News : Ke$ha : Talking with pop superstar Ke$ha proves that under all that glitter and garbage, there’s heart and work ethic

“I thought, well, some people maybe don’t wanna potentially put themselves in an illegal situation, potentially get arrested. Or don’t wanna make out with roadies.”

Ke$ha, international pop star and occasional Nashvillian — those occasions being the rare moments of rest in the otherwise insane schedule of an international pop star — is on the phone from Belfast, Northern Ireland. She’s in the midst of a summer-long tour that’s taken her all across Europe before jumping the pond to finish out the season, running across North America and maintaining the kind of pace, travel and work schedule that would crush a normal human being.

There’s a hesitation in her voice that may be due to the transcontinental nature of our conference call — or maybe it’s the result of talking to an endless stream of knucklehead journalists in 15-minute bursts for days at a stretch. But she perks up, her voice brightens and the fog of a long workday clears when she starts talking about her involvement with local volunteer organization Hands On Nashville, with whom she partnered to give away tickets to her upcoming Municipal Auditorium show.

“[The fans] can just help out instead and get a free ticket,” says Ke$ha.

It flies in the face of her bad-girl image — volunteerism is rarely at the top of the wild-child checklist — but reflects a genuine concern and affection for the fans who have gotten her where she is today. For all of the critical derision that’s gone down since “Tik Tok” first hit the airwaves, and for all of the hand-wringing that’s come from the chattering classes over Ke$ha’s mere existence — see Vanity Fair’s recent “OMG, she’s heard of post-modernism!” blog post — she’s not the glitter-crusted fifth horseman of the Apocalypse, or even just another vapid party girl.

Even from a brief conversation, it’s easy to tell that Ke$ha is the consummate professional, working long hours and grueling days so that we — the listeners and fans — can party like there’s no tomorrow whenever we pop in her albums or plunk down the cash for a ticket. It’s the hard-workin’/hard-partyin’ dichotomy that gets lost in the tabloid shuffle, with the former being ignored because the latter makes for better click-bait on gossip blogs, more scandalous headlines and self-righteous pseudo-shock for online editorials. Her public persona doesn’t really leave room for the undeniable fact that this woman works her damn ass off.

Not that she doesn’t have a few little hell-raising notches on her metaphorical bedpost — her pre-fame, pre-career, pre-pop-star Brentwood existence was pretty much par for the course as far as teenage shenanigans go.

“I hung out with a few people from high school, but for the most part we would always drive downtown,” says Ke$ha. “We would go to the Exit/In and try to sneak into shows, or we would go run around Centennial Park and climb up into the trees, or we would sneak into the [strictly 21-plus] Springwater and try to drink beers, or we would try to crash frat parties. … We also threw a bunch of parties at the Motel 8. We threw hotel parties and got kicked out.”

It’s pretty normal stuff, frankly, and that’s a big part of the appeal. Contrary to what the moral arbiters in the LifeWay tower and the Tennessean’s comment section might say, the girl next door is not sitting at home in a knee-length skirt and a sensible blouse reading her Bible on a Saturday night. In reality, the girl next door likes to get dressed up, likes to get loose after work and likes to get a little (or a lot) drunk. The girl next door has that most typical of human traits (a sex drive) and her own opinions, and she isn’t going to apologize for them. Much to the horror of conservative parents everywhere, this is the new normal.

The reason so many people can relate to songs like “We R Who We R,” “Take It Off” and “Blow” isn’t because it’s a pop star singing from an elevated or privileged position. These songs aren’t about trickle-down glamour-nomics, but rather the daydreams and web memes that make a workweek bearable — the sort of fantasies that keep you from losing your mind after a long day of talking to total strangers about total bullshit. These are service-class anthems — proletarian pop for the American post-manufacturing/pre-robot takeover era.

As we wrap up our conversation — touching on such epic topics as dry cleaning, all-ages rock venues in Brentwood and her non-beef Twitter beef with The Black Keys’ Patrick Carney (”I was at his house, and he was Twittering me from across the table”) — there’s a pang of jealousy in the author’s heart. Somewhere on the other side of the world, there are thousands of people about to get the payoff for all of their hard work and all of her hard work — they’re done with their workday, and they get to tap into those daydreams, to revel in the release of being one’s self.

And they didn’t even have to make out with a roadie.

News : Ke$ha : “I want to be f**king perfect”

It’s been a busy couple of years for America’s filthiest pop gal Ke$ha. Since unleashing her worldwide breakout hit ‘Tik Tok’ in ‘09, she has gone on to release a string of boozy party hits, expanded her debut album Animal into the meatier Cannibal, and is responsible for Britney Spears’s biggest worldwide hit since ‘Toxic’. With her ‘$leazy’ tour arriving in the UK this month, we phoned her up to find out what fans can expect from her live shows, as well as that all-important second album.
Will there be any changes to your ‘Get $leazy’ tour when you bring it to the UK later this month?
“No, it’s going to be just as sleazy. Actually, I feel like I could get a little more sleazier in the UK. You guys are kind of more cool with more s**t than America is. I do dismember a person and drink blood from an actual heart.”
So are UK audiences the best in the world?
“Honestly, every time I’ve ever played in the UK people just go so f**king mental, it’s amazing. I live for that. That’s why I play shows – to give people a place to go and go f**king crazy. In the UK, and especially my London shows, people definitely take advantage of that. We’ve had police and firemen called mutliple times to my shows here and everyone just comes dressed as wild animals. I love it.”
Are you planning to release any more singles from Cannibal?
“I would love to release ‘The Harold Song’, but I actually don’t know what the next single is going to be. It’s all being discussed at the moment. I wish I could tell you, but I don’t actually know yet.”
Have you thought about what a music video for ‘The Harold Song’ would be like?
“I have actually. I’ve written the video treatment, but I can’t tell you! It’s very dramatic. I’ll keep you guys posted. I think I’m going to make a video for it either way, because I have a really beautiful video idea. Whether it’s a single or not, you can definitely be looking out for a video.”
How is work going on your next album?
“I’m writing constantly about all my crazy experiences across the world, so I have a lot of music I’ve already written. I haven’t turned that material into a record yet, but it’s definitely coming along. No final decisions have been made.”
How many songs have you written so far?
“Oh God, I have so many songs! Songs will leak and I don’t even remember writing them. I’ve written about 200. How many songs have I written recently? I honestly couldn’t say.”
You recently revealed that you were making a ’70s rock record; what did you mean by that?
“Yeah, that’s what I’ve been listening to a lot recently and I think it’s so ballsy and I love that.”
Has that been inspired by your flamboyant stage shows?
“Totally. I’ve been playing a lot of guitar and so it’s quite exciting to think about threading that into the new material and just making it better and better.”
What ’70s rock artists have you been listening to for inspiration?
“I’ve been listening to a lot of Led Zeppelin, AC/DC and probably the one CD I haven’t taken out of my record player in a long time is Iggy Pop’s The Idiot.”
Are there any other sounds you would like to play around with?
“I definitely want the next record to be experimental and I would love to play with all the different sounds of the music I listen to. I really want some dirty guitar and I wouldn’t mind if there were elements of blues.”
Have you decided which producers you would like to work with yet?
“I haven’t yet. Of course I’m going to work with Doctor Luke and Max Martin on some songs, but I would also love to work with some maybe not-so-obvious producers.”
Anyone in mind?
“I’ve been trying to get the Dust Brothers (Rolling Stones, Beastie Boys) on board for a while now, who have also done a lot of Beck records. I was also speaking to my friend Paul Nicholls last night, who is a DJ and also an amazing producer, so I really want to work with him – he’s really talented.”
You wrote Britney Spears’s last single ‘Till The World Ends’; did you get to meet her?
“I didn’t get to see her record the track, but I have met her and she’s super sweet. She’s the queen of pop music, so it was quite a compliment that she wanted to record it. For her to then put it out as a single is f**king amazing. That song was written specifically for Britney – I put my brain in Britney Spears land and wrote that whole song for her.”
Are you going to try to get her to return the favour and appear on your album?
“Totally, I would f**king love that. She’s an icon!”
Are you writing for anyone else at the moment?
“I get approached a lot to write for other people. Right now I’m just being bizarre and writing about my experiences, so I don’t really want to give them to somebody else because it wouldn’t be true to them. If I write for someone else I want to make it personal to them and I don’t really have the time at the moment to focus on somebody else. I’m obsessed about my tour and the UK shows at the moment. I’m a little OCD with what I’m doing now – I just want to be f**king perfect.”
Have you written a song and thought it would suit another artist more?
“Yeah, there was a song I wrote for myself and for whatever reason it didn’t end up on the record and somebody else really wanted to record it – so I let her, but usually I don’t like doing it that way. It was for Miranda Cosgrove.”
Ke$ha kicks off her ‘$leazy’ tour at Manchester’s O2 Apollo on July 11.