and a particular
flair for wrapping her musical arms around young pop stars during
the vulnerable early stages of their careers. "It's
really hard to be yourself," says Perry, "especially
when you have a big machine behind you saying, `This is what's
hip on radio, and this is a hip look, and this is what's hip hip
hip hip hip.' If the first album was a hit, it's usually because
the artist really wanted to be a rock star, and if she has to
do it this way, she'll do it. We compromise a lot. "When
I met Alecia [Moore, a.k.a. Pink], she gave me her first album,
and I was, `Ugh. What is this?' I called her up and said, `Can
you come over and bring me your CD collection? The stuff you listen
to?' And it was Janis Joplin, Bruce Springsteen, Elton John, Tupac,
Carole King, Guns N' Roses. And I'm like, `OK. I get it.' She
was 16, and she wanted a record deal." Perry's
first two projects were high-wattage and high-impact: She helped
transform Pink from a teen-dance moppet into a formidable pop-rock
force as writer and producer of eight songs on the singer's breakthrough
sophomore album, 2001's "M!ssundaztood," including the
title track and the ubiquitous "Get the Party Started."
The
following year Christina Aguilera became a credible artist in
the eyes of many thanks to the surprising depth of her performance
on one song: "Beautiful," written and produced by Perry.
"That
was going to be my comeback song," Perry says of "Beautiful."
"I only played it for Christina to break the ice when we
first met. But she wanted to sing it, and I let her record a demo
at my house. Her vocal was so honest and so real. I knew the song
was hers." A
creative guru Perry follows her gut, no questions asked,
an iron-clad approach to life and business that's brought her
much torment and a recent bonanza of blessings. Her upper body
is covered with butterflies, images she's had etched into her
flesh to remind her of a few important facts: that the lowly caterpillar
emerges from her cocoon magically transformed into a lovely creature,
that crawling things can learn to fly, that everything changes.
She
explains this in the candle-lit control room of her recording
studio, which is tucked discreetly behind a locked gate amid the
strip malls, liquor stores, and auto shops of Burbank. Perry has
created a musician's cocoon here, a vast, cushioned space filled
with low sofas and ruby-red rugs, soft lights and swirling fabrics.
Dozens of guitars rest against the walls of a room filled with
the scents of incense and fresh flowers. In one corner is a menagerie
of percussion instruments, in another sits a Steinway. Next to
the grand piano Perry has arranged a cluster of bean bag chairs
for singers inclined to curl up. While
her work with Pink and Aguilera established Perry as a creative
guru for young pop stars in search of substance and direction,
she's become the collaborator of choice for a broad swath of women
in rock. No Doubt frontwoman Gwen Stefani tapped Perry for her
solo debut, due out early next year, as did Love; Perry co-wrote
seven tracks for Love's forthcoming "America's Sweetheart"
during two months of chaotic, booze-fueled, all-night jam sessions
with Love, drummer Patty Schemel, and bassist Jerry Best. Perry's
recently branched out into country and world music, on projects
with Faith Hill and Angelique Kidjo. "She
asked me what I feel like, what I think about, what I want to
talk about," says Kidjo, who recently wrote two songs with
Perry. "I talked to her about my child, and the two songs
we wrote are about that love. She brought to me the idea that
no matter which language you write a song in, it's all based in
one thing -- the story you have to tell." It's
impossible to distill Perry's role, which is constantly morphing.
She's Keith to Courtney's Mick, and Pink's big sister. She's savvy
insider and spiritual guide. It's no surprise that a slew of new
female talents are trekking to Perry's studio for writing and
recording sessions -- among them 24-year-old Sierra Swan, a Fiona
Apple-esque singer-songwriter whose debut album (for Atlantic,
due out next summer) had been foundering for years. "Label
people get paranoid. They feel like they need to put someone in
there with you," says Swan, who had been paired with numerous
songwriters before. "When I met Linda it was like, `Here
we go again.' I played her some stuff, showed her some ideas.
And she put me in the studio by myself, for two weeks, with her
engineers." "I
could have gotten in trouble for it," Perry happily reports.
"But I couldn't help it. Sierra is one of the most tremendously
talented people I've met. She played me what she'd done on her
album so far, this dance-y stuff, and I'm like, `Do you want my
honest opinion? I wouldn't buy it.' Then she played these songs
she did on her own at her dad's house, very dark, and I was like,
`I would buy that.' So I gave her the money they gave me to produce
her and said, `Go do this. And we're not gonna tell the label.'
" Of
course the label found out. Whatever betrayal they may have felt,
however, was tempered by what they heard on tape. "Linda
will do whatever it takes to get done what needs to be done with
the artist," says Mary Gormley, vice president of A&R
at Atlantic Records. "She doesn't placate me, either. But
to be honest, that's what I love. It makes me trust her."
Trust
is a vital piece of Perry's working relationships, and she's come
to believe that gender plays a role in the comfort level and deep
connection she establishes with artists. "For
years I didn't want to be judged because I was a woman and because
I'm gay," Perry says. "But I've been in denial. There
is a difference. And in a weird way I think I'm very genderless.
I have a macho dude thing about me, and obviously I'm a chick.
I seem safe. I'm unthreatening, but I'm demanding. I work these
girls hard." Indeed.
When Aguilera launched into her familiar vocal gymnastics during
the recording session for "Beautiful," cramming 12-packs
of notes into swooping arpeggios, Perry laid down the law. "I
don't settle for the tricks I hear," she says. "If I
had produced her vocals like she normally sang, really plushed
out with major harmonies all over the place and her `woo-woo-woo,
I am beaoooo-ti-fuuuuuul,' it wouldn't have gone anywhere. There
were points where she cracked and it wasn't perfect. But that's
when the listener catches onto something real, and that's all
you've got." Not
a pop star Killer hooks and artistic integrity are an elusive
recipe. Part of Perry's appeal is her history as a serious artist
with a subversive streak. Perry -- who was born in Springfield
to a Portuguese father and a Brazilian/Moroccan mother and grew
up in San Diego -- left 4 Non Blondes at the peak of the band's
newfound popularity because she had been determined to raise the
creative bar on their second album. Her bandmates and their label,
Interscope, wanted to repeat the commercial success of their multiplatinum
debut. "I
went to Tom Whalley [then vice president of A&R for Interscope
and now chairman of Warner Bros.] and said, `Look at me. It's
Linda, and I'm telling you I'm never going to write you "What's
Up?" again.' Those songs were killing me. I was walking around
in a top hat and dreads and shoes three times too big, and it's
who I was, but it had become a gimmick. Nobody took us seriously,
and we had no longevity. I offered to give them all the songs,
if that was the issue, and help find a new singer. I just didn't
want to be a pop star. I wanted to be a thing that blended into
the wall, with no face, no videos, no press, just a thing that
people heard." To
everybody's shock, Interscope dropped 4 Non Blondes and kept Perry
on as a solo artist. The band was devastated and so was Perry,
and her state of mind only worsened when the label shelved her
introspective 1996 solo album, "In Flight." After financing
her own yearlong tour, Perry slipped into a massive depression.
Two years later, in 1999, she moved from San Francisco to Los
Angeles, where she bought a dumpy little house in the valley and
was teaching herself to program drums when the fortuitous threatening
message arrived from then-stranger Alecia Moore. "She
was so loud I was holding the phone back like this," Perry
recalls, laughing on a lime green sofa in the onetime dumpy little
house, which was recently made over into a minimalist, Zenlike
retreat. Her assistant Shannon replenishes Perry's steady diet
of Miller Lites and cigarettes. " `My name's Pink and I love
you and oh my God I had to steal your number out of my makeup
artist's book and if you don't call me back I can definitely get
your address and come down there if I have to.' And I'm like,
Pink? What is that?" Perry
put her comeback plans on hold as soon as Pink stepped into her
life. The irony of her career transformation isn't lost on Perry
-- the young, rudderless star who grew disgusted with the politics
of pop music, dropped out of the game, and is now feeding the
careers of young, rudderless pop stars. But it's exactly why Perry's
vantage point, and by extension her intentions, may be unprecedented
among songwriters-for-hire. In
the studio, Perry asks her engineer, Dave Guerrero, to cue up
some new songs. She silently mouths the words to "Waiting
for Love," one of three tracks Perry cowrote and produced
for Pink's new album, "Try This," out Nov. 11. It's
another creative left turn for Pink -- a Zeppelin-flavored rock
waltz, drenched in warm beats and acoustic guitars, sinewy riffs,
and hard, soulful vocals. Next comes a demo of Perry singing "Watching
Over Me," an old-time, Patsy-Cline-type country tune, which
she'll deliver to Faith Hill in Nashville in a few days. It's
hard to believe the same musician wrote the next track, "Girls
and Boys," a sinuous electroclash tune. Britney Spears is
singing about masturbating while her lover sleeps beside her.
The song -- inspired by Perry's impression that Spears wanted
something edgier in her repertoire -- won't be on Spears's new
album, "In the Zone," scheduled to drop Nov. 18. According
to Perry the label felt it strayed too far from rest of the tracks
and plans to save it for release on a soundtrack. She reports
with great satisfaction, however, that "Britney loves it."
Perry
is clear about her allegiance. She's not working to supply record
companies with hits but rather artists with songs that feel like
natural extensions of who they are. "I've
had labels bring me an artist and tell me, `We want "Get
the Party Started," ' and then the artist walks in and I'm
looking at this Bob Dylan/Jeff Buckley type of character. And
then I sit and go, `OK, Linda. Where are your personal boundaries
on this?' And I always have to follow my heart." One
can't help but wonder if Perry's heart will lead her back to her
first love, performing. She books occasional shows at the Knitting
Factory in LA and invites friends down to hear new songs. During
an afternoon in the studio she stepped into the vocal booth herself
to try a few takes on a song called "Bill," a pensive
ballad-cum-train-wreck of a tune from a rock opera she's been
working on for years. Her
voice is powerful -- a high-octane mash of grit and melody. But
the Linda Perry session is cut short. She can't, she says, cut
loose. "I don't know if I'm capable of making my own album," Perry says, "because I'd be terrified of it failing. I'm starting to feel more comfortable in my skin. I'm not constantly wanting to be invisible anymore. But what I'm doing right now makes all the sense in the world. It's not about me. It's about the music."
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