When Linda Perry agreed to let the\u00a0director Don\u00a0Hardy film her at\u00a0work in her\u00a0studio, she had no idea what she was getting into.\u00a0Perry \u2013 the singer, producer and wildly successful songwriter-for-hire \u2013 had been friends with Hardy since she scored his 2020 film, Citizen Penn, about the actor Sean Penn\u2019s charity work in Haiti. If nothing else, Perry hoped she might use some of Hardy\u2019s footage as content on her Instagram account: \u201cSo he just started showing up and\u00a0I soon forgot he was there.\u201d<\/p>\n
After a few weeks, Hardy told Perry\u00a0he had edited 30 minutes of footage and shown it to colleagues. \u201cHe\u00a0said: \u2018We think there\u2019s an incredible documentary to be made here,\u2019\u201d she recalls. \u201cAnd so I said: \u2018OK,\u00a0go ahead but don\u2019t talk to me about it. I don\u2019t want to know anything. Just do what you\u2019re going to do and if I said it or did it, I\u2019ll stand by it.\u2019 And then things just started to go cuckoo for me.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
In late 2022, Perry was diagnosed with breast cancer and had a double mastectomy early the following year. Hardy\u2019s film, called Linda Perry: Let It\u00a0Die Here, shows her just over a week post-op, walking gingerly into her studio while carrying two surgical drains \u2013 she calls them \u201cblood grenades\u201d \u2013 so she can get to work on\u00a0a\u00a0film score. Then, as Perry was recovering from her surgery, her elderly mother, who physically and mentally abused her as a child, became ill and died three months later.<\/p>\n
Perry still lives with the toll of her mother\u2019s abuse. \u201cShe caused me a lot of hurt, a lot of damage,\u201d she reflects now. She nonetheless took her into her home for her final months, setting up a\u00a0bed next to her. Perry notes that she and her siblings had always \u201cdreaded the day Mom was going to come to her end, because she was going to make it absolute fucking hell for us all. This is terrible to say, but it\u2019s beautiful as well: the best gift my mom gave me was a peaceful death.\u201d<\/p>\n
double quotation mark<\/p>\n
I learned from my mom that to show feelings was weak. But I actually turned out the opposite<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Perry, who shot to fame in the early 1990s as singer of the queer band 4\u00a0Non Blondes, and later penned hits for Christina Aguilera, Pink, Courtney Love and Gwen Stefani, is talking over video call from her home in Los Angeles. In her trademark bandana and vintage hat, a tattooed teardrop under her left eye, Perry has a tough-nut aesthetic and a fierce charisma that would be intimidating were it not for her openness and candour. As a child, she says, she was raised to hide her emotions: \u201cI learned from my mom that to show feelings was weak. But I actually turned out the opposite. I\u2019m all feelings. I show them and I wear them proudly, even if they get me in trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n
If there was a sense, after Perry\u2019s early brush with success, that she was more comfortable operating in the shadows and using her talent for the benefit of others, now she is throwing caution to the wind and stepping back into the limelight. Last spring, she re-formed 4 Non Blondes for a\u00a0performance at the BottleRock festival\u00a0in Napa Valley, California. \u201cI\u00a0had one caveat,\u201d she says on the reunion. \u201cI said I didn\u2019t want to play the songs on [their only album] Bigger, Better, Faster, More! except for Train and [their biggest hit] What\u2019s Up because I don\u2019t relate to those other songs any more. I told the band: \u2018I\u00a0want to play something new.\u2019 So I\u00a0wrote an album\u2019s worth of material based on what I want to hear when I go to a festival.\u201d That new album is due out early next year.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Perry has also just released a third solo LP, her first in 27 years. Let It Die Here is a visceral, propulsive and unflinching work about her mother\u2019s death and the complex feelings it unearthed. Songs include I Am Daughter, Now That She\u2019s Gone, Liberation and What Lies With You, in\u00a0which she calls her mother \u201cthe villain and the muse\u201d. Then there\u2019s the\u00a0documentary, out on limited theatrical release in June. As well as showing Perry\u2019s songwriting prowess in action as she jams with Dolly Parton and Kate Hudson, it sees her hosting an event at\u00a0South By Southwest festival for EqualizeHer, an\u00a0organisation she co-founded to promote gender equality in the music industry. Early in her career, Perry was famously denied a producer credit on What\u2019s Up, the track that sent 4 Non Blondes stratospheric. She let it go at the time but vowed it would never happen again.<\/p>\n
But Let It Die Here is no rock\u2019n\u2019roll hagiography. It has the intimacy of a\u00a0video diary as Perry lets cameras in\u00a0on her most private moments, battling with what seems to be an artistic identity crisis \u2013 more than once, she\u00a0asks who she is and what her\u00a0purpose is when not creating for others \u2013 or dealing with her own and her mother\u2019s\u00a0illness.<\/p>\n
double quotation mark<\/p>\n
I\u00a0listened to Supertramp all the time, but that’s me having a meltdown. When I\u00a0watched the film\u00a0later, I was, like: \u2018Holy shit’<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Though we never meet Perry\u2019s mother, she looms over the proceedings as the source of her daughter\u2019s pain. When Perry was 16 and living in San\u00a0Diego, she attempted suicide by\u00a0overdosing on her mother\u2019s prescription medication; she only survived because her mother\u2019s doctor had reduced the dose without her knowledge so she could wean herself off them.. Another near-death moment occurred when Perry took acid and crystal meth and fell off a building, miraculously living to tell the tale. Eventually, Perry\u2019s older brother John intervened and took his sister to live with him. \u201cI think that\u2019s all I needed,\u201d Perry says. \u201c[I needed] somebody to see me because I didn\u2019t think I existed.\u201d<\/p>\n
There is a scene in Hardy\u2019s documentary where Perry is captured dancing goofily in her closet to Supertramp\u2019s Take the Long Way Home. As she twirls, Perry reflects how she hasn\u2019t danced since she was a\u00a0child, a time when I \u201cdidn\u2019t care if I\u00a0died \u2026 I just wanted out all the time\u201d, at which point she starts to cry in deep, gulping sobs.<\/p>\n
Linda Perry \u2026 \u2018[The film] was like watching a horror show\u2019. Photograph: Heidi Zumbrun<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know what happened,\u201d she\u00a0says now. \u201cIt triggered something in me because there was a time I\u00a0listened to Supertramp all the time and they used to make me smile \u2026 That was me having a real-life meltdown. I don\u2019t even really remember it now, it\u2019s almost like I\u00a0blacked out. When I\u00a0watched the film\u00a0later \u2013 honestly, I\u00a0could cry right now about it \u2013 I was, like: \u2018Holy shit, what the fuck?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Perry pauses to collect herself. She says that when she watched the documentary\u2019s final cut with Hardy, it\u00a0was through her fingers. \u201cIt was like watching a horror movie. But I think maybe the film helped me process and see something I didn\u2019t know I was doing. Like, I am pretty hard on myself. The film was therapeutic for me, but it\u2019s fucking embarrassing and raw and I can\u2019t believe I\u2019m going to let this go out into\u00a0the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
double quotation mark<\/p>\n
Like most people who are in trauma, I\u00a0am afraid to be left alone. Creating, working and music is where I\u00a0feel safe<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Through her solo work and the re-formed 4 Non Blondes, Perry may be putting herself centre-stage once more, but she hasn\u2019t given up working\u00a0with other artists: her latest collaborators include Paris Jackson, Mike Campbell, formerly of Tom Petty\u2019s Heartbreakers, and a \u201cphenomenal pop girl\u201d called SophiaTreadway.<\/p>\n
Perry fully admits she is a workaholic: as well as writing and producing for others, working on her own projects and campaigning for gender equity in music, she runs arecord label and manages artists. She recently took a month off for the first time in years and went to the California valley town of Ojai, where she slept, ate, hiked and slept some more. \u201cI found it really entertaining in\u00a0a weird way, because I realised I\u2019m really awkward when I\u2019m not doing something. I don\u2019t know if I want all that time to myself. Like most people who are in trauma, I\u00a0am afraid to be left alone because I\u00a0don\u2019t want to go back there. Creating and working and music is my therapy and that\u2019s where I\u00a0feel safe.\u201d<\/p>\n
There is another incredibly moving scene in Let It Die Here about which Perry is anxious yet proud. While on a\u00a0photoshoot on a windy day in the southern California desert, she found herself getting \u201cupset by the wind because it was taking too much from me\u201d, and so, with the camera rolling, she ripped open her shirt to reveal her\u00a0surgical scars. It was, she says, \u201cad-lib, a\u00a0kind of a \u2018fuck-it\u2019 moment. It\u00a0was something that I didn\u2019t know I\u00a0would reveal, but it felt powerful after I did it.\u201d<\/p>\n
After that, we see her heading off into the distance \u201cso I got my moment just to walk off into the unknown. Everything I\u2019ve just experienced is going to change my life drastically. Life and death happened just now, so let\u2019s see what happens from here.\u201d<\/p>\n
The album Let It Die Here is out now. The documentary Let It Die Here will be\u00a0screening at Olympic Studios, London, 21 June. 4 Non Blondes play\u00a0Shepherd\u2019s Bush Empire, London<\/a>, on 24 June.<\/p>\n
In the UK, the national domestic abuse helpline is on 0808 2000 247, or visit Women\u2019s Aid<\/a>. In the US, the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). In Australia, the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. Other international helplines may be found via befrienders.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Linda Perry agreed to let the\u00a0director Don\u00a0Hardy film her at\u00a0work in her\u00a0studio, she had no idea what…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":943633,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[77,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-943632","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116532963484651889","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=943632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/943633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=943632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=943632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=943632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}