The pop star is working with collaborators such as Max Martin,
Dr. Luke, Bonnie McKee and others.
Katy Perry is halfway through her third album, the follow-up to
“Teenage Dream,” which spawned five Hot 100 No. 1 singles. She has yet to feel
any pressure.
“When I put myself on a timeline, when I tell the record company
when I want to release the album, that’s when the race starts,” Perry said
during a session Thursday at ASCAP’s I Create Music Expo. “That’s when I put
pressure on myself.”
So far she has collaborated with many of the producers and
songwriters behind “Teenage Dream,” among them Max Martin, Dr. Luke and Greg
Wells.
Wells, she says, “allows me to vomit words. Not that I can’t find
that with other but he just lets me [makes retching sound]. Max and Luke push
me the most. As a team we have certain strengths. With Max, it’s melody
choices, Luke is production and I’m topline and melody.”
She has also written new songs with Sia and continues to work
with Bonnie McKee, her collaborator on “California Gurls” and “Teenage Dream.”
Working with Bonnie McKee "is like an emotional abuse
session," she said. "Bonnie and I argue (like) we’re in the ring
fighting for the best lyric. We presented ‘Teenage Dream’ three times (before
it was recorded).”
At a recent session, Perry went in with a melody and verse to
work with Greg Kurstin and McKee. “She came in from a yoga class and said, 'I
want to write a song called 'Double Rainbow.'' So we have a song called ‘Double
Rainbow.’”
Perry spent an hour taking questions from ASCAP executive VP,
membership, Randy Grimmett, who had the singer-songwriter detail her career
from her beginnings as a 13-year-old learning to play guitar to working in the
Christian music world and then the ups and downs of her career prior to her
chart success and arena tours.
She began many of her anecdotes with “want to hear something
really depressing” – or words to that effect – to draw a complete picture of
what she went through as struggling artist. She detailed negative and positive
experiences working with Glen Ballard (pro) and the Matrix trio (con), Island
Def Jam (bad) and Capitol (positive and improving with the new management
team), and regularly reinforced the idea that she loves to collaborate with
other writers.
A few other tidbits Perry said:
On the music and artists who have had the greatest influence on
her, Perry rattled off Queen’s “Killer Queen,” the Beach Boys’ “Pet Sounds,”
Alanis Morissette’s “Jagged Little Pill,” No Doubt, Patty Griffin and Jonatha
Brooke.
Dave Stewart, with whom she wrote “I’m Still Breathing,” was the
first collaborator to give her the freedom to write whatever she wanted.
Once she goes on tour, she stops writing. “I don’t get into a
studio when I’m touring.”
Her favorites that she saw at Coachella last weekend? Purity
Ring, M83 and Sia.
Career highlight? “Firework,” she said, is “the most important
song I’ve written.” Performing it with an autistic girl accompanying her on
piano and vocal harmony at a fundraiser was “the most important performance of
my career so far.”
She does not like the use of aliases by songwriters and
producers. “I wouldn’t meet Dr. Luke for six months because I knew he wasn’t
really a doctor. What’s wrong with your first and last name? Why do they have
to be from outer space?”
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