|
Q
magazine article Witch
Doctor Got
a broken diva? When Christina Aguilera firsst met Linda Perry, she thought she was rude, perhaps even crazy. Nevertheless, Aguilera was looking for songs for her album Stripped and the tattooed, touslehaired rock chick seemed to fit the bill. It was a brave move: early in 2001, Perry had confronted Aguilera in a Los Angeles nightclub and offered an unsolicited critique of her talent. "I said, Everyone knows you can sing but it's not convincing emotionally. I think you're depressed. You should get in touch with it, use it in your songs." Aguilera shot Perry a who-the-fuck-do-you-think-you-are? look and walked away. However, they did have one thing in common. One of Aguilera's dancers was a friend of Perry's, cracks. Besides, Aguilera heard P!nk's My Vietnam - from the 10-million-selling M!ssundaztood, which was mostly written and produced by Perry - and liked its emotional honesty. Aguilera called about a week later, and they convened at Perry's studio in Burbank, California. Here, the brutal working practices continued. They sat and talked. Aguilera recalled physical abuse at the hands of her father. She began to cry and asked for the session to be abandoned. "It sounds ghoulish, and she didn't think she could do it, but... I made her do it in tears. You've got to be feeling something before you can create. Some people will reveal nothing and just grind the stuff out. That's factory work."
Over recent years, 38-year-old Linda Perry has emerged as the diva's first-choice career doctor. She wrote Christina Aguilera's global hit Beautiful and revitalised the careers of P!nk and Faith Hill. There'll be more along soon. Perry has just finished co-writing Courtney Love's new album, America's Sweetheart, and beefing up the Sugababes's new set with two tracks. Then there's work on Beyoncé Knowles's sister Solange's upcoming debut album, as well as a solo set for No Doubt's Gwen Stefani. "I'm getting this reputation as a producer/therapist," says Perry. " It's kind of, Come and write songs and get your head fixed, too. It's strange to me, cos I'm no nurturer, really. In fact I'm usually really fucking aggressive." Perry's methodology is simple. She has beeen " gay since the day I popped out of my mom's stomach" and finds that her closest emotional bonds are with her own sex. If a female artist wants to work with her, she meets theem and gives them a no-frills career consultation (P!nk, for example, had to hear that her music was "fake R&B" before they could work together). After that, they must talk or jam in the dark candlelit studio until they uncover an emotional fissure. "I always work with women, cos I get something real from them emotionally," says Perry. Today she holds court in the control room of Studio J at Burbank's Entreprise 2 studios. The forbidding bunker of technology has been customised to make Perry feel more at home: fake human skulls, a wolf's head and a brass thigh bone line the mixing desk. On the floor, what look like oddments of broken radio rescued from a skip turn out to be Perry's cherished echo boxes and effects pedals, which she prefers over glinting digital effects on studio computers. This will be her last interview, she says. She hates them and doesn't know why she agreed to do it. Hates pictures too. She is, she says, a slob and therefore doesn't see the point. This assertion is backed up with decidedly downscale wardrobe choices for a multi-millionaire: battered platform boots she bought eight years ago and a stained tour jacket from some forgotten country artist. When she smiles, her face illuminates and she looks youthful and striking. Otherwise she looks ragged, trashrd, like the Bangles' Susanna Hoffs after a sudden and total conversion into the ways of the Hell's Angels. Her commercial pop nous is just part of why Linda Perry is such a sought-after collaborator. She also has the life experience that no pop star will ever learn about at stage school. She refers to this part of her life as "Phase One". Perry was six when she decided she wanted to be a rock star. She was born in Boston, but her Portuguese father and Brazilian mother moved to San Diego, California when she was one. As she grew up, classic British rock acts - the Who, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd -loomed large. By 14 she was quickly picking up the rudiments of guitar from her older brother, but needed someting to write about. It was around this time she chose to come out her parents. Though she says they didn't reject her, it was a difficult time. There was a bungled suicide attempt, drugs and alcohol. "I left home and was living in parks, in cars. I was panhandling for booze and drugs. I was a troublemaker... I never really developed a problem with any of it cos I don't have an addictive personality. I was like, Now I'm doing coke, now I'm an alcoholic, what else is there?Then I was into acid and crystal meth. I wanted to try everything. Looking back now, I think I just wanted something to write about in my songs" Frustrated by the music scene in San Diego - at one audition she was told she couldn't sing- she moved to San Francisco and during her first solo acoustic shows was approached by three members of The Lesbian Snake Charmers. They asked Perry to be their singer. Soon they became 4 Non Blondes and their 1993 Perry=written-and-sung hit What's Up? and its accompanying album, the six-million-selling Bigger, Better, Faster, More?, might well have established a worthy career. But Perry was already disillusioned. Her label Interscope reluctantly agreed to let her make a solo album, In Flight, while the rest of the band lost their deal. The events still rankle."I assumed they'd fire me and get someone else to write another Blondes album. I felt really bad and still do that the others got dropped. The drummer blames me for ruining her life. Christa [ Hillhouse, 4 Non Blondes ] was more understanding when she heard In Flight. It sold 18,000 copies. After six million it kinda helped prove I wasn't doing it for money." The split with 4 Non Blondes hints at Perry's strange duality. She is a self-confessed rock chick, hands festooned with tattoos, who walks with the hip-swinging threat of a gun fighter. But she actually hated playing for rock audiences. "Those fans were smelly, drunken lumps. They'd just jump about and act the fool. i wanted to play Carnegie Hall with a 55-piece orchestra and people dressed nice. I know that sounds crazy, but I am a schizo." Whith the failure of In Flight, Perry continued writing. A second solo album was planned but a twist of fate set Perry on the road to writing for others. P!nk was dissatisfied with the lightweight pop feel of her debut album Can't Take Me Home. She had been a fan of 4 Non Blondes, once being cautioned by the police for performing their tracks on the street back home in Doylestown, near Philadelphia. While contemplating a new direction for her second album, she discovered Perry's phone number in her make-up artist's phone book and stole it. She rang Perry late one night threatening to stalk her if she didn't call back. The massive P!nk hit Get The Party Started proved to be Perry's calling card. All solo plans were sidelined. Courtney Love stole Perry's pager number from Hole drummer Patty Schemel and left a message saying she wanted help in writing the answer to The Rolling Stones' Sympathy For The Devil. Love turned up at Perry's house at 2:45am the next day to start work. "We worked'til 7am and that's how it continued," says Perry. "i was working with Christina in the day and Courtney would turn up at 2am to start. She said she wanted to be my mistress. She liked the idea of having me at night, stealing me from someone else. It needed to be illicit" Working with Aguilera put paid to Perry's solo plans once and for all. She had written Beautiful as her comeback single while feeling low, depleted and drunk. She played it to Aguilera at her house one night. She wanted it. Perry wasn't sure but gave her the chance to demo the song. Aguilera's very first vocal take, reading the lyrics from a piece of paper in Perry's living room, was used on the UK Number 1. "It had raw feeling" says Perry."Of course she wanted to do it over with all her technical perfection but I said no. It took seven months of arguing to get her to agree." Linda Perry thrives on those moments of emotional revelation. In fact she claims she has a crush on everyone she works with. "All my women I get something different from,"P!nk is quite tough and street. Courtney is just too clever and crazy for her own good. She definitely wants to be queen again. Christina brings a vulnerability and sweetness, which isn't how she's often perceived. And Gwen, especially if she brings Gavin [ Rossdale, husband and Bush frontman ], just laughs from the moment we arrive 'til we leave." There is something sexy and seductive about these talented women, but she doesn't mix business with pleasure. Her personal life is already a mess. She's just no good at relationships. "Relationships are just for sex, right?" she asks rhetorically. " After a week with me, you're out. But that week will be really, really nice. I'm not a saver. I love to spend my money on my women. I'll dress them in really nice outfits and jewellery. I'm very male in that way. It's such a sexy thing to do. But after a week it's, See ya." Earlier this year Perry went to a strip club and saw amazing-looking girl. She asked an assistant to approach her to do private dancing sessions. Perry made up a CD soundtrack: PJ Harvey's Down By The Water and Led Zeppelin's Since I've Been Loving You were on there. For two months, while recording with Love and Stefani, Perry would enjoy these strip shows right here in Studio J. "I'm only doing what a lot of male producers do, right? I liked her, but I couldn't get past the fact I was hiring her. That's my fault. I have to feel in control. I give every indication of letting someone in and then slam the door. I'm terrible, I'm telling you, don't get into a relationship with me." Si she lives quietly in a newly renovated house in Sherman Oaks California. On the driveway are parked a selection of brash toys: a Harley-Davidson and a Range Rover. Her emotional needs are taken care of by her pet mastiff Buck and her wolf Moose. She would step over a dying human to save her beloved pets, she says. In light of this, it comes as little surprise to hear she's finally met a male artist she feels she can work with: Robbie Williams. "We're going to write together. We have a lot in common, He has this outlandish big ego personality but he's also very insecure." Today though, she is working with Canadian female fourpiece Lillix. For two hours, Perry frets over the sound of four chords, supping a beer and occasionally throwing in a conversational curveball. "Your socks are too short," she says. "That means you're gay." She says I'm more than welcome to sit in on the session if I drink more beer, then breaks the cap off a bottle with her tattooed hands. The tattoo across her finger reads: Want It All. She had it done after moving to San Francisco, to mark the start of "Phase Two". She won't ever record on her own again, finding it hard to access her own deepest feelings. "On my own I'm terrible, I can barely write a song. Beautiful was luck. Get The Party Started was a fluke. I can't do it without my talented women I need them as much as they need me." |