Equalizers: Linda Perry, Record Producer

Summary

Podcast Summary: All Of It – Equalizers: Linda Perry, Record Producer

Episode Title: Equalizers: Linda Perry, Record Producer
Host: Alison Stewart
Release Date: March 13, 2025
Duration: Approximately 25 minutes
Podcast: ALL OF IT by WNYC
Series: Women's History Month – Equalizers, Women in Music Production

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Introduction

In this episode of ALL OF IT, host Alison Stewart engages in a profound conversation with Linda Perry, a renowned songwriter, singer, and music producer. Known for her breakthrough with the band 4 Non Blondes in 1993 and her subsequent influential solo and production work, Perry shares insights into her career, creative philosophy, and her commitment to addressing gender inequality in the music industry through her organization, Equalize Her.

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Linda Perry’s Career Journey

Linda Perry's musical journey began with the success of 4 Non Blondes, whose self-titled album included the iconic hit "What's Up?" Despite the band's early disbandment in 1994, Perry's relentless passion for music propelled her into a prolific solo career and later into music production.

• Transition to Production: After releasing solo albums, Perry shifted her focus to producing, collaborating with high-profile artists such as Christina Aguilera, Pink, and Dolly Parton. Her expertise and dedication have made her one of the few women recognized in production roles within the industry.

• Recognition: Perry's contributions have not gone unnoticed. She is one of only three women nominated in the 21st century for the Grammy Award for Producer of the Year (Non-Classical), and she received a special shout-out from Alicia Keys at a recent Grammy ceremony.

Notable Quote:

"Female producers have always powered the industry. Patrice Rushin, Missy Elliott."
– Linda Perry [01:44]

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Production Philosophy and Approach

Linda Perry emphasizes the importance of emotional authenticity in music production. She believes that true creativity stems from a heartfelt connection to the work, rather than striving for technical perfection.

• Emotional Focus: Perry prioritizes emotion over technicalities, stating, "I'm listening for emotion." She encourages artists to approach their performances freely, avoiding overthinking to capture genuine feelings in their music.

• Creative Control: Perry advocates for artists to maintain control over their creative vision. She shares her experience with 4 Non Blondes, highlighting the necessity of protecting one's creative output to ensure it authentically represents the artist's intent.

Notable Quotes:

"I'm listening for emotion. [...] I'm constantly looking for something that emotionally moves me."
– Linda Perry [09:07]

"Everything about music, everything that we do, I believe, is about feel. We have to approach from our heart and an emotional place."
– Linda Perry [10:40]

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Collaborations with Artists

Perry's collaborative spirit is evident in her work with various artists, where she fosters environments that prioritize passion, honesty, and commitment.

• Working with Pink: Perry recounts her collaboration with Pink, noting Pink's determination to redefine her musical direction. Despite initial skepticism, Perry's confidence in their project led to the creation of a record that sold over 12 million copies.

• Mentorship and Learning: Perry credits mentors like Bill Bottrell for honing her production skills and emphasizes the importance of learning and adapting within the studio environment.

Notable Quotes:

"She believed in it. She believed in the process. She did everything that was needed to do to make that record."
– Linda Perry [13:35]

"Talent is a very small part of the equation. I'll take passion over talent any day."
– Linda Perry [12:22]

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Transition to Soundtracks and Film Scores

Expanding her creative horizons, Perry ventured into scoring soundtracks for films and documentaries. This move allowed her to explore the cinematic aspects of music composition, aligning with her innate sense of drama and emotion.

• First Projects: Her initial foray included scoring Sean Penn's documentary "Citizen 10" and Hulu's "Kid90," rapidly establishing her presence in the field.

• Continued Success: Perry continues to work on diverse projects, including Disney films and Amazon Prime series, demonstrating her versatility and commitment to creative growth.

Notable Quote:

"I just really gotta be in the studio. I like to work. My joy is by working and being creative and taking my art serious."
– Linda Perry [21:37]

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Equalize Her Initiative

As a passionate advocate for gender equality in the music industry, Linda Perry co-founded Equalize Her, an organization dedicated to empowering young women through education and opportunities in various music-related fields.

• Mission: Equalize Her aims to bridge the gender gap by providing resources, mentorship, and hands-on experiences in areas traditionally dominated by men, such as sound engineering, tour management, and instrument design.

• Programs and Partnerships: The initiative conducts workshops, grants, and collaborative events with established artists and industry professionals to inspire and support the next generation of female musicians and technicians.

Notable Quote:

"There's a lot of girls that are not getting the education, the opportunity that they should be getting."
– Linda Perry [22:39]

"We try to be a third party and connect girls to songwriting camps or coming to sound checks and shadowing the sound guy, tour manager, roadie."
– Linda Perry [22:39]

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Conclusion

Linda Perry's multifaceted career as a musician and producer is a testament to her unwavering dedication to the craft of music and her commitment to fostering diversity and equality within the industry. Through her work with various artists and her leadership in Equalize Her, Perry continues to shape the cultural landscape, inspiring both current and future generations of musicians.

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This summary captures the essence of Linda Perry's insightful discussion on the "ALL OF IT" podcast, highlighting her professional journey, creative philosophies, and advocacy for gender equality in music production.

Transcript

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[WNYC Studios]

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[Alison Stewart]

This is all of it on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. My next guest broke through in 1993 with a hit song from her band, 4 Non Blondes, and for 30 years she has been steeped in the craft of writing and creating music. For another installment of our Equalizers, Women in music production, I'm joined by Linda Perry. Four Non Bonds released only one album before splitting, although they'll be reuniting this May after the band Perry released a series of solo albums and made a shift into production. Since then, Perry has become a major player in the music industry, writing and producing songs for Christina Aguilera, Pink, Dolly Parton and so many others. She's one of only three women nominated in the 21st century for the Grammy for producer of the Year Non classical. And she got a shout out from Alicia Keys at this year's Grammys.

[Linda Perry]

Female producers have always powered the industry. Patrice Rushin, Missy Elliott.

[WNYC Studios]

Linda Perry.

[Alison Stewart]

Linda Perry is a songwriter, hall of fame inductee, and the subject of a recent documentary, Linda Perry let it Die here. She's also the co founder of Equalize her, an organization aimed at combating gender inequality in the music industry. We're honored to have her here today. Hey, Linda.

[Linda Perry]

Hey, how you doing?

[Alison Stewart]

It's going well, thanks for asking. 4 Non Blondes disbanded around 1994. You released your solo debut in 96 in Flight, which you also co produced. Why was it important for you to.

[Interviewer]

Have production credits on that album?

[Linda Perry]

It wasn't important for me to have production credit. I. I just happened to done things. So it. That's a weird question. It's like I did the job, why wouldn't I have production on it?

[Alison Stewart]

It's a fair point. What did you learn?

[Linda Perry]

Just so you know, just. I have to correct you on that because it's those kind of questions that women come across all the time. Like what is it like being a woman producer? What is it like writing as a woman? What it. You know what I mean? It's like that's what Equalizer is about. Like why, why would, would, why would you ask me that? I did my job as a producer on the record and I got my co production because I Did my job. There's nothing different about that than, you know, any other male or any other person. So we have to. We have to really define our questions, you know, because when we put those kind of questions out there, you're already put giving me a handicap. Like, I. How. Why did I have to earn that? You know what I mean? It's like, why was it important? It's important because I did the job. Like, why wouldn't I get that credit? So there's just little things like that that, you know, I'm a very outspoken person. I'm obviously very aggressive and very honest, but it's those kind of things, statements that we really have to be aware of as women. So that's it.

[Interviewer]

That's. It's all good as far as I'm concerned. There's nothing wrong with being aggressive or having your point so good on you for responding that way. What did you learn or what did you take away producing for yourself solo as opposed to when you were in a band?

[Linda Perry]

Well, in a band, I wasn't producing and I was young, you know, I was just trying to find my way, but, you know, you know, I didn't have a lot of skills. I never had been in a studio before, and so I would have not considered myself a producer in that kind of situation, especially when I'm learning. Where I did take the reins, though, is when the actual producer recording the album recorded what's up really poorly. And it was a bad rendition of it. I didn't like it. I fought against it. I took the band into another studio in San Francisco and produced that track. So the version everybody hears that was actually my first production, but I didn't get credit for that because they thought I was just being a singer in a band and doing my job, you know, so that really my first production was what's Up? And. And so for me, it's been important. Just like anybody should protect what they're creative, like, no one is going to know exactly what you want to say and how you want your show to go. Only you really, truly know what that is and what it sounds like, what it feels like, you know, how it's going to fulfill your soul and your creativity. If somebody was handing you every single line, every song to play, every little thing, it wouldn't be as, you know, enriching in your soul. And you're creative. So to me, it's extremely important when you have a vision, that you need to control your vision because only you truly know exactly what it's supposed to Be.

[Interviewer]

I'm speaking to singer, songwriter and producer Linda Perry for our Women's History Month series, Equalizers, Women in Music Production. Let's play a track from In Flight and we can talk about it on the other side. This is Freeway, or maybe we don't have it. Do you remember producing the song Freeway? What was it about the song that made you realize what you wanted to do with it?

[Linda Perry]

Yeah. So with In Flight, Bill Bottrell really was the main. He. He was my mentor, my teacher, and he taught me a lot. And there were certain fields and certain guitar tones or certain things I wanted. And as, you know, a co collaborator, we worked it out and got it to where, you know, that. That felt emotionally right. Bill is an incredible producer. He was an incredible mentor for me. I learned pretty much everything from him. So I consider him really. He led that production, and I just kept gearing it more towards what I wanted because, again, as a producer, he just came from Sheryl Crow. I didn't want to make a Sheryl Crow record, so I had to make sure that we were staying in Linda Perry and who I was as a creative and as an artist. And so that's kind of what you start doing. It's like, oh, I don't want that guitar tone. I want this kind of vibe. I want it to be faster. I want it to be slower. I want it to be a bigger impact here. Let's add piano here. I want, you know, Fruit Loop, Daydream. I want it to sound like a player piano. Can we put cello here? So those are the kind of things. So regarding Freeway, it's just a crazy arrangement as a song, It's a very unusual song. So I just wanted it to feel like that, you know, I wanted to feel like I was running down a freeway. I wanted to be open and be bombastic, but I didn't want it to sound folk and I didn't want it to sound rock.

[Alison Stewart]

My guest is Linda Perry. We're talking to her for our Women's History Month series, Women in Music Production. The There was this interview with you in performing songwriter from 2007. It's in the Wayback Machine. But it's an interesting quote. You said, if it sounds good to me, I keep it. And that's that. That's what makes me a good producer. I'm a really good listener. I'm not looking for perfection. When you're listening, what are you listening for?

[Linda Perry]

I'm listening for emotion. So great example yesterday. I'm working on this, finishing right now. I have, like, five albums I'm working on.

[Alison Stewart]

Wow.

[Linda Perry]

And yesterday I was working on Paris Jackson's record, and the guitar player was like, you know, I can do that again. And I'm like, I'm sure you can, and I'm sure you'll do it better. But that take was the right one because it made me feel. So I'm constantly looking for something that emotionally moves me, whether it's a guitar solo, piano tone, the way the singer, you know, barely made the note. You know, how they flip the melody. A lyrical, you know, phrase that makes me think. The tone of the snare on the drums, like it's. It's many things. And I just turn knobs, I change snares, I give different guitars. I. I tell people just to stop approaching it from a thoughtful place. Just try to open up and be free when you perform, when you play, anything is just be free doing it. Because once we're constricted, I believe we just go in our head and we start thinking things out instead of just feeling them out.

[Interviewer]

Oh, that's interesting. See, you try not to be. I don't say intellectual, not the right word.

[Alison Stewart]

You just really try to feel it.

[Linda Perry]

It sounds like, to me, that's what music is for. If you. If, you know, even you can take classical music. Classical music is very, very intellectual. It's very thought out. All the arrangements, but the wrong conductor could turn to their players to look for feel, and they didn't have the feel. You know, it's all about feel. Everything about music, everything that we do, I believe, is about feel. We have to approach from our heart and an emotional place. Because when it comes to music, that. That's what it's all about. Like, you know, that's what it's all about. Like what, What. I don't. I mean, I personally don't even understand the point of music if. If it's not coming from an emotional place. If you're not trying to make a statement emotionally or lyrically or, you know, creatively, like, what's the point? Then you have elevator music, and you know what people do with that. You get in an elevator and people make fun of it. You know, it's just like, what's the. There's no point at all.

[Alison Stewart]

To me, it's interesting.

[Interviewer]

So I want to get into some of the artists that you've. You've produced. When you're looking to produce with someone, what does the person need to have or need to be to be a good collaborator for you?

[Linda Perry]

1. They need to Be passionate, dedicated, and have somewhat some talent. I don't even think people really like. To me, talent is a very small part of the equation. I'll take passion over time, talent any day. You can be an incredible singer, you best singer in the world. But if you're don't have any passion when you're singing, I rather have the kid or the person that is kind of a little out of tune. But man, they're, they're making me feel emotions when they're singing, you know, I, I'll take that any day. So I ask for passion, I ask for honesty, and I ask for commitment. Everything else will come but those three things, you don't have that, like, you know, the drive, the passion, all that, the commitment, then to me it's a waste of time.

[Interviewer]

Could you tell me a little bit about when you first met Pink?

[Linda Perry]

Pink? She, you know, was definitely hungry to change her destiny in music. And when we met, I could tell she was just like, you know, I don't want to do what I've been doing, which is, you know, white girl, R B. And she was very, very headstrong about making a shift. And so I warned her, just so you know, with me it's going to be very different. And I said, but I tell you this, what we do will say sell 10 million records. And she just looked at me and laughed and she's like, what? I'm like, she had like maybe sold 2 million records. I said, this record we're working on is going to sell 10 mil for sure. And she just thought I was crazy and. But she believed in it. She believed in the process. She did everything that was needed to do to make that record. And passion, honesty, commitment, and that record sold, I think 12 million records.

[Interviewer]

Let's listen to a little bit from Misunderstood. This is get the Party Started.

[Linda Perry]

Coming up. So you better get this party started I'm coming up so you better get this party started get this party started on a Saturday night Everybody's waiting for me to arrive Sending out the message to all of my friends we'll be looking flashy in my Mercedes Benz I got lots of styles and my gold diamond rings I can go for miles if you know what I mean.

[Alison Stewart]

So listening to that song, Linda, is. Can you remember any decision or choice you made that maybe you had a question about, but you knew it was the right one to make? About what about that song. Is there anything that you had a question? Is there something about the production in that? Some question you had some, some choice that you Made. You were not sure of it, but it ultimately was the right choice to make.

[Linda Perry]

That song is a funny one because it was actually written from a perspective of kind of a joke. And I probably wrote it in 15 minutes. I had wanted to experience all this new technology. People were using tridents, NPCs, rolling expansion cards, all this kind of stuff. And so I basically bought a bunch of gear that was more modern because I have like all old analog vintage stuff. And so I bought all this new gadgets and I set it up and then first thing I did was got get on the NPC and created the beat and I was like, oh, that's cool. And then I laid down a bass, I lay down real guitar. Then I went into all the gadgets in the expansion card and in the Trident and started adding weird little noises. And then I had this groove and then I grabbed bullet microphone, which is a harmonica microphone. And I just thought of every cliche thing I could say that was happening in, in that time, 2000, whatever, and just kind of made up the words on the fly and that's what happened. That was the song that came out and I already knew it was a hit. And then a week later, that's when I met Alicia Moore and I played her the song. She played it to her label and they said that's your first single.

[Interviewer]

Wow, Lindy.

[Linda Perry]

So there was absolutely no thought that.

[Interviewer]

Sometimes that's the way it rolls. You've recently moved into soundtracks and film scores. Why did you want to move into that?

[Linda Perry]

Because I feel like I. That's in, in. In my creative to do, I think very cinematic when I write. I. I come from, you know, highs and peaks and lows. You know, the arrangement of my melodies feel very cinematic sometimes. It's something I've always wanted to do, to test and to educate myself with. I put it out there in the ether and just kind of said to the universe, I would like to score film and tv. And then first project I got was about a month later I was asked to score a documentary for Sean Penn called Citizen 10. Then right after that I got this other documentary on Hulu called Kid90. Then right after that I got Luckiest Girl Live on Netflix. Then I got a Disney film, you know, so just. And then I got an Amazon prime series. So it just kept coming. I scored this movie called To Leslie. That's an incredible, beautiful film. I scored with an out of tune pump organ. But it came very natural and I had a wonderful mentor, Susan Jacobs, incredible music supervisor, very powerful woman, extremely Loving and nurturing and badass at the same time and taught me how to create layers and how to bump in and out of the score. She taught me a lot very quickly and I really appreciate her for that. I'm super thankful and grateful and so. Yeah, so that. So on the after I wanted to take this year to make an album. I've only have made one solo album then I made like a. Just a rinky dinky something just for myself and then so I really haven't put out a record since In Flight. I've just recorded an album for myself. I'm recording a. A new album for 4 non blondes. I have a secret project I'm working on. I'm doing Paris Jackson and I'm working with Mike Campbell from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. And so, you know, I'm going to do that this year and then I'll probably go on to scoring another film or something next year.

[Interviewer]

You know, you've worked with Dolly Parton and I watched an interview with Dolly Parton and she said that, you know, she's obviously very serious about her music and she appreciates that you're serious about your music. How do you balance being serious with, with the joy that music brings to people?

[Linda Perry]

Well, as you can probably guess within the first 30 seconds I'm very serious and I'm. I. My joy is being serious about music and respecting it. So I am joyful all the time when I'm making music because I'm. I'm just again, I'm trying to capture an emotion, a feel and you know, I. Joy is. Joy isn't popping champagne and, and having fun and going to play pool or a night out like that that I don't find any joy in things like that. I like to be in the studio. I like to work. My joy is by working and being creative and taking my art serious.

[Interviewer]

I want to ask you a little bit about Equalize Her. What's the goal of Equalize Her?

[Linda Perry]

Well, there's a lot of girls that are not getting the education, the opportunity that they should be getting. Because you know, like one of the things that I find amazing is there's no women that have designed a microphone. I think there's one girl that made a guitar. Amps, keyboards. The technical side, it's a total, you know, field where there's no women in there. There's not many women sound live sound engineers. There are more women producers showing up. There are lack of female engineers in studios. There is a lack of just simple, you know, female Tour managers, female managers, all of it. And so Equalizer comes in and we try to be a third party and connect girls to, you know, whether it's songwriting camps or coming to, you know, Brandi Carlisle, sound check and ghosting, you know, the sound guy, tour manager, roadie, so they can follow them around and watch what it is that they do. They get to talk to Brandi Carlile and get some information from her. We give grants. We put on shows that host, you know, kids that just are still in, like, you know, music school. We team up with, you know, notes for notes. She's the music.

[Alison Stewart]

Sounds like you're doing a lot. It sounds like you're doing a lot. Yeah, yeah.

[Linda Perry]

And I'm going to Nashville next week to do some workshops. And so it's like, yeah. I mean, that's my joy again. I probably don't sound happy, but I'm.

[Alison Stewart]

We appreciate you, Linda Perry. We do appreciate you. And this is all of it.

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[Interviewer]

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[Linda Perry]

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[Linda Perry]

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