What was your first instrument?
My first instrument was the first four strings of a nylon string guitar bought in Tijuana. It had six strings, but I could only use the four. Mind you, I would never use my left hand to hold chords. I would write songs with the first four strings: E, A, D, and G. That's it. B and E; I didn't find any use for those!
Do you ever take off strings now in your writing or production?
Yeah, I do that all the time. It's funny, because all I do is weird stuff like that. I was scoring this Sean Penn film called Citizen Penn. It's about when Sean and his organization, CORE, went to Haiti when they had that big earthquake. They asked me to score the film, and I'd been wanting to score films. It's in Haiti, so it should be Haitian music and Haitian players. I started writing and I would take strings off. I would use my tenor guitar; my baritone. I would use weird tunings. I had no idea what those tunings were. It sounded good to my ear. I would have to say to my guy, Luis [Flores], "Write this down. I have no idea what this is." It would be E, E, A, G, D, F – some weird tuning – then capo'd. I decided I was going to demo the songs, and then, when they approved them, I'd get Haitian singers and players. Then COVID hit. They needed the film done, and I was like, "Wait a minute!" They ended up approving everything. I'm singing in the background and playing percussion. It was the most fun thing I've done since the Kelly Osbourne record [Sleeping in the Nothing] I did a while back. It's my interpretation of that style of music. That's what I've always been known for; delivering my version of what a soul song is. My version of what a pop song is. This is my version of what Haitian music would sound like. In that score, I was tuning crazy, but then it didn't sound crazy when it was all in perspective.
You wrote "Get the Party Started" [for P!nk] when you were figuring out an [Akai] MPC?
I made myself move to L.A. against my own will. By the time I got here, I called up my manager at the time and said, "I'm moving on." I was thinking, "Well, what do I really want to do? Do I want to be an artist?" I didn't have luck digging that. If I were an artist, I'd be killing it right now. But I didn't want to go that route. I was hanging out with somebody and I said, "Hey, what's that crazy bad sound that's all over the radio right now?" "It's a [Korg] Triton keyboard. People are using MPCs." I asked, "What's that?" "It's a drum programmer. You can put drum sounds in it on a disc, and you can get different kicks and snares. You program your own beats." I went and bought all that, plus a [Tascam] DA-88 [recorder] and put it together. I started making beats on the MPC and thought, "That's fun!" I let that beat play for three and a half minutes. I couldn't find a good bass sound, so I grabbed my own bass. I was just trying to figure out what all this shit did. I created the whole track of "Get the Party Started." I was having so much fun, so I grabbed a harmonica microphone and started ad-libbing "I'm coming up, so you better get this party started." I started thinking of every cliché thing that I could say, and that was the song. Then I started laughing, going, "Holy fuck, I wrote a dance hit!" That's when I was trying to figure out what this shit did.
And you now just wrote a film score! You wrote songs with Dolly Parton and recreated her hits for the Dumplin' soundtrack. Is it true that you made all those recordings on your own and then shared them with her?
Oh, yeah. That's my vibe. That's my style. I don't wait for paperwork or people to say that I can do something. If I feel something, I'm going to go do it. They can decide whether they want to use it or not. I got hired to write a song with Dolly Parton. I was like, "Holy shit. Fuck yes! Give me the lowdown."
She's one of my idols.
I mean, give me a fucking break. I'd been calling her manager, Danny [Nozell], repeatedly, every month. "Hey, it's me, Linda Perry, checking in." He would laugh. You can't do anything without Dolly's approval. When you get a "yes" from Dolly Parton's team, that means she thought about it and approved it. Then I realized, "Okay, you're doing a movie? Wait a minute." Then I started talking to the music supervisor, "Okay, what are you guys going to do?" He said, "Well, I have this idea of maybe having the composer take some of her songs and tweak them so that they fit into the movie as a score." I said, "I'm going to do that. I'm going to record the songs. What songs?" We started putting the songs together, and then I was being told that they wanted her to do a duets album. I was like, "Fuck. A duets album with Dolly Parton? Dolly Parton doesn't need to do a duet album. What she should do is invite some people to sing with her on this movie." I started producing the old songs. All I really did was clean house in the songs. There's so much production going on in those songs; I got rid of all the stuff that didn't need to be in there, and that made it sound cool and modern. I got somebody that sounds like Dolly and had her sing. Then I sent that to Dolly and, apparently, she freaked out. By the time I got to Nashville, she was like, "Holy cow. When I heard those songs, I started spinnin' in my chair. You made me love these songs. I had no idea I was going to like these songs again. When they told me Linda Perry was going to produce these songs, I thought you were going to make them all pop, but you didn't. Linda, you made me love these songs. It doesn't sound modern, but it is modern." It was the cutest fucking thing. Then, in the next two days, we wrote six songs from scratch.
That's unbelievable.
I said, "Dolly Parton needs to have an album. I'm not fucking doing one song. Are you kidding me? We're doing six new songs, and we're going to redo five of her songs." That was all me. I paid for it and did it all. Then I handed it over and they were like, "Fuck, yeah." Then all of the songs made the movie, and I helped score all the parts.
Did you choose the duet partners too?
Yeah. The only one they chose was Miranda Lambert. I went after Sia, Macy Gray, and Mavis Staples. I have an artist named Dorothy [Martin] who sang on it too.
She's great.
I have another artist, Willa Amai, a 16-year-old. Dolly Parton freaked out. She's the one singing "Here You Come Again."
What was it like writing with Dolly? She doesn't do a lot of co-writes, especially with women. I know she wrote a song with her aunt when she was younger, but other than that you might be the only female cowriter.
Yeah, I am. She never even imagined being in the studio with a female producer. We hit it off. Her and I couldn't be more opposite, but we're also very similar. I remember our first day, we were starting on "Dumb Blonde." We were going to do her vocals, and then Miranda Lambert was coming in. Dolly was very soft-spoken at that particular moment; I think she was still testing me. Dolly was like, "So, I guess we're going to be in the studio tomorrow, and you're coming to my writing room and we're going to do something. What do you plan on doing?" I said, "We need six songs." She literally choked. She's like, "What? You're counting the chickens before the eggs!" She used one of her cheesy phrases that always make sense when they come out of her mouth. She said, "Let's just try one." I said, "Oh, yeah. And then we're going to go to two, three, four, five, and six." She laughed. My first day with her in her writing cabana, we were sitting there and we came up with three songs one day, and then three songs the next day. So, six songs in two days. We were taking a break after the third song, and she was looking at me like, "You're weird!" I didn't know how to take that. She said, "You're a weird girl. I like weird. I mean that in a good way, but you are weird." Then we became very close, very quickly. Dolly Parton is one of the best humans on this planet, for sure.
She's a fairy godmother to us all.
She's operating on a frequency that very few people reach; so kind and generous, and constantly lifting people up. Whether you're the person who brought her coffee or the president of a label, it doesn't matter to her. She's so incredible to people. It's inspiring. I learned a lot being with her.
Do you think she learned anything from you?
I don't know! I think she saw how funny I was. I was very light about things. She would say that we're very similar. She felt she met her creative soul mate.
Wow, what a compliment!
So, yeah; I guess I did. Her manager came to me the second day and said, "I don't know what you did, but I haven't seen Dolly this inspired in 16 years. You're not going anywhere. You're a keeper." I guess she had not really been that inspired. She hasn't stopped since then.
When you start working with a new artist, are there rules on your first meeting?
The only thing I ask for is for them to be open, honest, and prepared to abandon ego and whatever bullshit they carry. It's really important. I have to meet the person first; I can't just agree to write with somebody. I have to see if there's some connection. I don't need to like the person I'm being creative with. I need to know there's some creative spark and inspiration there. I don't like it when people come up with ideas prior to a writing session. To me, "You came up with that on your own, so finish it on your own. You and I have never met. We've never experienced our creative energy together. I don't want to stagnate that by putting in a safety net. Let's explore what we can do together before we go to your safety net." Here's the deal: Most people show up at a session, they sit around for hours, and nobody comes up with an idea. I get that you have to be prepared, but with Linda Perry, that just doesn't happen. I do two songs. Sometimes I've done three songs in a day with somebody. If we're not creative, and it's not happening within an hour, I'm like, "I don't think we're good together. It's not happening today."
Date over.
Yeah, exactly. Date is over. I don't feel it. "You're not feeling it. It was nice to meet you. You're amazing, but I don't think it's going to happen." I need them to show up open and vulnerable and be prepared to go deep, or to do something different and left field. I would probably be a richer person, and more successful, if I focused on hits and what everybody else is doing. But, unfortunately, I don't move and operate that way. I don't know; I have to make things fucking harder. Writing a fucking song is a success. Whether that song is a hit or not; that's beyond my power. I'm telling you, I know a lot of songs that should not have been hits, but a lot of money [behind it] made it a hit. And I know songs that should have been a hit, but people didn't believe in it. They didn't put any money towards it, and it wasn't a hit. A hit is where the money goes. "What's Up?" is a hit. "Imagine" is a hit. "Crazy" is a hit. You know those songs. But there are a lot of songs that shouldn't have been hits. I don't focus on that. I'm not good at copying. In fact, any time I try to even be inspired by what other people are doing, it fucks me up.
You mentioned "What's Up?" I know there's a story there. Was that your first experience in a recording studio, or had you recorded prior to that?
With 4 Non Blondes, I had no experience whatsoever. I was a solo artist in San Francisco, climbing my way up. Then I joined this band because it seemed fun. I wrote that song and we went into a studio for a day. We recorded eight songs really fast with this woman, Lydia Holly. She was a great support for 4 Non Blondes. I don't think the tape even made it out anywhere. We started getting recognition in San Francisco and labels started finding us. We signed with Interscope Records. The song I wrote was based out of frustration with what was going on in the world. I had no money. Everything seemed hard, and desperate, and challenging. I wrote this song that seemed to fit the mood, not only for myself but for the world. You don't know that's going to happen. You don't know that the song is going to go blow up worldwide and some kid in Malaysia is going to be blaring it out his window. That song is why we got signed. When we were recording it, the producer at the time [David Tickle] had no sense of what the song was. He didn't understand the simplicity and the power of it. He was coming from ego. He wanted to "produce" the song and make it fancy. He wanted to put his leg up and piss on it; I was not having that. I went to the label and said, "This song sucks. This is not the song I wrote." They didn't support me. They said it sounded fine. I did not agree. I grabbed the band during a break and we went to The Plant in Sausalito [California]. We had one reel of tape and they let us go in there. I didn't have any experience, except for the experience of being in the studio with David. I realized what I didn't like. I didn't like any of the sounds he was getting. I didn't like my vocal tone. There was nothing about that album that I sonically related to, but I was outvoted all the time and I didn't want to make ripples, so I went along with it. When we were in the Plant recording this song, I started moving things around. The engineer there helped me a lot. I would tell him what I wanted, and if he didn't get it I would move the microphone around. Then I'd go, "Yes, that's it. That's the sound." I did that with everything. Then we got the tempo, and we got the recording of it, the base of it, done. I re-did my acoustics. I was in the middle of vocals when David Tickle showed up. I'd laid down three vocals. I was annoyed he showed up. We were already done with the frigging song. We comped the vocal and mixed it that night, and it made mastering the next day. That is the version that blew up all over the world.
And you never got a producer credit for that?
They said, "Can't your credit be that you saved the song?"
