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The Linda Perry
Interview
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In 1989 I interviewed a woman named Kat Sirdofsky. She being at the time a popular manager of rock bands in San Francisco. The story I was writing was about women behind the music. A year later she had added a band called 4 Non Blondes to her list of clients that she intended to lead into the spotlight. I'd been hearing a buzz about 4 Non Blondes for quite some time. One musician friend predicted I'd kick myself within a year if I didn't witness the early, innovative talent of this band, and experience the voice of Linda Perry before the waiting world beyond our San Francisco music scene took her away.
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The premonition my friend had was that Linda Perry was gonna be a big name very soon. Even after Kat Sirdofsky had sent me the band's promo package it still took me several months before I did her a favor by wandering into a rock and roll bar called The Nightbreak on Haight Street one rainy Saturday night in 1991 to catch 4 Non Blondes live. I intended to simply review the show. The tiny club was filled way beyond capacity. The smell of sweaty bodies and clove cigarettes made the air thick and nauseating. But the music I heard coming from the band on stage was too captivating to allow me a healthy panic attack, which woulda caused me to bolt outta there to the safety of the drugged-out, hippy scene just outside the bar. What happened instead is each funky, raucous, LOUD song drew me closer to the stage. By mid-set I'd shoved, punched and kicked my way to the front where I stood at Linda's floor speaker pleasantly speechless. I couldn't believe all the voices and all the volume coming out of this tiny chick wearing dreadlocks and a weird, exaggerated Dr. Seuss hat. Her acoustic guitar looked way bigger than the rocker who cradled it in her arms onstage. For the encore Linda looked down at me and smiled with full force. She asked if I had a request she could play for me. I think I mumbled something incoherent. Linda Perry said she'd pick one for me. It was a catchy little ditty with a sing-song chorus that the audience helped chant. Linda's powerful voice was still beautiful by the time she finished her future multi-platinum hit song, "What's Up". She leaned closer again and asked if I liked the song. I liked it.
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That was the beginning of her life with 4 Non Blondes. The end of that marriage came just a few years later when in 1994 Linda decided to break away from the band for a less cumbersome situation. Having had a world-wide hit record with 4NB did in fact put a lot of cash in Linda's fists but also left the former street musician, bohemian rocker chick feeling too commercialized with no freedom to create her own style and ideas of music that were stuck in her throat. So she did the unthinkable - she walked away from the spotlight. Well, at least she tried....
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"It's 1994, manager calls," Linda remembers, "and tells me 'Roger Daltry wants to talk to you, so he's going to call...' I said, yeah right. (Then) sure enough, some English dude calls me up and says he's Roger Daltry, and STILL I'm saying yeah right! Finally it hits me that it really is him. He said, 'Linda it is my birthday and I want sing Pete Townsend songs at Carnegie Hall with a 55-piece orchestra, Bob Ezrin, Michael Kamen conducting. Lou Reed, Alice Cooper (will perform)...and I want you to sing Acid Queen and Dr. Jimmy. Do you know those songs?' I freaked out, and said, when do you want me there?" The night was called Roger Daltry and friends sing Pete Townsend and it was broadcast around the world on cable television. How do you recover from a legendary rock star personally inviting you to sing for him and with him in New York City? "I felt like I could anything after that."
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And she pretty much did. In 1995 she started her own record company, Rockstar Records, purely for the reason of releasing her friends' music.
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| Photo by Jay Blakesburg, 1996 |
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One of the bands was 2-Lane Blacktop. The other group that she not only acted as record company executive for but also produced was the awesome bunch of rocker chicks (plus one boy) STONE FOX, who've had some success of their own as a touring band. While in the midst of recording her first solo CD in 1996 Linda got it in her head to do something completely out of the blue...again. She wanted to do a duet with another rock and roll legend: the fabulous, the reclusive, the unpredictable Grace Slick. "I met China Kantner (Slick's daughter) and told her this idea of mine. She was like, 'That's great man, my mom needs to do something, but she probably won't 'cause she hates women singers. She thinks they're all wimpy.' China got her (mom) on the phone and told her my idea. She asked to speak to me and said, 'What do you want?'" [ Let me just say at this point that I can totally hear Grace Slick's stern voice with the well-known no-fucking-around attitude as Linda recounts the story. How Linda was able to utter another word after experiencing Grace Slick's seemingly 'chilly' reception I can't even imagine. I myself woulda dropped the phone and started crying. Linda tells how the telephone conversation with Grace Slick went.]
"Hi Ms. Slick, my name is Linda Perry and I don't sound like all those wimpy girls. I have a song that I feel you will love and I want you to sing it with me. Grace says, 'Put my daughter back on the phone'. A week later China called and asked for directions. I jumped into the air and ran around the studio screaming GRACE SLICK IS COMING! GRACE SLICK IS COMING!"
The merging of these talented chicks appeared on a CD Linda called In Flight, and the song was the somber and bone-chilling "Knock Me Out". This track as well as the entire composition of In Flight unveils a certain maturity for Linda from her cathartic lyrics to the intensity and detail-oriented production of her music. This CD is a journey into a some times dark, some times reflective Linda Perry.
"Not many people know that record exists," Linda comments. "I do, and that is enough."
At the close of 1996 an overcast day at a North Beach park in San Francisco is where several of Linda Perry's friends and fans have gathered to be part of the filming of her first video for In Flight. The song is "Freeway". We sat for hours on damp grass listening to her play that song over and over...and over again. And it was good fun. When I see the final edit of the video months later I am totally bummed that I don't see myself included in the footage.
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I went to visit Linda one night in 1997 at her warehouse dwelling in the heart of the art district in S.F. called South of Market, or simply SOMA. In my stride forward to reach her living room I first pass thru a corridor where the walls are lined with large photographs of Linda and her famous friends, and where she has her business offices. In a room hidden behind curtains instead of doors is her recording studio. If I were a musician I'd probably have been a little more excited about that. There are huge canvases of bizarre, frightening, beautiful artwork by painter Aubin Crowell on the walls. I lose count of the miscellaneous music awards and the gold and platinum records from various countries hanging up all around (but there are at least four in the bathroom, which I find a curious location). Oh, and by the way, Linda isn't even home at this time. She's on tour or something. But when Linda Perry was asked for the second consecutive year to host the Bay Area Music Awards (the BAMMIES) she came home to San Francisco to oblige the request. "The first time they asked me I was surprised. The show was extremely boring so I thought I'd go ahead and start telling jokes and fucking around with people. Well, the only person that found it amusing was Carlos Santana. When they asked me (to host) again I could not believe it. I was so bad the year before and here they are asking me back. Well, I took that as an opportunity to really 'spice up' my act. After they poured champagne down my throat they asked me to just read the cue cards and keep it clean, because we were live on TV. What idiots, I thought. So I waltz out there and tell everyone I don't schmooze I - then I make the blowjob reference. The night continued." I'll say! I've never really asked Linda why she wanted to leave the city by the bay to live in a town called L.A., but it's there in the Hollywoodland where she moved to in 1998. Perhaps it was because she was bored with the music scene that she opted to get involved in movie making just about the same time of her move to southern California. She was the executive producer of an independent film called Pink As The Day She Was Born. I think I remember reading the reviewers calling the film something close to softcore porn cuz there was a 'scene' with, like, a German Shepard? Something like that? I dunno. "I was on my way to buy a house and somehow ended up with a movie instead. What a pain in my ass. I don't know what I was thinking. This movie has been the thorn in my side - more like a cactus stickin' in my rib...I have to say (though) it is a fuckin' funny flick. Cathee Wilkins and Steve Hall are the masterminds behind it. They did a great job for first time (writers/directors). The professional know-it-alls said I was crazy and I could never finish this movie with first-time filmmakers. You know what I got to do at the screening at the Director's Guild? I got to give all those idiots the birdie." And when she wasn't flippin' folks off with her middle finger she also kept busy throughout most of 1998 recording her second solo effort. The result, released in 1999, was called After Hours. This collection of songs has a much more uplifting and fun vibe. She's got a track or two with her nieces and nephews participating. Her lyrics are more playful and her music is a bit more rowdy. And once again Linda successfully combines her beautiful vocal stylings with her raspy growls to produce a record that is able to please a wide variety of tastes. There's even a hidden track where Linda is singing in what I think might be Portuguese. "In Flight and After Hours are two completely different bodies of music. In Flight is, well, I don't know how to say this without sounding big headed, a masterpiece. I can't believe that album came out of me. It just flowed with one mighty strum. The producer Bill Bottrell was the perfect mad professor behind the genius. After Hours is as raw as you can get. I recorded it in my studio in three weeks. I had just moved to Los Angeles, walked into my record company at the time, Interscope Records, and begged them to let me out of my contract. Two weeks pass, (and then) they agreed...and I began the After Hours sessions. Man, what a blast making that record was. I was feeling every emotion one could possess. I was feeling RAW. Instead of jumping on another major label I decided to release it through Rockstar Records. I toured for months on it...I would compare this record to 4 Non Blondes. We would have done something like After Hours."
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I think I've seen Linda Perry perform in every possible setting. I was there during the early days before big-time success licked her, kissed her, and slobbered all over her face. I've seen her at the height of fame where an entire audience of 20,000 people sang along word for word to just about every song she played. I've seen her perform at cafes in front of friends while sitting on a barstool onstage all alone with her big acoustic guitar, cracking jokes and lapping up the idea of playing for people she knows personally and who know her intimately. And I've seen Linda perform in the exact same setting but for a crowd of strangers where she invited some unsuspecting fan up onstage to sing "What's Up" in it's entirety while she sat on the barstool, strumming the chords to that runaway-hit song and fully enjoying the moment of watching someone else sing the words she wrote.
Linda Perry is the classic unassuming rock star. She never saw it coming but welcomed it with wide-open arms, and has been enjoying the fringe benefits without regrets or apologies.
She's been respected before, and she's bummed spare change from passersby. And she'll be the first to tell ya both those facts. When I asked her what she is writing about these days she has a lot to say about a lot. "I've decided to make a hit record again. I am currently meeting with major labels. The independent thing is waaaay too hard...Too much time on the phone doing business and not enough play-time."
Isn't she afraid of losing a certain charm by playing with the big boys again? "I did what I wanted to do. I experienced what it was like to struggle and, FUCK, I learned so much in so little time. I feel very positive. Plus, being independent, well, honestly, you just don't get as much attention."
Maybe, I suggest, she needs to organize some women musicians and tour as the Anti-Lilith Bitch Mafia. When can we expect that bright idea to evolve? "When chick musicians stop playing crappy music. The younger girl bands think they have to compete with the boy bands, so they play no melody, no lyrical content crap. The older chicks are too mellow, soft, and pretty. Bring me Patti Smith, Janis Joplin, Etta James. And then we'll talk."
Okay, so I guess while she is going to be busy through most of 2000 recording her third CD as a solo artist there won't be any militia of kick ass chicks touring together to look forward. Not any time soon, at least. But if you wanna see Linda Perry perform these days when she has some downtime from recording you'll have to look around very carefully or you'll miss her. "Lately, for fun, I've been playing around L.A. doing Zepplin covers. It's a great show. We are called 21st Century Zep." And I wouldn't go so far as to say she hangs out at karaoke bars, but . . ."I love karaoke...I did 'What's Up' one time and this girl said I sang it better than Linda Perry." Well, with light brown curly hair replacing the dreadlocks it's no wonder she isn't quickly recognized these days. That's okay, cuz all she has to do is sing a few notes and everyone will know that Linda Perry is in the house, so shut the fuck up and listen.
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