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PHOTOS
EMMA SUMMERTON (TOP RIGHT), GETTY IMAGES (WITH FANS)
because everybody is their own person, with
their own background and different history.
What’s good for me is good for me. What’s
good for you is your own adventure, you
know? I like to base my life on integrity and
honesty, and having a laugh. Those are
really important things to me, and if I can
pass those on, then fine. I’m really fallible,
though, I make mistakes all of the time.
Where did you get the
integrity, honesty and ability
to admit your infallibility?
From your family?
My background is more sheltered and
charismatic, in a weird way. But my sister
and my brother, we just got a chromosome
that made us think that way. I’ve had really
great friends around me since the time I
moved to LA; I was about 17. When I was
13,
which was the age I made that very first
album, the gospel album [under the name
Katy Hudson], I was hanging out with older
people who were helping me make it, and
whom I was learning from. So maybe the
honesty and integrity thing rubbed off on
me. I’ve always hung around really great
people; I always like to sharpen my iron
against them.
The trip from your gospel
album to now — what
,
s that
been like?
Well, it’s my history, and I won’t ever regret
it. It is what makes me who I am. I was 15
when I recorded it, and I started writing
songs at 13, and then my first adult record,
One of the Boys
,
came out when I was
23.
There are some gaps there, and those
years I was just growing up. Everything
is all new — you leave home, you try
things you never thought you would do,
and I think that the first pop album was a
snapshot as to who I was right then. The
gospel album was good for me then, and
these records are good for me now.
How do you feel about
being one of the most
successful female
entertainers on the planet?
I think it’s great, but it’s just what happened.
My main thing is making people happy
and smile, and totally believing in a
person having a good shot at her dreams.
The word “no” never really existed in
my vocabulary; I heard it a lot, but I just
wouldn’t accept it, so I pass that message
on to people.
Where are you in your life
now?
I’m definitely on my own path. It isn’t what
I was raised up in, or what I was told to
believe. I definitely ask more questions
now than I would have been allowed to.
So I’m living life, meeting different people,
traveling places, experiencing different
cultures and histories.
What happens next?
I’ll take a breath, assess my situation,
reconnect with my core, put my finger on
the pulse of where the world is at and try
to connect all of those things to make the
next album.
How would you describe
the real Katy Perry?
It changes. I’m very spontaneous, very
energetic, very sarcastic — darkly sarcastic
—
and emotional and sensitive and
generally all right, I guess.
“
My main thing is making people happy,
and totally believing in a person having
a good shot at her dreams. ‘No
,
doesn
,
t
exist in my vocabulary”
