Take a good look at this face because if you're a fan of Pink, Christina Aguilera, or Gwen Stefani, you might not know that who you've been really listening to is this woman, Linda Perry.
From the chorus it goes right into-- there's no pickup.
One of the hottest songwriter/producers in pop music today.
Sorry, sorry, I keep f*** (fuckin') up that spot.
Linda has worked with Ziggy Marley, Benny Alan, Sierra Swan, Dixie Chicks, Kelis, Fischerspooner, Lisa Marie Presley, Enrique Iglesias, Venessa Carlton.
She doesn't change who they are, she just takes them to that best place, the place that they should be anyway, but might now have gotten there on their own without her help.
Linda perry doesn't just help careers. She transforms them. With Perry's "Beautiful", Christina Aguilera went from pop tart to pop diva virtually over night.
People were like oh my-- oh my god. This is-- this is the same person we've done all these other songs, and it showed this additional side to Christina that I think a lot of people had possibly not been aware of.
Pink wasn't a household name until Perry's "Get the Party Started" pushed her over the top, making her album an international best seller.
"Misunderstood" did incredibly well.
It's up to about twelve million records around the world now.
And when Gwen Stefani went solo Linda helped her pen her breakthrough tune.
Linda's gift as a song-writer stems from her ability to express universal truths or universal feelings in a three minute pop song. I know that's what every lyric writer, every songwriter strives to be but she really has a knack for it.
It isn't just a knack, Linda's proving she has what it takes to make it in the male dominated music industry.
You have to do this and kinda be all " mm mm BEOW mm mm BEOW mm yeah!". There are a lot of successful female songwriters out there. There just aren't a lot of successful female songwriter producers.
"Did we get a confirmation on what day Christina is going to come back in next week?"
"I've been in this business for 37 years and I've never seen a female producer survive more than 1 or 2 tracks usually."
"To be quite honest, I'm not thrilled about the direction they're going with the album cover."
But surviving is what Linda Perry is all about.
"How's your music doing?"
"Doing real fine. I'm waiting on that, that big break."
Her journey's been directly shaped by a painful childhood and adolescence. "I had a break. I was depressed, I was suicidal, I was sick, I was never... good enough, I was invisible. You know, so, all these feelings come up. And it's not, pity me, you know, because all of it, I wouldn't change for one second."
Linda Perry was born April 15, 1965 in Springfield, Massachusetts, and raised in San Diego, California, the youngest of 6 children. As a toddler, Linda's life was threatened by her failing kidneys.
"From 9 month [sic] to 2 years I get to watch her, you know, and I say, something is not right."
"I just remember we went to the hospital a lot, and I just kept asking, 'What's wrong with Linda? What's wrong with Linda?' And every time she would come home we would have to take her back again. That young, you don't understand the seriousness of illness, but later on we understood just how, how bad and how sick she was."
Corrective surgery a few months shy of Linda's third birthday resulted in complications. Doctors predicted that she wouldn't make a full recovery for almost two years..if at all.
Most kids that have to go through that trauma develop, you know, a shyness or going into seclusion and so forth, and she wasn't like that.
But Linda rebounded well. She was energetic, strong-willed, curious and aggressive.
Everything that we did, she would just wanna do. She just needed to kind of compete and find her niche and her claim in the family.
Dad used to take us to the park and we'd play baseball all the time. And Linda would be right there, you know, she'd have a glove on...she'd be a catcher or something, or be down in the outfield. She would try to show that she can do exactly what we would do, you know, that she was just as good as us. So, she was really feisty.
At such a young age, Linda Perry's fighting spirit was already beginning to show. Her earliest passion was music. Raised by a Brazilian mother and Portuguese father, Linda was surrounded by music.....
*singing*
....but her biggest musical influence was her brother, John, a gifted guitarist.
I idolized him. Idolized him completely. And I thought...I'm gonna start practicing guitar because I wanna be like my brother.
We didn't take lessons, we just played anything by ear, and that's pretty much how Linda got her start as well, just by watching me and wanting to play those songs that I was playing.
Linda used to always lock herself in the bathroom, and she always used to just go in there by herself with a guitar, and with a tape player, and she would just start singing and playing.
No one could have guessed that Linda was just a few years shy of filling much bigger venues. But, to get there, she'd have to survive the turbulence of her teen years.
I needed an understanding of who I was, 'cus[because] something was happening to me.
What was happening was Linda's new understanding of her own sexuality.
It's like, when..you should be making out with boys, and doing all this stuff, and I just wanted to make out with girls.
This realization soon grew into an unbearable burden.
I was so devastated with this feeling and so, just...confused. And, I literally came home one day, went into my mom's bathroom, grabbed that bottle of tranquilizers, downed them, laid on the bed, and I just..in stereo, heard this *buh boom, buh boom, buh boom*.
Only the low potency of the prescription saved Linda from becoming another teenaged suicide statistic.
It kind of changed my life. I just went for it after that. I was like, you know what? Screw it. I have a crush on her, I'm gonna hit on her and see what happens. And then, sure enough, the girl I hit on liked me too. So it all [became?] better, now look at me...I love women. I'm a dog when it comes to women, I tell you.
Coming up.....
It sounded like a hit. She looked like a star, it was great.
.....when 'Women On Top' returns.
Millions dream of making it in music, but few have made it happen like Linda Perry.
(You have to consider this a four-part pattern.)
Not only did she put James Blunt on the map when she signed him to her label, Custard Records, this self-taught musician has crafted hit tunes for many of today's chart-busting talents....
(Alright, let's listen to what we've got.)
....but to get here, she had to learn a few hard lessons along the way.
(I think the bass is wrong. I think that was the wrong call.)
After recovering from a teenage suicide attempt, she soon faced another personal crisis. Her parents' divorce instantly pushed Linda and her family into poverty.
It was embarrasing. Drinking powdered milk...it's like, disgusting. The white label on food stamps.
Not wanting to be a burden to her mother, and hungry for independence, Linda chose to live on the streets. Inevitably, drugs became her next problem.
I was on acid[LSD], crystal[Crystal Methamphetamine], coke[Cocaine]...alcoholic. All of it. Quaaludes, mushrooms...anything that was available, pop, pop, pop. The only thing I didn't do is heroin.
And, it would take another brush with death to get her sober.
I was on way too much acid...and I was walking around this building, and, I fell off of it, and I broke my collar bone. My lip was hanging all over here. It was like maybe 30....35 feet that I fell. My mom had no clue, but I was 'cold-turkeying' it for two months in her house. And, when I got better, I just realized this is not the lifestyle I'm supposed to be living. ****[NOTE: Normally, we say 'Going cold turkey' to mean quitting drugs-or anything addictive-completely. I've never heard someone say 'cold-turkeying it'.]****
With her addiction in check, and looking for change, Linda next moved to San Francisco.
And, not to sound cheesy, but...It was probably around 5:30, 6:00 in the evening and, the sun was kind of going down, and we're coming over the Bay bridge, and I saw that city and just, something shot through my body and I was like..this is where I'm supposed to be.
She not only found a new start, she found her voice...literally...while one day singing in her bedroom.
"She said a voice just came out of her that I think was a voice built upon so much emotion and anger and hurt."
With a voice that would soon be compared to Janice Joplin and Grace Slick, no one was more overwhelmed than Linda herself.
"Oooooh…. I don't know the rhythm here… Challenge…."
I started crying and my roommate came running down the hall and was like "What was that?" and I.. I'm sitting there crying. And I'm like, It was me, and it was this huge, big voice, I couldn't... I was so taken back by it. And right then and there, that's when I said I'm going to be a rock star.
Playing in small Bay Area clubs, paying her dues, Linda's unique voice and attitude began attracting attention.
"That's where she really began to discover herself, the musician inside."
"I was just this girl that could show up, play, entertain people, and I was good. "
Good enough to join a group of like-minded, rebellious women that would eventually call themselves 'Four Non-Blondes.'
"They were different. I mean, I had never quite honestly seen a band like that with the big hat and the goggles uh, I said, 'Far out, [laughs] this, this girl is a trip' and she delivered it on stage."
Linda's stand-out look and sound became the band's trademark.
"It's not that any of them lacked fire, because they certainly all had it, but Linda really became the focal point".
But like many groups, it took hard work and time for the band to become an overnight success.
Early on, Linda started bringing her own songs to the band.
"In six months, after I started bringing songs in, we had labels checking us out."
With Linda's songs leading the way, Four Non-Blondes were signed to a label, recorded an album, and finally hit it big with a Perry-penned, What's Up.
[song lyrics] "And I said, Hey,... what's going on" [in background]
"It sounded like a hit. She looked like a star. It was great."
Unexpectedly, the woman who survived living on the streets and drug addiction, was a budding star.
"We saw the MTV spots, and then she was calling us up, saying, 'Watch me on [David] Letterman tonight', she was on Arsenio, and she was just constantly playing all these shows".
"The song, when it connected, it really connected."
And what made it connect was the songwriter, a woman no longer afraid to be open, honest and direct.
"Whether you were a gay woman, trying to be accepted for your music alone in the music business, or whether you were a kid in a troubled home, I just think it really resonated with a lot of people for a lot of reasons. And then it had that hook, so whether it resonated with you or not, it was going to get stuck in your head."
But remarkably, Linda found the success of What's Up rang hollow.
"I hated it. I thought that record was horrible. It was just glossy and over-produced. There was no soul for me, there was no depth".
Linda also hated how the music industry treated her like a product.
"The record industry started, like, trying to commercialize Linda, and have control of her, and I think that's where she lost the interest".
She knew who she was, and she knew what she understood about music, and she couldn't fit in a pop star mold".
Coming up, "I didn't know what I wanted to do anymore. Just, nothing was working..", when Women On Top returns.
Song writer and producer, Linda Perry, steps into the media spot light on the rarest of occasions. These days she is most comfortable making music behind the scenes.
"You gotta do that, that, that open hat thing so its like boom sch de boom sch ...
A far cry from her rock n roll beginnings. Her hit songs were fuelled by the dark emotions of her childhood. She had survived a suicide attempt, drugs and the rejection she felt when she came out as a lesbian. But the pop stars life felt empty to Linda. She had to make a change.
Writing a hit record, she turned around and begged her way out of her recording contract. Linda was blown away by her label's reaction.
They kept me and let the band go.
It wasn't that there weren't other writers and people who weren't important, but Linda was the front man, or front woman.
I felt like I'd just betrayed the band because I was saying 'let ME go, I need to go find myself, these guys are great.'
Wracked with guilt, but thrilled to be solo, Linda laid out her new vision.
I had a record in mind. I described it to the company: it was dark, it was very vague, it was me using my lower register, really moody.
Linda partnered up with celebrated producer Bill Bottrell to work on the album she would later call 'In Flight'.
It was a really, really great experience. He taught everything I know, like, I asked so many questions about engineering and recording. Finally he just grabbed me, literally grabbed me on my shoulders, put me in front of the console and said 'Just turn the knobs until it sounds good to you.'
Working with the new producer would ultimately transform Linda's career. But not because the album was a hit.
The response to 'In Flight' was Zzz (snoring noises)... It was a snoozer. You know, I think it sold, maybe, 18,000 copies... I came from a band that sold 7 million records.
She put so much of herself into it, and she wanted people to be able to hear it, and... and I think she was incredibly disappointed.
Forced to reevaluate, Linda Perry moved to Los Angeles, hoping once again for a fresh start.
I didn't know what I wanted to do anymore. I tried to write songs from not my perspective and it wasn't working. I tried to write songs from a deep place and it wasn't working. Just nothing was working.
And while Linda explored her professional options, she freely spent the money she'd made with Four Non-Blondes.
In an effort to reevaluate, Linda Perry moved to Los Angeles, hoping, once again, for a fresh start.
"I didn't know what I wanted to do anymore. I tried to write songs from not my perspective and it wasn't working. And I tried to write songs from a deep place and it wasn't working. Just nothing was working. "
And while Linda explored her professional options, she freely spent the money she'd made with Four Non Blonds. All I know is this money that I made from this band is tainted.
"That success it did not deserve. I didn't work hard enough for it, it was just way too easy. So it was just like I was just trying to get rid of it."
But with no cash coming in, Linda soon got some bad news from her accountant.
"The last ten grand, I think, I had, I gave it to my mom, I called my accountant and said give the money to my mom. And she was like, she said, that going to put you, like, under a hundred buck. I said, just do it."
Linda Perry may have been broke, but she wasn't worried.
"I know what it's like to be poor and, you know, not have anything. So that was never an issue. I'm not afraid of that. Musically I always have the bathroom, you know, to sit in there by myself, and play. And hear it ring, you know, through the acoustics."
It was an out of the blue call that would put Linda back in the game.
"I get this really random call from this girl and she says, 'I wanna meet with you, my name's Pink.' "
"Linda didn't know who Pink was at the time. I was really familiar with her and you gotta play her 'Get the party started' play her 'Get the party started', which she had just written."
The upbeat popsong was unlike anything the public might have expected from the bruting songwriter producer. Pink loved the song and collaborated with Perry on seven additional tracks for her album 'Misunderstood', which not only recieved two grammy nominations, but made Pink the top-selling female artist in 2002.
"I knew it was going to be big. I knew people weere going to be a little surprised by who was behind this big record."
"The industry responded almost immediately, you know, as soon as the song was on the radio, 'Get The Party Started', my phone started ringing."
Now back on top, Linda began searching for other young stars to work with. Remarkably, she saw in Cristina Aguilera something of a creative soulmate.
"Everybody knows Cristina Aguilera can sing, but what people don't know is you actually can feel what you're singing. An I said, ' and that's what I'm for'."
And one of the most unlikely but successful pop music relationships was born.
Christina took Linda's ballet, Beautiful, to the top of the charts and recieved a grammy award for her performance. Linda's been one of themost requested music producers ever since.
Coming up: There's a lot of technicality to it in the studio and engineering and Linda mastered the studio. When women on top returns.
For most, making it big in the music business as a performer would be a dream. But for Linda Perry, her hit album what just the start of her career as a songwriter/producer for music's A-List talents. And not only has Linda been phenomenally successful, she's also been a trailblazer in the studio, an area of music traditionally dominated by men. "There's a lot of technicality to it, in the studio and engineering and understanding that kind of stuff, and it's not that women can't, but I think that traditionally they're just few and far between."
Never one to let convention dictate her actions, Linda has embraced the technology. "Linda mastered the studio. She had already mastered the songwriting craft but then she was able to master the studio and sounds and instrumentation and all of that." "She's definitely a gear-head. She gets a new piece of gear, she's turning buttons. You know, she wants to know, what does this do, what does this do? And with new gear comes new sounds and sparks new ideas for her." "A lot of producers can make a phenomenal audio event. They can create magic and they can make something sound really good, but Linda not only does that, she also is capable of playing all the instruments, she's her own mini-programmer, she can be her own engineer."
And what makes Linda unique is her ability to nurture and develop the songwriting talents of other artists. After years in the business, Linda Perry's true musical calling is clear. "She can tap into somebody who's probably drained from the world of being a pop star or rock star and she can pull out what they were given and help them bring that back to the surface again" "Some people are just gifted at, um, making you be honest with yourself and she can do that very easily." "She, she really is able to help people access something in themselves that they previously didn't really know was there." "She so completely understands at any given moment exactly what the artist that she is working with is going through. Linda has lived those experiences so she can identify with them and be a support system for them that they can't normally get walking into any studio with any writer, any producer."
Trained in the school of hard knocks, the life experiences and musical talents of Linda Perry are always at work in her position as a woman on top. "My goal is to be the best that I can be, and, and if I can help other people be the best that they can be, on my way to this goal, than that would be, wow, a double-whammy, I can get two for the price of one."
