Katy Perry

0:00Unconditionally, the music video was an approach to a music video I've actually never taken because usually my music videos have these characters that I've created. Like Roar has this kind of Jane of the Jungle or like Last Friday Night has this character Kathy Beth Terry. And usually they're just really strong narratives and it's got a plot and it has a, you know, a complete direction, a through line. This one I wanted to just do a beautiful, gorgeous music video unlike all the other ones that didn't have such a narrative that was a little bit avant-garde, a little bit, what's the word that starts with an A? Abstract. Thank you. Peanut gallery over here, abstract.

0:48And I just wanted to make some beautiful imagery to represent unconditionally and love. There is a couple of metaphors in it. Like when I get hit by the car, it just represents, I think how love hits you so strongly sometimes it's like being run over. And the best way I guess if there is the best way about being run over. Your uncle who made this great movie, David and Lisa, back in the 60s, his mom and I know. Wow, I don't even know. I got my film history. No one's ever said that to me and this is incredible. Well, because his motto was cut, print, edit, distribute. He liked one take, really quick shooting. How about you? Oh my goodness. Cut, edit, print. Cut, print, edit, distribute. Wow. How are you? Well, he also did Molly Dearest. Don't forget about that incredible movie. I'm sorry. Well, that's the one that I know more actually and I'm such a big fan of.

1:37How am I? Well, I'm different with every music video. But usually I work 14, 16 hour days and they're three days long. And I'm, you know, there's like eight conference calls about them before. Lots of fittings and lots of rehearsal and imagining up costumes and scenes and lots of picking out directors and building storylines and stuff. So it's a lot of work to put a music video out. I actually only did two days on this video and it was, I was less involved in it than most because it's just been so crazy zigzagging all over the world and promoting prism and messaging with the jet lag, the different time zones.

2:24How are you today? Oh, well, I'm happy for great lighting because otherwise you would be seeing some incredible baggage. I'm sure we wouldn't be. Anyway, Katie unconditionally is the hashtag that everyone should know about. And the website's got this experiment. Prism is all about letting the light in. So I'm going to ask you a cheesy question. I'm going to throw it out to you anyway. What or who is the light in your life? It's not just one person. It's a combination of people. But I guess it would be like my girlfriend Shannon and Rivka, my boyfriend John, my sister Angela, my great team that I have on the road with me. They keep me positive and keep me on point, basically. I still hear no from them every once in a while, even if I do throw fit when I do.

3:12I think what I did was I found a lot of self-love this year. And I kind of rebuilt my confidence that had had a little bit of a shatter to it. And I went inwards rather than pointing the finger on everyone else and blaming everyone for my problems or the issues that I had. I went inwards and tried to kind of do some patchwork to kind of heal up little spots that I needed to heal up or say to myself, what can I do to make myself a better human representation? What did you do? I did a lot of different things. I did a cleanse for three months that I didn't have any alcohol. And I did a whole vitamin regimen and I went to therapy.

4:00I did more meditation. I've been meditating for a couple years now, but I upped it. And I just went the positive route rather than going to the club and getting drunk every night. I mean, I've probably done that a couple of times, but I really served myself well. And it influenced all of my songwriting. And I wrote most of the songs during this time. See I heard some of the songs were written in like a session in November or something, but the only one that stayed is the last track on the record. And then everything kind of... Is that the only one that stayed? Yeah, basically, By the Grace of God was the only one that really stayed. I started the record kind of very casually in November 2012, but most of the songs were written in the spring while I was going through this life transition. Does it start with the guitar? Like how does it... It's all different. Because you see in the movie you're playing guitar a lot.

4:45Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's where I started in the very beginning is behind my guitar. And I came to LA with a guitar and I would look up on the back of newspapers where the open mics were and I'd bring my guitar and try out songs on people. But then I put on a glittering costume and here we are today. But I have no one particular process, but I have many different ways. But a lot of times I can come into the studio with Max and Luke. They'll play me eight bars of a snippet, like a bed of sounds of different beats that haven't been developed. There's no chorus. There aren't any lyrics or any melodies. And we get inspired by a sound. I play a very small amount of piano and I can get inspired by just piddling on the piano

5:38and just kind of having jam sessions in the studio and allowing yourself to be open to be like, no, don't go there, yes, go there. Or I'm going to sing you the note and then you're going to play it. And it's just like this real collaborative event that happens in the studio. Give me an example on the record of where Luke and Max dropped a beat for you and you were like, this needs to be on the record. I need to go run away and write lyrics for now. For when I had the title Legendary Lovers and we could be legendary. I had that kind of melody idea and they played me a beat and I just sang that on top of it. I have it in my phone even, because I do most of my voice notes in my phone or in

6:24this little recorder. I collect all these phrases and idioms and parts of speech and words that are unique and I just collect language and I put it in a folder and then I have it transcribed every few months, like every six months. When I'm writing, I look and see if anything is still interesting to me. Sometimes the title just pops out. But for instance, Dark Horse, which is a beat that you may not have really expected from me because it makes you drop it. Like it's hot. Makes you drop it low. I kind of had the same thing happened when I wrote ET. It was just like a beat that we accidentally, he accidentally played on his computer that I thought was really cool, but it wasn't like, it was for

7:11Three Six Mafia. And I was like, no, no, no, wait, I have a complete idea for this. And I had an idea for Dark Horse as well. So I take unusual routes and I like to, oh, one, one song I got inspired by when I took a walk in Central Park, which is Walking On Air. And that's because I saw all these people roller skating to Deep House in Central Park and I was with one of my best friends, Mia, and I just looked at her and I was like, you know what, I think EDM is out and Deep House is coming in. Like I think I can feel that coming back, even though it was really big in the 90s. And so I was like, I want to do like a big voice soul diva kind of song.

7:59And I took that idea to Stockholm and Walking On Air came out of it. Do you write with a lot, now that these shows are, well, I watched the movie last night, these shows are insane. Big change from Warped Tour when I saw you like five years ago. Yeah. But I was, I loved the Warped Tour. I love having to kind of win over my audience on the Warped Tour. You don't need to do that anymore though. Kind of. Do you write with the show in mind? Like, as these songs are coming together, you must think of ideas for props or costumes or whatnot. I have a draft email going on in my phone. Every day I get something new. Today I got like hairstyles, but like the other day I got costumes. One idea I got was a flying idea for going around the arena. This tour that I'm going to be bringing is unlike the last one and unlike the

8:48Warped Tour, of course, but this stage set up has me essentially in the audience. Like I am one with the audience and it's going to be full of lots of colors and lots of lights. It's not going to be as cartoony and really hardly narrated as the last one, but it will still be just as colorful. I don't know how to smell. No, it won't have a smell, but it will be super fun. There will be plantings everywhere. Like, cause in the CD there are some little seed packet. There are, there's a little, you know, people don't buy physical records as much anymore. Really? You don't say. You don't say. Well, we're just moving on. CDs are becoming extinct really just as tapes were. Tapes are now.

9:33And so I like to give a little extra bonus to the person that goes out and purchases an actual physical CD. Like Teenage Dream Smelt Like Cotton Candy. And this one is, is a beautiful CD that is very reflective and inside there's that little prism seed thing that you plant and then wildflowers grow. Nice. Yeah. So there'll be wildflowers in the audiences? This flower thing for this thing. There's some flowers in it, but, um, I think it's going to not be so flowery, but we'll have lots, lots of different visuals because, you know, some songs kind of represent different vibes. 90s vibe. Legendary Lovers is kind of like an India vibe. This is how we do is a little bit of a throwback gangster vibe. You know, um, birthdays, like early Mariah. There's going to be lots of fun things to take Instagram pictures of.

10:22Um, I want to do a little true or false thing. Cause I found a bunch of obviously famously all over the place. So there's a lot of facts that might not be true online. So I found a few that are online. Things that aren't true. I know it's crazy. So I figured maybe you could debunk some, some of these. All right. A monkey peed all over you on a video shoot once. Oh, that's very, very true. You sing backup for Mick Jagger on one of my favorite songs ever. Old habits die hard. Oh my gosh. Yeah. You're on that. That's not your show Crow. No, no, no, that's, that's me as well. But I'm a, I'm, I'm like a super backup, like really far. You brush your teeth four to five times a day. Absolutely. Cool. Don't have any cavities. You stole some of Miley Cyrus's and Taylor Swift's hair. Yeah. Have it still. Okay. Gonna test it. Just kidding. So that's, that's all of them. That's cool. Hey, they're all true. That's, that's, I did not expect.

11:07I am that crazy. Oh, and now there is one more. You know the game Mafia, because not many people know this game Mafia. Oh yeah. You love the game Mafia. I play it with all of my friends in LA. Like, you know, there comes a point in your life and when you decide to accept adulthood that you're like, I'm kind of bored of going to the club. I think I want to have dinner parties now at home and game nights. That sounds like more fun. And that's what we do. We have dinner parties and game nights where we play Mafia and running charades and stuff like that. Good. Yeah. So we close every interview with something called Five Questions. Five Good Questions. One word answers. Okay. Rode or Studio? Rode. Lennon or McCartney? McCartney, because I love him. When you hear his... And I just saw him. Nice. What, what was your, what were you most excited to hear when you saw him?

11:55Oh, I just asked him how yesterday came up. Oh, I thought you went to one of his shows or something. That's even cooler. Wait a second. I saw him on a TV show, but I love Ramon so much as a song off of Wings, I think. When you hear a song, what usually hits you first, lyrics, melody or rhythm? Lyrics are most important to me. If someone's never heard Katy, I don't know how it's possible anymore. If someone's never heard Katy Perry, what song do they start with? I think they should start with Teenage Dream. Cool. In one word, Katy Perry. Prismatic. Nice. Very appropriate. That's cool. Thank you. Thank you. Travel page, Katy Perry. Yes. What's your favorite vacation spot and why?

12:42Can I tell you a couple? You may. Because I like variety. Tokyo is one of my favorite places in the world because it feels like you're living in a video game, but a much cleaner version of what usually video games are. And it feels like you're in New York City in the future or like 15 years. Is there a Blade Runner restaurant that I saw pictures of or something? Oh my gosh, it feels like Blade Runner 3. It skips two altogether. There's this restaurant called Robot Restaurant that is incredible. I mean, it's not really a place you actually eat food. It's like a crappy bento box with like crappy sake that will give you a hangover. But it's a fun experience to go to. Cool. And then also... Oh, you want to give me more? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And then also my hometown of Santa Barbara is so beautiful.

13:28If you ever come to LA, you have to check it out. It's only an hour and a half away. It's like the French Riviera, but more homey feeling because most of the houses are nestled on the mountainside while looking over the ocean. Nice. Yeah. Have you been in Neverland? The ranch? Yeah. No, no, the Peter Pan place. Yeah, the Peter Pan place. In my dreams, I go there all the time. Yeah, but yeah, no, I've never been. You seem to like matching your nails to your outfits for the red carpets. What's the process like to get that done and why do you like to do that? Well, sometimes I will actually have a fake nail made to match the outfit because when I'm on the carpet, I wear one thing and then when I'm performing afterwards, usually it's a totally different vibe. So like on the AMA's red carpet that I just did, I wore an Oscar de la Renta

14:14black and white polka dot with some flowers. So I had black and white polka dot long nails and those were fake. And so basically they're just press-ons that I had designed. But you can get your own fake nails and design them and then just pop them on for certain little events. We can do that next time. And nobody knows. It's a secret. Us ladies have so many. With all the travel you do, how do you keep your skin glowing? Well, a variety of things. I drink as much water as I possibly can. Take a lot of vitamins. And that has really helped my skin. But you know, what's so funny is like I actually use Proactive and they're not paying me to say this anymore. The funny thing is when they approached me to use it as to be a spokesperson,

15:02I was like, I'm not good. I have really bad acne at that time. I had really bad acne when everything started happening at 23. And I was like spending tons of money on lasers and microdermabrasion. I was so young and I was getting all these expensive products and I was like, fine, send me the product. I don't know if I'm going to do this, but I'll use it for a month. And I used it and it actually cleared my skin. And I know this sounds like an infomercial, but I still use it and we'll use it to my dying day. You're going to get a case of in the mail now. I get cases of the mail. I love it so much. You know, it really works for me. So, but we all have different skin types. This is true. Who or what are your favorite fashion designers? I don't know why there's a what in there. Who are your favorite fashion designers? Well, I'm really excited for one particular friend of mine who just got a, an amazing gig at Moschino.

15:50Jeremy Scott is an incredible, humorous, fun, wild designer. And he just became the head of Moschino and it is going to be exciting times for them. What is your new year's resolution? I don't make resolutions on new years because it's too much pressure. I should just, if I need to make a change, I should just make it. Do you have a favorite sports team and who would it be? Um, I don't follow anyone in particular, although I should say USC football, college football, because, um, one of my managers is like a super huge, like flies to games and will not come and join me on the road because she has to go to these USC games. So I'm going to rep her team, USC college football. Otherwise I don't really have a team and I like baseball because you can

16:38watch it very leisurely while stuffing hot dogs in your mouth. Nice. Um, I hear you like to bike ride. So what are, what are some of the cooler bike riding spots? Well, I always find the parks in the cities that I go to and I always take 10 tickets with me and put them in my pocket, put my, um, doctor's cap on and my sunglasses and I kind of give them away as I ride along to people. I think that would enjoy coming to my show. They have no idea that it's me. They're just like, is this a joke? I'm like, no, it's not joke. This is a real ticket. Check it out. Um, but I like to just go to all the city parks so much. I love being outside. I love hiking. I love hiking with my girlfriends because I can catch up with them, have a green tea in my hand and get some exercise on and gossip.