Linda Perry Is Finally Ready to Write For Herself Again
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When Linda Perry started allowing director Don Hardy to film her day-to-day existence, she didn’t realize the cameras would arrive just in time for her life to fall apart. Perry is the singer-songwriter-producer behind 4 Non Blondes’ “What’s Up,” Pink’s “Get This Party Started,” and Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful,” among other hits — and at first, Hardy was filming her artistic process as she began exploring the idea of writing for herself again. Then her mother got sick and eventually died, and Perry herself faced a diagnosis of breast cancer. All the while, Perry was battling her demons — many of which stemmed from childhood trauma — and trying to rediscover her artistic self.
The resulting documentary, Linda Perry: Let It Die Here, which debuted last week at the Tribeca Film Festival, is the rawest, most revealing music documentary in years. In the new episode of Rolling Stone Music Now, Perry gives a relentlessly honest interview about the film and her whole career.
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Go here for the podcast provider of your choice, listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or just press play below — a few highlights from the interviews follow.
Perry is planning to record her first album under her own name since the Nineties. “I had no clue how to write for myself anymore,” she says. “I lost that ability. I got so consumed with everybody else and forgot about my own intentions, my own feelings, my own words.” The passing of her mother, she adds, opened the door again for her. “The gift that she left to me was helping me find my words and my feelings, because I have been on a songwriting frenzy. I’ve just been writing and writing.” She hopes to tour, as well, floating the idea of opening for her friend Brandi Carlile.
Perry is not a fan of current pop production. “There’s an art to recording that is severely lacking in the music business right now,” she says. “People are trying to correct really beautiful mistakes. And that’s the problem I’m having, is all the correction that’s being made in the process. And then they’re also trying to make really bad songs sound good with overdone production, and they’re taking really great songs and ruining them by overproducing them as well.”
Courtney Love has said that she asked to record “Beautiful” before Christina Aguilera did, but Perry denies it. “That’s a lie,” Perry says, “Courtney Love never heard the song and she never begged me for the song. I love Courtney, but that’s just a blatant lie. Never happened.”
Among the few modern artists Perry says she respects are Beyoncé and Taylor Swift. “You don’t have many of those secure artists that will do anything, like Beyoncé dropping a country album. That takes a lot of guts, a lot of confidence, and there’s not that many artists out there that are willing to take those kinds of risks, because they’re afraid of what people will think.… Say all you want about Taylor Swift, but she’s fucking awesome. That kid has been doing it since she was 12 years old, and she’s a great businessperson. If anybody says anything negative about Taylor Swift, it’s because they’re jealous that they’re not making the same business decisions. Not only is she able to say what she wants, the girl knows her audience. That’s a talent on its own. Who cares if you like the music? I wonder if she even likes her own music. But she knows her audience. You know what I mean? It’s like, she knows her fucking audience. And that is talent.”
Download and subscribe to Rolling Stone‘s weekly podcast, Rolling Stone Music Now, hosted by Brian Hiatt, on Apple Podcasts or Spotify (or wherever you get your podcasts). Check out six years’ worth of episodes in the archive, including in-depth interviews with Mariah Carey, Bruce Springsteen, Questlove, Halsey, Neil Young, Snoop Dogg, Brandi Carlile, Phoebe Bridgers, Rick Ross, Alicia Keys, the National, Ice Cube, Taylor Hawkins, Willow, Keith Richards, Robert Plant, Dua Lipa, Killer Mike, Julian Casablancas, Sheryl Crow, Johnny Marr, Scott Weiland, Liam Gallagher, Alice Cooper, Fleetwood Mac, Elvis Costello, John Legend, Donald Fagen, Charlie Puth, Phil Collins, Justin Townes Earle, Stephen Malkmus, Sebastian Bach, Tom Petty, Eddie Van Halen, Kelly Clarkson, Pete Townshend, Bob Seger, the Zombies, and Gary Clark Jr. And look for dozens of episodes featuring genre-spanning discussions, debates, and explainers with Rolling Stone’s critics and reporters.
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